Draco shook away his trepidation as he parsed what Sofia had told him. It was clear that an Epic Tradeskill wasn't a thing of magic, a power that could make him almost god-like in any sector of trade it concerned.
It was essentially a tool that would do the calculating and computing, while he had to provide the input for everything. Draco was essentially the 'hard disk' while the Personal Command Center was the 'CPU'.
As such, he calmed down and began to watch the screens as new information was displayed before him rapidly, and some battle plans being formulated then discarded almost immediately as new data kept flooding in.
Draco realized that there was nothing for it. He would never have the perfect battle plan ready if he did not have all the data he needed. For that, the Supreme-Ranked Dragon itself would have to appear.
What was that? Use his own Draconic affiliation as a gauge?
Not a bad idea but…
Draco could be best described as a Dragon stuck in a human shell with only 95% total strength. The Supreme-Ranked Dragon for the event would be a proper Dragon with 100% total strength.
Since they were both classified as Supreme-Rank Dragons within Boundless, Draco had no bloodline advantage. Even with the Ultima Sunt bloodline, there was little he could do as he only inherited half of it.
Against entities far lower on the State of Being scale, he could pressure them a lot. Against one that was almost equivalent to him, he would be lucky not to be pressured himself.
Draco's eyes refocused in the real world, and no one had noticed his lapse of attention except Riveting Night, who quickly pm-ed Draco. Draco informed her of everything that went on, as well as his understandings of the Epic Tradeskill.
Riveting Night was also stunned before she began to wonder just what she could do if she had an Epic Tradeskill of the dark side…
This was possibly the biggest irony. The Handsome Devil practiced 'good' Tradeskills while the Celestial Maiden practiced 'bad' Tradeskills.
Draco decided to lay out some groundwork.
"All ranged members and healers will naturally stay at the back of the formation. Those with higher levels, better skill as well as better classes will be nearer the center, while the weaker ones will be nearer the edges."
"All melee players will handle the front line, being the damage dealers. You are to spread out and deal damage where you can, but prioritize your survival. As with any raid, this boss might have phases. You must be skillful enough to survive till the last and most crucial phase!"
"All tanks will handle the middle line, which will the the defensive line! You are to protect the ranged members and them only! Do so at the cost of your dog life! The rewards far surpass any losses you could face!"
"Am I clear?"
Draco's last call was met with a weak response, as the various external guild leaders felt dismay as well as confusion, and so did their members, who had just arrived.
One of the Epic-tier guild leaders questioned Draco with hesitation.
"Erm, Commander Draco… shouldn't the tanks be… at the front line?"
He asked the question that was on the mind of everyone here, as even Joker and Happy Scholar were confused by this.
It was only the members of Umbra who knew what was going on as they smirked. Noble Soul and Gentle Flower seemed to have an idea, but they weren't too certain.
Draco didn't bother to reply, as Riveting Night took this chance to educate fools. "If the tanks were to be wiped while at the front line, will the melee players offer their bodies to protect the ranged players? And even if all melee players were to be wiped, do you think the battle would be lost if the ranged players are still alive with the protection of the tanks?"
Riveting Night's reply rendered them all speechless, as it overturned their knowledge of typical RPG battles in the genre. Normally - no matter what - it was tank, damage dealer - one magic/ranged and one melee/close combat - and healer.
These were the holy trinity of class categories that no RPG could shift, and even Boundless was unable to do away with this entirely. However, there was a lot more to consider than just using the typical formation all the time when battling.
Draco wasn't bothered by Riveting Night sharing this, as it was a common tactic, it wasn't anything special. She had even just explained this general and broad version of it. There were specific nuances within which could make it work or fail.
It was the same as formations in football/soccer. Just because everyone knew there was the 4-4-2 formation didn't mean that they would go around scoring goals in every match.
Otherwise, who would bother to hire a coach if a simple formation could solve all the problems?
"Enough nonsense. You asked me to lead you, so it is up to you whether you want to listen or not. I have nothing to gain or lose, so I'll be frank and say I don't give a damn. No matter what, Umbra will still prevail. It's a matter of who will ride our train and prevail with us."
Draco's words directly slapped all their faces, but what could they say? He was right. He didn't come forth to lead them, they came to him through the Four Legendary Guilds of Myriad Cards, Kamisuo, Desecrators and Lorebinders.
Draco no longer paid heed to the rabble and watched the timer for the event's start. It was left with 5 minutes till it began, so he decided to check out the situation concerning the non-local guilds.
There were over 500 non-local guilds, with almost 450 being Rare-tier, 49 being Epic-tier and only one external Legendary guild.
At this stage, there were far too few experts for the Legendary guilds to be plentiful. With time, these numbers would increase as the average skill level rose, but there would forever be a deficit of Divine-tier guilds, even if Draco and Riveting Night intervened.
