Dusk (BL Light Novel)

― “I managed to take down several dealers and healers, but weirdly, there seem to be more healers and tanks than dealers.”

“Tanks and healers?”
― “Yeah. That’s why I couldn’t kill as many as usual. The other Assassins couldn’t secure many kills either.”
I frowned and scanned the Jeojajok formation. Come to think of it, their lineup did seem oddly heavy on tanks and healers. Why would they set it up like this? There had to be a reason.

What advantage would they gain from having fewer dealers? No, what would they gain from stacking tanks and healers? Durability. Survivability. A composition like that would be perfect for defense.
But Jeojajok wasn’t defending; they were attacking. And even if they were defending, a defensive composition still needed enough firepower to pressure the enemy healers and force them to waste mana. That was the basic tactic for any faction war.
If Jeojajok were weaker or outnumbered, then it might make sense for them to play defensively. But they weren’t. They were stronger than us in both manpower and firepower.

[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: The enemy has a lot of tanks and healers, so they’re probably lacking in firepower.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Healers, you can ease up a bit. Take it slow.
I informed the team of the situation, but I still couldn’t pinpoint what Jeojajok was planning. We’d have to keep fighting to figure it out.
For now, the 1st Line was packed with Sentinels and Medics. Likely Defenders and Harmonizers.

It made sense for Defenders to hold the front, given their role as the faction’s main tank line. But Harmonizers typically stayed back, healing the 1st Line and the 3rd Line. Why were they positioned at the front?
If their healers were in the front, then targeting them was the obvious play. I activated my resistance skill and charged forward. As I moved, I brushed past the Jeojajok Commander Sentinel, Knight, but ignored him and pushed deeper into enemy lines, unleashing a skill to scatter the formation.
Knight blocked part of the attack, but some players got hit, and several healers stumbled or got stunned. I immediately issued the order to focus fire on that spot, and as the attacks landed, multiple healers went down.

I could have taken down more, but Knight had to interfere. Damn it.
While I searched for another opening, a momentary lull in the action allowed me to lower my shield to recover stamina — and that’s when someone rushed at me.
Flapping his familiar wings as he charged forward, it was Retaking a Class.

Despite being a healer, Gang Jaegyung dashed straight at me, activating his defensive skill. But thanks to a quick-thinking healer who threw a resistance buff on me, I resisted the CC effect. The unfortunate frontline players near me, however, weren’t so lucky. They were stunned, knocked back, and pushed away by Gang Jaegyung’s skill.
This bastard… What the hell is a healer doing in the front line?
But this was a golden opportunity. What kind of Harmonizer charges into the 1st Line like that? This was my chance. I was about to mark him with the 1-mark indicator to call for focus fire —

But then, a line of text echoed in my mind:
[Gang Jaegyung: I have something thanks to what you did yesterday, so it’ll be easier for me.]
Wait… wait a second. Isn’t this exactly what I did yesterday? Tanking as a healer?
And now that I took a closer look, Gang Jaegyung was surrounded by a massive amount of shields and healing. Just like I was yesterday.

The realization hit me like a sledgehammer. Instead of marking him for focus fire, I switched the indicator to the prohibited mark and issued the new order.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Ignore the marked target. No focus fire.
Even with an Avatar activated, getting focus-fired would drain my HP rapidly, even as a tank. But with that much shielding and healing? Yesterday, without my Avatar skill, I’d managed to withstand a ridiculous amount of focus fire thanks to all that support. And now, with Gang Jaegyung running Avatar and getting even more support, he’d be even harder to take down.

There was no point wasting our firepower on him. Better to focus on AoE attacks to take down other targets instead. I almost fell into Gang Jaegyung’s trap.
It was as if he’d anticipated my reaction — the moment I ordered the team to ignore him, he used up the rest of his defensive skills and then retreated, activating his evasion skill to get away.
Damn it. His timing was impeccable. No, it was more than that. He knew exactly how I’d respond. He’d counted on me giving the order to ignore him. That was why he’d rushed in like that.

After Gang Jaegyung retreated, the battle returned to its previous rhythm. The only difference was that every time Gang Jaegyung’s defensive skill came off cooldown, he’d charge in, stun everyone around him, then retreat after disrupting our formation.
And he didn’t stick to just one area. He moved around, targeting different points, forcing us to spread out and lose our defensive formation.
The reason for his relentless charge became clear soon enough.

[Combat] Retaking a Class’s Plague has infected you with Virus I.
[Combat] Retaking a Class’s Plague has infected you with Virus II.
[Combat] Retaking a Class’s Plague has infected you with Virus V.
[Combat] Retaking a Class’s Plague has infected you with Virus LII.
…
[Combat] Retaking a Class’s Plague has infected you with Concealed Virus.
[Combat] You have received 68,561 damage from Retaking a Class’s continuous damage effect.
Plague was already spreading.
Sure, some time had passed since the battle started, but not enough for Plague to activate. For Plague to trigger, 300 stacks of Contagion had to accumulate, and that should have taken longer. The fact that it had already activated meant one thing:

Our formation was failing to maintain distance.
And then it all made sense — why they’d stacked tanks and healers at the front.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Plague has already activated. Maintain distance.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Cleansing Team, push yourselves a bit harder, and don’t forget to keep those resistance buffs up to avoid knockbacks.

