The problem now was dealing damage. Sa-yoon watched as the white nicknames surged in like a tidal wave from the entrance.
It would be better to use the attack buff now and push forward while holding out with barriers and health recovery later.
Noise’s strategy was predictable. He always used the red slate—granting a 100% attack increase for three minutes—when there were about ten minutes left on the clock. That was because once the siege bosses’ health dropped to around 25%, their attack patterns became outright insane.
But that strategy only worked if there were no mistakes. Right now, after using their ultimates, everyone was just landing basic attacks. Wasn’t this the perfect moment to go all-in?
If a gimmick triggered, more people would die again. Even now, death messages kept popping up one by one due to those damned lightning strikes.
If another mass slaughter occurred, the damage output would take a serious hit. That was why using the red slate now and launching an all-out attack was the right call.
Having finished his calculations, Sa-yoon typed in the general chat.
[General] Chasa: Use red slate now. Basic attacks.
[Squad] Commander-noise: Anyone giving orders gets blocked.
[General] Chasa: Red slate.
[General] Chasa: Red slate.
[General] Chasa: Red slate.
[General] Chasa: Red slate.
[General] Chasa: Red slate.
[You’ve been muted for one minute due to repeated messages in a short time.]
“Ah, fuck!”
This game was seriously trash. Five messages, and he got muted? Ridiculous. Sa-yoon instinctively raised his left hand to run through his hair but couldn’t even take his fingers off the keyboard.
The bottom center of the screen was packed with skills, each spinning through their cooldowns.
In massive siege battles like this, if the commander refused to cooperate, there was only one thing an individual player could do—deal as much damage as possible.
[Squad] Commander-noise: Red slate.
[Attack power increased by 100% for three minutes due to the effect of the red slate.]
As soon as Ares finished sweeping the ground with his long spear, the buff was applied—a little too early. Sa-yoon frowned at the awkward timing, but since his skills were coming off cooldown, it wasn’t the worst-case scenario.
With the attack power boost, Ares’ health visibly drained at a rapid pace.
[Squad] Commander-noise: Green slate.
[The effect of the green slate restores 10% of health over 8 seconds.]
[War God Ares]: Taste the wrath of the heavens!
Hadn’t they already been tasting that wrath with all the lightning strikes? As Ares raised his spear high, flames erupted behind him.
The developers clearly had no idea how new players or regular users played the game. That’s why the class balance was so utterly fucked.
Dodging the rain of fireballs with practiced ease, Sa-yoon scoffed at the thought.
[War God Ares]: Receive the judgment of the earth!
With that line, large red circles appeared on the ground. If someone were to look from above, it would probably resemble a polka-dotted fabric.
In any case, red-marked areas meant incoming damage, so Sa-yoon swiftly repositioned. Moments later, flames shot up from the ground.
A hellscape—fire on the floor, lightning and fireballs from the sky, and a colossal god looming over them. Utter chaos.
Healers’ area heals and Guardians’ protective skills kept triggering, making Chasa’s body flash repeatedly with brief bursts of light.
The timer dropped into single digits. 9 minutes left. The boss had 36% HP remaining. It wasn’t just a feeling—there really weren’t enough players. If this went badly, they might actually fail the siege.
Starting on a backwater server had been a mistake. If this were a city server, even if the commander was utterly useless, they could just brute-force their way through with sheer numbers. Maybe it was time to finally transfer servers?
For a moment, Sa-yoon seriously considered it, but he quickly shook his head. No matter what, he couldn’t just reset all the war contribution points and battle records he had meticulously built up.
More than anything, if he wanted to secure the exclusive rewards given only to the top percentage of players, staying on a rural server was the optimal choice.
[Squad] Commander-noise: We’re doing great! Keep up the DPS!
Sa-yoon’s lips twisted. Instead of commanding, this guy was playing cheerleader.
The moment this was over, he was blocking that bastard too. His friends list was completely empty, but his block list was nearly full.
[General] Chasa: Keep going like this.
[General] Chasa: If you keep running back and forth, the siege will fail.
Unlike the so-called commander, Sa-yoon had no time to waste. He ignored the flood of death messages and the rapid bursts of buffs flashing across his status window, focusing entirely on pumping out damage.
As a Warlock, his skills dealt increasing damage over time, meaning the longer he stayed alive and attacking, the stronger his hits became. Maximizing damage before dying was crucial.
But more than anything, timing was everything. No matter how much damage you dealt, if you weren’t physically present when the monster died, you wouldn’t get any points.
Everyone knew this, which was why the moment Ares’ HP dropped below half, players started retreating, prioritizing survival. Losing damage due to death—or worse, missing out on rewards—was not an option.
