The Final Boss Has Returned Episode 25
Lawless Harbor in Flames!
The siege magic cannons roaring thunderously from the side as they fired, and the catapults hurling fireballs! And the wyvern riders, along with mages atop wyverns pouring all kinds of area magic from the sky! All of this combined, and Lawless Harbor was finally burning.
'It's burning well!'
Drakan smiled as he watched the spectacle.
Lawless Harbor! A chaotically built city, one that had clearly been plastered with all kinds of traps and ambushes for urban warfare, was now burning entirely to the ground.
'If Lawless Harbor had been an ordinary fortress, this wouldn't have happened.'
Drakan recalled the numerous siege battles he had fought in the previous game as he watched Lawless Harbor burn.
Of course, even in the previous game, there had been attempts to mobilize all sorts of means to utterly destroy a castle like this.
But the defenders weren't fools either, so most decent fortresses had elaborate defense systems including anti-magic barriers installed.
Therefore, destroying a castle with such defense systems by mindlessly bombarding it with magic and siege weapons like now was nearly impossible.
Burning down Lawless Harbor had been a strategy possible only because Lawless Harbor was a chaotic city without even walls, let alone a defense system.
[Wow, he broke through it like this]
[Lol Drakan lol Drakan did this??]
[Drakan did it! He did it!!!]
[Breaking news... noobs preparing to flee...]
[Insane lollll]
[He actually burned down the crazy city lol is this the Drakan I know? No, Drakan chose this?]
[I'm from the East and after seeing this, a ten-year-old indigestion cleared up. Seeing those pirate XX burn feels so refreshing lolll]
[Kyaaaaaaaak!!]
[Extremely refreshing!]
Drakan smiled as he watched the chat window constantly shooting up in one corner of his vision.
Real-time streaming!
A concept that had been unfamiliar just six years ago had transformed into popular content that everyone knew in the age of Ard Saga Second.
When Drakan himself used to play games, even internet broadcasting had been an unfamiliar concept, let alone real-time streaming. Thinking about that, it seemed the world had completely changed.
Back then, the revenue models for top-tier gamers were either dark gamers selling items to get by day by day, or making money by selling quest videos or siege battle videos to game broadcasting stations.
Drakan recalled the memories of recording videos and negotiating appearance fees with game broadcasting stations as he watched the chat window that was still rising without rest.
[The Demon King of Flames has sponsored 1000 points with a satisfied expression.]
[The Demon King of the Sea has sponsored 1600 points with a smile.]
[The Demon King of Destruction has sponsored 100 points with a reluctant expression of acknowledgment.]
[The Demon God of Darkness claps for you while looking at you.]
Of course, what was being constantly updated wasn't just the Ard Live chat window.
The Transcendents!
Their messages were also being updated in real-time, and points were being paid out.
Watching the pirates continuously pouring out of burning Lawless Harbor, unable to overcome the flames and destruction of the city, and the users hunting those pirates, Drakan raised the corner of his lips and whispered to Ignis.
[It's time. Send the wyvern riders to me.]
[Understood.]
Not long after the whisper with Ignis ended, one of the wyverns flying in the sky slowly descended to the ground.
"Master Ignis sent me. Please climb aboard."
A wyvern rider wearing a breastplate clearly emblazoned with the JDG emblem!
He descended from the wyvern's back and spoke politely, and Drakan nodded and climbed onto the wyvern.
It was now time to end this war that didn't feel like a war.
* * *
Zak.
The lord of Lawless Harbor and the captain of the Butcher Pirate Crew!
He was also a current ranker who had inherited the legacy of the 'Outsider Butcher' from the previous game, and he was currently fleeing the burning city quickly.
'The war is already lost! If I stay here, I'll die like a dog!'
The reason he abandoned the fight and fled was simple.
Because there was absolutely no chance of winning this war.
Zak!
The only path to victory he had designed was one!
For the enemy to accept urban warfare and crawl into the trap called Lawless Harbor on their own feet.
But that method had failed, and the enemy had responded with an absurd yet effective strategy of burning the city.
It was obvious that if the war continued like this, they would be defeated!
Now that defeat was certain, the only path Zak could choose was one: fleeing.
If he could revive after dying like in the previous game, it might be different, but in Ard Saga Second, a hardcore game where dying meant character deletion, fighting until death was nothing short of foolish.
Especially considering the penalty that legacy characters could only be created once, running away was even more the right choice.
Of course, Zak wasn't fleeing alone.
"How much further until we reach the port?"
Riark the Death Sawblade!
And his White Shark Assault Squad, along with the Butcher Pirate Crew executives, were grouped together, pushing their way toward the port.
Kwagwang!
Even amidst this, magic fell from the sky with a roar!
Riark's Death Sawblade was swung, wrapped in blue aura.
A spell falling from the sky collided with Riark's aura-imbued sawblade and exploded.
Zak gulped as he watched that scene and replied.
"We'll be out soon."
"If we just escape this city, I will definitely repay today's humiliation."
Riark flashed his teeth and growled.
These men's nature had been pirates from the start!
They weren't well-trained soldiers, they weren't knights who valued chivalry and honor as if their lives depended on it, and there was no loyalty between them.
To these men, only their own lives and profit mattered.
Because they were such pirates, they immediately made the decision to abandon and retreat without hesitation the moment the city caught fire.
