Opening Champagne Mid-Game, Is That It?

Lloyd's's called to inform Iver that the time of the attack had been set.

The time is Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

It's Monday afternoon now, which means the attack will take place at midnight tomorrow.

Lawyer York even provided Iver with a list of the attackers and their composition.

There were four Demon Scholar in total, two at the Third Level and two at the Second Level. Each of them was accompanied by two Demon Dog, one Lash Demon, and one blade demon.

This lineup... can only be described as classic.

The Lash Demon is a common demon species, also known as the "Overseer" by players. It acts as a buff machine for demons, continuously applying various enhancements to all surrounding demons, but is itself quite fragile. It is usually protected by magic-based demons.

The Demon Dog was originally slated to be the second boss in the Pelican Bar; it's an artificial demon created by Demon Scholar. It's only roughly at the Second Level, its advantages being high attack frequency, a strong aggression, and a relentless fighting style. Therefore, it's best to take down the Demon Dog at the start, otherwise, sticking to it will be very troublesome.

The only one that's a bit difficult to deal with is the Blade Demon.

This is a pure melee demon, without any fancy teleportation abilities. It also lacks control skills or ranged attacks; it's simply incredibly fast and highly skilled in martial arts. Blade demons are the demons transformed after death by villains who are obsessed with swordsmanship, recklessly killing to test their skills, or challenging and cruelly killing strong opponents.

As a demon directly transformed from a human soul, it also bears the Great Sin Imprint.

Blade Demons are relatively weaker and easier to control compared to other demons bearing the Great Sin Imprint. That's why they weren't classified as Greater Demon.

With the development of the times, very few Blade Demons have been born in recent years. The last batch of Blade Demons were born hundreds of years ago.

Judging solely from its cultivation level, Blade Demon is roughly equivalent to a Third Level melee superhuman. However, its superb combat skills and rich combat experience increase its threat level in direct combat by at least one level.

In the game, the Blade Demon is the only Lower Demon, and even among all the phantom demons encountered in the first forty levels, that can use Variable Speed Strike attacks. The intervals between its combos are variable, and its attack change speed is very fast—it has the combat intelligence to immediately change its attack and find a landing point after seeing a roll.

Furthermore, it will consciously target weaknesses. Blade Demons can enchant their weapons with various elemental damage types, targeting their enemies by choosing the weakest resistance.

This is why rolling is almost ineffective against it, and parrying is also highly unlikely to work. Furthermore, its pursuit is extremely strong; players being chased and attacked by it are almost certainly unlikely to create distance to receive healing from the Dedication Path. Its only drawback is that it has fixed aggro; once it targets someone, it will absolutely not switch aggro.

When fighting the Blade Demon, bring crowd control skills and focus fire to quickly eliminate it. The longer the fight drags on, the more likely things will go wrong.

Then there are four Demon Scholar, all low-level, fragile, and without any home-field advantage. But if you leave them alone, their stationary ritual attacks can deal quite a lot of damage.

Their lineup emphasizes "each of them relies on their own skills." It's a very classic NPC team composition, without a single disruptive or protective demon, just charging straight in from the start.

Switching bases at the start of the game is an example of this.

Although they have virtually no ability to coordinate their defenses, each demon is the type that you'd better focus fire on and take down first, making their combined attacks somewhat troublesome. Because if you take down any one of them, the others can then contribute their strength.

Although for the strong, their fate was simply to be wiped out with a single skill, for Iver was only at the First Level on the surface, this was practically a dead end that "even if he knew, he couldn't break through."

"You said I could handle it myself?"

Iver questioned, "With this kind of lineup, what do you expect me to do?"

"Don't be angry, Mr. Moriarty..."

York, on the other end of the phone, chuckled awkwardly, his voice trembling slightly.

Iver could almost see him wiping sweat with a handkerchief in his voice. "That's why I was so anxious when I couldn't contact you—we were afraid you might have actually been killed!" But there was nothing he could do. Vice President Boca had indeed only intended to send a few Second Level Demon Scholar to attack you. He gave two reasons: one was to 'lower the scale of the attack to prevent Avalon from becoming wary and to make the authorities underestimate us'; the other was for Lloyd's's internal use, saying that 'the Society wants to deplete our strength, deliberately sending our people to their deaths; we need to conserve our power.'"

"Isn't this great?"

Iver countered, "Is what he said correct?"

"Yes, I also think it's fine... but the president stopped him."

"The president said that your identity is rather delicate and crucial, so even a small attack against you is a major event. We cannot reduce the attacker's strength to ease Avalon's vigilance, so Mr. Boca's reasoning is invalid. Moreover, many people know that you have joined Lloyd's's. If you were to be attacked by the Demon Scholar at this time, you could use it as a smokescreen to confuse Avalon's investigators and temporarily separate Lloyd's's from the Noble Red Society, thus buying us time."

Lawyer York tried his best to paraphrase the words of the two senior executives. "The final vote result was... the chairman's side clearly had more supporters."

