Chapter 441: Reunion with Helliem 4
'Ian Grand Duke' was the word.
The title sound really old school to Ian.
However, it was a nice title in his current situation.
'Helliem...?'
Ian turned his head in the direction of the voice he heard with an inquisitive expression and became disappointed.
Unfortunately, that voice wasn't Helliem's.
However, Ian's face brightened right away.
"I see the Grand Duke!"
"Hah! I see the Grand Duke!"
Numerous knights of the empire who were trapped in the jails poured out from both sides.
However, Helliem wasn't among them, but even then the power of that group was very high.
'Wow, is it because of the time that passed? What is with the level of these imperial knights?'
Ian was surprised at what he saw.
The fifteen new imperial knights were close to level 450.
The level of the imperial knights was 450, which meant that Helliem would have reached the level of 500.
Ian immediately went to reorganizing his side by controlling the new knights.
"Lofern, move to the left! Legas, you stay there!"
"I will do as you command!"
The knights being obedient was only possible because it was Ian.
No matter how high one's fame was, if it was some other ranker then it would have been impossible to control and order the Imperial Knights.
The Imperial Knights were NPCs with very high pride and they weren't the ones who would get orders from just anyone.
However, Ian was different.
Since the Imperial War, they were used to listening to Ian's orders.
Ian was the most highest-ranking noble in the Empire of Luspel as well—excluding the emperor.
Since Helleim wasn't there, there was no reason for them to not listen to the command of Ian.
Ian's party was fully formed before the 2nd monster wave began.
From the back of the undead camp came a voice.
"You petty humans, I'll make you all my slaves!"
"...!"
The eardrums of all the users shattered upon hearing that sound, and the eyes of all of Ian's party members moved in the direction of that nerve-wracking sound.
There were dark shadows with levels around 475 in the place where the voice came.
"What is that?"
There was a peculiarly named monster, and its information place had a '?' mark in it. Its level was the only thing visible.
Ian was shocked, and one of the imperial knights beside him spoke with an eerie voice.
"It is a Lich Mage, Grand Duke."
"A Lich Mage... you... say?"
"Yes. They are all the entourage of Lacamer."
"Oh my..."
The 'Lich' was a top tier among the undead.
Its level was almost on the level similar to that of a 'Dragon'.
There were three things of such sort.
Even though the strong support groups called the 'Imperial Knight's' help, it was clear that the battle wasn't going to be an easy one.
Ian started thinking of a plan right away.
'This is a one area fight. We need to take advantage of it and accurately estimate every situation.'
Since all of their enemies were undead, Ian had two powerful cards that he could use.
One was the wide-area skill of Kaka.
If he used the 'Dreaming Devil' skill, then they would have an overwhelming advantage as the battle progresses if the skill was maintained.
Once the Dreaming Devil was cast, it would apply 'Dark Control' to all enemies within the skill's range and reduce the damage of dark attribute attacks by half.
During the 10 minutes duration of Dark Control, Ian's party should be as aggressive as possible and eliminate the Lich first.
The second thing that could help them was the 'Dragonic Barrier'.
Ian wanted to combine the unique ability of Elcarix—Dragonic Barrier—and the unique ability of Kaka—the Dreaming Devil.
'If the Dragonic Barrier of El is used at the same time as Dark Control, then we will be invincible until this battle ends.'
Dragonic Barrier's stats of defense were enormous.
Therefore, even if damage reduction wasn't superimposed, it would take a lot of time to cut down the durability of the barrier.
However, if they get a 50% reduction of dark attribute damage from enemies, then it was safe to say that they were in an invincible shield.
Ian stroked the head of Elcarix lightly while keeping his eyes on the Legion of Darkness.
"I request to you, El."
Elcarix felt Ian's hand touching her head. She then turned her head towards Ian and looked at his face.
She then said while still looking at Ian,
"Definitely, dad. Just believe in your El."
* * *
A leisurely Sunday afternoon.
Despite it being a weekend, Semi was heading for the university.
With a heavy bag hanging on her back which had a laptop in it and was doing something with her smartphone.
A typical college student.
Semi who kept on typing something seemed like she was sending some message to someone.
- Where are you all?
- I'm almost there.
- I'll be there in 3 minutes!
- Me too, 3 minutes!
- I've been here for a while.
Semi sent her message in a group chatroom made by her and her friends.
After seeing the messages of her classmates that came one after the other, Semi shook her head.
"Ugh! When we team up, we need to move fast... only then can we maintain a knife-like precision."
Thud Thud.
Semi began to take heavier and faster steps towards the university.
After she arrived at the back door of the Virtual Reality building, she waited for someone.
"Unnie where are you now..."
Semi pulled out her smartphone since she wanted to send a message to this 'unnie' person whom she had been waiting for.
She then heard a voice coming from behind her.
"Semi, it had been a while!"
The voice came from the person that Semi was waiting for. She put her smartphone back in her pocket and greeted the person with a smile.
"Hi Jin unnie, it has been a while!"
* * *
There wasn't any special reason why Semi and her group of friends were meeting at the university.
They went to meet the uploader, So Jin, the video editor of the Lotus Guild.
"Thanks, Semi-ah. For coming here even on weekends."
"Not at all, unnie. I get to see the unedited videos of Ian, so this isn't such a hard task."
