Debuff Master

Chapter 1131

One had to endure a two-hour ride aboard the transport vessel in order to reach the Coral Planet.

Since it was basically a journey to an entirely different world, the system didn’t allow people to simply warp there using warp gates.

The economy section on the transport vessel was incredibly cramped. The ceiling barely cleared two meters in height, making the space feel terribly suffocating. On top of that, the seats were packed so tightly together that everyone was rubbing shoulders, making physical contact practically unavoidable.

‘So this is what it feels like to be sold off to slave traders…’ Siegfried thought as he casually chatted with the other Adventurers around him.

“Siegfried! What are you going to do about that whole thing with Lee Geon?”

“You can totally crush that troll, right?”

“Whoa! It’s really you! I’m so stoked to meet you!”

“What’s your take on Lee Geon coming after you?”

Naturally, the main topic among the Adventurers was none other than Lee Geon’s public declaration against Siegfried.

“Ah, that…”

Siegfried played a round of Hardstone with a few of them while he casually shared his thoughts.

‘I should be careful not to say anything carelessly.’

He reminded himself to stay alert and avoid saying anything that could come back to haunt him.

“Well, I want to protect this game. No matter who the opponent is, I’ll fight them. It’s not like I have any personal grudge or anything against him, and honestly, I’m not thinking too much about it.”

“Even if your opponent is Lee Geon?”

“I know the guy’s got insane talent, but… that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit back and let him do what he wants.”

“Ah! I knew it! That confidence! You’re on a whole new level, Siegfried!”

“Nah, you’re giving me far too much credit.”

Siegfried made sure to answer wisely, as he knew that every single word he said was bound to end up plastered all over the major media outlets tomorrow.

In an attempt to steer the conversation away from the topic, Siegfried brought up something he was genuinely curious about.

“So what’s the Coral Planet like? This is my first time going, and I haven’t looked up anything about it.”

He figured shifting focus to the Coral Planet would help, and he was right. The Adventurers quickly took the bait and started talking about it. Besides, he was genuinely curious about the place.

At present, the Coral Planet was the BNW’s latest content, and its difficulty was said to be nothing short of insane. All the quests were related to the Marchioni Empire’s military campaigns, making them feel more like a full-scale wargame rather than just raiding dungeons.

‘Whoa… These guys are insane. Their minimum is Level 299… Oh? Some are even Masters?’ Siegfried was surprised to see how far the Adventurers had progressed.

The Coral Race was the latest endgame content, so the Experience Points earned from those quests were simply astronomical. This meant that the Adventurers were leveling up at breakneck speeds compared to grinding on the continent.

But that was not all…

Most of them were geared up with items dropped by the Corals, and when Siegfried flashed his Rune of Insight to inspect them, he saw that it far outperformed typical gear by around thirty percent.

As expected, the tougher the dungeons, the sweeter the loot.

‘I guess I’ll need to lower myself and act like an intern for now,’ Siegfried thought, smiling as he shook his head.

He was thinking of getting a new gear set anyway.

Yes, the custom gear crafted by Quandt was excellent, but he had always been curious about the kind of exotic items the endgame dungeons had to offer.

***

Two hours later…

“Welcome, Your Imperial Majesty.”

Upon arriving at the Coral Planet, Siegfried was led by the Marchioni Imperial Forces to their command center.

While he had blended in with the Adventurers in the economy section of the transport vessel on the way here, now that he had landed, it would not be right for the Supreme Commander to be thrown into battle alongside ordinary soldiers.

‘Man, this place looks like something out of the Stone Age,’ Siegfried couldn’t help but think while glancing around.

“Kyuuu! Where the hell are the spaceships?! Why is everything a damn forest?!” Hamchi shrieked, disappointed by how different the Coral Planet was from his expectations.

“I know, right? I was expecting some kind of outer-space sci-fi planet.”

“Kyuuu! Exactly! This is more like some uncivilized jungle!”

