I Became The Tyrant Of A Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 482

It was at that very moment.

《Kiyaaaaaaaaak-!》

A wretched scream echoed through the Crossroads.

It was the death cry of Euryale, one of the Gorgon sisters.

The gruesome roar reverberated through the city’s sky, and all living beings recoiled from the overwhelming evil energy.

《……?!》

And then.

Upon hearing that scream, Stheno, who was charging towards the Blacklist survivors, stopped her advance as if it were a lie.

Having abruptly halted right in front of the humans, Stheno turned around hastily.

Intense emotion, never seen before, was boiling on the monster’s face.

Grief.

It was the face of someone feeling sorrow.

《Kiyaaaaak-!》

Letting out a monstrous cry as if responding to the scream, Stheno began to dash towards the direction where Euryale’s scream had come from.

Thump…! Thump…! Thump…!

The monster’s back receded into the distance, shaking the ground.

Torkel and the three Blacklist members, who had survived right at the brink of death, were dumbfounded and sweating profusely.

“W-what the hell…”

“It’s good that we’re alive, but…”

“Where is she going?”

“…….”

Torkel quietly let out a sigh of relief inwardly.

He had realized that the ‘final trait’ of the three Gorgon sisters, which Lucas had told him about beforehand, had been activated.

***

“Hah… Hah…”

Lucas gasped for breath.

Medusa stood like a fortress before the knight. Unlike Lucas, whose armor was dented and torn in places, Medusa was unscathed.

‘Not being able to make eye contact is such a pain in the ass…’

Lucas gritted his teeth.

It goes without saying that in a battle between masters, eyesight is very important.

You have to observe the opponent’s entire movement, find their openings, and react to their surprise attacks.

The opponent’s muscle movements, subtle changes in complexion, a single blink of an eye-

The role of the eyes is to comprehensively acquire all this information, and based on that information, Lucas has moved his body to fight.

However, Medusa possessed the petrifying Mystic Eyes [eyes that can turn living beings to stone].

Because he couldn’t make eye contact, Lucas had to fight while looking at the opponent reflected in a mirror.

And this was a considerable handicap.

Because Lucas’s natural eyesight was exceptional, Medusa, who had to fight while sealing her own eyesight, was a difficult opponent to defeat.

And this was the result.

In a head-on confrontation, Lucas could not defeat Medusa.

He was just being endlessly worn down, barely managing to keep Medusa in this place.

Shick- Medusa licked her lips with her long, forked tongue and smiled.

《You’re really something, human. To fight me this well, relying on a mere mirror.》

“…….”

《If you had been born in the age of myths, you might have become a legend. But now the world is setting, and the seemingly endless time is also coming to an end… Who will remember your futile resistance?》

Lucas clicked his tongue, gripped his sword tightly, and thrust it forward.

“You have a long tongue, monster.”

《Oh my, this long tongue is my pride. Thanks for the compliment.》

“I’m starting to get used to your movements. Enough with the chatter, come at me again. This time, I’ll cut your throat with this sword.”

《Huhu, throughout history, knights have always been so full of bluster.》

“That’s a discriminatory remark against my profession.”

《Does it matter? I’m a monster.》

The brief banter ended.

The knight and the monster simultaneously closed their mouths as if they had made a promise and took a fighting stance.

Both Lucas and Medusa were preparing a final move to finish off their opponent this time.

And, at the moment just before the collision-

《Kiyaaaaaaaaak-!》

A wretched scream echoed from the other side of the city, loud enough to tear the eardrums.

Medusa’s eyes widened in shock, and she turned her head sharply towards the direction of the scream.

Medusa spoke in a trembling voice.

《…Sister Euryale?》

Taat!

Medusa kicked off the ground and shot towards that direction. It was as if Lucas was no longer in her mind.

《Sister, no! Sisterrrrr!》

Lucas tried to stop Medusa, but it was no use. Watching Medusa’s back rapidly receding into the distance, Lucas let out a faint sigh.

“…She succeeded, Evangeline.”

The scream that had just been heard. It was… undoubtedly the sound Euryale made as she died.

***

In an alley in a corner of the Crossroads.

Euryale was dead, shattered into pieces.

The monster, with its wings torn off, turned its entire body into a stone statue just before its last breath.

And Evangeline had smashed even this statue to pieces.

“Hoo… That was quite dangerous.”

Evangeline, having taken off her helmet, wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead.