Last night, a fire broke out in the building where So Jin's office was located.
Luckily, the office was empty so no one was harmed, but all the equipment in the office got caught in the fire.
That wasn't really much of a problem since the content in the computer was uploaded to the web. The biggest problem she had was that she had no place where she could do her work.
It wasn't like she hadn't thought of the PC rooms near her neighborhood.
It was just that working in a PC room seemed unreasonable.
In order to produce visually stunning videos, she had to work with the best quality. That meant that she would need high-end PCs.
So, So Jin came up with the idea of using the PCs in the computer room in the virtual reality department.
It was a computer room with high-end computers so she could definitely produce high-quality videos if she used the PCs there.
So Jin called Yoo Hyun for help, but Yoo Hyun was busy with the war. So, Semi decided to help her out.
Semi first got permission from the office and then opened the computer room on a Sunday.
So Jin often came in and out of the Virtual Department to meet Yoo Hyun and Jinsung. Since she was acquainted with the other students too, there didn't seem to be a huge problem.
That was why Semi asked for a weekend skip.
Wheeing-!
As the computer turned on, So Jin couldn't help but laugh.
"Thanks, kids. This unnie will treat you to a delicious meal later."
"Wow, I'm excited now!"
"Unnie, I like pizza."
"No, I like chicken."
So Jin smiled at them and said,
"Then let's make it both chicken and pizza."
"Keu, sure! So Jin noona is so above us!"
The excited and noisy kids inside the Virtual Reality department sat around and stared at the screen.
When all the settings were done, Ian's video appeared on the screen.
So Jin who saw that on the screen murmured in a small voice,
"Uh, Ian seemed to have battled a lot lately, but I'm diligent."
After finishing the program setting, she tried to access Kailan using the PC.
To connect to the 'crystal ball' and capture Ian's video.
It was possible to simply access a crystal ball for a video without a capsule.
"Oh, Imperial Knights!"
"Oh! Oh! Right! Isn't that the Luspel Empire's image?"
"Right. It looks like they have been rescued from prison."
The Virtual Reality students were all excited at the clip they were seeing.
After a while, they saw three crystals floating around Ian.
* * *
"Bbakbbak, Dragon's Roar!"
Kiyahhh-!
As soon as Ian issued his command, Bbakbbak's roar ravaged the whole area.
Bbabbak launched his wide area CC along with the effects of 'slowing' and 'defense'.
Kung- Kung-!
Bbakbbak suddenly suffered a huge deal of damage.
After seeing that, Hoonie asked Ian with anxiousness.
"Hyung, Bbakbbak's invincible skill hasn't cooled down yet, right?"
"Don't worry and continue casting."
"Ah, kay."
Intensive attacks of numerous undead monsters of over the level of 400 fell onto Bbakbbak.
No matter how many millions of vitality Bbakbbak had, if such attacks were targeted to a single point, there was no way Bbakbbak would be able to handle it.
[Vitality of your familiar 'Bbakbbak' has been reduced by 279,809.]
[Vitality of your familiar 'Bbakbbak' has been reduced by 498,109.]
Levya did place intensive heals on Bbakbbak, but nevertheless, the vitality of Bbakbbak had fallen to less than half.
Bbakbbak's suffering didn't stop there. His vitality kept on going down and down.
Once Bbakbbak's vitality dropped to a third, Ian signaled Yu Shin.
"Yu Shin, ready?"
"Yeah!"
Upon hearing Ian's signal, Yu Shin crossed his arms and stretched them towards Bbakbbak.
"Warrior's Toukon!"
A golden light shield appeared on Bbakbbak's head.
Woong-!
[Party member 'Yu Shin' has used the skill 'Warrior's Toukon' on the familiar 'Bbakbbak'.]
[The damage received by the familiar 'Bbakbbak' will recover up to 30% at a time for 1 minute.]
[The power of a warrior will come out from the familiar 'Bbakbbak'.]
[The damage taken by the familiar 'Bbakbbak' will be healed and cause damage to surrounding enemies as well amounting to 3,679,809.]
Kwa-Kwang-!
A huge explosion rang.
A golden wave spread out around Bbakbbak at the same time.
Kwakwakwa-!
The highest tier skill of Yu Shin's class—the 'Warrior's Toukon'.
The timing of the Warrior's Toukon was perfect, and Bbakbbak who was about to die soon had his vitality recovered to 100 percent.
The skill also dealt 3 million worth of damage to Bbakbbak's surrounding enemies.
"Keuak!"
"Move back!"
3 million damage wasn't a huge deal.
A monsters defense would also be considered in the damage calculation process.
However, the monster that was caught up into that attack were skeleton archers and warriors.
[You have successfully defeated the 'Skeleton Warrior'!]
[You have successfully defeated the 'Skeleton Archer'!]
Because of such unexpectedly strong widespread attack, the Undead withdrew a step back.
However, the Undead's vitality recovered right away.
The Undead's fast recovery was because of the Lich Mage.
Even then, a smile made its way onto Ian's lips.
'Nice, I got them...!'
There was a twinkle in Ian's eyes.
Ian set his sights at the back end of the Undead Army.
After a little while, Kaka flew to the air.
Kaka was flying over the Undead monsters that moved back.
The moment Kaka and Ian's eyes met, he raised his hand to the air.