“Maybe this planet’s civilization developed out of a primitive jungle or something? Like they evolved from the jungle?”

“Kyuuu! That’s possible!”

“Anyway, let’s go check it out for now.”

“Got it! Kyuuu!”

Once Siegfried reached the command center, he immediately gathered the commanding officers who had been managing the campaign so far and convened a strategy meeting.

Roughly eighty percent of the officers consisted of Marchioni Imperial generals, while the remaining twenty percent were the top-performing Adventurers. Of course, the most prominent among them was none other than Cain.

After all, he was the second Adventurer to become a king after Siegfried.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me…’ The moment Cain saw Siegfried, rage surged through his veins. ‘I went through hell holding this place together, and this bastard just strolls in and claims the top seat as if he earned it? Are you fucking kidding me?’

His resentment was understandable.

Cain had been forced into this deployment as punishment for ascending to the throne without prior approval from Emperor Stuttgart.

The early stages of the campaign had been nothing short of sheer agony. They had to fight the enemy with limited manpower, destroy the enemy’s outposts, conduct guerrilla warfare, scout the terrain, and help the Marchioni Imperial Army find suitable locations to set up strongholds.

Throughout this ordeal, Cain and his followers suffered staggering losses, and the amount they spent on potions alone was astronomical.

‘How many of my guild members had died here? How many gears had we lost? How much money had we poured down the drain? I’ve already lost count…’

Cain and his guild members poured their blood and sweat to secure a foothold and keep the campaign going. And today, Siegfried showed up out of nowhere and declared himself the Supreme Commander.

Without a doubt, anyone would be pissed off if they were in Cain’s position.

“Please give me a brief overview of the current situation,” Siegfried calmly asked. He was completely unaware, or perhaps completely indifferent to Cain’s anger.

As if to rub salt in his open wound, a high-ranking imperial officer called on Cain to make the report. “General Cain, please brief our Supreme Commander, His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Siegfried von Proa.”

“Y-You want me to make the report…?”

“You’re a fellow Adventurer, are you not? His Imperial Majesty might understand your explanation best, so the honor is yours.”

“…Understood.”

In the end, Cain was forced to make the report, and this proved that he was inferior to Siegfried. Well, he was indeed Siegfried’s subordinate in the imperial army, as his rank was lower than Siegfried’s.

“Erm… well…” Cain hesitated, clearly uncomfortable reporting to a fellow Adventurer.

Still, he took in a few deep breaths and pulled himself together.

“We have made great progress in this war thanks to the dragons, as they have neutralized most of the enemy’s defensive weapons. That said, the dragons have also sustained heavy damage, so from now on, the conflict will likely shift to close-quarters combat between infantry units.”

“Looking at the map here… It looks like there was a failed landing operation here that resulted in major losses. Am I correct?” Siegfried asked, pointing at a specific spot on the map.

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Hmm… From what I understand after glancing over the entire thing, our goal now is to retake this zone here and push toward the enemy’s command center.”

“T-That is correct,” Cain stammered in response, stunned.

Siegfried had only skimmed the map for a few seconds, but he had already grasped the entire strategic layout.

‘Hold on… This guy is actually sharper than he looks?’

Cain had no idea that Siegfried was not only powerful but also had a sound tactical mind.

“I have a subordinate really talented in strategy and tactics. I’ll bring him in and leave that part to him,” Siegfried said.

One of the Marchioni Empire generals asked, “And who would that be?”

“A man named Hansen. I can vouch for his tactical prowess.”

“Ah, that Hansen?”

“Do you know him?”

“I do not know him personally, but I have at least heard reports about him. Is he not the one who crushed the Holy Alliance with nothing but his strategies during the recent war?”

“Oh? So the rumors had already spread all the way here?”

“Yes, it has, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“If that is the case, then you can expect him to handle the strategy side of things.”

“As you command, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Now, about the Sword Emperor and Daode Tianzun… Any word on their whereabouts?”

