Debuff Master

Chapter 1272

Taycan was a formidable warrior who had recently shattered the wall to step into the realm of Masters. He was one of the descendants of the Thunder God, Vajra, who was one of the most powerful beings in the world back when Deus was still active.

As the eldest son of House Stunner of the Kiev Kingdom, one of the Proatine Empire’s sworn allies, he held the title of Duke, making him the second-highest-ranking person in the kingdom.

He developed close ties with Siegfried after crossing paths in a dungeon, and they stood together as comrades on countless battlefields since then.

“Huh? What did you just say? Who died?” Siegfried asked, doubting his own ears.

— Duke Taycan van Stunner, the Supreme Commander of the Kiev Forces, has fallen in battle just earlier today, sire.

“No way...” Siegfried muttered, shaking his head in denial. Then, he said, “I know that guy. He’s ridiculously strong and wouldn’t die that easily. He’s probably just badly injured, that’s all.”

He knew just how powerful Taycan was. The only reason he managed to outgrow him was that his growth rate as an Adventurer far outpaced Taycan’s.

Taycan was talented enough to become a Grandmaster someday.

Among the young warriors, he was at the very pinnacle.

Taking into consideration the limitations of being an NPC, he was most likely one of the strongest named NPCs in the game.

But he actually ended up dying?

Siegfried struggled to believe the report.

— They recovered his body...

“...”

— Witnesses claim that Sword Emperor Betelgeuse appeared on the battlefield and cut down Supreme Commander Taycan.

“...”

— His body was severed in two, and they had to stitch him back together. Supreme Commander Taycan has been declared dead by the medics... ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

At those words, Siegfried closed his eyes.

‘This can’t be true...’

He wanted to deny the reports.

Unfortunately, the report was too detailed to be a mistake or fabrication. If Taycan had truly crossed swords with Betelgeuse, then the outcome was obvious. The gap between a Master and a Grandmaster was far bigger than most could imagine.

Only someone like Weapon Master Shakiro, who had reached the absolute pinnacle of the realm of Masters, could hope to hold his ground against a Grandmaster. Any Master weaker than Shakiro would almost certainly die instantly, especially against Betelgeuse.

It would take at least seven Masters of Nanuqsa’s caliber to stand a chance against Betelgeuse. Those weaker than Nanuqsa had to make ten clones of themselves just to hold their ground against the Sword Emperor.

Of course, numerical superiority could hardly be called an advantage when it came to Masters and Grandmasters. Still, the Proatine Imperial Army would need to deploy at least ten Masters just to hold Betelgeuse back.

— The tide has turned. If Elder Betelgeuse has joined the Marchionoi Empire, then we must also expect Elder Daode Tianzun to emerge. I believe the Marchioni Empire is now beginning to reveal its true strength, sire.

“I think so, too.”

Siegfried needed a moment to compose himself and arrange his thoughts.

‘Taycan... That punk is dead...’

The death of an NPC close to one’s heart always cuts deep. Death was just an inconvenience for Adventurers, as they could simply respawn endlessly. It was nothing more than an abstract concept that came with some penalties.

On the other hand, it was different for the NPCs. Death was final and absolute. Once an NPC was dead, there was no bringing them back.

Just like losing someone in reality, the death of an NPC meant eternal farewell.

“Damn it...”

Siegfried fought to suppress his grief and rage as he ended the call with Hansen.

“I knew something like this would happen eventually...”

The last two weeks had been too easy.

He knew that the battles would turn brutally difficult once the Marchioni Empire began its true counterattack, but even so, hearing the death of Taycan was a huge shock to him.

“I’m going to avenge you,” Siegfried growled under his breath, clenching his fists.

“Kyuuu... Owner punk...” Hamchi muttered with his ears drooped.

This was the first time Siegfried tasted grief and pain since the beginning of the war against the Marchioni Empire.

***

The Marchioni Imperial Army struck back, and their counterattack was fierce. Starting with neutralizing the satellite of the Guardians, the Marchioni Imperial Army began to fully unleash the power it had been holding back.

