The sky above the simulated world did not remain static. As the hours of the War-Gaming event bled away, the artificial sun dipped below the jagged canopy of the jungle. Shadows lengthened, swallowing the vibrant greens, replaced by the cool, indigo hues of twilight.

Then, a massive, silver moon breached the horizon, casting a pale, haunting glow over the battlefield.

In the Southeast, Commander Regius Dinn wiped the sweat from his brow. Without Luke Herrington’s heavy cavalry forming a physical wall in front of him, his regiment felt exposed, but he still held a clear numerical advantage. Even after the skirmishes, Regius commanded over eighty heavy archers.

Across the scorched clearing, Eliza Vance’s forces were pinned inside their defensive crater. She had started the event with exactly one hundred troops, the same as all the participants. Unlike the others, her army was entirely composed of Battle-Mages, meticulously divided into Warders for defense, Evokers for artillery, and Augurs for support.

Because Eliza had focused entirely on a fortified ‘turtle’ strategy, she had managed to keep casualties remarkably low. Seventy-two of her mages were still breathing, though they were panting from mana exhaustion.

A volley of fire-arrows arced through the night sky, raining down on the golden honeycomb barrier protecting them. The shield rippled violently, the magical strain immense, but it held.

Inside the dome, Eliza looked up at the rising moon. A cold, predatory smile touched her lips. She was a Tier-1 Scribe of the College of Statecraft, a scholar of magical theory. She couldn’t cast a spell capable of leveling an army on her own yet.

But with seventy-two mages, she didn’t have to.

“The sun is gone. Warders, limit your mana output. Drop the shield’s integrity down to forty percent.”

Eliza said, her voice carrying a terrifying calm over the din of impacting arrows.

Her defensive lieutenant, sweating profusely, turned to her in shock.

“Commander, if we drop the mana feed, the shield will fracture! The next volley might punch right through!”

“I know. Let it crack. Let it flicker. Make him think we are bleeding dry.”

Eliza said, her eyes reflecting the moonlight.

She turned to the remaining fifty mages, her Evokers and Augurs.

“The rest of you, link formation. Sync your mana to my frequency. I want a Grid-Pattern saturation. Prepare the 2nd-Circle invocation.”

Eliza raised her staff toward the night sky. The crystal at the tip turned a pale, ghostly white.

The fifty offensive and support mages lowered their defensive postures entirely. They raised their wands and staffs in perfect unison, pointing them toward the heavens. Their individual mana signatures bled into one another, guided by Eliza’s precise control, forming a massive, invisible circuit above the battlefield.

Outside the dome, Regius saw the golden shield flicker. The bright, solid hexagons began to dim, webbing with deep, jagged cracks as the fire arrows hammered them.

“They’re breaking!”

Regius roared from across the field, his eyes wide with impending victory.

The Scribe was finally out of mana. He didn’t notice the shadows deepening around him. He didn’t look up at the clouds beginning to swirl unnaturally overhead, glowing with a buildup of silver energy. His tunnel vision was locked entirely on the failing shield.

“Push the advantage! Nock! Draw! Loose!”

Regius screamed.

The bowstrings snapped tight. But before a single arrow could leave a bow, Eliza brought her staff down, slamming the base into the scorched earth with a metallic ring.

“Luna… Descend.”

Eliza and her battle mages did a synchronized mass casting of a 2nd-Circle: Moonbeam.

Above the archer regiment, the clouds parted violently.

It wasn’t a volley; it was an orbital bombardment.

Fifty distinct cylinders of pure, silvery-pale light crashed down from the sky, illuminating the dark battlefield like the wrath of the heavens. The beams were forty feet high and localized, but because Eliza had synchronized half a hundred mages, the pillars of light formed a staggered, inescapable grid, a kill zone of radiance over Regius’s forces.

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It wasn’t physical fire. It was Radiant Energy.

The moment the pale light touched the archers, the air filled with the sharp, metallic smell of ozone. Ghostly, silver flames erupted over their armor. It didn’t burn their clothes; it passed through the steel plate as if it were glass, searing directly into their life-force.

Screams echoed across the clearing. The archers dropped their bows, clutching their heads as the searing pain of the radiant damage overwhelmed the simulation’s pain dampeners. Their armor didn’t melt, but their skin began to glow with an unhealthy, pale light.

“Sweep the area.”

Eliza commanded, keeping her staff locked onto the target zone.

Her fifty mages moved their wands and staffs in unison, like a single organism. The pillars of moonlight didn’t stay static. They swept across the battlefield like lethal, moving spotlights, chasing the panicking archers as they tried to scatter into the darkness.

“Fall back!”