Draco ignored all the Rare and Epic-tier guilds. They were too low level to garner his attention, so he focused more on the single Legendary guild.
What he saw made his expression become weird.
It was a guild full of asiatic girls and women, their fair skins and extremely pretty faces leaving one enchanted. Their proportions were quite lacking unfortunately, though some were impressive. However, their facial beauty made up for any issues cropping up.
Some of the other players were beginning to take notice of them, as Draco's head was turned to the direction of this guild of babes. Due to the impressiveness of Umbra, this guild had gone largely unnoticed.
Not to mention that being able to tell the quality of a guild at first sight was pretty hard for some. Draco and Riveting Night could do so due to their extensive knowledge from their past lives.
"What! When did a guild of pretty babes appear?"
"They've actually been here for a while. You've just been too busy ogling the dudes from Umbra."
"I mean… that Cobra guy is pretty hot…"
"Ah! I see you are a man of culture as well."
Some fellows began to mutter to themselves as they eyed these beauties with different emotions, some with respect, some with desire and others with disinterest.
However, this guild of babes ignored everyone else and focused on Umbra, especially on Kiran, Cobra and Draco. Their eyes shot out bright beams of light as they devoured these fellows with their eyes indecently, causing these three to squirm slightly.
Riveting Night though, didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Draco, let's go over to them."
Draco was surprised, but held Riveting Night's waist as he blinked over to this Legendary-tier guild without asking further. He trusted that she would have a good reason for wanting to do so anyway.
When they appeared at the front of this guild, everyone who had been looking in this direction was stunned, then utterly shocked once they understood what just happened.
My God!
That was a blink skill for the love of Christ!
And with such a distance, it would be useful for traversal! Of course, the downside was that such a blink skill was useless for battle, unless its cooldown was between 1-3 seconds.
They were right, Draco's blink had an absurd distance of 500,000 feet, but had a 30-second cooldown. Even if he used the special title that cut cooldowns by half, that was 15 seconds.
It was a good tool to escape battle and move about, but extremely useless for battle itself. Something like Eva's Short Blink was more geared towards combat, but even it had an atrocious cooldown of 5 minutes.
It couldn't be helped, as the rank of the skill was too low. One would need at least, an Epic tier skill to get that kind of absurd cooldown.
As Draco and Riveting Night appeared, they walked up to the Guildmaster of this guild, who was an extremely enchanting girl that had creamy and glowing skin as well as soft, limpid eyes.
Her nose was small and so were her lips, their blood red color highlighting them when contrasted to her l.u.s.trous skin tone. She didn't have much in the way of assets, but her beauty was enough to enchant one for days.
Her hair was tied into a pony tail, its light purple color reminding Draco of Roma's eyes.
Upon seeing Draco and Riveting Night approach her, she bowed lightly and greeted them.
"Hello Guildmaster Draco. It is a pleasure to finally meet you."
Before Draco could reply, Riveting Night folded her arms and spoke with dissatisfaction. "So because you have seen a charming man, you refuse to greet me now eh, Little Yui?"
Once the one called Yui heard Riveting Night's voice and that particular form of address, her body froze as her mind trembled.
With excitement in her voice, she called out to Riveting Night, rushing to hug her. "Big Sis Eva!"
Riveting Night chuckled and rubbed Yui's head gently, which was awkward to look at since they were the same height. Yet, Yui looked so pleased that she might just purr with contentment.
"I miss you too, Little Yui. I have been busy with Boundless, but I didn't know you had joined this time as well. Where did you choose to start?' Riveting Night asked with a genial tone, but inside she was worried. Yui's answer further buttressed her fears.
"I chose Fargren Empire. It's nearer to the center of the mainland."
Riveting Night could only sigh. The fact that Yui had joined the game this early in this life was bad enough, but her choice of where to develop was also different.
The timeline was digressing further and further by the day…
"Come and join us. My soulmate, Draco, will be leading the various top guilds of Sturgehaven in the conflict. We could use strength like yours in the battle." Riveting Night invited Yui with a gentle tone.
"No problem! Please take care of me, Brother-in-law!" Yui chirped happily.
Draco smiled lightly but deep down he was extremely pleased by this Yui. She hadn't disparaged him for being a 'normal' human, as she had no idea he was the prodigy of the Lucifer Lineage.
She had instead directly called him Brother-in-law, which was a form of acknowledgment. Even if this was prompted by her fanatical love for her Big Sis, it was still very good.
Draco directly took out one of the Angel's Kiss potions and gave it to Yui. "Since this is our first meeting, please take this."
Yui knew that anything the number one player worldwide gave her would be extraordinary, so she swiped it with a coy smile. She didn't rush to check what it was as there were many eyes here.
