Episode 473
“How is this possible? There wasn’t even a trace of movement!”
Anastasia frantically surveyed the fortress that Zeke had seized.
A low hum filled the air.
To her astonishment, troops were being transported directly from the citadel to the fortress through a portal device.
Her jaw dropped at the sight of the human race’s portal technology.
“Humans have something like this?”
She had always underestimated humans, never bothering to fully understand their capabilities or equipment.
While she was caught off guard, troops transported through the dozen or so portal devices set up camp right in front of Anastasia’s citadel, aligning themselves in perfect rows.
Zeke’s forces had already secured the high ground, a crucial advantage in a siege.
Anastasia was both impressed and bewildered by Zeke’s strategic prowess.
“A human, new to proxy wars, can manage a game like this? It’s unbelievable.”
But there was no time to dwell on disbelief.
If Zeke’s forces launched an assault with siege weapons, it wouldn’t be long before they breached the gates.
Anastasia hurried back to her citadel to assess her defenses.
Having lost key forces on the plains, her defensive lines were riddled with gaps.
She bit her thumbnail in frustration, knowing defeat was imminent.
Grinding her teeth, she glared at Zeke’s camp with a fierce determination.
“There’s only one way.”
With a reluctant expression, she removed a bracelet from her arm.
“To think I’d have to use this against a mere human.”
Muttering to herself, she infused the bracelet with magic, causing it to float and glow.
A flash of light from the bracelet’s gem revealed demonic script before her eyes.
[Enter Configuration Code]
Anastasia began inputting a complex code into the interface.
Immediately, changes swept through her camp.
Horses moved twice as fast, buildings sprang up in an instant, and production rates soared.
She swallowed her pride for the sake of victory.
“Hmm?”
Zeke noticed a message pop up on his system interface.
[Anomalous configuration code detected.]
[The code includes the following effects: Increased production speed, increased construction speed, increased resource reserves…]
Zeke realized Anastasia was resorting to underhanded tactics during the match.
“I didn’t expect her to play fair, but this is a bit much against a novice.”
Of course, Zeke himself was using the system to his advantage, employing strategies that bordered on cheating.
Yet, he understood that the longer the battle dragged on, the more the odds would turn against him.
He issued orders to the commanders leading his forces.
“Everyone, advance.”
A low hum resonated once more.
Zeke had summoned three heroes from the summoning circle.
Aside from Sir Saint George, the first hero he summoned, the others were a mage and an archer.
Sir Saint George and the paladin unit led the charge, followed by siege engines, infantry, and archers stationed in mobile towers.
As the mages sent familiars soaring into the sky to scout, the situation inside Anastasia’s citadel became clear.
While strategizing, something appeared in the sky.
A screech echoed as a wyvern, one of the late-game monsters, swooped down and devoured a familiar in one gulp.
Zeke realized the power of the illicit code Anastasia had used.
“The longer this goes on, the worse it gets. I need to end this quickly.”
Zeke ordered the siege engines to be positioned in front of the citadel and commanded an attack.
Immediately, soldiers loaded boulders into the siege engines and launched them.
A massive boulder crashed into Anastasia’s orc citadel.
The impact shook the structure, but it was so sturdily built that it barely budged.
Zeke assessed the citadel’s defenses through the system, pondering his next move.
“A straightforward siege will take too long.”
Under normal circumstances, he could afford to be patient, but Anastasia’s camp was making suspicious moves, leaving him no time to waste.
He instructed the mage commander he had summoned.
“Summon the golem!”
The mage nodded and conjured a massive magic circle in front of the citadel.
From the circle, a colossal golem made entirely of stone emerged.
The ground trembled with each step the golem took toward Anastasia’s citadel.
The golem reached out to topple the citadel, but at that moment, something shot up from within the fortress.
A wooden giant, as large as the golem, rose above the citadel and grabbed the golem’s arm.
Branches sprouted from the wooden giant’s arm, wrapping around the golem.
The golem struggled to break free, but it was firmly ensnared.
Instead of breaking the citadel, the golem had inadvertently created another obstacle.
Watching from above, Zeke had no choice but to pull back the siege engines.
Anastasia seized the opportunity.
The ground in front of the citadel split open, and arachnes and giant spiders began to crawl out.
The arachnes, leading the giant spiders, targeted the siege engines.
The giant spiders spewed webs, ensnaring the siege engines and rendering their wheels immobile.
The arachnes then overturned the siege engines.
Archers in the mobile towers fired arrows at the giant spiders and arachnes, but their swift movements and sheer numbers made it difficult to land effective shots.
Sensing Zeke’s forces faltering, the gates of the citadel swung open, and an orc unit mounted on dire wolves charged out.
With a thunderous battle cry, the orc unit charged at the disoriented knights.
Sir Saint George led the knights into a head-on clash with the orc warriors.
The two sides collided with a deafening crash, neither giving an inch.
Anastasia watched the battle unfold with satisfaction.
