I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 798

Amidst the roars and howls, the stomping feet and outstretched wings, the earth-shattering leaps and sky-splitting ascents of the monsters surging north, a figure moved with unnerving calm.

Silent and still, the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ advanced with light, measured steps.

Amidst the pitch-black waves of monsters, she stood out, clad in a dress that seemed to burn white.

“It’s time for our strike team to move out in earnest,” Lukas said, looking back at the heroes who were checking their gear and preparing to deploy.

“We will buy time, by any means possible… to prevent the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ from advancing into the city.”

Their task was twofold: containing the endless horde of monsters and grappling with an enemy commander who seemed invincible, unkillable, and unstoppable.

The ones to execute this impossible mission were the strike team, the ‘Final Thunderbolts.’

‘The main force will handle the monsters. We’ll do our part,’ Lukas thought, taking a deep breath and looking at the team that would deploy first.

“Sword Demon. Spear Demon.”

Led by the disheveled couple, the Sword Demon and Spear Demon, along with the immortals who had joined from the lower villages, and the immortal adventurers who had joined from the base camp… all the immortals who had joined from the dungeon beneath the lake had completed their preparations and were looking at Lukas.

Lukas asked cautiously, one last time, “Are you really sure about this?”

It was the Sword Demon and Spear Demon who had first proposed this plan, and it was Lukas who had acknowledged its effectiveness and devised the plan. But at the very end, he couldn’t help but ask one more time: Are you really sure?

Then, the Sword Demon and Spear Demon grinned simultaneously.

“What’s the good of being an immortal?” the Sword Demon chuckled.

“We have nothing to boast about except that we can be revived in that lake, even if we die,” the Spear Demon added.

“But, please put in a good word for us with the Prince later, okay?” the Sword Demon said, nudging his companion.

“Hehe. Tell him we did something great. Please,” the Spear Demon finished, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

The mission these immortals were to carry out was to lure the enemy. To provoke the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ and make her retreat in the opposite direction of Crossroad—southward.

Monsters attack the closest living being. This principle applied to the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ as well. Ash had confirmed it from past experience, and it had been verified during the northward advance.

So, the immortals had volunteered. They would act as bait, since they wouldn’t die and would be revived, to stop the enemy commander’s advance, even once.

“Hoo!”

The immortals stood in a line at the edge of the airship’s deck. The Sword Demon and Spear Demon slapped their cheeks.

“Even though I know I won’t die, and even though I’ve trained so many times, my legs are still shaking when I look at the ground below…!” the Sword Demon exclaimed, his voice a mix of bravado and nerves.

“After living so long, I’m even falling from the sky. Isn’t it amazing, old man?” the Spear Demon replied, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“You’re right. Guess you can try anything when you’re alive!” the Sword Demon laughed, trying to shake off his fear.

All the immortals were equipped with emergency landing parachutes. They were improved versions of the equipment Lukas and Evangeline had used when they had encountered the beetle army.

Everyone was ready, and Lukas gave the order. “Airborne unit!”

Lukas made eye contact with the immortals and nodded heavily. “Good luck.”

The Sword Demon and Spear Demon smiled, and Lukas extended his arm to the side. “Descend!”

“Hee-ha!”

“Let’s fall into hell-!”

The immortals ran off the deck and fell one after another. Each of them screamed and shouted as if they were being torn apart.

There were 20 in total. Four parties.

Lukas clenched his teeth as he watched them embark on a literal suicide mission.

Screeeee!

The 20-person airborne unit fell from the airship to the ground, and at the precise moment, they deployed their parachutes.

This equipment, devised by Ash, was crude compared to Earth’s parachutes, but it had one outstanding feature: the ability to set the landing point.

By combining wind magic, earth magic, and flight magic, they could be guided smoothly to their desired landing point.

Despite this feature, one of the four parties landed in the wrong place. But the other three parties were able to land at their designated points.

In the middle of the northward-moving monster horde, and south of the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess,’ at a precarious distance.

“Urah-!”

“Get out of the way, you monster bastards!”

