CHAPTER 127: AGAINST THE WAVES

-Tap. Tap. Tap.

The raindrops were red, but they weren’t water.

As dense as they may be, they weren’t blood either.

They were red drops of condensed Mana, something that only affected the monsters that were already affected by the curse, further enhancing their powers and madness.

The humans, on the other hand, weren’t affected by this crimson rain at all. However, they were surely stunned by this unforeseen, unknown phenomenon.

"What’s... what’s happening?"

"Why is it raining?! This has never happened before!"

"Hey! Look at those monsters! Haven’t they gone crazier?!"

As the soldiers watched, the monsters that had always focused on the castle gates had now become wilder than ever, even attacking anything that crossed their paths.

The monsters, now true to their title of a monster, were attacking the gates and everything that they stumbled on, even the sharp and powerful traps.

The monsters did not care when they were in the line of fire of the powerful spells and ignited boulders. They were completely focused on the things before them. They did not seem to be sane, and they did not seem to be limited to their instincts either.

The scene right now was something that terrified the soldiers, but their captains remained calm even in these turbulent times.

{ "Everyone! Get yourselves together and focus the fire! They are not caring about the attacks! We can take them down much easier now!" }

Before, the monsters were all cautious of one another. They came at the city gates with the only intention of hurting the humans and with the will to destroy.

In the process, they did not care about each other, and they did not harm each other either, almost considering each other as a familiar entity that they weren’t supposed to harm.

There were some exceptions within the corrupted beasts that still harmed the monsters in order to become stronger, but they were still few.

The situation right now, however, was different from what it had ever been.

-Booooooooooooom!

On this battlefield that was supposed to be relatively cleaner by this point, the traps were already filling up with the dumber and crazier monsters that were harming one another.

The stronger monsters that were closing the distance between the city walls and them were already being attacked by the closest defensive forces before the city gates.

The stronger guards, including the guardian captains and the strongest individuals of the city, were now fighting against the enhanced monsters directly, while at the back, the monsters that were supposed to swarm the gates were falling down like raindrops.

-Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish!

In the 12th city, KiRA, stunned by the phenomenon that even he had never seen on this floor, was wondering what was happening right now.

As he fought against the monsters that were enhanced with the red rain alongside Izzy and Captain Lucas, he tried to come up with the answer to this new puzzle.

The battle this time was supposed to be more harmonised and more concentrated on the gates and ultimately pose a bigger threat to the cities, but the red rain that usually brought an omen of dread among the civilizations was helping the natives of this floor.

’The red rain only happened above the 10th floor and that too, only in certain areas with an abnormal Mana fluctuation.’

KiRA knew about this kind of red rain, where the Mana in the atmosphere condensed into water-like drops and fell like rain.

This only happened in the upper floors since the kind of fluctuations that produce this rain were only seen in certain places in this tower’s higher floors.

From what he had gathered during his time here from the history books, this phenomenon had never occurred in this tower’s 3rd floor either... so, the current situation was new to the rest of them as well.

’Could she be behind this...?’

The current situation was not actually as dangerous as it may look from the outside.

Monsters had become stronger, but the biggest advantage they had over the human forces, a unique sense of unity, was all down the drain.

The monsters that were true to their collective instincts had now become dumber thanks to the curse as well as the Red rain’s effects.

This wasn’t something usual. Even this Red rain was a kind that only affected monsters with a certain level of madness, and not all beings. It almost seemed like it was made artificially... but the only being that could do something like this, in KiRA’s eyes, was the president, who he had speculated to possess an Original pinnacle.

’If she really is behind this, then it must mean she had somehow acquired the rights to this event.’

The Night of the Red Moon was something that happened because of a witch’s curse. The curse turned all the creatures of this floor’s vast forest into monsters that attacked the citizens in waves every decade on a certain day.

The day and time they would attack was decided, so it had always been possible to gain enough time to prepare against these attacks.