Thanks to the success of the first surprise attack, she had managed to bring this monster to the brink of death and start the battle, but Euryale had resisted with tenacious vitality until the very end.

Still, when it came to tenacity, Evangeline was no slouch either. She had finally succeeded in defeating her.

Evangeline had also used up almost all of her strength, more than she had expected….

Thump! Thump! Thump!

At that moment, heavy footsteps were heard coming from the opposite side of the city.

Evangeline, terrified, quickly left the scene.

Soon, the remaining two sister monsters arrived in front of Euryale’s corpse.

Stheno opened her mouth and stared blankly at the corpse, while Medusa wailed and collapsed in front of Euryale.

《Aaaaaaaaah! Sister! Sister Euryale! Aaaaaah, nooooooo!》

Unable to contain her grief, yellow magical energy exploded wildly from Medusa’s eyes.

Stheno also let out an unintelligible cry and fired her Mystic Eyes.

Kugung! Kugugugung…!

Buildings collapsed, raising thick dust, and were turned to stone again by the Gorgon sisters’ Mystic Eyes.

The entire area was petrified, shattered, and then petrified again, solidifying.

After the terrible screams and the storm of petrification swept through the area several times… the alley had changed shape, like a bird’s nest.

In the center of that nest, Medusa stroked Euryale’s corpse and muttered in a gloomy voice.

《It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ll never lose my sister. Never…》

Medusa picked up a broken piece of Euryale, then,

Crunch!

She put it in her mouth.

Crunch! Crunch! Crrrunch!

The sound of Medusa chewing on the stone statue that was once her sister echoed eerily in all directions.

Stheno glared fiercely around, her gray eyes wide open, as if protecting Medusa.

Crack! Snap! Crunch…!

And then, both of Medusa’s shoulders, which had been frantically devouring her sister’s remains,

Crack, crack-!

Began to crack and split like an old stone statue,

Fwoooosh…!

From the cracks, wings emerged.

They were Euryale’s tattered and cracked membranous wings.

***

“The final trait of the three Gorgon sisters. It is… ‘Sister Devouring’.”

Crossroads Barracks. Rooftop.

As Evangeline returned, Lucas, standing at the edge of the rooftop, slowly opened his mouth.

“If one of the three dies, the surviving one ‘eats’ the corpse of the deceased.”

“…….”

“In this process, the surviving individual inherits some of the abilities of the deceased.”

The day of fierce battles was coming to an end.

The twilight was seeping into the sky, transitioning from late afternoon to evening.

Looking at the setting sun, Lucas continued.

“If it is possible to interfere with the devouring, that would be the best… but during the Sister Devouring, the Gorgon sisters build a ‘nest’ for their own safety.”

“…….”

“They build a stone nest in a place with enough rocks, where they can perform the Sister Devouring, and enter a stronghold defense state.”

Evangeline listened silently, staring at the nest built in one corner of the city.

“And that nest is currently impossible for us to attack with our current forces. The Gorgon sisters’ combat power increases explosively when they enter the stronghold defense state. We have no choice but to wait for them to come out on their own after finishing the Sister Devouring.”

“…….”

“In other words… every time we kill one of the three Gorgon sisters, the surviving individual is strengthened, and the battle will only end when we defeat the final individual who has absorbed all the other sisters.”

They were already powerful monsters, and now they had this terrible gimmick.

“Hoo.”

Evangeline, stretching her stiff shoulders, opened her mouth.

“The only good thing is that the Sister Devouring takes a very long time. Was it 12 to 24 hours? So, we have at least 12 hours of leeway.”

“…….”

“So, what is tomorrow’s plan, Acting Commander?”

“Same as today.”

Lucas answered mechanically.

“We will separate the remaining two with the tag operation, and then defeat one of them.”

“And then wait again while they do the Sister Devouring? And then defeat the last third individual?”

“…….”

“Think about it calmly, Uncle Lucas. Do we even have that much power left?”

Lucas slowly turned to look at Evangeline. Evangeline gestured with her chin.

“We suffered enormous damage just today while dealing with the three individuals separately. The hero party that was mobilized for the decoy operation was either killed or petrified, and we who faced them individually… are not unscathed.”

Lucas’s armor was mostly destroyed, and although he didn’t show it, he was full of minor injuries.

Evangeline was also severely exhausted.

The hero party mobilized for the tag operation suffered far more damage than expected.

They had accepted a certain amount of damage and lured the three to separate them, but in the process, there were several times more casualties than expected.

Evangeline continued to speak to the silent Lucas.

