Chapter 998: Spearhead Breaks Formation

"Pull back, retreat now, ah—"

The warning never finished.

The instant the armored panels along the demonic fel war machine’s flanks snapped open, the entire coalition sensed that something had gone terribly wrong. They had been watching that machine like hawks ever since the last engagement, when a single shell had erased a million lives in a flash of white fire. No one who had survived that could ever forget it, and no one with a functioning brain would underestimate it again.

That was why the coalition had halted fifty kilometers out, spreading their forces thin across the plain instead of advancing in a dense mass. The logic was simple and brutally practical. If that war machine launched another shell, at least it would not take everyone with it. One explosion could not wipe out an army that refused to cluster.

Now, somehow, they were only five kilometers away, and the war machine still had not fired.

At this distance, the blast radius alone would be catastrophic. If the machine fired now, the coalition would be caught in the inferno, but so would the Alliance charging straight toward them. It made no sense, and yet the Alliance showed no sign of slowing.

On the coalition’s command platform, OneSwordBreaksArmy, supreme commander of the three-region coalition, watched the advance and let out a scornful laugh. Four hundred thousand men and a single battered war machine, charging head-on into an army of nine million. In his eyes, it was either madness or arrogance so extreme it bordered on stupidity.

"Air units," he ordered calmly, his voice carrying absolute confidence. "All of them. Stop them before they reach us."

The sky erupted with motion as more than a hundred thousand riders mounted on flying beasts surged forward, blotting out the light like a dark tide. They were the coalition’s pride, their unquestioned air superiority, the most durable and flexible force in the entire army. Once deployed, they were supposed to decide battles before the enemy ever reached melee range.

None of them returned.

Standing beside OneSwordBreaksArmy, the woman acting as his advisor did not even bother to warn him. When the launchers slid out from the sides of the war machine, she simply curved her lips into a knowing smile, as if she had expected this outcome from the very beginning.

This was exactly the problem. The coalition had investigated that war machine before and found almost nothing useful, but everyone with experience had reached the same obvious conclusion. If it could fire shells with that kind of destructive power, then anti-air capability was practically guaranteed. Only a fool would assume otherwise. Unfortunately, the man now in command had never attended a single strategic briefing. He had not asked questions, had not listened, and had dismissed every warning as overcautious nonsense.

Fine, then. Do whatever you want, she thought coldly. You always did look down on me.

She was only an advisor. The authority to decide lay entirely in his hands, which meant victory or defeat would rest squarely on his shoulders. Her smile never faded as she watched the consequences unfold.

Her thoughts drifted briefly to the warning she had received before leaving the Eastern Region, spoken by its overlord in a rare moment of seriousness: do not engage the Druid God directly. She still did not fully understand why he had said it.

A year and a half ago, that same overlord had been arrogant to an absurd degree, ruling openly and crushing dissent without hesitation. Then he had vanished from Ethereal for a time, only to return subdued, quiet, and terrifyingly efficient. He had poured his wealth into acquiring every valuable resource in the Eastern Region, becoming monstrously powerful at the cost of dragging the average player level down with him.

Even so, he remained the strongest of the three regional overlords. Watching the battlefield now, she could not help wondering which of the two monsters would win if they ever clashed directly.

Her thoughts were interrupted as chaos exploded in the sky. The massive cloud of flyers shattered instantly. Some riders tried to retreat the moment they realized what was happening, but it was already far too late.

The war machine’s payloads looked deceptively small, no larger than bullets, yet their lethality stunned everyone who saw them. Micro-warheads detonated on contact, erasing riders and mounts alike in an instant. Wings shattered, bodies tore apart, and even glancing hits crippled beasts mid-flight. Worse still, the projectiles tracked their targets relentlessly.

A handful of elite riders with high-grade flying mounts twisted and dove through the air with desperate skill, executing maneuvers that would have impressed any spectator. It did not matter. The bullets curved smoothly, adjusted their trajectory, and continued the chase until they struck.

Panic spread through the formation. Riders collided mid-air in their attempts to escape, and the warheads found them all the same. Explosions rippled across the sky in rapid succession.

Ten seconds was all it took.

The coalition’s air force fell from the heavens like dumplings dropped into boiling water, bodies slamming into the ground one after another in a sickening chorus of dull impacts.

OneSwordBreaksArmy froze where he stood. Around him, every commander watching the livestream went silent, their expressions locked in disbelief. Even the Alliance players advancing on the ground hesitated for a heartbeat as they watched the sky clear.

Then excitement surged through their ranks.

Two kilometers remained. They were about to enter the coalition’s ranged attack zone.

Ethan had studied the enemy composition carefully. Of the coalition’s 9.6 million players, only three to four hundred thousand were ranged classes. The rest were melee, and worse, the army was not yet fully assembled. The melee forces had arrived first, while many ranged units were still on the move. In Ethereal, this imbalance was common. Most players preferred the visceral thrill of close combat, even though dungeons desperately needed ranged damage dealers.

In PvP, melee had always felt safer. If you were ambushed, you could still fight back. Ranged players were another story entirely. Once an enemy closed the distance, survival rates plummeted.

At one kilometer, the war machine came to a sudden halt. Behind it, there was nothing. The ground was empty.

All four hundred thousand Alliance players were now ahead of the machine, their speed unchanged, their momentum unbroken.

"Formation shift," Ethan commanded, his voice steady and sharp. "Spearhead. Full speed advance."

The order cracked through the ranks like thunder.

"Shift—!"

"Spearhead—!"

The command echoed backward as the formation faltered for just a moment, then began to change. From above, Ethan watched the movement carefully. It was messy at first, lines wavering as players adjusted positions on the fly, but after a hundred meters, the shape locked into place.

A spearhead, forged from four hundred thousand players.

Shield tanks formed the tip, layered three deep along the outer edge, absorbing the brunt of what was to come. Directly behind them advanced Weapon Masters wielding massive greatswords, their presence a promise of brutal counterattacks. Rogues and other short-range classes filled the gaps behind them, ready to surge forward the moment an opening appeared.

Further back, mages and marksmen were woven seamlessly into the formation, protected yet positioned to unleash sustained damage. Healers were scattered throughout, each one’s coverage overlapping with the next, ensuring no part of the spear went unsupported.

The formation accelerated.

Ground mounts finally surged to full speed, no longer constrained by the war machine’s pace. The Alliance charged as one, the spearhead cutting cleanly through the battlefield.

Across the field, OneSwordBreaksArmy narrowed his eyes, forcing a scoff that sounded weaker than he intended. "Hmph. Fancy footwork. Without that damned tank, they’re just throwing themselves at us. All ranged units, area attacks. Blanket the field."

Beside him, the woman felt a genuine jolt of shock.

She had never seen anything like this in a large-scale battle. Tactical formations like this simply did not exist in most games. Battles were won by numbers, by crashing armies together and letting chaos decide the outcome. Precision and coordination on this scale were unheard of.

What the Alliance was doing went against everything players believed about warfare in Ethereal.

Was it really just fancy footwork, as OneSwordBreaksArmy claimed, or was this something far more dangerous bearing down on them?