The Final Boss Has Returned
Chapter 162
"Damn it……."
Lois let out a hollow voice.
The burning Southwest Harbor was visible in his sight.
He felt like killing his past self from just a few hours ago—a self who had believed he could buy time indefinitely.
The defensive line established with Sin Jeonghyeok's support, which he had believed could at least stop a landing, had been destroyed in an instant by flying battleships—forces that transcended common sense—and the city was already on the verge of falling into enemy hands.
[Lois. Is it true that Southwest has fallen?]
Paul's whisper echoed in his ears.
Lois gritted his teeth.
As he looked upon the sight of the city completely engulfed in flames, he gripped his sword.
It was a reality he could hardly accept, but he had to accept it.
The fact that Southwest—the South's largest port city and a coastal city equipped with the greatest defenses—had already fallen into Drakan's clutches.
And the fact that he himself had already been defeated.
A heavy word spilled from Lois's mouth.
"I-it's true."
[Damn it!]
Paul's curses lashed against Lois's ears.
Lois gritted his teeth as he heard those curses.
Who could have known that battleships would fly through the sky!
Even now, as he watched the flying battleships soaring through the sky and raining down artillery fire, Lois turned his gaze away.
Regardless, his mission had failed.
But he did not want to go down in a blaze of glory alongside Southwest Harbor.
Because to users—especially those who made the game their profession, like him—a character was an existence no different from one's entire fortune.
If he died here, nothing would remain for him.
Thinking this, Lois looked at the surviving stragglers and said.
"Retreat, we're retreating. We'll retreat and plan our next move."
Let's retreat and plan our next move!
What a sweet, rational, and logical-sounding word in their current situation!
The very moment the stragglers swarmed at Lois's words.
KWA-BOOM!
A storm of dark-red aura flew in from afar and exploded.
"Gaaah!"
Users caught in the aura explosion screamed.
Seeing that sight, Lois stiffened on the spot.
A storm of dark-red aura.
There was only one user in Arde World who possessed such a skill.
Tyrant King Drakan.
The nineteenth Over Ranker, and the strongest being in the human realm.
It was evidence that he had appeared in this place.
In that very moment when Lois saw it, his entire body went ice-cold.
"Where do you think you're going."
A cold voice was heard from beyond the burning alley.
Along with the cold voice, he appeared, parting the flames.
A man with sharp features wearing black armor and holding a dark-red sword.
Tyrant King Drakan had finally revealed himself.
"So you're Lois."
Drakan smiled coldly.
Lois.
The knight user who served as the general commander of Southwest Harbor and had risen to the position of High Ranker.
Information regarding him was already input into Drakan's mind.
Understanding the enemy commander was the most fundamental aspect of war.
Drakan immediately extended his hand and spoke.
"Dark Chains."
The moment Drakan finished speaking, black chains sprang from the floor and bound Lois's entire body.
Bound by Dark Chains, Lois thrashed about and screamed frantically, giving an order.
"A-attack! He's alone! Attack!"
But the users did not follow Lois's order.
There wasn't a single user present who didn't know of Drakan's infamy, nor was there anyone unaware that he was a master user with the physical prowess to wipe out everyone here without so much as a scratch if he so wished.
Because of that, the users couldn't help but hesitate to raise their swords against Drakan.
Drakan smiled as he looked at the enemy users gazing at him with eyes filled with terror.
The gaze directed at him from the previous game had finally been resurrected here and now.
Drakan raised the Ironblood Executor high.
The dark-red longsword symbolizing the authority of the Steel Sovereign surged with Drakan's trademark dark-red aura.
"Stand aside. I'm not interested in small fry like you."
At Drakan's words, the remnants split to both sides like the Miracle of Moses.
Not because they trusted his words, but because they didn't want to die.
At the end of that path stood Lois, bound by Dark Chains.
Thud.
Drakan's footsteps rang in Lois's ears like thunder.
"D-don't come. D-don't come near me!"
Lois screamed and thrashed, but he couldn't break free from Drakan's binding skill.
Dark Chains.
It was because the contract skill Drakan had received directly from the Dark Demon God was not a crowd control skill that could be dispelled so easily.
Drakan's appearance, walking toward him with a sneer like a grim reaper, was the very embodiment of terror on the battlefield.
"I-I surrender! I-I yield! Surrender!"
Lois finally uttered the word surrender.
They were words born from a judgment that appeared extremely rational—that his character, his entire fortune, had to survive first in order to plan for the future.
At the word surrender, the corner of Drakan's mouth rose.
The moment Lois saw that and held a faint hope.
"The surrender of the likes of you holds no value even if I accept it."
Drakan said in a flat voice.
At those words, hope vanished from Lois's eyes.
With that, Drakan mercilessly swung the Ironblood Executor, and before long Lois met his death on the spot and was forcibly logged out.
[You have killed Lois, Southwest Branch Chief of the Simseong Iron Stars Guild.]
Along with that, a brief notification window announcing Lois's death appeared in Drakan's view.
It was the moment Southwest Harbor finally fell completely into Drakan's hands.
Drakan looted the items Lois had left behind and looked around.
The remaining users were staring at him.
"A-are you sparing us?"
One of them mustered the courage to ask.
At that question, Drakan smiled.
"I told you. I'm not interested in small fry like you."
The moment the users felt relief at Drakan's words, Drakan added.
"But whether our alliance users are also uninterested in you... well, I can't say for sure."
