The Demon King is Unfathomable

‘Next closed beta’ was a subtle way of putting it.

He could resummon skeleton soldiers if they died, but it would be the end of him if the enemies overrun the Demon God’s sculpture. There would be no more ‘next time’.

Youyou understood the severity of the situation too.

“Got it!”

Meanwhile, on the labyrinth’s first floor…

In a hall covered in spider webs, two skeleton soldiers used their skillful positioning to kite an isolated crypt spider while slowly wearing it down.

Nightfall would first lure the crypt spider to a pillar, then exploiting its weakness of being unable to freely move sidewards, Autumnleaf would assault it from the flank using a spear.

It took around three stabs to kill a crypt spider that was below two meters long.

Rather than its hard head, the crypt spider’s bum, especially the side of its bum, was a softer spot that was much easier to deal damage to.

The only tricky part about dealing with these spiders was the sticky webs it shot from its mouth. It would be the end of the players once they get bound in place.

Fortunately, these spiders had a conspicuous ‘spitting’ cast delay.

As soon as the crypt spider’s cheeks puffed up, Autumnleaf, hiding behind the pillar, would immediately smack his spear on the ground to warn the kiting Knightfall to take heed and dodge.

Altogether, the two of them spent the afternoon clearing twenty crypt spiders, and not once had they slipped up.

Autumnleaf did a rough calculation. Putting aside the hell coin rewards from the spider eggs, they would receive around 100 contribution points each from sharing their twenty kills.

Later, they could hunt 20 ratmen each and spend some hell coins to buy a kilogram of coal from lifestyle players. That would net them another 100 contribution points from their daily quests.

This meant they would earn a staggering 200 contribution points when most players were only netting 50 contribution points a day. At this rate, they could reach Iron-tier within five days!

This farming speed would allow them to outscale the other players by a great deal.

Nightfall looked at the contemplating Autumnleaf and said, “You can have all the contribution points from these spiders. If we farm a bit more… you should be able to reach Iron-tier latest by tomorrow night, raising your level cap to 20.”

Autumnleaf was so taken aback that he blurted out, “Huh?”

Nightfall casually shrugged as he explained, “Rather than equally dividing resources and slowing down each other’s progress, don’t you think it’s much more efficient for one of us to first reach Iron-tier and pull the other up?”

Autumnleaf quickly grasped what Nightfall was getting at.

That was also what most ambitious guilds did in the earlier phase of a new game. They would first prioritize the development of a few seed players to snowball their advantage before giving back to the other players.

Such a partnership was only possible between people who had mutual trust, whereas Autumnleaf and Nightfall had only met each other today.

There was no way Nightfall was oblivious to the enormous potential of this game, as well as the tremendous value of getting a headstart.

“Aren’t you worried about me turning my back on you?”

Nightfall chuckled casually in response. “I have a good eye for people. I believe you are a person with principles, and I don’t think you will break your principles over paltry gains.”

From those words, Autumnleaf was convinced that Nightfall was from a gaming guild.

“…I shan’t stand on ceremony.”

Nightfall shifted his dagger to his left hand before extending his right hand for a handshake. “It’s my pleasure working with you… Ah, I think I just leveled up.”

“Me too.”

“Hm, that’s weird.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My stat was automatically assigned to agility.” Nightfall fell into deep thought staring at his character page. “That was what I intended… but does this game not allow players to choose which stat to raise?”

“My stat was also automatically assigned to strength,” Autumnleaf studied his character page before saying.

【

ID: Autumnleaf

Race: Human

Soul Tier: Mortal (Level Cap: 3)

Level: 1 (+1)

Experience Points: 33/10,000

HP: 200/200

MP: 0/0

Constitution: 2

Strength: 4 (+1)

Agility: 1

Psyche: 0

】

He wanted to be a mage, but it didn’t look an option for the most basic skeleton soldier.

“This is probably 《Calamity Online》’s hidden mechanism,” Autumnleaf said.

“Hidden mechanism?”

“That’s right.” Autumnleaf nodded as he shared his viewpoint. “Most games would only allow players to pump their stats after leveling up, but I suspect this game follows the logic of ‘raising one’s stats to level up’.

“I don’t know the developer’s rationale for designing it like that. Maybe it’s to add to the realism? Either way, calling it experience points is misleading. It would have been more accurate to call it ‘mastery point’ or something, since your stat growth is probably based on your in-game actions.”

“I see…” Nightfall’s eyes lit up. He studied Autumnleaf in fascination. “Bro, are you really not the gaming company’s internal staff?”