It was something that happened more than once within the tower, making it an event that earned the being connected with the phenomenon a little bit of divine power, but since the event was only on the 3rd floor and relatively insignificant to the one who owned it, there should be some room for negotiation.

’But the price must have been costly.’

KiRA turned his twin wrist guards into twin swords and took the forefront of the battlefield alongside Izzy and the captain, as well as many of their fine soldiers.

With their coordinated attacks and nimble movements, the city guards worked together to take down several monsters with special tactics designed by Izzy.

Izzy moved while swinging her formless sword that had turned into a whip. KiRA moved with hundreds of golden strings flying around him and his swords, strings that were laced with lethal paralysis poison.

While the other guards had taken an antidote for the poison and trained with it to become immune to it, they weren’t getting in KiRA’s way, as his movements were far more careful than any of theirs.

He moved– danced– throughout the front battlefield, his weapons slicing through the high-level monsters like hot knives through butter.

With the effects of the red rain that did not affect humans, Unity had gained buffs that the monsters were getting as well.

As a matter of fact, she was now stronger thanks to the red rain, making her skills stronger and more useful as well.

The {Blessing of Light} and {Blessing of Flames} amplified the effects of the Solder’s Mana and Aura, granting them a boost in both their stamina and performance.

Izzy gave commands throughout the battlefield– Just like how Ziggy and Dame Althea were doing in the cities they were managing, Izzy controlled the flow of battle in the 12th city.

The captains moved with graceful steps, with powerful thumps of their feet, or stayed in their place, letting the chants of their spells be the echo that guided the ones they were leading.

’This is ultimately helping the players more than the natives.’

As KiRA observed through Unity’s vision, the small golden bird flying far above the monster-covered sky that others could not notice, he could see how the players were faster to adapt to this new situation.

Unlike the rigid and more traditional soldiers, the players gave up on the strategies that were taught to them by their players and adapted to the new commands issued by Izzy.

They improvised on the commands according to the things they had learned, proficiently showcasing the things they had learned from these natives.

-Booooooooooooom!

The players who were operating the war machines focused on the bigger monsters instead of the smaller ones that were fighting one another at the back.

By leaving the smaller ones to traps, they focused the remainder of their freed weapons on the bigger monsters, helping their captains and the ones who could deal with these monsters.

The mages and the ones that had healing skills retreated back and focused on the injured ones with better focus, instead of helping out with the ongoing battle.

As each minute passed, their importance on the battlefield would grow; however, as they had helped with the healing process, the consumed Mana and stamina would be comparatively lower than if they had helped out with higher Mana-consuming spells.

-Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish!

The players who were going to be the ones to drag the others down were turning the tables around with their blessed adaptability.

Twenty minutes into the war and with the first wave of the monsters nearing its end, the players were already showing their powers and why the natives shouldn’t have underestimated them.

-Booooooooooooom!

The better player performance still did not mean the players were doing all that better than the rest of them, though. How good as they may be, the players were still just the players who had their stat limits.

If it were just about combat powers and experience, the players, on average, were still lacking compared to the regular guard soldiers of the cities.

But in terms of simple adaptability and order-following, the players were not to be underestimated by anyone.

Izzy’s simple commands were split into the general commands and commands meant only for certain groups of players, native soldiers, or pre-made parties of this war that had both.

The mixed parties were in charge of the bigger weapons and thus knew certain terminology that the others might not know.

The language barrier between her and the players was much thinner than the language barrier between her and the natives, but neither the players nor the natives would ever know of this since she was just so good at both.

-BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

[1st Wave progress: 80%.]

As the battle started reaching the conclusion of the first wave, the difficulties started escalating for all the cities.

The monsters of the deeper parts of the forest were stronger, and they would arrive next.

Since they would have had more time to absorb the Mana in the rain, they would be much stronger.

And that, in simpler terms, meant things were only going to become more and more difficult for all of them...