Battles broke out everywhere, and the Marchioni Imperial Army scored victory after victory.

At the center of it stood the Three Grandmasters...

Daode Tianzun, Sword Emperor, and the Lord of Destruction.

These three Grandmasters generated the momentum the Marchioni Imperial Army needed, leading them to battle and massacring the allied forces led by the Proatine Imperial Army.

“Ahhh...”

Hansen sighed deeply as he received the reports in real-time.

Their strategy was crumbling.

Hansen’s strategies were great, but they were useless against the three Grandmasters. Against such overwhelming might, tactical superiority and terrain advantages were absolutely useless.

Whenever the three Grandmasters appeared on the battlefield, the only thing the Proatine Imperial Forces and the allied forces could do was retreat to minimize losses.

To make things worse, the Marchioni Imperial Army’s movements showed that it somehow had prior knowledge of what the Proatine Imperial Army was doing.

The tide had turned.

‘Did they steal it?’

Hansen suspected that the Marchioni Empire had seized the Eye of the Behemoth, as that was the only way to explain what was going on.

‘What should we do? Even without the Eye of the Behemoth, we can resume our strategy if His Imperial Majesty gets rid of the three Grandmasters, but...’

The problem was that they couldn’t make full use of Siegfried.

As much as Hansen wanted to deploy him, the Marachioni Empire knew the movements of the Proatine Imperial Army inside out, so they did not deploy the three Grandmasters to places where Siegfried could appear.

they thoroughly avoided Siegfried while targeting only the Proatine Imperial Army and the allied forces.

Due to that, Siegfried had been coming up empty for a week now.

He would wait until a report that one of the Grandmasters had appeared came in.

Once the report came, he would immediately move to that area.

Unfortunately, the Marchioni Empire would always deploy the Grandmasters as far away from Siegfried as possible, so by the time he reached that place, the battle was already over.

Just like a game of hide-and-seek, they had completely neutralized the Proatine Imperial Army’s most powerful card, Siegfried.

Naturally, this infuriated him.

“Those cunning rats...”

He ground his teeth in frustration at being fooled countless times. Even though the three Grandmasters were overwhelmingly powerful, he was confident he could defeat them.

Daode Tianzun?

Mages were nothing more than prey to Siegfried, as he possessed the Wave of Oppression.

Even though Daode Tianzun was a Grandmaster, Siegfried was confident he could overpower him easily compared to anyone else. Then, he could drag him back to the Proatine Empire.

Sword Emperor Betelgeuse?

While Siegfried couldn't guarantee victory against the Sword Emperor, he was confident that he wouldn't lose to him.

However, Siegfried had no information about the Lord of Destruction.

He had never faced him before, so the Lord of Destruction's fighting style eluded him. He wanted to meet him in battle to gauge just how powerful he was, but that had yet to happen.

“Should I just charge straight in and force them to come to me?”

Unable to bear the frustration any longer, Siegfried considered charging straight behind enemy lines and wreaking havoc until the Grandmasters came to him.

“No, sire. That is what the enemy wants,” Hansen said, stopping him.

“But at this rate—”

“While it is fine if Your Imperial Majesty dies in battle...” Hansen said, trailing the ends of his words.

“What the hell?” Siegfried grimaced.

“...But Your Imperial Majesty must not get brainwashed like the other Grandmasters. If that happens, then we are all dead. There will be no hope nor future for the Proatine Empire.”

“T-That’s true...” frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

Aside from the fact that the Marchioni Empire had secret weapons, like those three Grandmasters, what truly made them terrifying was the fact that they could imprison and control others.

Lately, the Marchioni Empire had been aggressively brainwashing captured prisoners and deploying them into war. What if, by chance, Siegfried was captured?

It would be the beginning of the end—the total annihilation of the Proatine Empire and its allies.

“Your Imperial Majesty must hold back even if it frustrates you. We must not get swept up by their pace. We must wait until the time is right and hit them when they least expect it.”

“But still...”

