Hikari crushed three top-grade Aether Crystals and imbued the released energy into Zaine, Roma, and Eva each. Normally, this would only be done on equipment, but these three did not really need such things and at Rank 3 Hikari was now powerful enough to infuse it directly into their bodies.
Zaine immediately began consuming her mana crazily by casting lightning bolts down on the mass of Rank 2 void monsters. While the Rank 1 ones were the most numerous, didn't they have an army of more or less willing participants for a reason?
On the other hand, the Rank 2 ones were unstoppable, each killing around a hundred players with each attack. They were worse than Tasmanian Devils, and Zaine planned to crowd control them somewhat.
Her bolts struck many of the lower tier Rank 2 Void Monsters and Void Killers, shaving off 30% of the former's HP, yet only 5% of the latter. What made Zaine frown was that the ones she struck continued killing the players before them without caring for her presence.
Roma summoned her Chaos Spirit and Chimera by using the skill version as well as the Mystic Arts instant version thereby doubling the skills. The former consumed MP whereas the latter required Worldly Energy.
Roma repeated the process for Dark Hands, spawning a great many of them over the area of 1 mile, grabbing on to various Rank 2 void monsters, and holding them down.
Unfortunately, Roma's corrosion effect was far weaker than the void monsters, so the Dark Hands were unable to last the entire duration and dissipated in about a minute.
Roma didn't care though, as the cooldown was 30 seconds, so she immediately re-cast it. In fact, within this one-minute time-frame, she had cast it twice already. Once in another sector and once in this one.
This was the true benefit of having skills that had longer durations than their cooldowns. They could always be stacked or overlaid right atop each other, but only truly powerful skills could have that benefit.
After all, most skills had durations between 1-10 minutes, yet cooldowns which were usually 3-10x longer than that in order to regulate them. Roma and Zaine had thrown this sort of balance out the window when they took charge of developing their own skills during their Rank Up, while Hikari had always been a glorified healbot.
She had already spammed White Light Healing so many items on players that the Worldly Energy concentration of the Field Zone was visibly plummeting, not to mention when she blessed key players with the White Barrier and also used White Light Resurrection on some groups which had been decimated at the start.
Hikari understood how to prioritize so she had reserved her White Light Blessing for only the members of Umbra. Besides, White Light Blessing took the most energy out of all her skills, as resurrecting Immortal Adventurers – for Hikari – was even cheaper than using White Light Healing.
Players would fall and jump right back up, thanking their guild clerics or whatnot for the rezz only to proceed to die again. After their fifth death, they screamed for the cleric in question to stop rezzing them as their accounts were being corrupted.
However, their first mistake was assuming that they were revived by a player. Unlike NPCs who felt death more intimately and could sense their benefactor upon resuscitation, players were not that in sync with the game, especially since everyone besides the Evil Duo still used the helmets.
The players who were excited and touched by their benefactor now hated and wished they could tear them apart. Why revive them while the void monster had yet to be dealt with? Did they make fun of the cleric one too many times and this was some sick attempt to ruin their accounts as revenge?
How could they know that Hikari was currently floating on cloud nine from her high due to the repeated revivals? Just one mass revival had been enough to make her feel lightheaded, much less the uncountable amount of times she had done this since the battle had begun.
As for who she was reviving, she did not care as long as they were brought back to life. That was the thing with kind naivety, while it was cute and heartwarming at times, it could be disastrous and hindering at others.
Eva had noticed this effect but kept quiet. It would serve the new players well to learn about the harshness of this game. If Hikari and co helped them indirectly, they would always come to rely on Umbra and never develop on their own, as the players of the previous timeline had done.
The existence of Umbra had been a boon to everyone playing the game and had catapulted the players into a golden age which would only have happened after the Great War years into the future. Eva planned to change up this mostly one-sided relationship after this event. Umbra was never meant to become a benevolent guild in any sense, and it was certainly not established to help the general playerbase.
Even though Sublime and Deployed Soldier were 'helping' other guilds it was done in exchange for benefits, nevertheless what the players could and did provide did not match up to the true value of what they were being given.
Eva cast her Control over the Field Zone and saw that 30% of players had been vanquished already. Because Hikari was reviving them indiscriminately, she did not always select the same person twice, meaning that many had stayed dead.
When Eva noticed that some small-time players with no conflict with Umbra were about to be corroded fully, she would send down a beam of Light Energy to blast the player into smithereens.
It may seem dumb, but her Light Energy would cleanse some of the corrosion away. Hikari's White Light Healing also cleansed a smaller amount, but not enough to make a difference.
It wasn't that the void monsters or Abyssal Energy were stronger than Creation Energy, but due to the specific nature of Immortal Spirits and how they functioned. Eva simply knew a lot more, and Light Energy had a stronger cleansing effect than healing or Creation.
Although they died at least they also got rid of 20% corrosion. Losing the rest would have to be done by themselves over time, and it would definitely not be an easy or short task.
