Game’s Dogma

​​​​​​​Zephyrwolf, Sasaki, and Hades were sitting around him. When Drako Yau finally opened his eyes, they all showed joyous expressions. Even the usually cool Hades had the look of a man who finally had a weight off his mind.

This time, no matter how prideful of a person Hades was, he simply couldn’t find a single reason to not adore Drako Yau. It was this guy who single-handed turned the tide of the war. Combat prowess aside, the most crucial thing was his spirit. He dared to confront the purple man while Hades couldn’t even twitch a finger. As for his first reaction of running away, Hades decided that he was just feigning weakness to misguide the enemy.

Now that Drako Yau finally woke up, they could finally rest their minds at ease. While Zephyrwolf and Hades were good lads who could hold their own weight, they all saw the masked man as their true spiritual leader.

‘How long have I been unconscious for?’

Hades hid his concerned look and calmly replied, ‘Ten minutes.’

The granny priestess sighed, then smiled and chimed in, ‘Okay, everything’s fine now.’

After paying off his treatment fees, Drako Yau headed for the east gate with the rest of the group. ‘The fifth wave… This time, I’m really at my wit’s end’, he said and made a wry laugh.

They had used all their trump cards already. In truth, the city would definitely fall even if the fifth wave was completely identical to the fourth wave. When strength reached a certain level, strategies and formations no longer mattered. Brute force itself was already a strategy.

As the group walked up the city walls, the crowd sent their respectful gazes towards their leaders. Especially so for Zephyrwolf, for he had led the players to turning the tables on the monsters, despite borrowing strength from the overpowered Mana Shockwave Generator.

Time flew by, and an army of monsters appeared outside the city once again. This time, however, the army was so massive that the players felt beyond hopeless.

Peering into the distance, monsters had dyed the land dark, while tens of thousands ravons turned the sky pitch-black. Thirty thousand beastmen lined up in three square formations, surrounded by numerous spots of white which were the wolves. The red and blue-eyed monoeyes hid at the very rear of their formation.

This is… Drako Yau found the situation suspicious as he murmured, ‘This is impossible…’

Zephyrwolf immediately asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ Hades and Sasaki also looked at Drako Yau to find him displaying a rare emotion—doubt and hesitation.

‘This… There’s no way we can handle so many monsters. It’s illogical. Right from the beginning, the system said it would rate the cities. If there’s such a rating system in place, it shouldn’t make things impossible for us. But what the hell is wrong with this wave…’

A low recurring pitch tore through the air. The monsters sounded their war horns, indicating the start of their march towards the city. 

The melee players stationed outside the city walls were at a loss for what to do as they stared blankly at the approaching monsters. There were only several thousand players in Yoda, while the monsters marching towards the east gate numbered almost a hundred thousand, not to mention that an identical army was marching towards the west gate!

The city of Yoda was now up against almost two hundred thousand monsters.

When the monsters had gotten closer, an angry roar resounded throughout the entire city, ‘You demons and devils, are you looking down on us?’ Several silhouettes flashed into existence and descended to the east and west gates.

At the same time, a screen was now visible above every player’s head, much like the split screen function of a computer, granting them vision beyond the city walls without obstructing their line of sight. They could see four persons standing outside the east and west gates, facing the overwhelming amount of monsters all on their own.

The players were shocked upon realising who the eight persons were. These people had familiar faces—the eight of them had always stood next to the resurrection altar, yet no matter how hard the players tried to stir up a conversation with them, the eight of them simply dismissed them with lofty glances.

Seeing that the four foolish humans dared to face such numbers, the beastmen leading the charge at the east gate made battle cries and swung their blades at the four enemies in sight.

The four of them were as calm as always; no, they even had unconcerned looks on their faces, as though the monsters weren’t worthy of their attention.

‘Who’s up?’ The man who had a longsword hanging on his waist asked.

Another man silently strode forth. He held a massive shield in his left hand and a shortsword on his right. It was obvious that he was a paladin.

The paladin steadily walked towards the countless monsters on his own. Tension rose with every step he took, and all players held their breaths at the scene. Right when the monsters were about to swing their weapons at him, the paladin assumed a back stance and planted strength in his rear leg while holding the shield before his body.

The massive shield gave off a brilliant glow which expanded outwards to form a gigantic, golden shield of light. It surged wider and wider like a storm—10 metres… 20 metres… until it reached 100 metres wide.

The sight of a hundred-metre-wide shield standing on the battlefield was a sight to behold. His face radiated by the golden shield’s holy glow, the unwavering paladin drove his shield forwards.

Shield Bash!

The blood of every paladin player was boiling. It was just a Level 15 skill, but… anyone would be excited about using Shield Bash with a hundred-metre-wide shield!

The monster army’s charge was forcefully put to an end just like that. Even so, wolves circled around the flanks and continued their charge like shotgun pellets.

‘Hey lil’ puppies, stop running everywhere will ya!’ Contrary to his manners, the words came from an elegant-looking man who held a longbow. One after another, he launched feather-fletched arrows from his trusty weapon.

The arrows whizzed through the air and embedded themselves into the charging wolves’ heads as though they could home in onto their targets.

‘Ha, there’s a bit too many of them’, the man chuckled again. The arrow in hand gleamed as he notched the arrow onto his longbow and fired the projectile into the air under the gazes of awe-struck players. The arrow which carried a pure and white radiance shot up into the sky and exploded, much like fireworks in the middle of the battlefield. Countless specks of white light morphed into tiny arrows and rained upon the land.

‘Ahahahaha! How weak! You want to take our city with such trash? Ahahaha!’ A flippant man charged into the army of monsters and butchered the invaders with his longsword shrouded in an azure aura. Several blue-eyed monoeyes quickly noticed his presence and wanted to cast a slowness debuff on him, but they were met with his ferocious stare instead. The next moment, the man slashed his sword at the monoeyes which were 10 metres away through the air.

A crescent arc of blue sword energy fired off from his sword and cut the monoeye in half!

‘Sigh… you guys are too slow.’ A woman shook her head and held her short staff up, then started chanting a spell.