Even from a distance, Ares’ attack range far exceeded a Warlock’s. That meant standing within his massive AoEs and eating the hits while attacking.
Normally, Sa-yoon would have taken the safer approach—backing away during AoE attacks and repositioning afterward. But today, that would guarantee failure. Instead, he pushed in as hard as possible, only backing off at the last possible second before dying.
The only reason this strategy was even remotely possible was thanks to the area heals coming from the nearby Priests.
[Squad] Commander-noise: 7 minutes left, 28% HP remaining.
[Squad] Commander-noise: 27.
[Squad] Commander-noise: 26.
[General] Chasa: What are you guys doing? Stack up and burst now—we’re short on DPS.
[Squad] Commander-noise: Watch out for the 25% pattern.
Oh, so now he was playing informant on top of being a cheerleader?
Funny how the human mind worked. Last time, Sa-yoon had been fine with the commander posting updates, but now, every single message pissed him off. It was the pressure of the situation—time was running out, and failure meant nothing but wasted effort.
He flicked a glance at the timer. Still too close for comfort. If they failed this siege, they wouldn’t just lose the minimum guaranteed rewards—they’d have absolutely nothing to show for it.
There was a difference between being a Warlock who couldn’t enter the treasure vault and the vault never opening in the first place.
“Fuck it.”
Sa-yoon gave up on maintaining distance and rushed straight for Ares’ ankles.
Ranged DPS classes were meant to attack from afar. But even they had one melee skill—Invasion.
Invasion was a high-risk, high-reward skill. It devoured a ton of mana but dealt absurd amounts of damage, usually reserved for shaking off melee attackers who got too close.
Using it in this situation was a straight-up gamble—one missed skill, and he’d be dead on the spot.
[General] Chasa: Ranged DPS, stack up and burst DPS nowwwww!
[General] Jeong Do-jeon: Are you pulling aggro?
[General] Abokid: Trying to let others die so he climbs the ranks, lmao.
[General] Chasa: Looking at this mess, we’re definitely gonna fail at the last second.
Even while hammering his rotation, Sa-yoon kept throwing messages into the general chat, pressuring the others to attack.
At first, people mocked him. But gradually, the chat fell silent.
[General] Chasa: Use the yellow slate during the final phase.
No one argued anymore.
Maybe even these dumbasses finally realized—if we don’t push, we’re actually going to fail.
Sa-yoon, staring anxiously at the countdown ticking lower, triggered Invasion again.
Despite his ridiculously high mana pool, it drained at an alarming rate—even with the Warlock’s passive mana absorption from attacks.
A quick glance around showed that other ranged DPS had followed his lead. Ares’ ankles were now swarming with players.
[War God Ares prepares his final strike.]
[Squad] Commander-noise: Using yellow slate.
[The yellow slate generates a barrier absorbing up to 20,000 total damage for 10 seconds.]
With his HP below 3%, Ares began casting his ultimate. Unlike his other skills, the casting bar filled slowly.
Now, it was a matter of seconds.
Would he finish casting first, or would they kill him first?
Thud.
A massive spear slammed into the ground right next to Sa-yoon. The impact rippled out like liquid waves across the battlefield.
An AoE attack.
His once-full HP plummeted. A wave of death messages flooded the chat—players who hadn’t been at max HP were wiped out instantly.
He spammed HP potions. His dangerously low health climbed back up slightly. Almost immediately after, another surge of light flared around him—he had been healed.
Healers’ contribution wasn’t measured by damage but by healing output. That meant they were spamming heals indiscriminately, even on players outside their party.
Thud.
[“Freedeal” has died.]
[“Abokid” has died.]
The second attack landed. Between the fireballs and lightning strikes, players were dropping like flies.
If Ares struck his spear down a third time, his ultimate would activate. The casting bar inched higher, and the ground trembled ominously. To survive, he had to get out of the attack range right now.
But Sa-yoon didn’t move.
Instead, he layered his damage-over-time (DoT) skills and kept unloading attacks into Ares’ ankles.
He spammed health potions, but the cooldown wasn’t up yet. His HP, already down by more than half, wouldn’t recover in time.
At this point, his death was inevitable. Now, it wasn’t about his ranking anymore—he was throwing himself into the fire for the sake of clearing the siege.
[War God Ares has been defeated.]
[You have earned 47,231 points from War God Ares.]
[“Chasa” has dealt the finishing blow to War God Ares.]
[The hero “Chasa” proves his power.]
[Your achievements spread across the world.]
[You have met the conditions to obtain the title .]
[You have temporarily obtained the title.]
[Check your newly activated commander-exclusive skills!]
Sa-yoon, habitually checking his points, widened his eyes.
Compared to usual, the post-siege notification flood was way longer than expected.