Even if they lost, Pirate King Drake would reprimand them somewhat, but rather than dying like dogs fighting in a burning city, getting reprimanded was much better!
Besides, if the Pirate King learned of this, he wouldn't remain idle.
Lawless Harbor wasn't just a port.
It was the destination of smuggling routes and a cash cow that provided immense wealth to the Pirate Alliance through the Black Market where all sorts of stolen goods and smuggled items were traded.
If that Lawless Harbor had been reduced to ashes, Pirate King Drake would be furious to the top of his head and would definitely rampage about vowing revenge, so retreating now to preserve their lives and vent their unfulfilled revenge later was a far wiser choice.
'No matter how high and mighty they are, they can't beat the Pirate King!'
Pirate King Drake. The Ruler of the Eastern Sea!
A faction possessing such tremendous power that not even Eugene and his allied guilds could guarantee victory if they waged war at sea with the Pirate King and the Pirate Alliance!
Zak and the Butcher Pirate Crew users believed that if the Pirate Alliance deployed its full strength, there was no way Drakan and JDG could win no matter how much they flew or crawled.
A two-step retreat for the sake of one step forward!
Rationalizing it to themselves as such, the moment the White Shark Assault Squad and the Butcher Pirate Crew finally reached the port!
"It's been a while."
What greeted them were Ignis and Drakan, along with the elite troops they led.
* * *
"Zak."
I looked at Zak and smiled.
Zak!
The inherited legacy was known as the Outsider Butcher!
The pitiful wretch who used to run around PKing in the previous game!
The face of the bastard I was seeing after a really long time still hadn't changed much from the previous game.
"Drakan!"
Zak, wearing leather armor and wielding a cutlass, looked at me as his face trembled with rage.
I looked at Zak and the other pirates beside him and continued speaking.
"Pirates or bandits, anyway, the thoughts of small-time villain bastards are obvious."
[He called them small-time villains lolll]
[Lollllll]
[Great villain >>> insurmountable wall >>> small-time villain lolll]
[Who's calling who a villain]
[Cognitive dissonance ddd]
[Look at Drakan's way with words. So refreshing! lol]
[Fact violence lol]
I ignored the chat window updating every second in one corner of my vision as I looked at Zak and smiled.
"When you think you're going to lose, you throw away loyalty and everything else and flee first. Isn't that the nature of you thieving bastards?"
I had predicted it from the start.
That if I burned the city, key executives including Zak would definitely flee!
It was natural, in a way.
Their class wasn't that of knights for whom fame and reputation were important, but merely pirates, and such bastards wouldn't hesitate at the choice to flee.
Besides, in Ard Saga Second, you only have one life!
There wasn't a single person in this world who wanted to fight a battle they were obviously going to lose with their one and only life.
That was why I had transported Ignis, the JDG executives, Kalid the leader of the Black Ring Society and the dark mages, along with elite troops composed of Eastern rankers and named players, swiftly and precisely to the port on wyvern riders.
"You bastard! How dare you spew such madness in front of me, Riark the Death Sawblade!"
The one who flared up before I finished speaking wasn't Zak, but the hulking lizardman standing beside him.
And I knew very well who this lizardman was.
Riark the Death Sawblade.
The third-in-command of the Pirate Alliance, captain of the White Shark Assault Squad, and a bigshot known as an Over Ranker-grade powerhouse and NPC!
This was all the information I had learned from the dedicated support team when they briefed me on the Pirate Alliance I would face as enemies.
But unfortunately, there were two Over Ranker-grade powerhouses on this side.
"Contractor, allow this old man to handle that pirate trash."
The moment Riark stepped forward, an old man in black robes holding a skull-topped staff stepped forward!
Kalid, the current leader of the Black Ring Society, an NPC dark mage, and an Over Ranker-grade powerhouse, had stepped up on his own to handle the bastard in my stead.
The atmosphere instantly turned ominous with Kalid's appearance.
It was truly a hair-trigger situation.
I watched that spectacle and leisurely opened the point shop.
[Double EXP Coupon]
[Price: 1000 points]
[For 2 hours, acquired EXP is doubled.]
[Usage Restriction: Level 200 or below]
[The item's effect does not apply to characters exceeding level 200.]
[Applied immediately upon purchase.]
[Super Stat Doping Potion]
[Price: 10000 points]
[For 2 hours, all stats temporarily increase by 4 times.]
[Usage Restriction: Level 200 or below]
[The item's effect does not apply to characters exceeding level 200.]
[Added to inventory immediately upon purchase.]
Outrageously overpriced point shop items plastered with all sorts of restrictions! Items that cost half of one's possessed points just to purchase, and which ordinary users around my level wouldn't even dare consider—I bought them without hesitation in an instant.
[Double EXP Coupon has been applied.]
[For 2 hours, acquired EXP is doubled.]
I watched the constantly flashing notification window and took out the Super Stat Doping Potion from my inventory and drank it.
Gulp, gulp.
The refreshing taste of the potion filled my mouth.
[You have consumed the Super Stat Doping Potion.]
[For 2 hours, all stats temporarily increase by 4 times.]
The pleasant notification that my stats had increased!
Savoring that sweet notification, I pointed at Zak and his gang and commanded.
"Attack."