The witch had unveiled her true might, and its effects were felt even on the surface, in the streets of the Labyrinth City itself.
“This quake… It isn’t like anything else we’ve felt so far!” exclaimed Asfi, pausing in the Casino and looking at the floor.
“Was it the adventurers, or the monster?” muttered Falgar. “Or something else entirely…?”
Shakti felt it, too, over at the home of Ganesha Familia. “Did the enemy manage to break through?” she pondered. “Alize, Leon…!”
The quake was much shorter than the rumblings of the Dungeon monster that had rattled the city before, but this one came at a troubling frequency that alarmed any trained and experienced adventurer, even if they didn’t fully understand why.
While adventurers and Evils alike looked to the ash-laden sky for answers, the roar of monsters continued to echo in the streets.
“Sounds like things are gettin’ pretty lively down there,” sneered Valletta, the only one in the city with a smile on her lips. “Guess it’s all going accordin’ to plan, right, Lord Erebus?”
She looked out across Babel. Just then, a frightened subordinate raised their voice.
“L-Lady Valletta, what was that?!”
“Don’t get cold feet now. That’s the countdown to victory. The more the city shakes, the closer we are to winnin’.”
Valletta took little pains to ease the soldier’s fears. Instead, a ferocious glint twinkled in her eye.
“Still, if you guys are scared, then the adventurers must be shittin’ their pants. Their morale should be droppin’ like a stone right now.”
The tide of war was constantly in flux. Every tactic, every bead of sweat on a soldier’s brow, every external factor—all of these tipped the scales of battle one way or the other. Valletta was not too ignorant to realize that these quakes shook the hard-earned faith that Finn’s plan had won.
“Now’s the time!” she howled. “Finn’s made his move—now let’s make ours! Hey, you! Get in contact with Jura’s people!”
“Th-the tamers…? Y-you mean…?!”
All the blood drained from the cultist’s face. Valletta’s cruel smile confirmed his darkest fears.
“Yeah. We’re gonna play our card. Let the rest of the monsters loose!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Clang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang!
The harsh sound of an alarm bell rang throughout the city.
“The watchtowers!” cried Asfi. She and Falgar dispatched their opponents at the same time and turned in the direction of the sound.
“Enemy reinforcements?” the war tiger bellowed. “It can’t be! There’s still more of them?!”
At that moment, a scout ran over. “A large horde of monsters is approaching from the southeast, sir! Including several large species that we haven’t seen in the battle so far!”
“Tch! Nothing that should pose a threat. Let’s move to intercept before their numbers grow too great!”
Returning his greatsword to his back, Falgar set off at once.
Until now, hordes of monsters in the streets below had forced the adventurers to conduct their battles on the rooftops. However, Mind and arrows could only last so long, and so at Finn’s urging, the adventurers focused on culling these creatures. Now, at last, they could take to the streets again, eager to take back their city and force the monsters out.
However, in the midst of all this, Asfi paused.
“That’s strange,” she muttered. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
The Evils were acting odd. They were strangely cooperative, opening a path for the adventurers. Instead of fighting, they focused all their efforts on shoring up their own defenses.
The reason soon became clear.
“Take this, you fiend!”
“Roaaaaaaaahhh!!”
A cleanly severed arm flew past Asfi’s eyes—the arm of the upper-class adventurer who’d shot past the front lines to engage the enemy by himself.
“Huh…? Aaaaaaaghhh!!”
The next moment, he was crushed between a monster’s jaw. His dying screams were only the first as adventurers all around them started crying out.
“What?!” exclaimed Falgar as he deftly blocked the attack of a lizardman. The force of the blow was unbelievable, as was the number of wounded allies littering the battleground. The newly arrived monsters were already dominating the area around the Casino.
“They’re overwhelming us!” cried Asfi, looking down from the rooftops alongside a contingent of terrified mages.
They’re nothing like the monsters we’ve dealt with so far… What’s happening?!
All across the city, the adventurers were in a panic. Screams issued from each of the five strongholds, including the home of Loki Familia to the north. It was there that the dwarf Dyne came to his ally with news.
“Noir! The monsters have stepped up their assault! We can’t hold them off!”
“What?!” Noir wheeled around in surprise. Just then, the Amazon Bahra spoke up as well.
“They’re tearing through our defensive garrison!” she said. “At this rate, the stronghold will fall!”
“Grh…!”
Noir trembled in impotent rage, but the monsters marched on unimpeded. It was over at the home of Ganesha Familia where one scout first realized the true nature of the assault.
“W-we’ve spotted tamers at the rear of the charge! They seem to be controlling the monsters!”
Ganesha himself stood at the battlements, surveying the carnage below.
“From the monster’s behavior, these tamers clearly aren’t as skilled as Shakti and her crew,” the god reasoned. “So why are the monsters so powerful?!”
He gazed off in the distance, where he could clearly see the Evils tamers cracking their whips. One didn’t have to be a god to see that their skill was somewhat lacking.