“How’s that possible? Do I look a staff member…” Autumnleaf looked at Nightfall in resignation. He paused before looking aside. “Though I have once thought of developing a game like this.”

“Your ideas happen to coincide?” Nightfall chuckled.

He was about to say something more when a notification popped up.

【Warning: Monster Siege!】

【Description: A huge rat stampede is pressing close to the demon king domain! All players in the vicinity, please immediately pick up you weapons and gather at the demon king domain’s core.

You will receive a huge amount of hell coins and contribution points if you successfully fend against the aggressors. Failure in this mission will result in the termination of the closed beta!】

Nightfall’s heart nearly leaped out of his mouth… though he had no heart in this game.

“A monster siege?!”

“I just checked the forum. A player reported seeing thousands of rats marching toward the demon king,” Autumnleaf grimly said. “It’s probably a scheduled event.”

“Who reported it?” Nightfall anxiously asked.

“Minowarrior.”

“…What kind of lousy name is that?” Nightfall muttered before continuing, “Where is he now? Can we confirm his location?”

Autumnleaf shook his head. “It’ll be tough. The mining shaft is a maze, and there are no landmarks to refer to. Given his clumsy description, I worry if he can even find the way back…”

Nightfall sighed. “So, are we heading back to help?”

“Of course. We have to.”

Autumnleaf looked at the hall covered in spider webs. He had just spent an entire afternoon fighting in this battlefield with his newfound friend.

“It’ll be all in vain if we lose our home.”

…

Boom!

The earth shook!

The ratmen roared, devouring everything in their path!

Humans could only flee helplessly.

This was one of the four apocalyptic murals in the Holy City Cathedral’s Repentance Room.

Tens of thousands of ratmen emerged from the depths of the netherworld and charged fearlessly to overrun human fortresses.

Saint Sisto’s worshipers called this ‘rat stampede’!

That was a folly that defied a living being’s survival instinct. The ratmen trampled on even one another, destroying themselves as much as their enemies.

Basked in the Three Rat Gods’ corrupted light, the usually cowardly ratmen vowed to fight to their dying breath this time around. Retreat was not an option!

Any ratman who paused for an instant would be immediately stomped down by their allies advancing from behind!

“Charge! Shatter those skeletons! Gnaw through those human necks! For Gerlo!!!”

The red-eyed ratmen gushed through the tunnel like a flood as if they had lost their minds.

Roan’s eyes flickered when he heard the shrill cry.

‘Gerlo! The Gluttony Rat!’

As someone who had once studied in the heart of the netherworld, he immediately understood what was going on upon hearing that name.

Somewhere in this mining shaft, a group of slave rats driven out of the labyrinth, driven by desperation, completed a ritual to please Gerlo, thus birthing an incomparably plump god elect rat!

Roan remembered from his Demon King Academy’s lectures that the requirement for that ritual was extreme hunger, extreme abundance of food and a slave rat with an extremely twisted soul.

The ritual’s chances of success were incredibly slim, since Gerlo was as twisted as His children.

Demon kings would occasionally create such twisted creatures to deal with adventurers who dared venture into their labyrinth, but very few demon kings opted for this ritual due to its low success rate.

It was even more unheard of for a demon king to launch a crusade against a rampaging god elect rat…

“Ugh, why do I keep stumbling upon such trouble?” Roan cursed under his breath.

He raised his wand and began gathering the energy of the dead and earth mana under his feet.

Faced with the bloodthirsty rat stampede, Explodingknowledge, who stood at the vanguard, widened his eyes in astonishment. If not for his skeleton face being incapable of expressing much emotions, he would have looked as if he had seen a ghost.

“Holy shit! So much experie—”

Before he could finish his words, he was already crushed by the stampede.

His skeleton rack was rammed into bits. With that, 《Calamity Online》 finally welcomed its first player who died in combat.

Explodingknowledge’s death alerted the players behind to the threat of the rat stampede, and they heightened their wariness.

“Don’t fear, brothers! Those are experience packs! Get into formation and raise your spears!” one of the skeleton soldiers shouted.

A few skeleton soldiers first got to action, and that prompted the others to follow suit. They swiftly constructed a spiked bone wall in the relatively narrow tunnel.

There were no flamboyant combat tactics; it was a pure clash between flesh and bones!

The skeletons in the front row were crushed into bits under the sheer pressure, but they successfully dampened the momentum of the ratmen’s charge, thus enabling the skeleton soldiers behind to hold the fort.