“You have to understand the true intention behind Senior Ash’s plan.”

“…….”

“Senior Ash didn’t leave this ‘tag’ operation to kill those three Gorgon sisters.”

Evangeline, who had stepped closer to Lucas, made clear eye contact with him.

“It was left as a ‘way to buy time until Senior Ash returns’ in case the three Gorgon sisters appear.”

Why did he abandon the fortress, open the gates, and leave a plan to let the monsters inside?

Ash left this plan to switch to a delaying tactic and wait for his return, rather than accepting damage against an opponent that was difficult to defeat anyway.

He would remove the citizens and ordinary soldiers from the entire area, and the elite heroes would constantly run away inside the city to buy time.

If they were lucky enough to defeat a Gorgon sister in the process, they could also buy time while waiting for the nest to form and the Sister Devouring to take place.

‘The reason he deliberately opened the gates was to give up the battle from the start and just buy time.’

If one of the three Gorgon sisters were killed while fighting along the fortress walls, the remaining Gorgon sisters would most likely destroy the fortress walls and build a nest there.

Because that was the place with the most rocks.

If Ash was going to give up this battle anyway, he left the desperate measure of opening the gates to maintain the fortress walls for the next defense battle.

The tag operation was not a plan to fight and win from the beginning. It was just a means of buying time until Ash’s return.

Lucas was trying to forcibly twist this plan and continue the battle with the three Gorgon sisters.

“…We can’t send a request for support to the Imperial Capital.”

Even as Evangeline said this, Lucas shook his head.

“I can’t burden the Lord…!”

“Why not?”

“What?”

“Why can’t you burden him?”

Evangeline raised her finger and poked Lucas’s chest.

“You need to think straight, Uncle. Senior Ash will be even sadder later if we don’t trust him and recklessly carry out the operation ourselves, causing more damage.”

“…….”

“Senior Ash is the commander of this front line. He is the one who willingly took on the position of bearing that ‘burden’.”

Lucas pursed his lips. Evangeline continued.

“The person who will hurt the most from your injuries is Senior Ash.”

“…….”

“If Lily’s child is in danger, the person who will blame himself the most later is Senior Ash.”

“…….”

“The person who will suffer the most in front of the graves of those who died today is Senior Ash! Why don’t you understand that?”

A brief silence fell.

Lucas stammered and opened his mouth.

“I, in order not to hinder the Lord’s path…”

“This is it!”

Evangeline whispered with conviction.

“This is His Highness Prince Ash’s path.”

“…….”

“You should trust Senior Ash more. He has already won in the Imperial Capital. And, he will come to save us.”

Evangeline gave a mischievous smile.

“Like a prince on a white horse, right?”

“…….”

“To Acting Commander Lucas McGregor. I, Evangeline Cross, as the successor to the Margrave title, formally request.”

Evangeline, who had grown up as tall as him, confidently demanded of Lucas.

“Please allow me to send a request for rescue to the Imperial Capital.”

Lucas opened his mouth several times to object, but then,

“…Haha. I was foolish.”

He let out a bitter sigh and bowed his head.

And then, he raised both hands.

“…I grant it, Evangeline. You are right. Let’s send a request for rescue.”

As the Acting Commander’s permission was given, Evangeline grinned, revealing her fangs.

“Actually, I already sent it.”

“…What?”

“On the day the three Gorgon sisters started their advance, I secretly sent a messenger bird to the Imperial Capital, without you knowing.”

Evangeline shrugged her shoulders.

“I exaggerated a little, saying that the city had already been captured. Well, it was actually captured, wasn’t it? Just look at that nest built inside the fortress walls.”

Lucas was speechless and gaping.

“You, you…! Ignoring me, the Acting Commander…!”

“I just helped you a little, Uncle, who is so stubborn that you’re about to break. You don’t have to be so grateful.”

Lucas, who had been gaping and trying to say something, eventually gave up and covered his face with his hands.

In the end, it had turned out as Evangeline had said, and in fact, that judgment was correct.

Evangeline glanced at the distant north.

“Senior Ash will come to save us. For sure. So, let’s just hold on until then.”

Although she had sent the request for rescue without Lucas knowing, it was actually already late.

It would take several days for the messenger bird to reach the Imperial Capital.

And it would also take several days for Ash to lead his troops south from the Imperial Capital.

It was not certain when Ash would return, or whether they would be able to survive the monsters in that nest during that time… Nothing was certain.

‘Please come quickly, Senior.’