Monster taming was one of the most dangerous professions, and unskilled practitioners usually met a grisly end in the jaws of their targets. Strangely, however, these powerful monsters were not rebelling against their amateur masters, and instead appeared oddly docile, as if they had been entranced.
Shakti was doing her best to respond effectively.
“Grr…! Send out our troops! Do not let those beasts come near the fortifications!”
Then, after hearing the screams of her allies, she shot off toward the monster horde.
Meanwhile, among the Evils, and especially the tamers, tensions were high.
“Damn you, Valletta, makin’ me do this shit…”
Despite the heat emanating from the red dragon he rode, a cold, anxious sweat had broken out on the brow of the Rudra Familia tamer, Jura Harma. His animal ears twitched each time the dragon looked up at him with cold, lifeless eyes.
He felt like he was another beast in a cage, just like the rest of them.
“Argh! Let’s just get this over with!”
The animal person tamer cast aside his misgivings and cracked his magical crimson whip. The red dragon wearing a collar around its neck roared and began its charge, while dozens of winged lizards took to the skies.
“They’ve got wyverns, too?!” exclaimed Falgar in surprise, seeing the flock approach the Casino. “Did they bring them all the way from the Valley of Dragons?!”
The mages on the rooftop began launching their spells at the airborne attackers. Asfi had been watching the battle unfold alongside Falgar and had initially come to the same conclusion, but…
If so, they’re too strong! They shouldn’t be able to break through a defensive line held by upper-class adventurers!
She defended the mages with explosives and her blade, but she still couldn’t figure out how this was happening.
That was when a fireball from one of the beasts exploded on the main street.
“Gaaaaagh!”
“Somebody heeelp!!”
The monsters were slaughtering her allies. The color drained from Asfi’s face as the tide of war steadily shifted against them.
“Could it be…? Are all these monsters…irregulars?!”
“Nope, wrong!” Valletta said to no one in particular, gleefully addressing the terror and confusion she knew the adventurers all felt. “They’re just plain old Dungeon monsters! I mean, I guess we’ve been trainin’ ’em in Knossos, but what difference does that make to you guys?!”
Now that her hidden card had been revealed, Valletta flashed a sinister grin. Everywhere she looked she could see monsters preying on adventurers, bathing the streets in blood. She was loving it.
“Good thing I told Ikelos’s goons to get all these monsters together. Some of them came all the way from the deep levels!”
Valletta had tasked Hazer and other hunters of Ikelos Familia with capturing monsters from the Dungeon, while Jura and the rest of Rudra Familia were asked to tame and control the more powerful specimens. To facilitate this, Valletta had also strong-armed a hexer possessing the advanced ability Enigma into creating a prototype magic item—a crimson whip that allowed any monster to be tamed, regardless of the tamer’s skill.
It was a triumph of teamwork, coming from the diverse familias that made up the Evils conglomerate.
“Kill, my monsters, kill!” Valletta howled, “Make that Finn cry!”
“C-Captain! The monsters keep coming! They won’t stop!” came Raul’s report, half screamed across the rooftop of Guild HQ.
Finn stood at the building’s edge, grimly surveying the city. He could see the truth of Raul’s words, but he couldn’t show despair lest it spread among his allies.
“Situation report!” he barked.
“Our scouts all across the city have been wiped out! The stronghold garrisons are down to their last defenders! We had the Evils surrounded, but now we’re struggling to hold the line!”
“Grh…! Fall back and defend the strongholds! Use magical bombardment, even if it causes damage to the city!”
A Loki Familia member hurried to transmit Finn’s orders, but his fingers were shaking. He didn’t need to be a general to see that things were very quickly going from bad to worse.
“These monsters have the power to turn the tide of war in an instant,” grumbled Finn. “Did they really gather this many enhanced species? No, that’s impossible! There’s still something you’re hiding from us, isn’t there, Valletta?!”
Finn Deimne was far from omniscient. He couldn’t read minds or pull facts from thin air. All he could do was rely on the reports of his subordinates, his own observations, and his uncanny instinct for detecting danger. Although he was vaguely aware of other entrances into the Dungeon, he could not have fathomed the Evils had a way to safely extract a large horde of dangerous monsters, especially at a time when the existence of Knossos was not publicly known.
Whatever secret made this feat possible, Valletta had managed to keep it hidden all this time. Finn grimaced…and just then, the impossibly loud sound of clashing blades shook the skies above Orario.
“Oh no… It can’t be!”
Everyone heard it, adventurers and cultists alike. And so did Valletta.
“Hee-hee-hee!” She chuckled. “Sounds like the other fight is already over!”
She looked toward the city’s center—toward Babel and the thick wall of ice surrounding it.
There, in Central Park, a duel had just reached its conclusion. The boaz man fell to one knee, his armor and flesh both ruined.
“Grh…!”
“You lasted longer than I expected,” said his opponent, the conqueror. In contrast to Ottar, his plate armor was unscathed. Zald shouldered his greatsword and peered down at the broken man.