Dusk (BL Light Novel)

Actually, even though we were a six-man party of Supreme Commanders and Generals, the fact that we managed to pull off a successful grief run right in front of the farming dungeon was purely due to luck.
Normally, every Thursday, the area in front of the farming dungeon would be absolutely packed. It was near impossible to even think about griefing there unless you had multiple full raid groups with you. Without that kind of firepower, subduing the sheer number of players was basically a fantasy.

The only reason it worked this time was because the main story had just been updated—so most players had shifted over there. Others were buried in theory posts and speculation about the hidden story and stuck on the free board. More importantly, it was a weekday afternoon. Most people were still stuck at work or in school. All of that combined meant we got lucky.
As other players started arriving with their own late-formed griefing parties, they began roaming around and outnumbering lone Jeopa groups, forcefully pushing them off the outpost. Thanks to that, we got to chill inside the outpost like we were on some kind of picnic.
While we were waiting for Ceylontea—who had run off to check the forums—Slayer, who had just heard the reason we were even doing this, burst into uncontrollable laughter and kept looping the laugh emote.

[Party] Slayer: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
[Party] Slayer: Conquering an entire outpost just to see Retaking, this is insane lololol
[Party] Honeybread: Gotta go this far if I want him to pay attention, no?
[Party] Nickjung: I mean, yeah, true haha
[Party] Nickjung: Though it’s kinda like pulling a fire alarm when all you needed to do was ring the doorbell…
[Party] FlipItIfItsPancake: z
Well... yeah.
But it’s not like I knew what house Retaking lived in so I could ring his bell, right? Instead of wandering around hopelessly, wouldn’t it be faster to pull the alarm and search the people running out to find him?

[Party] Ceylontea: Just saw on the forums
[Party] Ceylontea: Apparently Retaking was mid-theorycrafting party and is now scrambling to form a raid lol
[Party] Ceylontea: But what even is “Hidden S”? Hidden Story?
See? He got caught up speculating about story flags and missed the griefing, so now he's scrambling to form a raid group and catch up. I’m sure we’re catching flak on the Jeopa side for ruining everyone’s farming day, but hey—can't be helped.
Retaking always pulled players in fast thanks to his popularity and his livestream. If I had to guess, he’d already filled up two full raids by now. Add in the folks who couldn’t get into the raid, plus players who’d been waiting to enter the dungeon but got blocked by our griefing squad, and you’re easily looking at 70 to 80 players heading this way.

Meanwhile, we had—at best—a six-man Supreme-ranked party, two allied raids someone else had made, and a few randos who jumped in for fun. And the raids weren’t even full, so we had maybe 50 people tops.
Wasn’t this a bit much? I grumbled to myself.
[Race Chat] SailorMook: Butterflies spotted near Outpost 14 @@@@@@@@
[Race Chat] SailorMook: Up to 2 raids + 2 parties, Retaking’s with them @@@@@@@@

Right on cue, a scouting message came through race chat. Two raids and two parties, huh? Not “minimum one raid” but “maximum two raids.” Fewer than expected. Still, 60 players is more than us.
[Party] Goso: They might have more numbers than us… will we be okay?
[Party] Honeybread: If we lose, we lose. I just came here to kill Retaking, kek
Anyway, now that the enemy was approaching, everyone should’ve gathered inside the outpost and prepared for defense—but aside from our party ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) and a few others who seemed to be taking a break, there was no one in sight. I was debating whether to yell in race chat to rally everyone, when I heard faint fighting noises nearby.

Without saying a word, we all turned and ran toward the sound. Sure enough, a bit off to the side, a Jeopa raid had collided with Angel’s raid and were mid-battle.
We ran in immediately. If everyone had been at the outpost from the start, we could’ve coordinated and fought more easily, but half the players were off farming reputation points. They were scattered, getting caught alone by Jeopa raids, or fleeing while barely clinging to life.
[Race Chat] Honeybread: Jeopa’s coming in with full raids
[Race Chat] Honeybread: Why the hell aren’t you in the outpost?

