Chapter 85: Kazimierz Isn't Your 1-7, Is It? Your Proficiency Is Ridiculously High!

The Armorless Union had always seemed relatively underwhelming during the ‘Nearl Light’ event storyline. Back then, most of their elites had been entirely preoccupied with their own internal agendas, desperately attempting to break free from the suffocating control of the Kazimierz General Chamber of Commerce. But standing here now, facing them in reality, their true depth far exceeded the mere two Platinums and a single Lazurite showcased in the game’s archives.

He unhurriedly opened the PRTS operation interface. The cold, blue light of the holographic projection washed over his face. He even had the sheer leisure to bow his head slightly toward the glowing monitor, reciting a silent, dramatic confession in his mind.

‘My dear Priestess, today I am once again neglecting Project Originium. Instead, I am using my precious brain cells and the very useful computing power of the terminal system you left behind to play house with these little animals. I am hopelessly addicted to the gacha life and have accomplished absolutely nothing of value, but I still love you.’

PRTS possessed no true self-awareness and naturally offered no response to his heartless, lazy remarks. The screen merely flickered with a gentle hum, faithfully rendering a perfect, three-dimensional architectural wireframe of the Commerce Union headquarters according to his exact parameters.

Snap.

With a crisp, echoing snap of his fingers, a series of faint, shrill electronic whines erupted from the subterranean sewer network beneath Kawalerielki. The high-frequency noise echoed and bounced through the damp tunnels, creating a localized web of absolute signal death.

Up in the executive suites, a panicked K.G.C.C. director gripped his phone, frantically attempting to dial the emergency frequency for the Silverlance Pegasi. The line clicked. The frantic ringing instantly flatlined into a cold, dead dial tone.

Compared to the Grand Partition caused by the violent city-wide power outage last time, the little toys he had instructed Degenbrecher and Nearl to plant in the sewers were far more insidious. They covered a significantly wider frequency band with terrifying sustained penetration. The overlapping influence ranges of the scattered jammers linked together, silently plunging the entire sector of the city into an absolute communications blackout.

The assassins of the Armorless Union were already in position. They poured from the shadows like a rising tide of black ink, slipping out from every corner of the grand hall, from behind the marble pillars, and dropping silently from the vaulted rafters above. Bowstrings hummed in a deadly, unified chorus. A dense volley of arrows poured toward the two figures standing at the entrance like a torrential rain of steel.

However, this torrential rain came to an abrupt, unnatural halt long before it could ever touch its intended targets.

“Degenbrecher, left front pillar. Two snipers are positioned too far forward. Wis’adel, suppress the right flank, clear the line of fire, and tell those Nachzehrers to dial it back to eighty percent of their strength.”

His lazy voice carried not a single ripple of panic or urgency. He spoke as if casually stating a settled fact, even taking the time to specifically cater his phrasing to the rather unique cultural comprehension levels of the Sarkaz mercenaries under his command.

‘Damn it…’he groaned internally, his eyes tracking the red dots on the PRTS display.’Why am I predicting these spawn points so perfectly? Just how many times have I farmed this exact stage?!’

Degenbrecher moved like a ghost. She vanished from her position the exact millisecond his sentence ended. The marble floor where she had just been standing was instantly pinned with half a dozen trembling arrows, but she was already materializing beside the designated pillar. A flash of cold sword light illuminated the dim hall. The two Armorless Union assassins who had just poked their heads out from cover crumpled to the floor before they could even draw breath to scream.

Almost simultaneously, Wis’adel sprang into action. She did not bother using her most stamina-consuming Originium Arts. Instead, she merely clicked her tongue, habitually falling into line with his precise instructions. Six of her Revenant Launchers slammed into the ground at once, fanning out in a wide arc. She did not aim for immediate lethality; she aimed for area denial. The explosive payload forced several assassins hidden in the right-side shadows to break cover and scatter. A massive, glaring gap instantly tore open in their previously flawless crossfire network.

“Doctor, high-level platform. At least two Platinums.” Młynar kept his voice low and even. The golden sword in his hand moved in short, efficient arcs, steadily deflecting a few stray arrows that slipped past the suppression fire. His sharp gaze remained locked on several sleek, black-clad figures emerging from the edge of the second-floor balcony.

“Ignore them. It is a feint. Młynar, eleven o’clock direction. The one lingering behind the main crowd is the command node. Break through him.” He issued the counter-order with zero hesitation, not even bothering to look up from the screen.

