Game’s Dogma - Chapter 338: The Great Battle

The rising sun slowly dispersed the night’s darkness. As rays of sunlight showered upon the lands, sounds of preparations spread throughout the Oda army camp. Soldiers were busy cleaning or sharpening their weapons, those tiny noises converging into a low growl of a beast awaiting the chance to lunge.

The eight observed the soldiers in silence. Although Drako Yau could easily slay any Oda clan soldier, they seemed connected to form a monstrous being. He could sense the army’s atmosphere as a whole instead of individuals when he closed his eyes.

Having such a powerful army fighting alongside them bolstered their confidence a fair bit. The battle between the two armies had little influence on Drako Yau’s squad as their quest was to follow Oda Nobunaga deep into the enemy lines and kill Akechi Mitsuhide. Whichever army came out on top had nothing to do with them; they had an army to charge into regardless.

The quest appeared nearly impossible to complete. Even a brave and reckless person like Drako Yau had to give it his all for a slight chance of success.

Soon, the Oda army started mobilising. Ten thousand soldiers gathered into a square formation, forming five dark, neat squares. A person donned in a crimson cloak and mounted on a dark horse led the army. The cloak wavered behind him, carrying the cries and wails of all who had fallen to his brutal authority.

However, Oda Nobunaga was as merciful as he was brutal. He killed tens of thousands to end the cycle of slaughter—his brutality stemmed from mercy. As such, he was willing to risk his life to take on the beheading assault to cut down losses to his army as much as possible. Once Akechi Mitsuhide was dead, the Akechi army would crumble on its own.

“Today!” Oda Nobunaga shouted, his voice resounding throughout the continent under the effect of his internal force. “Let us tread through hell together!”

“Ooh-rah!”

Fifty thousand soldiers roared in synchrony. Their voices seemed to pierce the heavens.

“Sound the war drums!”

The drums’ deep thuds thundered all over, signalling the Oda army’s advance. The battle was on—the army’s morale was at its peak.

War drums sounded from afar just as the Oda army advanced. Unlike them, seven squares stood behind Akechi Mitsuhide.

As if they were born opposed to one another, the Akechi soldiers wore pearl-white armour. If Drako Yau could get a glance of the Akechi army, he’d notice that it lacked the bloody aura compared to their Oda counterparts.

Among the army hid a squad of five people who were completely unbothered by the upcoming battle. Their IDs were Hawk, Allmighty, Peterpie, Tong, and Fiddlestick. Their names were unidentified on the Eastern server, so they could only hail from the West. But that didn’t mean they were nobodies.

Hawk, palace master of the Metal Palace, was known as the strongest palace master, with Allmighty and Peterpie serving as his right-hand men. Tong and Fiddlestick were masters of the Taurus and Scorpio Chamber, respectively. The five-person squad could likely fend off one or even two of the Four Generals; they had little reason to fear this quest.

“Hawk, do you think there’ll be players in the Oda army?”

Hawk was a person of few words, so he replied with a single word. “Yes.”

“Oh?” Tong grinned.

Tong was a powerful close-range fighter with the hidden class Boxer. He could rival the five palace masters at the appropriate range, yet he never actively sought promotion out of camaraderie for his companions from the Taurus Chamber. No one could tell what would happen if he challenged the palace masters for one of the five spots.

Fiddlesticks snickered and added, “That’d be nice, or else it’d be way too boring.”

As master of the Scorpio Chamber, Fiddlesticks was an assassin who stung like a scorpion. Peterpie and Allmighty had nothing to say; influenced by their chamber master, players from the Taurus Chamber preferred action over words.

“Let’s prepare ourselves. Hawk, I’ll cover you,” said Tong. He was the best candidate to serve as Hawk’s guard.

Hawk nodded and glanced at the two behind him. Allmighty and Peterpie recognised his intentions and walked towards Akechi Mitsuhide. Fiddlesticks chuckled before lurking into the shadows, vanishing from sight.

Only Hawk and Tong remained. No one knew they had already been best partners before they rose to fame. A flash radiated from Hawk’s hands as he took out his weapon, followed by a series of clicks and clunks. He quickly assembled his weapon—a long rifle with an unwieldy length of three metres.

To be precise, the weapon was a sniper rifle. Just as Windstrider had the Dual-Wielding Rifle Mastery, Hawk also had a mastery of similar nature: Sniper Rifle Mastery.

Sniper Rifle Mastery boasted extraordinary attack range and damage by abandoning medium and close range combat capability altogether. Its basic attacks dealt twice the damage while its range was seven times that of ordinary rifles. Moreover, the longer the projectile travelled, the greater damage it dealt.

A typical rifle’s attack range in the game was around a hundred metres. Multiply that by seven, and it’d be Hawk’s attack range—a whopping 700 metres! Such was the strength of the Metal Palace master.

The Metal Palace was known for its ability to perform charges, but its palace master turned out to be a sniper, a role that appeared to have little association with charging the enemy lines. However, the fact was Hawk always played a significant role by picking off valuable targets from afar.

While Hawk was setting up his sniping position with sandbags, Tong stood beside him with his arms crossed. Hawk entrusted his safety entirely to Tong; he was utterly incapable of defending himself in close range after all.

“Now we wait for the fish to bite the bait…” Tong’s lips curled upwards.

Akechi Mitsuhide’s dazzling appearance was all the more brilliant under the warm sun—he was the envoy of light.

“Now, let us cleanse the world of the filthy Oda Nobunaga!” Akechi Mitsuhide unsheathed his katana from his waist and led his army forwards on his white horse.

Akechi Mitsuhide’s army marched from the East, empowered by the rising sun behind their backs. Oda Nobunaga and his soldiers crept from the hell of darkness and charged toward the envoys of light as devils from Hell.

Time went by; it felt so long yet so short.

Square formations clashed against one another. Black and white, darkness and light, night and day—every mismatch in the world confronted their nemesis for dominance.

The battle between two polars began.