A New World, an immersive game experience

At first, the more time passed, the happier Phoenix's members were. Each minute allowed them to add more mines, gather more wood, and make more expendable weapons for their ballistae with the wood they had brought in with their inventories.

Sadly, temporary runes couldn't survive their inventories, and real enchanted weapons required too much time to make. The guild simply didn't have the resources to spare, what with everything else going on.

However, when an hour had passed, they started to worry. Wondering why their opponent had yet to attack.

Normally, during the preliminaries, at least, the lower-ranking guild would need to go on the offensive. A draw, after all, does not cause a shift in points during the preliminaries (or, in fact, during normal matches). For the finals, however, there needed to be a clear winner. And forcing the weaker team to engage seemed in poor taste.

Of course, whether Phoenix was truly the weaker of the two was debatable. But they had fewer points. And for this reason, Nihon had to go on the offensive. If they, as the first seat, did nothing but hole up in their castle, it would be quite ill becoming of the first seat position. If a team claimed the top ranking, they had to have some pride to go with it.

They thus had to be preparing for their attack. But what could take over an hour to prepare? This question filled all of Phoenix's members as they waited.

They had stopped creating mines a while ago. Not wishing to expend too much mana before the fight even began. Yet, now it seemed like that had been the wrong idea. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒏𝒆𝒕

Just as Nikki was about to tell everyone to go out again, the sound of Nihon's arrival reached the guild. Distant, distorted, soft. Yet clear to the enhanced hearing of players.

Trees were being felled. No, trees were falling to the ground and being crushed one after another. The sound resembled a natural disaster more than anything else. This, of course, drew the defending players' attention.

And there, in the distance, they could see it. Could see them. Massive constructs. Towering far over the trees at over 20 meters in height.

Impossible constructions.

Impossibly large trebuchets.

"What on earth?"

"Huh?"

"No way?!"

Stunned by the sight, everyone simply watched the slow march of these gargantuan trebuchets. Filled with awe at the wonder of such creations.

"Will our walls hold?"

"Even Eldrian couldn't destroy these walls, so surely... maybe?"

"The real question is their range. If they can attack us freely, they just need to get one kill to claim victory."

Once it was said, it couldn't be taken back. Instantly, understanding spread through the guild. Indeed, if Nihon had a way to attack them without being in range for a counterattack. That would be very, incredibly, bad for them.

"Would you look at that!" Eldrian commented, having joined the others atop the walls. Curious what the ruckus was about. The sight before him was truly awe-inspiring.

These trebuchets weren't simple wooden constructs. They were made with a mix of metal and high-grade wood. That, Eldrian could tell even from this distance. Not to mention the engravings covering the constructs. They were probably some of the most advanced siege weaponry available in the world.

<nulli>'Probably designed to outrange magic towers. But cannons already do, so they were optimized for this battle.' Considering the scale of such an operation would require, Eldrian was confident that Nihon hadn't developed it themselves. There was a kingdom, maybe even an empire, behind the construction of these trebuchets.

Not that he could complain. He and his guild were using cannons developed and built by the Ganalin dwarves. Having connections like that was part of someone's strength. He wasn't about to deny his opponents that. <nulli>'Still, how did they manage to get three?'

<nulli>'And they are rather overly large.' Eldrian commented internally. Running a quick analysis of how he would go about taking the trebuchets out.

They had protective barriers installed. What strength, Eldrian couldn't confirm at this distance. They gathered mana from the surroundings, which meant they had a Mov Crystal at the very least serving as a core for the entire thing.

<nulli>'Which means, I can't destroy it directly.' Eldrian concluded. He would need to use something external. Like a Mov Crystal of his own, or several mana crystals. Which, naturally, he couldn't afford. He wasn't swimming in mana crystals.

If that approach wasn't available, he would need to hack the barrier. But... he doubted he could do that. Nihon had already seen him do it, surely they had countermeasures.

Heck, leaving the control to a mage or two would make it nearly impossible for him to hack them unnoticed. And if they were skills enough, they would be more than capable of stopping his hacking attempts.

<nulli>'I have been wondering if I can't create some mana crystals with Creation. Then again, my mana would be a severe limiting factor. But, if it is possible then I won't need to rely on a more delicate approach.' The idea was appealing, but not something he ought to be focused on right now.

"How bad is it?" Elizabeth asked, having given Eldrian a few minutes to analyze the slow-moving constructs. They were truly slow. It would probably take another five minutes before they reached the forest edge; if they needed to. Their range might be even greater than 4 kilometers.

"They're well built, well protected, mana efficient. The only downside is their size and weight, making them incredibly slow to move." Eldrian replied.

"Honestly, I can't wrap my head around how they got the materials into the arena. There is no way they had enough dimensional storages. Not to mention, you can't cut such a large thing into too small parts."

"Teleportation, maybe?" Ilmadia offered, joining the conversation. They had actually started messing with teleportation circles themselves. With little success. They hadn't wanted to use them for the tournament, but rather for the fort they had built in the Chaos Lands.

"Oh, I didn't think of that," Elizabeth said and then sighed. If that was indeed the case, that would mean Nihon would have near-unlimited resources. "I guess staying on the defensive was the wrong choice."

"Yeah..." Eldrian and Ilmadia said, joining Elizabeth in her sigh.

"Well, we have two choices now." Eldrian declared after a few seconds of mopping. "I go out and snipe a few players, but who knows what trap they might have ready for me."

"I don't like the sound of that." Elizabeth wore a heavy frown. She had never considered it possible for Eldrian to be trapped, but as soon as he said it, she realized it was totally possible.

Sure, killing him would be hard. Eldrian had too great a reaction time, too high stats, and too many tricks up his sleeve. But if you only wanted to trap him, she could think of a few ways.

Sure, none were guaranteed, but they would at least slow him down. And while they did, you could then try to kill him or heap even more traps on him. It would take a lot of investment, but it was possible.

Had they rushed Nihon at the start of the match, such a possibility would have been near impossible. Unless the guild had such an amazing magic item hidden up their sleeves. But, with the time they had given their opponent, it was now possible that an array or something similar lay in wait for Eldrian to step into.

Heck, if they could teleport things into the arena, they might be able to teleport Eldrian out. What that would count as, a kill or not, Elizabeth couldn't guess. But it would eliminate Eldrian from the fight.

"Is your ring set?" She asked, thinking of the only counter they would have to such a move. Sure, Eldrian could teleport himself, but still only short distances. He used flight for anything over a kilometer.

"Huh? Oh!" Realizing what she was getting at, Eldrian laughed. Quickly setting the ring of Avyssos's home location to his current location.

<nulli>'Hey! This will also allow me to come here after the tournament. Why didn't I think of that before?'