"Vice President Boca means that you should find some help. If all else fails, then don't hold back... Your primary goal should be to protect yourself."

Iver clicked his tongue, smacked his lips, and remained silent.

This chairman is quite the smooth talker.

What he meant was to throw Iver out as a scapegoat.

If Iver, as a legitimate member of Lloyd's's of London, continues to be attacked by the Noble Red Society, then it proves that there is not a very close relationship between Lloyd's and the Society.

Lloyd's's was made up of businessmen.

Merchants lack strong convictions; they are more timid and protective of themselves. Yet, they also favor more aggressive, higher-profit strategies.

Therefore, given his statement, it would be impossible for others, from an objective standpoint, to agree with Vice President Boca's decision.

As the head of the Moriarty Family, Iver was indeed vulnerable to Avalon's full-scale counterattack if he were attacked—and from this perspective, the chairman directly rejected Vice President Boca's "Hero Plan."

Compared to "preserving strength under the oppression of the association" and "directly presenting a counter-logical argument to prove that Lloyd's's may have nothing to do with the Noble Red," the benefits of "preserving strength under the oppression of the association" are clearly more stable, but lower.

He knew the personalities of the other senior executives at Lloyd's's very well. Therefore, his reasoning was more convincing than that of Vice President Boca.

Good heavens, the infighting is this fierce? The friendly fire they inflict on each other is far, far greater than the damage the Bureau of Supervision has done to them...

Iver is a legitimate member of Lloyd's.

Is the Chairman not afraid at all that Iver might be pushed too far and turn against him? Iver narrowed his eyes, lost in thought.

... Unless, he has already decided to withdraw from Lloyd's's. Because he did not respond to Vice President Boca's second question, which means he intends to end his Fence-sitting State and fully side with the Noble Red Society.

Conversely, the fact that the Noble Red Society acted so boldly, forcing them to attack Iver... might not have been without the intention of getting the authorities to deal with Lloyd's's on their behalf.

As expected of an organization that Path of Transcendence, their internal strife is truly formidable.

They've already started fighting over how to distribute Avalon before they've even gotten their hands on it.

It's precisely because Iver himself is extremely valuable that the chairman can't tolerate this. His "counterintuitive" approach is essentially a smokescreen. What he really wants to do is prevent himself from being bitten by Lloyd's.

If Iver betrays Lloyd's's, he will drag Iver's into the mess, allowing him to jump into the Noble Red; if Iver doesn't betray Lloyd's, then he is suppressing Vice President Boca's faction. Heretics are more detestable than infidels, and to the President, Vice President Boca, who has clearly established his own faction, is a heretic in his eyes.

From this perspective, he is not actually a pure Transcender.

This generation of Lloyds has a strong authoritarian consciousness and is consciously trying to maintain its power.

This may explain why he didn't firmly join the Noble Red at the beginning, but instead still had one foot in Lloyd's's.

How ridiculous. An ambitious businessman with a thirst for power...

But it is precisely because of the existence of such people that the alliance between Lloyd's's and the Noble Red has become flawed.

You like Opening Champagne Mid-Game, right? Okay, then I'll open a few more bottles for you.

"I understand... I don't need to hold back, right?"

After a moment of silence, Iver gave a brief response.

He then ignored Lawyer York's rambling and hung up the phone, pretending to be very angry.

But in reality, Iver wasn't angry at all.

Instead, he smiled and said with delight, "The opportunity has finally arrived."

"Is it the fake death plan we talked about before?"

"I asked Yulia, who had been holding her breath and standing motionless beside me."

She was a little worried. "Are you sure everything will be alright?"

"Trust me, Yuli. I never do anything without a plan."

After thinking for a moment, Iver slightly modified his original plan. "I will invite Princess Isabel over tomorrow and tell her about your enrollment—your grades are more than sufficient, you just need to take an additional exam."

"I'll have her come over this afternoon, and you just keep pestering her, saying you want to go to the palace with her. That way you won't be in any danger. Yuli is so cute, Her Highness the Princess will definitely like her."

"But... what about the assassins at night?"

Yulia's thoughts were clear. "Wait until tonight, then I'll insist on coming back... and then be escorted back by the palace guards?"

"Need not."

Iver smiled gently and said softly, "I can handle it myself. Didn't you already give me your Little Butterfly? It will protect me for you."

"Miss Shadow Demon and I will too."

Lily added from the side, "After this, we may disappear for a while. Miss Yulia, remember not to give anything away."

Yulia nodded seriously. "I will try my best."

—Good luck.

Iver narrowed his eyes like Fox and looked out the window.

If that chairman hadn't been so greedy, his plan would have had some flaws.

Now, the last loophole in the Iver plan has been patched up by the chairman's own greed and selfishness.

"Aleister ... I'll have to give you my regards to Vice President Boca."

He recited softly, a smile playing on his lips, his voice as gentle as if he were chewing candy.

Update Meow~ Tomorrow is Little Butterfly's debut!

I've decided not to take the day off. I'll finish writing this first, then I'll play Baldur's Gate 3!