Młynar did not question the command. He turned a completely blind eye to the lethal arrows nocked and aimed directly at his chest. His trench coat billowed as he suddenly surged forward, the tip of his blade pointing dead ahead at the seemingly ordinary, unassuming assassin gesturing from the backlines. Like thin snow exposed to the blistering morning sun, the vanguard assassins attempting to block his path proved as fragile as ice crystals. They scattered and disintegrated instantly under the blinding, unilluminated glory of his golden Arts.

A trace of sheer astonishment flashed across the eyes of the leading assassin. The man seemed entirely incapable of processing how his concealed command position had been instantly identified and locked onto. He raised his weapon in a frantic, desperate bid for resistance.

He successfully transitioned from being a living commander to being cleanly split into two halves, along with his reinforced bow, by Młynar’s descending strike.

‘That is the magic of raw DPS suppression, kid!’ the Doctor cheered internally, watching the enemy health bar vanish from his screen.

Just as Młynar drew the entirety of the frontal aggro, the Doctor’s voice cut through the chaos once more. “Degenbrecher, now. Three o’clock direction, support Młynar. Cut off their flank coordination. Wis’adel, cover fire on the second-floor platform. Suppress everyone up there. Three seconds. You can manage that, right?”

The orders were as precise and clinical as a surgeon’s scalpel. Even the enemy commander, had he still been in one piece, could not have matched this terrifying grasp over the positioning and habits of his own subordinates.

Degenbrecher carved her way out from the flank. Her dual blades danced into a blinding storm of death, precisely cutting into the enemy squad attempting to surround Młynar from the side. She tore their formation apart in a spray of crimson.

And Wis’adel finally, gleefully, unleashed her payload.

“Hahahahahaha! Boom!”

Blinding firelight exploded across the upper levels, burning so bright it looked as though dawn had prematurely broken inside the hall. Explosive sorcery, carrying an intensity that far exceeded standard Originium Arts, whistled through the air and instantly blanketed the entire second-floor balcony. Through sheer, overwhelming firepower, she single-handedly suppressed every remaining sniper, forcing them to plaster themselves against the floor just to survive the shockwaves.

Three seconds. It was the exact, calculated window Młynar needed to eliminate the command node, pivot on his heel, and turn back to block the incoming flank attacks.

The entire rhythm of the battlefield had fallen completely and helplessly under his absolute control.

“Wis’adel, left front ceiling. Shake them down.” The tacit understanding between them required no further elaboration. An assassin attempting a desperate, plunging surprise attack from the rafters happened to drop directly into Wis’adel’s waiting line of fire. The man did not even have the time to register the muzzle flash.

A single, specialized Platinum-colored arrow clattered uselessly onto the marble floor, rolling away from the falling body.

This method of crushing every obstacle with such effortless, top-down precision was genuinely intoxicating. It was so effective that, many years after he eventually fell asleep, Wis’adel would find herself entirely unable to adjust her combat habits. She would often throw herself at opponents far weaker than those they faced today, fighting with reckless abandon until she was critically injured, simply because she lacked the omniscient voice in her ear telling her exactly where to step.

“Degenbrecher, right rear blind spot. Clear it.”

In a remarkably short span of time, the Black Knight had completely adapted to his rapid-fire communication style. She did not even bother turning her head. She simply reversed her grip and drove her blade backward, cleanly pinning an assassin—who had attempted to use a decorative marble statue to mask his approach—directly to the wall.

“Młynar, advance. Ten o’clock direction, break the wall.”

The stoic Nearl Family knight offered no verbal confirmation. Golden light surged violently around his blade. Amidst a deafening, structural roar, the heavy, reinforced decorative wall was cleaved entirely in half. The collapsing rubble revealed yet another hidden squad of archers, their faces frozen in expressions of absolute, incredulous horror.

The legendary resistance of the Armorless Union collapsed rapidly under such cold, methodical dismantling. The flawless stealth, the seamless coordination, and the lethal sniping they were so famous for across Kazimierz all appeared pale, pathetic, and utterly powerless under his total insight. They were no longer fighting against physical opponents. They were fighting against a cold, calculating will that hovered above the battlefield, treating their lives as mere data points.

A casual game of tower defense. Truly, wasn’t it magical?

[Rhodes’s Note: “1-7” refers to the infamous Arknights stage 1-7, which players obsessively farm thousands of times for Orirock Cubes, leading to the Doctor’s joke about having the spawn patterns perfectly memorized. “Carrot Defense” (Defend the Radish) is a highly popular, casual Chinese tower defense mobile game, emphasizing how trivially easy the Doctor finds this life-or-death ambush.]

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]