Debuff Master-Chapter 1040

Chapter 1040
While Siegfried was wreaking havoc alone inside the Pallas Fortress, the Allied Forces were preparing for a naval battle to cut off the Holy Alliance’s supply line.
The Nordic Warriors led by Lionbreath led the allied forces. The Nordic Tribe, too, had joined the war against the Holy Alliance as part of the Allied Forces.
“Brave and valiant warriors! The time has finally come! Let us show those wicked bastards the true terror of the Nords!” Lionbreath shouted, addressing the warriors gathered before him.
Waaaah!
The Nordic Warriors roared, and their morale was high. After all, it had been a very long while since they stepped into a real battlefield.
They were warriors born to be on the battlefield. Their aggressive nature and fearlessness toward death made them embrace the battlefield rather than shying away from it.
On top of that, this was a crucial mission that could decide whether or not they could sever the enemy’s supply line. Despite the pressure on the importance of this mission, the passion of the Nordic Warriors burned even hotter.
In their eyes, playing a crucial role in a battle that would go down in the annals of history was an honor so great that they felt they ought to bow to Siegfried in gratitude for entrusting them with it.
However, the Nordic Warriors were not the only ones deployed for this mission. Joining them were Nanuqsa and the Blanc Clan from the Arctic Pangea.
[Nanuqsa]
[The ruler of the Arctic Pangea.]
[He is the chieftain of the Blanc Clan, and he is very strong.]
[He fell in love with a woman from the continent who was shipwrecked along with others, but she ended up leaving him to return to the continent.]
[This caused him to loathe the continent.]
[His time with his wife taught him to be fluent in the common language used on the continent.]
[Type: NPC]
[Level: 330]
[Class: Arctic]
[Affiliation: Blanc Clan]
[Position: Chieftain]
[Titles: One Who Surpassed The Wall, Scarred Middle-Aged Man, I Miss Her, I Love My Daughter, Cold Steel Axes, Cursed Descendant]
Given the importance of the mission, a Master warrior like Nanuqsa was deployed alongside them.
“What did I expect from them?” Nanuqsa sneered, looking at the Nordic Warriors as if they were beneath him.
And for good reason...
The Nordic Tribe and Blanc Clan simply couldn’t get along.
If compared to Earth, the Nordic Tribe would be akin to a barbarian tribe that settled in the Arctic, while the Blanc Clan would be a barbarian tribe that settled in the Antarctic.
In other words, they came from the opposite ends of the world, which naturally gave rise to a subtle sense of rivalry between them.
“What’s with that look? Are you looking down on us?” Lionbreath growled.
“When did I ever look down on your tribe? I haven’t said a word,” Nanuqsa said indifferently. Then, he smirked and added, “Or are you feeling a little guilty on your own?”
“Guilty? Do you think us, proud Nords, will care what some random clan thinks of us?”
“Some random clan? Are you talking about
us?!”
“Who else would I be talking about?”
The verbal argument escalated and—
Bam!
Lionbreath threw a punch straight into Nanuqsa’s face.
Kwachik!
Nanuqsa retaliated instantly, grabbing Lionbreath by the collar.
In mere seconds, an all-out brawl erupted between the Nordic Tribe and the Blanc Clan members.
Bam! Bam!
Crash! Thud! Thwak!
Pow! Pow!
The two tribes had been at each other’s throats the moment the Allied Forces were formed, and now, they finally descended into a full-on brawl.
“...”
Oscar closed his eyes tightly as he watched the Nords and Blancs tear into each other. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was a mistake to deploy these two feuding tribes in the same operation.
At this point, she couldn’t separate them anymore. For better or worse, the outcome of this mission would completely alter the course of the war.
Thus, Oscar decided to watch and wait things out.
***
Two hundred fifty Aqua Runners rode along the Piaro River, heading straight toward the naval base where the Holy Alliance’s fleet was stationed.
“...”
A heavy silence hung over the Aqua Runners.