“We suspect that they may have been captured by the enemy.”

“Captured…”

“Their exact whereabouts are still unknown. We will report immediately once we find more information.”

“Okay, keep me posted.”

After concluding the briefing, Siegfried left the command center.

He immediately volunteered for a mission to suppress the Coral Race’s guerrilla forces.

After all, a thousand questions would be answered by witnessing things with his own eyes. He wanted to fight alongside the soldiers, get a feel for the frontline, and assess the situation with his own eyes.

***

Two hours later, Siegfried set out with a group of Adventurers to hunt down and eliminate a Coral guerrilla squad.

“No way!”

“Whoa! Are we getting a free ride this time?”

“Siegfried is with us! Holy shit!”

“I can die now! I’m in a party with Siegfried!”

Roughly fifty Adventurers were visibly excited by the fact that they would be heading into battle alongside Siegfried. After all, Siegfried was not just a Grandmaster but was also a global celebrity as well as the main protagonist of the game.

For the average gamer, partying up with someone like him was not just an honor—it was something to brag about for the rest of their lives.

“I am looking forward to fighting with you all.”

“Kyuuu! Count on us!”

Siegfried and Hamchi joined the group and ventured deep into the jungle.

“Ah, I see.”

Along the way, Siegfried listened intently as the others shared their knowledge and experiences about the Coral Race.

The Corals were a highly intelligent race that had built their own civilization in the wild jungles. Even their most basic soldiers were said to possess monstrous physical strength and combat prowess.

“What about their gear? I see that you all seem to be wearing some kind of set gear,” Siegfried asked.

One of the Adventurers smirked, replying, “Ah, these items? We just killed them and stripped them off their dead bodies.”

“Eh?”

“Their weapons aren’t worth much, so we just sell them to the command center. You get like five hundred gold per piece. But their armor? We equip it and keep fighting until we get our hands on a better one.”

“I see.”

“The stronger the Coral you kill, the better the gear they’re wearing. So naturally, you would want to hunt the tough ones.”

“That’s quite straightforward,” Siegfried said with a smile.

Kill and loot the body! It was a very efficient, no-nonsense system, unlike the popular farming system often used in games.

There was no need to grind hard just to get good loot; there was no crafting and no reforging.

This was just plain old kill, loot, and equip.

How convenient was that?

“Okay, let’s keep moving.”

“Yes, Siegfried!”

Soon, the party made their way deeper into the dense jungle, and they fought their first battle in less than thirty minutes.

“Kill them all.”

“Wipe them out.”

A Coral guerrilla squad of about twenty strong ambushed the party.

Thus, the first real clash began.

“Argh!”

“Ughh!”

The party was thrown into chaos after getting caught off guard by the ambush.

The Corals hid themselves so perfectly that not even Siegfried or Hamchi’s ultra-sensitive senses noticed them. Clearly, the Corals seemed to possess some kind of special stealth technique unique to their race.

‘These guys are quite strong,’ Siegfried thought, studying the Coral Rangers.

He was truly surprised by their stats, as these Coral Rangers possessed about thirty percent higher stats compared to Adventurers of the same level. Their HP was nearly double, and even more for some Corals.

‘So it’s genetics. These guys are just built different.’

With that thought, Siegfried took out his trusty +16 Vanquisher’s Grasp.

‘Let’s see how they hold up against some debuffs.’

He activated Karma Flare to shred their defenses, and then immediately followed it with Embrace of Despair to unleash a debilitating slow debuff across the battlefield.

With his debuffs activated, it was time to test these enemies out.

‘Let’s see how much beating these bastards can take.’

Siegfried dove into the fray, swinging his weapon like a madman.

“Gahhh!”

“Argh!”

“W-Where did this monster come from?!”

The Coral Rangers screamed as they fell one after another.

Despite their superior stats, they were nothing more than punching bags against Siegfried, who was already a Grandmaster.