“Good, the immediate threat is neutralized. If I block the path with arachnes, I can isolate the vanguard.”
If she could eliminate the vanguard, her enhanced production speed would give her the upper hand in the next wave.
Just as she was about to send newly produced monsters toward Zeke’s fortress, she noticed something strange with the golem entangled by the wooden giant.
At first, she thought it was simply vanishing as its summoning time expired.
But the reaction was entirely different from what she expected.
The mage who had summoned the golem waved his staff, and the stone golem began to transform.
The mage, now wearing a robe of a different color, seemed to have leveled up.
Flames erupted from the golem’s body.
It had evolved from a regular golem into a fire golem.
Anastasia was taken aback.
“No, it can’t be!”
The wooden giant, engulfed in flames, let out a wail as it burned.
The fire golem, now ablaze, advanced, spewing fire in all directions.
The orc citadel, despite its sturdy construction, couldn’t withstand the onslaught and crumbled.
As the outer walls collapsed, Anastasia’s anxiety grew.
She scrambled to summon other monsters to stop the fire golem.
“Stop it! Don’t let it reach the inner citadel!”
All remaining forces in the citadel rushed toward the golem.
But then, the golem suddenly changed direction.
Instead of heading for the combat facilities, it moved toward the production area, unleashing a torrent of flames.
In an instant, the production facilities were ablaze, and the workers perished in the fire.
Realizing the golem’s summoning time was nearly up, the mage cast one final spell.
The fire golem curled into a ball.
Wyverns and other monsters swarmed it, launching spears and magical attacks.
Moments later, the golem’s body glowed white and began to vibrate violently.
Sensing something ominous, Anastasia shouted.
“Retreat! Fall back!”
But it was too late. The fire golem exploded in a massive inferno.
Flaming debris scattered in all directions, devastating the interior of Anastasia’s citadel.
The explosion left her camp in ruins, with more than half of it obliterated by a single fire golem.
No matter how much they tried to speed things up with codes, once the infrastructure was damaged, maintaining that speed was impossible.
To make matters worse, the remaining troops they had scraped together to fend off the golems were obliterated in an explosion.
Anastasia ground her teeth in frustration at Zeke’s unexpected attack.
“That damn bastard!”
She turned to call back the units attacking the knights into the fortress.
But by then, both the orc and arachne units had been completely wiped out.
‘How… how could this happen?’
While they were busy holding off the fire golem, Sir Saint George had swiftly led the paladins to eliminate all the monsters, taking advantage of the distraction.
Yet, that wasn’t the biggest problem at the moment.
Rumble, rumble—
A massive ship appeared in the sky in front of Anastasia’s fortress.
From the flying ship, knights mounted on pegasi emerged, covering the entire fortress.
Anastasia had no idea humans possessed such capabilities.
In the demon realm, no one ever chose the human race for proxy wars, and no one had ever lasted this long into the late game.
The valkyries on pegasi swept through the wyverns in the air and stormed into the inner fortress.
Sir Saint George led the paladins through the breach created by the fire giant, charging forward.
Anastasia tried desperately to stop them, but it was no use.
Soon, one of the valkyries brought a blue flag and handed it to Sir Saint George.
With the holy sword Ascalon and the blue flag in hand, Sir Saint George struck a victorious pose atop a mountain of monster corpses.
Blare!
With the sound of trumpets, the word “Defeat!” appeared in demonic script before Anastasia’s eyes.
As she stared blankly at it, the match ended, and the virtual screen disappeared, returning them to the original arena.
The demons watching the match were in shock, unable to utter a sound at Anastasia’s defeat.
Anastasia, seated on the stage, was no different.
She never imagined she would lose a game of demon chess to a human.
Before she knew it, Zeke approached her on the stage and spoke.
“I won.”
Anastasia couldn’t quite regain her composure.
“You… you dared to deceive me!”
“Deceive? What are you talking about? You were the one who suggested settling this with demon chess.”
Strictly speaking, it was Anastasia who had been deceptive.
Zeke had merely played the proxy war according to her rules.
Though her mind was filled with thoughts of betrayal, she couldn’t find any fault to latch onto, leaving her at a loss for words.
Zeke glanced at Nigel, who was asleep in a dress, and said, “Unlike humans, demons are known to keep their promises. Return my master and leave this place.”
Anastasia bit her lip hard, then stood up.
Suddenly, she began to laugh.
Not just any laugh, but a wild, almost maniacal laughter.
After a long bout of laughter, she regained her composure and looked at Zeke.
“Ah, that was fun. Zeke Draker, you must have enjoyed this new experience too, right?”
“Stop with the nonsense and hand over my master.”
Zeke’s expressionless demand was met with a smile from Anastasia.
“I will. As a princess of the demon realm, I keep my promises. If I said I’d give him back, I will. But you know…”
She grinned slyly at Zeke.
“When did I ever say I’d give him back?”