The two tribes got into a huge brawl just before they were deployed, so they were naturally quiet after being deployed together on the Aqua Runners. Their eyes were blackened and bruised while blood streamed down their broken noses.
However, all of their eyes gleamed in anticipation of the upcoming battle.
Just as the Aqua Runners neared the enemy’s naval base...
Shwaaa!
A fleet of around one hundred warships suddenly appeared right in the middle of the Piaro River. The ships that formed the fleet were a jumbled mess of different designs and types.
Each ship flew two flags, a single unified banner, and a different skull-marked flag. The unified banner represented the Green Isles while the various skull flags belonged to their respective pirate crews.
The Pirate Alliance of the Green Isles had emerged onto the main river of the continent—the Piaro River.
“E-Enemy sighted!”
“Pirates! Pirates have appeared!”
The Holy Alliance was thrown into complete disarray at the sudden arrival of a fleet made up entirely of pirate ships.
“M-My lord! We are in serious trouble!”
“What is it?”
“Pirates have appeared, sir!”
“What?” Vice Admiral Kuschen raised a brow. Then, he said, “What do you mean, pirates? This is the Piaro River. What would pirates even be doing coming this far up the river instead of staying at sea?”
Vice Admiral Kuschen, the Supreme Commander of the Holy Alliance’s naval fleet, was bewildered by his subordinate’s .
His doubts were not unfounded, as this was a river and not the open sea.
Logically speaking, it was rare for pirates to venture into rivers to raid, as the rivers were mostly territory of the river bandits.
“Sir! It is true! The fleet of the Green Isles has appeared!”
“What?! The Green Isles?!” Vice Admiral Kuschen exclaimed in shock.
The infamy of the Green Isles was so widespread that even fleet officers like Kuschen, who mainly operated in rivers, knew their name all too well.
Due to the Piaro River, most nations divided their naval forces into river fleets and sea fleets, so it was rare for a river fleet official to encounter sea pirates directly.
“What madness is this?! Why would the fleet of the Green Isles come all the way up the Piaro River?!”
Frantic to confirm the with his own eyes, Vice Admiral Kuschen rushed up onto the deck.
But it was already too late.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Green Isles’ fleet suddenly opened fire and bombarded the Holy Alliance fleet without warning.
Thus, a fierce battle erupted between the Allied Forces’ fleet and the Holy Alliance’s fleet right in the middle of the Piaro River.
Caught completely by surprise, the Holy Alliance forces suffered devastating losses in the blink of an eye.
The Green Isles’ fleet suddenly appeared out of nowhere and launched a preemptive strike before the Holy Alliance’s fleet could even ready their cannons.
The result?
More than half of the Holy Alliance’s warships were either heavily damaged or sunk outright.
And then came the next phase—
Shwaaaa!
Two hundred fifty Aqua Runners, each packed with Nordic Warriors and Blanc Warriors, zipped through the waters toward the Holy Alliance fleet at terrifying speed.
There was nothing the holy Alliance forces could do to stop them, as their ships didn't even have enough time to ready their cannons.
In other words, they couldn't attempt to sink the Aqua Runners, and the price they paid for this was devastating.
“Dieee!”
“
Bwahaha!
Witness the might of the North!”
“The blades of the Blanc Clan know no mercy!”
The Nordic Warriors and Blanc Warriors swarmed aboard the Holy Alliance warships the moment the Aqua Runners came in contact with them. Without wasting time, they wreaked havoc across the deck, unleashing their ferocity in full force.
The sailors of the Holy Alliance were nothing more than meek little lambs against the warriors, who were rampaging across the decks. These sailors were nothing more than herbivores helplessly slaughtered by predators.
But that was not all.
“Twenty-two! Twenty-three! Twenty-four!”
Roaring as if he wanted the entire battlefield to hear him, Lionbreath roared out the number of enemies he had taken down.
“Thirty-seven! Thirty-eight! Thirty-nine!”