The moment Drakan finished speaking, Dark Alliance users burst out from the alley.
"For the alliance!"
"Long live Lord Drakan!"
"A-ah, enemies over there!"
"Kill them!"
Intoxicated by the heat of victory, the Dark Alliance users immediately rushed at the enemies, and soon screams echoed through the burning alley.
Drakan listened to those screams, plunged the Ironblood Executor into the ground, and immediately sent a whisper to Ignis.
[I've occupied Southwest Harbor. Ignis. The enemy's entire main force is heading toward Southwest Harbor, where I am now. Now is the opportunity.]
Drakan.
His cold voice echoed in the ears of Ignis, who was waiting in the Great Forest.
Ignis, having heard Drakan's whisper, closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them.
"Is it finally my turn?"
[Yes. Vice Chairman Sin Jeonghyeok is foolishly pulling out his entire main force to come after me. By now, the rear must surely be completely empty, just as I predicted. It's the perfect opportunity to strike their soft underbelly.]
A deep smile formed at the corners of Ignis's mouth upon hearing Drakan's words.
Finally, the time had come for his 2nd Corps—which he had waited so long for—to shine.
"Understood. I shall carry out Lord Drakan's orders."
Ignis spoke thus and cut the whisper.
"Has the Lord given an order?"
At that very moment.
Space beside him warped, and soon a witch wearing a black conical hat appeared out of nowhere, her purple hair billowing.
The witch, Circe.
The last loyal subject who had served Drakan from the previous game until now, and now an NPC who had broken free from the Demon Forest's binding through a fragment of the Hive Mind's heart, had appeared.
"That is correct."
Ignis looked at the NPC before him and spoke.
The witch Circe.
While Ignis couldn't know the full extent of her strength, it was clear she was at least an Over Ranker, and merely being able to command the monsters in the Demon Forest like her own limbs was enough to make her a tremendous asset to their forces.
Circe questioned Ignis again.
"What is the order?"
"It is an attack."
A small smile finally rose to Circe's lips upon hearing Ignis's answer.
"The day has finally come when this humble servant can be of help to the Lord."
In Circe's eyes as she spoke, a devotion bordering on madness flickered.
Looking at Circe, Ignis gave an order to the 2nd Corps users and NPCs on standby.
"Advance."
Ignis's order was immediately relayed to the entire 2nd Corps through whispers, and soon the 2nd Corps began to advance beyond the boundary of the Great Forest toward the South.
The 2nd Corps, composed of orcs, undead, humans, and demons, truly possessed an appearance similar to an army of evil that might appear only in legends.
And at its vanguard was the Flame King Ignis, wreathed in flames.
The Dark Alliance's 2nd Corps, having begun their advance in this manner, easily seized the southern border fortress—which had become an empty husk with its main force pulled out—and began breaking through the poorly defended rear in a sweeping momentum, advancing toward the southern inland.
And all of this information was reaching the command of the Southern Army heading toward Southwest, and Sin Jeonghyeok, who stood at its apex.
The Southern Army's encampment.
Inside the large tent being used as the command headquarters, shouts of rage were currently erupting.
It was none other than Sin Jeonghyeok's voice.
"What? Southwest was breached in a single day? What the hell are you even doing?!"
Sin Jeonghyeok.
The shocking news he had first received was the devastating fact that Southwest had been breached by Drakan's attack in just one day.
From beside Sin Jeonghyeok, the Assassin King Leira chimed in.
"Indeed. Southwest was under the watch of Paul's subordinate Lois, but I didn't expect it to fall so easily either."
Leira's gaze shifted to Paul, the Axe King.
To her, this catastrophic defeat in the Southwest battle was a boon.
It was an opportunity to overthrow Paul and rise as the sole guild master of the Simseong Iron Stars Guild.
A competitor's misfortune was, by nature, one's own happiness, and Leira was pressuring Paul as if determined not to miss this opportunity.
And Paul, the one on the receiving end of that pressure, was practically driven mad with frustration.
The defenses of Southwest Harbor had absolutely not been lacking.
"T-that's, Boss. They brought flying battleships or whatever...... No, but does it make sense for ships to fly?"
Silence fell over the tent at Paul's words.
There was some merit to his words.
Because battleships flying through the sky was something incomprehensible even by the common sense of Arde World.
Drakan.
That is, until he unveiled the flying battleships.
"Still, isn't being breached in a single day too much?"
But Leira didn't stop the pressure.
Putting flying battleships aside, it was an extremely valid and rational criticism that the entire defense line collapsing in a single day was too much.
That's why Paul had very little to say for himself this time.
Because even Paul himself thought that honestly, having been breached in one day was too much.
And just as Sin Jeonghyeok was burning with frustration watching that scene.
[Vice Chairman Sin!]
A whisper was heard in Sin Jeonghyeok's ears.
An informant from Simseong Iron Stars had immediately whispered to him.
Realizing this, Sin Jeonghyeok immediately asked back.
"What is it?"
[It's an urgent report!]
"An urgent report?"
At the words "urgent report," Sin Jeonghyeok's eyebrows twitched, and soon even more shocking news entered his ears.
[Ignis, Ignis has led a massive army out of the Great Forest, broken through the border, and is currently advancing toward the southern interior! The rear forces alone are absolutely unable to, to stop them!]
The moment he heard that devastating report.
A bizarre shriek of rage erupted directly from Sin Jeonghyeok's mouth.