Draco could only laugh. This Little Sister of Eva's was truly a schemer.
The Evil Duo returned to their previous position with some of their members eyeing them with curiosity. It was Sublime Notion who came forward to speak.
"Aiyah, who would've thought that it'd be Little Yui, your favorite cousin, who would lead such a strong guild."
Everyone froze. That beauty was the Lady Boss' direct cousin? Such an ethereal and lovely flower that attracted so many bees, but which one could ever dream of pollinating?
Suddenly, everyone's face changed as a certain association was made in their mind.
For the longest time, the greatest suspicion held by majority of players in Boundless was that Riveting Night had some facial deformity she was trying to hide with her cowl, otherwise who could enjoy hiding their face in plain sight all the time?
But looking at the quality of her cousin, and the beauty of her man, how could that be so?
It was more likely that…
Riveting Night was a celestial beauty who feared endless troubles if she showed her visage, as countless flies would go to extreme lengths to covet her!
What the shit!
Lady Boss, you are too awesome!
The eyes of the members of Umbra on Riveting Night became less fearfully reverent and more respectfully obedient. Before they felt scared by her scary getup, but now that they knew a celestial beauty was probably hiding inside, they felt a different flavor of respect.
Once they paired their perceptions of what Riveting Night looked like with Draco's handsomeness, they felt like this couple were a match made in heaven!
If the members of Umbra could realize this, so could the various other players around. Once they came to this realization, the mysticism and aura of perfection surrounding the Evil Duo seemed to magnify in their eyes.
Draco was pleased by this, as he wanted everyone to see Riveting Night's beauty and fawn on her with the knowledge that she was a Goddess incarnate. Of course, if anyone tried to woo his woman knowing that he existed, only death awaited them.
Riveting Night was unhappy though, as she wanted to save her visage for only Draco to see. If just everyone could look upon her, how could she feel special for Draco?
This was a difference born by their personalities and perceptions of each other. Draco valued Riveting Night for much more than her looks. and just considered it to be one aspect of the whole package of perfection that was his soulmate.
Riveting Night felt that anything else she had to offer was not as good as her unique visage which could be said to be the most perfect in the world, right after Amaterasu herself.
As everyone chatted for a bit, Draco noticed the timer had reached the last 30 seconds. Just as he was about to alert the various players to get back into formation, his face changed greatly as his Black Dragon roared within him.
The players were one step too late to notice something until their bodies began to shake, as the pressure of a higher Ranked entity that channeled its killing intent onto them landed on them like a roadroller.
Within the sky, one could see a large dot falling rapidly, its size going from a grain of rice to a huge entity that almost shielded the sun.
BOOM!
The earth shook when it landed, the tremors sending cracks throughout the Plains of Deriam. Many of the hills crumbled and the grass withered as if a plague had passed through.
The players fell onto their asses and cried out in pain. They were terrified by the sudden appearance of this monster, as well as its immense size.
Standing in the center of the Plains of Deriam, was a huge Dragon that was made of metal. It was a Metal Dragon!
Its scales were a shiny black l.u.s.ter and were not uniform, but rather segmented like two armor plates that had been stuck together. This gave it a bizarre but clean look, as each scale was only the size of a palm.
With its great size, the amount of scales on it were scary to imagine.
It had two horns on either side of its huge head and its body structure was of the Western style, with four thick legs and two large wings.
Its wings were the long-soaring type, the kind seen on eagles and hawks that were thick and heavy, allowing for extended flights at the cost of speed.
They had the greatest advantage of granting low-soaring, meaning that a flier could dive down, snatch something from the ground and beat back to the sky without losing much speed.
It also meant that on a battlefield, it could swoop in from high and bathe whole armies in flame for extended periods of time while moving slowly, retaining maximum control of its flight. Truly a deadly beast.
It had bright green eyes which gleamed with madness and evil.
It roared loudly, the shockwave once again blowing players away, but not taking any health from them yet as the counter still had five seconds to reach zero.
The various players were stunned out of their minds as they gazed at this monstrosity. Their previous ideas of beating the monster fled as they finally understood that Dragons in Boundless weren't like in the novels.
They weren't simple enough to be killed by a noble knight who wanted to save a fair damsel.
They were the apex predators of the sky, land and water. Wherever they existed, every other organism had to bow in inferiority. They were simply impossible to fight against!
Draco though, walked forward calmly, his form standing out among the tens of thousands of players arrayed here. Every eye fell onto him, even that of the Dragon.
When it did, its body freakishly trembled, but not out of fear. It was of utter hate, madness and desire.
Draco smirked as he stared into the eyes of the Metal Dragon and spoke lightly.
"We meet again, Dark Knight."
In response, the Metal Dragon roared out one word. One word that encapsulated all its pain, anguish and hatred.
"DRACOOOO!!!"