Not to be outdone, Nanuqsa shouted out his own kill count at the top of his lungs.
The competitiveness of both leaders created a strange picture where they synergized quite well on the battlefield despite hating each other's guts.
“What?! You cheating bastards! It’s obvious we killed more than you!”
“Silence! We have slain far more than you! Look for yourself if you have eyes!”
Meanwhile, the Nordic Warriors and Blanc Warriors, spurred on by Lionbreath and Nanuqsa’s rivalry, fought even more viciously.
Contrary to Oscar’s fears, the tensions between the two tribes had instead sparked a shockingly positive outcome.
How?
It was all because each tribe member was desperate to prove their superiority over the other by slaughtering as many enemies as they could.
***
Meanwhile, Siegfried carried out a massacre within the fog created by the Green Hell Magno. Since Green Hell Magno blocked enemy long-ranged attacks, Siegfried was able to rampage freely, slaughtering enemies and harvesting their souls.
[Alert: You have absorbed a soul!]
[Alert: You have absorbed a soul!]
[Alert: You have absorbed a soul!]
(omitted...)
[Alert: You have absorbed a soul!]
In less than ten minutes, the number of enemies Siegfried had killed neared three thousand, and this was made possible due to the radioactive energy of Green Hell Magno, which killed all enemies with low Poison Resistance.
As such, Siegfried was able to gather all the soul energy he needed to use Demon Lord’s Descent in a very short time.
[Soul Energy: 5,012]
‘
Good. Very good.’
As soon as he confirmed that he had gathered enough soul energy, Siegfried spread out his wings and prepared to leave the Pallas Fortress. He had already destroyed all of the enemy’s supplies and harvested enough soul energy to use his skill, so there was no reason left for him to stay.
However, leaving was not going to be as easy as he wished, as he had rampaged too deep inside enemy territory.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“The stench of demons... I can smell it.”
“You’re a demon, aren’t you?”
About fifty Fallen Angels blocked Siegfried’s path, and every single one of them was a high-ranking one.
‘
Fifty high-ranking ones... This can get a bit troublesome even for me,'
Siegfried grumbled inwardly.
The High-ranking Fallen Angels were incomparably powerful compared to other Fallen Angels. While Siegfried could easily handle Mid-Ranking Fallen Angels in droves, even he would struggle against this many High-Ranking Fallen Angels.
A High-ranking Fallen Angel could exhibit combat prowess that even those who ascended into the realm of Masters would struggle against, and even a Top-ranking Fallen Angel that descended with their full strength intact could exhibit combat prowess equivalent to a Grandmaster.
In other words, fifty High-ranking Fallen Angels were a force too much for Siegfried to handle alone, even as a Master.
“Hey, can’t you just let me leave? I really don’t feel like wasting my energy today. Let’s just fight some other time, okay?” Siegfried asked the angels blocking his way.
But of course, there was no way the High-Ranking Fallen Angels would let him go...
“So, you’re that heretic I’ve been hearing about.”
“You won’t escape from here.”
“Die! King of the Heretics!”
The angels seemed to have no intention of simply letting him go, as they all charged toward him at once.
“
Haa...”
Siegfried let out a sigh before tightly gripping his +16 Vanquisher’s Grasp.
However, he did not use Demon Lord’s Descent this time.
‘
I might as well try this out,’
he thought.
He had been itching to try out his new skill, and this battle seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. Deciding to test out the new skill of the Lord of Despair he had just acquired, he prepared for battle.
‘
Debuff them first,’
he thought, as he cast one of his main debuff skills—Eternal Flames.
Flames roared to life around Siegfried before setting the High-ranking Fallen Angels ablaze.
And then, a phenomenon unlike anything Siegfried had ever witnessed happened right before his eyes...
Swoosh! Fwaaah!
The Eternal Flames around the High-ranking Fallen Angels flew toward Siegfried and clung onto his +16 Vanquisher’s Grasp.