Chapter 275: Heaven Alliance, Spiteful Magic

The sky above the Citadel of the First Cycle was dark, the corrupted canopy of the Sky Demon Forest blotting out the sun.

But the clearing in front of the massive obsidian gates was brightly illuminated by the aggressive, roaring orange light of the Heavenly Fire Sect.

Fifteen hundred elite, Level 50+ Dark Demon NPCs marched in perfect synchronization. Their dark crimson armor scraped loudly, and the massive, crystal-powered siege engines they dragged forward radiated intense waves of suffocating heat.

High above the battlefield, on the central obsidian spire, Dante watched them advance.

He didn't move. He let them commit.

"They're not stopping to set up a camp," Nyx reported over the guild comms, her voice tight with analytical focus from her position on the high battlements. "Commander Ignis-Claw is ordering a direct, aggressive assault. They intend to breach the main gates with concentrated magma artillery before we can properly organize our frontline."

"Let them fire," Dante ordered calmly.

Down in the clearing, the massive, crystal-powered siege engines clanked loudly as they were locked into firing positions. Hundreds of Heavenly Fire mages stepped out from behind the heavy infantry lines, raising their glowing red staves in unison.

"Incinerate the walls!" Commander Ignis-Claw bellowed from atop his lava lizard, pointing his massive battleaxe at the Citadel.

The coordinated magical assault was terrifying.

It wasn't a scattered volley of basic fireballs. The mages channeled their collective mana into the siege engines, triggering a massive, overlapping barrage of highly concentrated, armor-melting magma spheres. The projectiles shot through the air in a sweeping arc, aimed directly at the heavy obsidian gates and the dense clusters of Aegis Vanguard players standing on the lower walls.

"Garrick! Now!" Sera shouted through the localized comms.

Garrick was standing directly in front of the main gates, completely exposed on the dirt path. The middle-aged man didn't flinch as the sky turned a blinding, aggressive orange. He slammed his rusty iron sword against his Silver-tier kite shield.

"I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN A REFUND FOR THE TIRE!" Garrick screamed at the top of his lungs, his face flushed with genuine, unfiltered emotional trauma.

[Skill Executed: Spiteful Bulwark]

The massive, dark red dome of pure frustration erupted outward. It aggressively expanded, completely covering the massive obsidian gates and a significant portion of the lower battlements, forming an impenetrable hard-light barrier.

The magma bombardment hit the shield.

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

The impacts were deafening. The superheated magma spheres detonated violently against the red energy, splashing liquid fire across the barrier. The sheer kinetic force of fifteen hundred synchronized elite attacks made the entire Citadel groan.

Garrick dropped to one knee, groaning loudly as the localized pressure bled through his invulnerability, heavily chipping his health bar. The red dome spider-webbed with massive, glowing cracks.

"I'm slipping!" Garrick panicked, trying to brace his boots in the dirt.

"Aria!" Dante called out from the spire.

Aria didn't hesitate. Standing safely behind the thick obsidian parapets on the wall above Garrick, the Level 15 Soul Weaver brought her wooden flute to her lips. She didn't play the aggressive [Hymn of Strength]. She needed raw sustain.

[Hidden Class Skill Activated: Life Song]

The soft, incredibly airy melody echoed cleanly over the roaring explosions.

[Party Buff Applied: Absolute Restoration.]

[Effect: Grants a continuous, passive health regeneration of 1,000 HP per second to all allied entities within hearing range.]

The massive, continuous 1,000 HP per second regeneration washed over Garrick and the thousands of frontline players standing near the gates. Garrick's health bar instantly stabilized, aggressively fighting back against the massive localized chip damage from the bombardment. The dark red dome stopped cracking, glowing fiercely as the tank's emotional frustration was continuously fueled by an infinite health battery.

The Heavenly Fire mages finished their volley, staring in absolute confusion as the smoke cleared, revealing the completely untouched obsidian gates and the red dome still firmly in place.

"The shield held!" a Vanguard paladin cheered, slamming his sword against his shield.

"Don't cheer yet," Dante's voice cut through the comms. "The artillery failed, so the infantry is going to push."

He was right.

"Break the barrier!" Commander Ignis-Claw roared, visibly furious. "Heavy infantry, advance! Melt them down!"

The front line of the Heavenly Fire Sect, consisting of massive, heavily armored brutes wielding superheated obsidian warhammers, charged the red dome. They didn't swing their weapons. They slammed their massive bodies directly against the barrier, aggressively activating their innate fire auras, intending to literally burn through Garrick's shield with sustained, localized contact.

Garrick couldn't push them back. The sheer physical mass of hundreds of Level 50+ Dark Demon elites pressing against the dome was overwhelming.

"They're breaking the line!" Sera warned.

"Lila," Dante ordered. "Drop the hammers."

Lila stood on the high battlements next to Aria. The blue-haired Astral Arcanist didn't chant. She raised her Dark Demon staff, her eyes narrowing as she focused entirely on the tightly packed cluster of heavy infantry pressing against the red dome.

[Skill Executed: Singularity]

[Skill Executed: Singularity]

She dropped two massive, invisible black holes directly into the center of the Heavenly Fire vanguard.

The localized gravitational pull was absolute.

The heavy infantry didn't even have time to swing their warhammers. They were violently ripped backward, aggressively sucked away from Garrick's shield, and crushed together into two massive, chaotic piles of flailing limbs and dark crimson armor.