Regius shouted, trying to save his panicking troops.

He stepped backward, but a beam of silver light swept over him. The ghostly flames engulfed him. Regius fell to his knees, gasping for air as the radiant energy suffocated him, bleaching the color from his vision.

The Warders finally dropped the cracked shield entirely. Eliza walked slowly out of her defensive crater, the silver light reflecting in her eyes, her army standing tall behind her.

“You should have left when the cavalry did.”

Eliza said softly into the night.

Regius’s body turned translucent, the simulation recognizing the lethal accumulation of radiant damage. He didn’t dissolve into red pixels like a fire death; he simply faded away into mist, purged by the light.

“COMMANDER REGIUS DINN ELIMINATED.”

The booming voice shook the jungle, a death knell for the Alliance.

Thirty minutes earlier, miles away in the deep jungle, the earth was shaking.

Luke Herrington spurred his massive white charger forward, his heavy cavalry tearing through the dense underbrush. He had abandoned Regius to secure a real prize. His scouts had spotted a grey-clad squad sprinting toward the Northern ridge, carrying a crimson flag.

“There! Run them down!”

Luke shouted, pointing his lance.

Ahead of them, Squad 2 of Ray’s army pushed their legs to the absolute limit. They were Dune-Striders, incredibly fast, but the terrain here was too open. The trees were sparse, offering no cover from the thundering charge of armored warhorses.

The Squad 2 Leader, a veteran of the simulation’s rigorous training, looked back over his shoulder. The cavalry was fifty meters away and closing fast.

He knew they wouldn’t make it to Rendezvous Point 3.

“Halt!” Form up! Pikes out!”

The Squad Leader commanded.

The twelve remaining men didn’t run. They stopped, turning to face the tidal wave of steel. They set their spears into the dirt, bracing for the inevitable.

The Squad Leader reached up and tapped the silver ear-cuff Ray had given him.

“Commander, we are cut off in Sector 5. Heavy Cavalry. We can’t break contact.”

The Squad Leader said, his voice remarkably steady despite the ground trembling beneath his boots.

He drew his short sword as the horses closed to twenty meters.

“We aren’t making it to the rendezvous, sir. Give ’em hell for us.”

The leader said, a grim smile on his face.

The cavalry hit them.

It was a brutal, physical clash. The light infantry fought fiercely, their spears taking down three horses, but the sheer momentum of Luke’s armored knights crushed their line in seconds. The skirmish ended quickly, the fallen soldiers faded away, leaving the clearing eerily empty.

Luke pulled his horse to a halt, his chest heaving. He dismounted, walking over to where the squad had made their final stand. Lying in the crushed grass was the crimson flag.

“Got you.”

Luke breathed, a triumphant smile spreading across his face. He reached down and grabbed the heavy silk.

SNAP.

The illusion broke the moment his opposing mana touched it. The heavy silk vanished, leaving Luke holding a long, rotting branch covered in wet moss.

Luke froze. He stared at the stick in the pale moonlight.

“No,”

Luke whispered.

“No, no, no.”

It was a decoy. A meaningless piece of wood.

At that exact moment, the sky above him boomed with the voice of the arena.

“COMMANDER REGIUS DINN ELIMINATED.”

The sound hit Luke like a physical blow. The realization washed over him, turning his blood to ice. He had traded a guaranteed kill on Eliza Vance, and her flag for a rotting stick in the mud. He had been played.

“Damn you, Croft!”

Luke roared, hurling the stick into the trees.

He took a ragged breath, forcing his panic down. He was a tactician. He was the one expected to win this event. He couldn’t let it end like this.

Luke reached into his breastplate and pulled out a high-tier communication artifact. He channeled his mana into it, linking it to the remaining Alliance members.

“Isolde! Megion! Bordon! Do you read me?” Luke barked into the stone.

“Herrington?”

Marie Isolde’s voice crackled back, sounding breathless and terrified.

“Draven is gone. Zaveed is gone. Regius is gone. I just chased a flag into a swamp and it was a fake! Croft is a monster!”

“Calm down! The hunt is over. We are bleeding out in the dark. If we stay separated, he will pick us all off.”

Luke ordered.

“What are your orders?”

Another commander asked over the link.

“Pull everyone back. All remaining forces, abandon your sectors. We converge on the Central Ruins.”

Luke commanded, his eyes scanning the dark tree line as if expecting Ray to step out at any moment.

The ruins were a massive, circular stone fortress in the dead center of the map. It had high walls, a single choke-point entrance, and elevated platforms for archers.

“We turtle,”

Luke said grimly.

“We fortify the ruins and make him come to us in the open. We turn this from a hunt… into a siege.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep