Two days later, a projection of Zyrus was hovering inside the command camp. In the short span of 48 hours they had conquered another 7 spaces.

  Counting the first one, they were almost halfway towards reaching their final goal. But it wasn’t as big of a victory as it sounded. 5 of the spaces were already unoccupied while the remaining two were deserted by the natives.

  While Zyrus managed to win over many spaces with relative ease, he also lost the advantage of surprise. He was certain that by now all of their information was in the capital's council.

  “So, any bright ideas?” Zyrus asked the group of 10 sitting in a circle. It was no longer feasible to conquer more spaces without stretching out their troops. And considering their lack of individual strength, this was nothing but suicide.

  It wasn’t for no reason that he spent a whole month just to gather the players around 3 spaces. Ideally speaking, the shatar was supposed to be played with 16 pieces. It was just that the difference between both side’s pieces was too big.

  To make an example, Zyrus had his chess pieces made of paper while the enemy’s pieces were made up of hardened steel. Strategy was useless here when you didn’t have the strength to knock down the opponent.

  It was a weird analogy–but it was one that was perfect for this scenario.

  “Rooar… let's just fight them one by one,” a lion-headed man spoke in a gruff voice. Unsurprisingly, no one except Strongfist nodded at his proposal.

  The bare-chested man wearing a short kilt was none other than one of the two leaders of the beast legion. His crimson mane and flaming golden eyes made it easy to judge his temperament.

  “That’s a valid proposal despite how simple it sounds.”

  Zyrus agreed with the point, but its disadvantages were too obvious. And from the looks of it, others knew it as well.

  “Haha…of course, I Maahes, have a clear plan in mind. It’s just that our guys are too weak.”

  Silence once again descended on the camp. What Maahes mentioned was their biggest hurdle. The players had gained a significant amount of exp, enough for the majority to reach lv 40. Things would’ve been easier if not for Zyrus’s command that came right after– those at lv 40 were to halt their class and racial upgrades and focus on buying as many elemental seeds as they could.

  1,00,000 points were no joke. It was true that saving the precious opportunity to assimilate one’s strength was a good idea, but it didn’t do anything to solve their issues at hand.

  “How about a direct attack on the capital? We can pull it off if we use our turns right.”

  “That won’t work this time,” Zyrus shook his head at Ria. There was no way for him to reach the capital. And without him, he didn’t believe the players had what it took to pull off a blitz attack.

  Everyone shared their thoughts except for two. Jacob was listening with a bored face alongside Babi, the flying monkey who was also a leader of the beasts.

  His big baboon face made the expression of boredom even more evident. Unlike Maahes, Babi’s appearance and personality were in stark contrast. His big face and crooked wings were enough to lower the enemy’s will to fight. In a sense he was similar to the Nidhoggs who possessed an innate talent for causing fear in others’ hearts.

  “You two have any opinions?”

  “Huh?”

  “Ekk!”

  “No? I have one. Why don’t you launch a frontal charge?”

  Everyone looked at Zyrus with confusion. Wasn’t that the same as spreading their numbers thin? Nonetheless, their worries were unfounded.

  “Kyle, team up with Maahes and attack another space. You do the same as well,” Zyrus pointed to them one by one and gave them their tasks. It looked like they were attacking 5 spaces separately, but when one considered the timing of the attack and the route they were supposed to take, it painted a different picture.

  “This is a brilliant idea.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Zyrus chuckled at Shi kun’s wholehearted compliment and vanished from the camp. If they knew what he was planning with this move, then brilliant was the last thing they’d call it.

  ‘To fool your enemy you must fool your allies first,’

  Zyrus predicted that this game of shatar would end in the next three moves, much sooner than anyone would expect.

  Thus, it was time to finish his preparations on Jindao island.

  …

  A week later, at the westernmost space of the island.

  This was the location where Zyrus was staying from the start. Not a single player was left within miles of him. The war was going on with neither side giving an inch to the other. Still, the scales were in their favor since the players were learning about the runes at a rapid pace.

  ‘This should be enough….’

  Zyrus nodded in satisfaction as he looked at the finished scroll. This was the essence of his hard work over the past month. Countless complex runes were drawn on every inch of the scroll. No one except another arcanist could look at this without getting a headache.

  While he was happy with his work, he also understood that the price paid for this wasn’t light. 7538 players had died since the last time he checked the reports. The grim numbers would keep on increasing as long as the fight went on.

  It was a situation where one side didn’t have any way to replenish their numbers while the other wouldn’t die no matter what.

  Even if they won, the loss would be too much. At most 50,000 players would survive by the end of flag march.

  That was, of course, if things proceeded as they were. The scroll in front of him was the key to their counterattack.

  [Summon]

  *Shattter*

  Dozens of cracks formed in the peaceful sky. A total of one thousand ophidian warriors were summoned to his side.

  This wasn’t the first time this scene occurred either. Compared to the one who performed the experiment on the natives, Zyrus had a better alternative. His summons were both physically and spiritually more suited for this.

  “Draw these runes on your body.”

  The ophidian warriors followed his words and used their nimble claws to do the task. One by one, silvery runes were inscribed on their bodies. The power was too much for their feeble bodies to handle, but this time, Zyrus didn’t plan to let them die in vain.

  The pain both he and his summons shared was about to bear the sweet fruit of success.

  -Feru-

  Zyrus chanted in the native language and placed a metallic shard inside the ophidian warrior’s chest. Hundreds of other elemental seeds followed the trajectory of his mana and lodged themselves into the 999 ophidian warriors.

  *Shiiiing*

  It was as if a gigantic sword was unsheathed from the heavens. The sharp cry of metal resounded across the entire island, alongside the tolling bells of the system.

  [Ding! You have found a new path of ascension]

  [You have made a huge contribution to the sanctuary]

  [Would you like to mark your name as the Creator of this path?]

  Yes/No

  Zyrus laughed out in exhilaration as the read the message. There were few things he hadn’t achieved in his past life, and this was definitely one of them. The ones who had created a subclass on their own could be counted in a single hand.

  And today, he had joined their ranks.

  ‘Still, this is far from over,’

  Zyrus reigned in his emotions and clicked on ‘No.’ The swords cry and the clinging bells dissipated as if someone had clicked a pause button.

  “Tch…how anticlimactic.”

  “Zorath, Kahl.”

  “Zorath.”

  “Zorath.”

  .

  .

  .

  The thousand ophidian warriors repeated the same word over and over. It was apparent how excited they were after talking to Zyrus for the first time. They were like children who learned to talk for the first time.

  Zyrus too felt like a proud leader as he looked at his subordinates. Their simple words–‘Indeed, my liege’ were enough to uplift his mood to even greater heights. Not only had he improved the summons strength by a whole realm, he had also given them the sentience needed to evolve even further.

  One had to know that apart from the abyssal legion, his summons were useless in the second ring. He couldn’t go back to earth and sacrifice stronger aliens. This led to the current situation where the majority of his summons were around lv 20 by system’s standards. They didn’t even qualify to be cannon fodders on this stage.

  1,00,000 points were nothing compared to solving this flaw. He was sure that even a stickler like Matope wouldn’t have thought of such a possibility.

  The points were meant to be used on exp and elemental seeds. Every player would have sufficient points by the end of the flag march, enough to level up to 50 and buy a single elemental seed.

  And it wasn’t like the players could handle two seeds anyway. So, the number of points needed for exp and seeds were fixed. Matope had ‘generously’ added additional points so that the ones who performed better could buy skill proficiency potions.

  But Zyrus had found a loophole in this. According to the event, the rules of Shatar wouldn’t apply to the ‘dangerous areas’ on the sea. It was supposedly a restriction, but in Zyrus’s eyes, it was the best place to farm exp.

  No matter the circumstances, the tougher monsters would give more exp when you killed them. Why would he use the precious points in buying exp then? It was much better to allow the players to convert their event points into contribution points so they could buy weapons and stuff. It was a win-win scenario for both sides.

  Even if some players used their points on exp and skill potions, Zyrus was bound to get enough to improve his summons strength.

  His Balaur summoner class was akin to a cheat in this event. The natives weren’t the only ones who had undying pawns.

  The enemy king also realized this fact. In no time at all, Zyrus received distress calls from the Vajeers on the frontline.

  The main army of Jindao had made their appearance on the frontlines.