The ratmen, despite their extreme tenacity, found themselves completely blocked out.

“Jip!”

The ratmen charging at the forefront were skewered by the spears, spurting out dark, viscous fluid. At the same time, bone spikes and stone pillars rose from the ground, further hindering the ratmen’s advancement while dealing damage.

Just as it looked like they had managed to stop the ratmen’s advancement, the ratmen began smashing through all impediments with their pickaxes and blunt weapons.

Roan gave careful thought to the spells he cast to maximize damage to the ratmen while avoiding causing excessive damage that might result in him and the players getting buried alive.

Over time, the crushed heap of flesh at the center of the clash formed a slope. The bloodthirsty ratmen stepped on their brethren’s corpses in an attempt to scale over the towering bone wall.

But just as their paws reached the top of the bone wall, they found themselves faced with a powerful shockwave blast that severed them from their waist. Blood splattered everywhere.

It was Bant.

Roan had revived him as a zombie, and he now wielded strength far greater than when he was alive!

“Buggers! Where did this NPC pop out from?!” Dogshit stared at the zombie above him with his nonexistent eyes.

‘So cool! But he stole my limelight!’

“I think it was that meat paste from before.”

“What the hell?!”

“GRARRRR!”

Holding her pickaxe with both hands, Hungryhungry screamed hysterically as she charged to the frontlines with a lowered head. She was scared of the ratmen, but she was even more afraid of her day’s effort of coal mining going to waste if the server closed down.

As the bone wall teetered on the verge of collapse, another player called Pooppool suddenly stepped forward. He had ten dynamites tied to him—these explosives were probably left behind from previous mine expansions.

He lit the dynamites before climbing above the other skeletons.

“Brothers, I’ll be heading off first! See you in the forums!”

The sight of the dynamites’ fuses burning down scared the skeletons beneath him so much that they nearly ran away. It was only when they recalled this was just a game that they barely stood their ground.

There was no climactic run up.

The NPC named Bant, upon spotting Pooppool with the dynamites, grabbed him by the arm and hurled him over.

Pooppool flew in a beautiful arc across the air before crashing into the rat stampede.

Seconds passed, but there was no explosion.

“Screw that bastard!” Dogshit cursed.

It was a dud!

‘What a waste of the melancholic atmosphere! To think that I was even touched for a good two seconds!’

The battle fell into a stalemate.

The ratmen struggled to even advance an inch, but at the same time, the skeleton players were unable to do anything much about the ratmen stampede too.

Standing above the skeletons, Bant slew all ratmen who tried to scale over the bone wall. However, under the ratmen’s relentless attack, he, despite being an indefatigable zombie, started showing signs of exhaustion.

There were too many ratmen, and their attack showed no signs of slowing down.

While deceased skeleton players were quickly revived, they were still disadvantaged in terms of manpower.

And summoning skeletons came at a price too.

Creatures Roan summoned with his mana couldn’t house souls, whereas summoning demonic creatures via the demon king domain’s core consumed faith.

Roan felt his heart bleed as he looked at his rapidly dropping faith.

Just then, a skeleton soldier suddenly ran up to him, got on one knee, and reported, “Lord Demon King, the labyrinth lies beneath the tunnel section just a hundred meters ahead of you!”

It was Autumnleaf.

Roan immediately caught his drift.

If he could find a way to collapse the tunnel and link it to the labyrinth, he could exploit the ratmen’s nemesis against them. This was not difficult for a Steel-tier mage like him, especially when the tunnel was right beside the labyrinth!

The only question was whether connecting this tunnel to the labyrinth would result in more trouble…

But looking at the crumbling defense line, Roan knew there was no time to hesitate. He could only make a gamble and pray the ratmen and crypt spiders would destroy each other!

So, he waved his wand and murmured an incantation. With the little bit of mana he had left, he cast his final Steel-tier spell.

“Earth Collapse!”

The ground shook as if there was an earthquake. Without any warning, the ground of the narrow tunnel started to collapse.

“Jip!”

The ratmen fell into the labyrinth’s first floor with shattered rock fragments. It looked as if a flood had found another outlet to flow toward.

It was a ten meter fall. The ratmen who first landed on the ground coughed blood, and the ones who came afterward were also a bit rattled by the impact.

When they snapped out of their daze, they found themselves faced with many crimson eyes.

Terror engulfed the ratmen. They knew to whom those crimson eyes belonged to, and they understood the significance behind those gazes.

The starving crypt spiders rubbed their legs in glee as they intently eyed the ratmen who had fallen into their den. It was time to feast!

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