"Now!" Sera shouted. "Archers, focus fire on the gravity wells! Mages, drop the AoE!"

The thousands of Aegis Vanguard players lining the walls didn't hesitate. They unleashed an absolute torrent of localized destruction. Iron arrows, frost lances, and arcane blasts rained down from the battlements, perfectly concentrated on the two massive piles of pinned, helpless NPCs.

The damage numbers exploded in a chaotic, unreadable mess of red and white text.

The heavy infantry of the Heavenly Fire Sect melted under the synchronized bombardment, their massive health pools aggressively shredded by the localized focus fire. Dozens of Level 50 elites exploded into blue pixels simultaneously.

But the victory was momentary.

Commander Ignis-Claw recognized the tactic. The Gold-tier AI adapted flawlessly.

"Scatter the formation!" the Commander bellowed, swinging his magma battleaxe. "Do not cluster! Engage the walls! Use the grappling chains!"

The remaining Heavenly Fire infantry broke their tight phalanx. They spread out rapidly, completely ignoring the center chokepoint and sprinting toward the flanks of the massive obsidian walls.

They weren't trying to break the gates anymore. They reached into their dark crimson armor and pulled out heavy, jagged iron chains tipped with glowing, superheated hooks.

Hundreds of NPCs hurled the chains upward, the hooks aggressively biting into the obsidian battlements.

"They're scaling the walls!" Nyx warned, tracking the massive influx of hostile signatures rapidly ascending the sheer stone.

"Repel them!" Sera ordered, drawing a silver rapier.

The localized melee combat was brutal. The Heavenly Fire elites pulled themselves over the battlements, crashing directly into the lines of Aegis Vanguard players.

The stat disparity was immediately obvious.

The Aegis Vanguard members were elite players, but the majority of them were hovering around Level 30. The Heavenly Fire NPCs were Level 50+ Dark Demons.

A massive, crimson-armored NPC swung its obsidian warhammer in a wide arc, completely shattering the shield of a Vanguard paladin and sending the player flying off the back of the wall.

[-18,000! Fatal Damage!]

Another NPC grabbed a Vanguard mage by the throat, aggressively channeling raw, unmitigated fire magic directly into the player's avatar, instantly reducing him to blue pixels.

"We're taking casualties!" a squad leader screamed over the comms as the line began to buckle under the overwhelming physical stats of the invading NPCs.

Aria was playing her flute as hard as she could, the 1,000 HP per second regeneration working overtime, but the massive, localized burst damage of the Level 50 elites was simply bypassing the heal-over-time effect, executing players instantly.

"Mei!" Dante called out, watching the western flank start to collapse.

"I'm on it!" Mei yelled.

The Brawler didn't use [Colossal Manifestation]. She didn't have room on the crowded battlements. She gripped the standard four-foot [God-Slaying Skillet] and charged directly into the thickest cluster of invading NPCs.

She swung the cast-iron pan like a baseball bat, aggressively parrying the heavy warhammers and delivering brutal, blunt-force counter-strikes that physically launched the massive NPCs completely off the wall, sending them plummeting back down to the ground.

She was holding the flank, but she was only one person. The eastern wall was rapidly failing.

Dante didn't drop down to the battlements to help. He stayed on the central spire.

He wasn't avoiding the fight. He was watching the edge of the forest.

His Intuition stat had pinged wildly a full minute before the Heavenly Fire Sect had charged, but the warning wasn't directed at the NPCs. It was directed at the shadows lingering just outside the clearing.

"Boss," Casanova's voice cracked over the comms. The bard was holding his own on the wall using [Titan's Physique], but he sounded panicked. "We are getting completely overrun! The stats are too high! If you don't drop a hurricane or a meteor shower right now, they are going to breach the courtyard!"

"Hold the line," Dante ordered flatly.

"We can't!" Casanova argued. "Why aren't you casting?!"

Dante didn't answer. He kept his glowing red eyes locked on the dark tree line at the eastern edge of the clearing.

He didn't use a Zenith-tier skill on the NPCs because he knew exactly what was hiding in the woods, and he needed all of his localized cooldowns and buffs available when the real threat finally showed its hand.

Through the dense, corrupted brush, completely avoiding the main battle, a massive, highly organized force was silently advancing.

They didn't wear the dark crimson of the Heavenly Fire Sect. They didn't wear the gold and white of Vanguard's Legacy.

They wore deep, unreflective crimson samurai armor.

It was the Black Dragon Syndicate.

And riding at the front of the stealth formation, his eyes burning with absolute, desperate greed, was Ryujin.

"They're here," Dante whispered to himself, a cold smile touching his lips.

Ryujin hadn't fled to a safe zone. The Guild Master of the Sakura Nation had rallied five thousand of his most elite, stealth-focused players. He had tracked the massive NPC army to the Citadel and intentionally hung back in the shadows.

He was waiting for the Heavenly Fire Sect to completely obliterate Dante's guild, exhaust Dante's defensive cooldowns, and breach the walls.

Ryujin intended to swoop in at the absolute last second, execute the weakened NPCs, and casually claim the Level 5 Citadel for himself.

"You really want to play cleanup, Ryujin?" Dante asked the empty air.

Dante slowly reached toward the black brand on his wrist, preparing to aggressively alter the entire flow of the battle.