The Duke of Triss, All of This Was Part of Your Plan, Wasn't It?

Transia's winged cavalry had pulled off a flashy trick. Happy Stick's proposed "portal leapfrog tactic" had been a huge success. It turned out that ever since Lord Murphy chose Mannis the Endless as his Astral Guardian, even the winged cavalry had benefited.

No longer afraid of getting lost in the Astral Plane, they could finally combine their peerless trampling charges with the portals' incredible mobility, creating a new twist on the classic combination of cavalry charges and psionic techniques.

It was easy to predict that, from today onward, the winged cavalry's reputation as the continent's finest heavy cavalry would shine even brighter—and grow even deadlier.

Their savage rampage had made the rescue operation a great success.

The two barrier-core crystals had made it into Fort Courage without incident. Of course, the price had been steep: only a third of the players who had followed Master Qin to break through the enemy lines and provide cover had returned.

The Rending Claw Clan had spared no expense in its bid to take Fort Courage. Every gnoll guarding the area was an elite, and even veteran players had struggled to deal with them.

The players' numerical disadvantage had never been more obvious. Their quality was steadily improving, but with their current population, facing a war on the scale of the Black Calamity could hardly be described as "stretched thin."

Calls on the forums and at Transia's taverns for the dev team to hurry up and release more helmets grew louder by the day. Players already in the game were also complaining that there weren't enough of them.

What could a little over three thousand people possibly do?

If you could just multiply that tenfold and give us thirty thousand, enough to form an army group, then what the hell would the Black Calamity