“I am doing my best. Also, Director Ninetail has infiltrated deep behind enemy lines.”

“What?!”

“Let us be patient until she returns with intel. If we charge in now and Your Imperial Majesty somehow gets captured, then that would be the end for all of us.”

“Okay. I got what you mean.”

Siegfried took Hansen’s advice seriously and suppressed his urge to rush into the enemy lines.

Meanwhile...

“We have just received a report that Marquis Cesc has been killed in action.”

Another piece of grim news came in.

The Descendant of the Supreme King, Braum, and one of the Proatine Empire’s most muscular generals, Cesc, had fallen.

“Ah...” Siegfried grimaced at the grim news.

First it was Taycan, and now Cesc was dead, too.

This war was indeed going to cause massive losses to the Proatine Empire.

To make matters worse, they could do nothing right now but take hit after hit like a sandbag.

Momentum and morale were the two most important things in war, and once the initiative was lost and the momentum swung in favor of the enemy, it would be hard to reclaim it.

The fact that the opponent was the great Marchioni Empire made it even harder.

The Marchioni Empire was a seasoned veteran when it came to wars, after all. They had five centuries' worth of accumulated war experience and a plethora of military tactics accumulated during their long history.

Their experience was an invaluable asset, and the Proatine Empire, a fledgling nation, could never catch up to them when it came to that aspect.

It was almost second nature for the Marchioni Empire to cement its advantages in war, and that was precisely what they were doing right now.

“I will find a way, sire. Please trust me and wait a bit longer.”

“...Okay.”

Siegfried suppressed the anger welling up inside of him at Hansen’s behest.

“Kyuuu...”

“We will hold a grand memorial for Cesc when this war is over.”

After saying that, Siegfried left the command center.

He wanted to get some fresh air to suppress the rage welling up inside of him.

***

Meanwhile, Ninetail miraculously managed to infiltrate the Marchioni Imperial Army’s command center.

She was so skilled in infiltration, disguise, and covert operations that she once managed to steal Emperor Stuttgart’s prized painting. One of the reasons she managed to do so was that she would diligently prepare false identities and disguises in advance.

And it was no different this time...

Ninetail had created the identity of an officer in the Marchioni Empire’s intelligence bureau years ago, and using it, she successfully managed to infiltrate their command center.

From there, she gained a full view of the imperial army’s movements.

‘I knew it. They took the Eye of Behemoth.’

Ninetail confirmed with her own two eyes that the Marchioni Imperial Army was using the Eye of Behemoth to monitor the movements of the Proatine Imperial Army in real time.

“Deploying Lord Betelgeuse to the coordinates DA1331.”

“Deploying Lord of Destruction to the coordinates FF9113ED.”

“Deploying Lord Daode Tianzun to the coordinates E3112.”

Using the Eye of Behemoth, the command center issued orders to deploy the three Grandmasters.

Ninetail made a mental note of the information and carefully sent a secret transmission to the Proatine Empire.

‘I need to report Elder Daode Tianzun’s location first,’ she decided.

The reason she came to that conclusion was that Daode Tianzun was both the most dangerous enemy to the Proatine Imperial Army and the one Siegfried could handle the easiest.

An Archmage was capable of unleashing extremely destructive area of effect spells that could massacre tens of thousands of troops at once.

Daode Tianzun was, without a doubt, the biggest threat to the Proatine Imperial Army, as mages specialized in area of effect magic and mass slaughter.

‘I must inform them quickly.’

Even at the risk of exposing her identity, Ninetail transmitted Daode Tianzun’s deployment location and timing to the Proatine Imperial Army.

“Your Imperial Majesty!”

Hansen immediately informed Siegfried the moment he received the transmission.

“Director Ninetail has reported the time and place of Elder Daode Tianzun’s deployment!”

“...!”

“He will be deployed to strike the allied forces encamped near the Piaro River in two hours!”

“I’ll head there right away.”

At that report, Siegfried warped straight to the area.

“I’m going to save you and set you free. I know you just want to spend your twilight years in peace.”