Led by the Sword Demon and Spear Demon, the airborne unit rampaged, instantly slaughtering the surrounding monsters.

All of them were those who had lived in the darkness of the lake kingdom, unable to die. Their close-quarters combat skills in dealing with monsters were all top-notch.

‘But, our goal isn’t the monsters in the first place!’ the Sword Demon thought, rolling his eyes and looking back. They had to draw the princess’s attention!

“Let’s go wild!” the Spear Demon roared, his voice filled with manic energy.

“To catch the princess’s eye, we have to go completely berserk!” the Sword Demon added, his grin wide and unsettling.

And fortunately or unfortunately, there was no need to try to attract attention.

Crack-!

One party, which had fallen behind and landed much closer to the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ than planned, was crushed to death. The Lake Princess had clenched her fist once, taking the lives of five immortals.

《……》

Then, the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ slowly turned her head south and stared at the remaining 15 members of the airborne unit.

The Sword Demon and Spear Demon felt chills all over their bodies. They thought they had become numb to death, and had long forgotten pain or fear. But just by meeting the empty eyes beneath the veil of the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’—

“……I think I’m gonna shit myself,” the Sword Demon muttered honestly, his bravado completely gone.

“To the south!” the Spear Demon shouted urgently, having regained his senses first, leading the airborne unit. “To the south, run-!”

“Lure the enemy commander! We have to buy time!”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the airborne unit members ran south, cutting down all the monsters blocking their path. Their goal was to lure the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess.’ However, right now, they were genuinely running away. To avoid being caught by the incarnation of a nightmare, sweating profusely from fear….

“…….”

Above, on the Blue Pearl, Lukas surveyed the battle situation with the scouts. It was going according to plan. The ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ had turned around to slaughter the airborne unit members, and had changed her course from north to south again.

However, ‘It doesn’t look like we can hold her for long,’ Lukas groaned as he surveyed the situation. The airborne unit members, all immortals, were powerful heroes with above-average combat abilities, but the mission itself was too difficult. To break through the endless monsters and flee south while luring the enemy commander.

For now, it was successful, and the escape route was secured because the Blue Pearl had cleared out the southern monsters with aerial missile support, but… the monsters were closing in endlessly, and if they entered the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’s’ range, they would die in one blow.

‘Still, we’ve already succeeded in delaying her as much as we aimed for,’ Lukas thought, acknowledging the airborne unit’s valiant efforts. They couldn’t waste the time they had bought.

‘We’ll use every delay tactic we can,’ he resolved. To delay the world’s destruction by even a second, dozens of plans had been devised. Lukas turned his head to the side, counting the remaining plans in his mind. “Prepare the next operation-!”

***

While the Blue Pearl and the strike team were holding back the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ with various delay tactics, the Crossroad main base was struggling to push back the increasingly fierce main monster force.

In the center of the battlefield where the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ had appeared, all artillery fire was nullified, and monsters that had infiltrated through this gap were swarming right up to the walls. The endlessly laid mines and traps, and the mid-range defense ballistae were doing their job, but it was undeniable that the front line had been significantly pushed back.

To drive back these monsters, the artifact team and the dwarven engineers were working together to prepare a defensive barrier artifact.

“Okay! Just a little more angle up! That’s it!” Evangeline, who was directing them, suddenly sensed something unusual and widened her green eyes. “Huh?”

Evangeline looked down at her hands. She clenched her fist, then opened it. An unprecedented emptiness, a sensation as if the whole world was emptying out, ran down her spine. “The flow of magic… is weakening.”

The guardian spirit’s blessing was disappearing. The connection to the source of magic, mana, was being severed.

Evangeline, realizing what this situation meant, exclaimed happily, “It seems Senior’s first phase of the plan was successful!”

“Hmph….” Kellybay, who was adjusting the angle of the barrier artifact, sniffed and grumbled. “It’s already hard enough dealing with the monsters, and now they’re taking away our magic. That Ash guy, he’s recklessly reckless….”