I was so fed up I finally said something in chat. Sheepish replies started trickling up, but I didn’t have the patience or luxury to scold them further. I just let go of the enter key with a sigh.
To get the territory skill item, I’d spent a full week’s worth of reputation points. If I lost because of some mistake or an unavoidable reason—like a huge stat difference—fine. But if I lost because some idiots couldn’t organize themselves properly when we had a real chance? That would piss me off beyond words.
So instead of jumping into the fight directly, I kept my distance and circled around behind the Jeopa forces. It was the standard pincer strategy: push from the front and back at once. The Jeopa side clearly noticed us and tried to reposition, but with their frontlines already engaged, it was a mess.
And that’s when it happened.

[Combat] You are no longer in a Peaceful State due to Retaking’s Interference Skill.
Even while healing like a madman, Retaking had noticed me. His interference skill had tagged me, revealing my position. And even after doing that, he was already back to healing his party.
[Party] Honeybread: Turn around
[Party] Honeybread: Need backup

I sent that message and immediately used my gap closer plus another skill to close the distance between us. The moment I cut in, the Jeopa players flinched and scattered, unsure how to respond.
Normally I would’ve marked their burst DPS, not Retaking. But I’d made that mistake before, and it had cost me. In a party with Retaking in it, you always go for him first.
[Normal Chat] Honeybread: ^^)/

I was going to kill him and send him the video.
***
TIP – Supreme Commanders/Generals can use Territory Skills to capture enemy outposts. If the enemy fails to retake the outpost before the skill’s duration ends, their entire faction will suffer a -40% penalty to reputation points earned. Handle with care.

***
Trying to bait Retaking into a field war was absolute madness—and I was feeling it hard. A tank that never dies and a healer that keeps the party alive no matter what? Together? That was hell.
At first, Bia players who didn’t care about griefing came rushing over after hearing that a massive fight had broken out. I thought this meant I’d get to kill Retaking easier and faster than expected. But as soon as Jeopa players heard about it too, they started pouring in, and the tide of battle reset to even. And so the endless war began.

We fought for thirty straight minutes. Thirty. And still—nothing changed. No one managed to kill me. No one managed to kill Retaking. If even one of us went down, or even just our party’s healer died, it would’ve tilted the balance—but it never happened.
Would it have been different if we’d been in voice chat? If I had been a DPS instead of a tank? I started wondering. I was the only one who knew the perfect timing to hit Retaking. It was almost laughable.
“Oh... that’s a bait.”
“Oh... we need to dodge that.”
“Oh... extract cooldown’s almost up, we need to prepare...”

I couldn’t type while dodging and using skills, so I kept swallowing everything I wanted to say. Watching my team lose HP or waste damage because they didn’t understand how to fight Retaking made me want to cry.
They were all high-ranked, so they managed to hold their own and land a few good hits. But unlike me—who had spent a year dying and learning his patterns—none of them knew Retaking’s tricks or habits. They were struggling.
Retaking, on the other hand, had already figured us out within minutes. About ten minutes ago, Slayer had pulled off two clean kills on Jeopa’s priests after slipping out of formation and stealthing. He went for a third—only for Retaking, who had clearly tracked his path, to pop an AoE at just the right moment and force him out of stealth.

Slayer got swarmed by Jeopa players and died right then and there. He was so shaken he didn’t get up for a while.
And it didn’t stop there. Somehow, Retaking had figured out FlipIt’s entire DPS rotation. Every time she tried to cast Apocalypse, the Supreme Commander’s ultimate, he would either use Mutant Virus Extract to paralyze her or throw out an AoE heal to blunt the incoming damage.
At the same time, he kept slipping DoTs onto me and Nickjung, like he was counting our cooldowns one by one.

[Normal Chat] Retaking: ^^)
An absolute monster.