Eva tapped Hikari. "That's enough. Only focus your work on Umbra and our allies from now on."
Hikari woke up from her daze and nodded. The Worldly Energy surrounding the Field Zone and beyond that Hikari could pull was thinning badly, and it could have adverse effects on the ecosystem later. Not everyone was a retard like Draco who would empty out an Area Zone and let it restore itself without caring.
Roma and Zaine also paused. Hikari had cast White Light Healing on them many times over the past few minutes in order to restore their mana, so they had been going at it non-stop.
Since the two dark-skinned babes were Rank 3, they had the advantage over their foes in every sense, being able to cull more than 70% of the total amount of Rank 2 void monsters, a number surpassing 1,400!
With less than 600 of them left, their ferocity had been greatly reduced. However, Zaine and Roma were tapped out, wincing in pain and rubbing their temples. Both of their abilities required a lot of mental oomph to maneuver, so the repeated use had fatigued them organically.
Hikari was stronger in this regard as she was still fine, but she did look slightly tired. Eva had barely done much acting as an observer to the entire battle and running many calculations as well as scenarios in her head to develop a strategy for victory.
Her main worry were the Rank 3 monsters that still relaxed at the back. Just killing one of them with the entire playerbase left here, more than 50 million players, was extremely unlikely, much less all 10 of them.
Eva was torn between preserving the players then using her Divine items she swindled from Amaterasu, as well as her Goddess Form's abilities, to buff all players to hell as they charged the monsters.
In this scenario, there was a 40% chance that all 10 Rank 3 monsters would be killed, with about 900,000 to 2,000,000 players remaining afterward to enjoy the spoils of a hard-fought battle.
900,000-2,000,000 players suddenly receiving 100,000 gold, 5,000% exp (50 levels), and 5 Epic Treasure Chests would result in a catastrophe that would make this Emergency Quest look like child's play.
It could not be allowed to happen. Doing so would betray the trust the AI had put into Draco and Eva in corralling the playerbase, while also spitting on its face despite all the favors it had done for them for free all this time.
The only viable option would be to let everyone but the Four Guilds slowly die out as Eva led them into a heated and close battle that could really go either way. She would have to pull out all her cards, use all her forms and abilities, in order to win.
But it was the only real choice she had. As such, she told Roma and Zaine to relax, sending them into the super mini small world to prepare for the final showdown, while Hikari limited her activities to the Four Guilds.
This reduced the burden on her immensely and she even had time to check on the battlefield as well as how everything was going. Of course, she grimaced since she had to watch the dwindling amount of players per second.
She did not pester Eva to change her mind, for Hikari understood that her Big Sis had a good reason for everything, and Draco had told her that in order to survive this world and kill Sigurd, she needed to become like him.
As such, she quietly watched the slaughter without making a sound, a rare disposition for a White Dragon across all ages. Eva folded her arms and sent a message down to Sublime.
"Mobilize the core members. Kill all the remaining Rank 2 monsters ASAP. – Eva."
…………….
In a hidden part of the battlefield, a strange patch of grass fluttered lightly, like something was creeping through it. However, despite the size of the reverberation, there was nothing to show for it.
No sight, no sound, no presence. If something was there, if something was moving in that area, it had the ability to completely mask the visage, sound, and smell of its body within a certain area.
The ability though, seemed quite familiar… to bend the senses within a small domain around the body? This was reminiscent of Riveting Night's infiltration of the Merchant Guild's headquarters, as she had used the same ability to accomplish this.
But how could this be? There were only two Control masters in this timeline with enough power and abilities in their Control to accomplish this. Who had this ability aside from the Evil Duo?
Draco was still inside the Unique Quest, having paused his endless crafting spree to take a bath then have some lunch, before eventually logging out and pulling Eva out.
It obviously was not Eva either, as she was up in the sky, her Control spread all over the area – yet strangely missing this blank spot – and most of her attention focused on the Rank 3 void monsters.
This scenario was quite contrived. Draco away, Eva extremely focused on something else, something that should not have been there but actually was due to interference, and something approaching the back of the battlefield with an ability that should only belong to the Evil Duo.
An extremely strange set of occurrences that would decide the outcome of the ongoing battle.
………..
A portal opened up in the center of a small glade within a forest. This place was within the confines of the Emergency Quest, but it was mindboggling to believe that someone could force their way into this zone.
From the swirling portal, two figures appeared. A blinding radiance shined from their bodies, illuminating the area and attracting attention from Eva who had her awareness cast out fully.
She turned to see the light slowly dissipate, revealing two figures she knew very well and had wondered where they had been hiding.
To the left stood Fitter Cleric in his blue robes, with his hood pulled down and his face locked into a neutral expression.
To the right stood Essence Stalker, wearing his trademarked red-gold armor and his massive halberd lightly balanced on his shoulder as he wore a c.o.c.ky smile.
"Guess we aren't too late then." He commented as he slowly walked towards the nearest void monster, Fitter Cleric following along with a twitch of his lips.