“But we prepared for it, didn’t we?” Evangeline grinned mischievously. “Those monsters won’t have prepared for anything, will they?”

Indeed, the monsters, which had been easily withstanding the artillery fire until just now, were easily torn to shreds, and their tough skin, which arrows couldn’t pierce, was pierced in one shot. The supply of magic from the Spirit Realm to the Mortal Realm was weakening. This meant that the defense measures on the mortal side were losing power, but it also meant that the monsters were losing the power that was the source of their existence.

‘On the other hand, we’ve stored up plenty…!’ Evangeline thought, a confident smile playing on her lips. Because they had devised a plan to cut off the supply of magic, they had stored up magic to the limit in advance. Of course, they couldn’t hold out forever, but the same was true for the monsters.

‘In this battlefield where we are both declining….’ Evangeline, firmly gripping her shield, flashed her emerald eyes. ‘Let’s see how far we can go, you bastards!’

Meanwhile, sensing this anomaly, an anomaly also occurred in the sky. Through the crack in the sky, the countless eyes that had been watching the ‘Sleepless Lake Princess’ and the destruction of this world began to spin. The Outer Gods urgently turned their gaze, not to the final battlefield of the Mortal Realm, but to behind the scenes, to the Spirit Realm where the rebellion was being plotted—

***

Whoosh-!

I quietly watched the four giant pillars of fire burning in various parts of the Spirit Realm. The guardian spirits of the four different races. These trees were already weakened. Most of their branches had been removed in the Mortal Realm, leaving only their roots behind in the Spirit Realm. Of course, they were still functioning properly in that state, but… as each of the different gods pulled out the roots and burned them, they quickly lost their power and perished.

The problem was the tree in front of us. The guardian spirit of humanity—Everblack. The last tree remaining in the Spirit Realm did not perish easily. Even when I issued a withdrawal order with the authority of a race god, and even when the Emperor aboard La Mancha forcibly set it on fire, the tree stood firm, as if it was trying to survive on its own.

《It is certainly weakening, but at this rate, this tree will hold out,》 the Demon King, who had been watching beside me, spoke. 《And if this tree continues to act as a wedge, the Spirit Realm cannot be closed.》

“It’s a doorstop, is it? How do we get rid of this….” As I groaned, the Demon King chuckled faintly. 《Do you have time to worry? It’s starting now.》

“……!”

《Look at the sky.》

I followed the Demon King’s gaze and looked up. Whoooooo…! The sky of the Spirit Realm, filled with auroras, pushing aside the auroras as if drawing back a curtain, the sky split open—and as if the Milky Way had appeared in the night sky, countless eyes began to open like stars.

《……The Outer Gods have noticed our rebellion,》 the Demon King stated, his voice calm despite the gravity of the situation.

As soon as the Demon King finished speaking, the gazes of the spinning Outer Gods all fixed on us at once. No—not just their gazes. Clang! Clang-! Shattering the sky of the Spirit Realm like a pane of glass, transparent and enormous hands… began to reach out endlessly towards us. The sight of giant fingers falling to the ground, filling the entire sky, was so surreal that it was absurd.

《Well,》 the Demon King asked leisurely. 《What will you do now, traitor?》 Even though he was already an accomplice, he was watching as if it were a fire on the other side of the river.

“What do you mean, what will I do?” I grinned. There was no way the situation would go exactly as planned from the start. Of course, errors would occur, loopholes would emerge, and accidents would happen. So, I would just adjust the plan accordingly and continue the attack. That’s why I’m here.

‘We’ll remove the guardian spirit and repel the Outer Gods, all at the same time,’ I thought, my resolve hardening.

I took a breath and drew out all the king’s authority and power I possessed, and the power of the two dragons at the same time. Two flames swirled in a circle within my chest, and immense magic surged through my entire body. This was the final battle. There was no reason to hold back…!

“Well then, here’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to watch the troublemaker prince’s troll show live!” As I met the gazes of countless Outer Gods, like a concentrated spotlight, with my whole body—I shouted at them. “Open those big eyes and watch carefully!”