 
I’d told everyone to keep their distance, but the real reason we were failing to maintain formation wasn’t entirely our fault. It was more about the enemy’s composition.
There were too many crowd control effects. Defenders naturally had a lot of CC skills, and Harmonizers had the most CC abilities out of all the healer classes.

Our healers were doing their best to keep the resistance buffs up, but there was a limit to how many buffs they could provide. If the enemy managed to land multiple AoE CCs between those buffs, our formation would get disrupted — tanks couldn’t hold the line, DPS couldn’t maintain their positions, and everyone got knocked around like ragdolls.
But targeting the front line first was tricky too. They were too tanky, and the healers behind them were too well-protected, making it impossible to decide where to strike first.
[Alliance] SoraShell: Why the hell does it hurt so much?

That cry came from the backline, a healer. But why would they be in pain? The enemy had mostly tanks and healers. The only reason SoraShell would be taking damage was if the Assassins were targeting them. But that wouldn’t explain why everyone else was losing health too.
What the hell was going on?
I wracked my brain, but nothing made sense. The only plausible explanation was the Jeojajok Commander Priest, the Destroyer.

The Apocalypse skill applied a debuff called Omen, which did a small amount of DoT damage. If the Destroyer Commander /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ was getting buffed up by healers, even that minor DoT could be hitting hard enough to feel significant.
Ultimately, we had to cut off the healers. They were the root of the problem — providing buffs, healing, and sustaining the front line.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Cleansing team, how many resistance buffs do we have left?
[Alliance] China: I have one.
[Alliance] Rhrl: I have one.

Two. Not bad.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Hold your AoE skills and focus fire on the Circle Mark when I place it.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Stand by.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: When I push in, follow up with your attacks and dive with me.
I marked myself with the Circle Mark and scanned for an opening. Knight was sticking to me like glue, making it difficult to break through. But I only needed one opening.

While I prepared to push in, the healers buffed me with shields and resistance buffs. The moment I saw Knight’s resistance buff disappear, I lunged forward and unleashed a fan-shaped knockdown skill aimed directly at him.
But as expected, Knight was no pushover. He blocked my attack effortlessly.
I quickly scanned his stance. His shield was held in his left hand, sword poised in his right, ready to strike.

Alright… then I’ll go this way.
I made my decision and hit the jump key while moving forward. Seeing me jump, Knight swung his sword with a skill activation — but he missed by a fraction of a second.
It was a trick. His skill only triggered if the weapon made contact with the player’s hitbox. By jumping at just the right time, I avoided the hit and prepared to use my next skill.

At the peak of my jump, I hit the space bar again. Honeybread spread his wings and activated Glide.
In that brief moment, I used a dash skill to accelerate forward, aiming straight for the enemy backline.
Before they could even react, I landed and slammed down a Shield Smash, drawing aggro from everyone in the area. Immediately after getting hit by my skill, the Jeojajok players tried to dodge back, but it was too late.

[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Hit them.
They’d already been taunted. Dodging would do them no good; they were still locked onto me, the caster of the taunt skill.
Caught in the open, the Jeojajok players were bombarded by our AoE attacks. The second major victory of this conquest battle.

As they tried to flee, I hit them with a Stun and called for another round of concentrated fire. This time, fewer players went down since most of them were tanks, but it still forced the enemy healers to burn through more mana to keep them alive.
After the resistance buffs wore off, the enemy counterattacked. A barrage of skills rained down on me. I blocked as much as I could, holding my ground. Jeojajok was now pushed deeper into their own formation.
If we kept pressing them like this, we might just win.

That’s when it happened.
[Combat] Retaking a Class’s Joint Lock inflicted 8,930 damage.
[Combat] You resisted the incapacitation effect of Joint Lock.
[Combat] You resisted the attack speed reduction of Joint Lock.
[Combat] You are now affected by a movement speed reduction from Joint Lock.
Charging forward with those familiar wings, Gang Jaegyung used a defensive skill to get right in my face. Just when I was about to block his follow-up skill with a shield skill —

[Combat] Retaking a Class’s Quick Break inflicted 7,154 damage.
[Combat] The Quick Break effect has sealed your Swordsmanship Type 1 skill.
Gang Jaegyung had read my timing perfectly. He activated Quick Break just as I prepared to block, canceling my skill and sending me flying backward.
I collided with other players, and they scrambled to avoid contact, fearing they’d catch the virus debuff. But in their frantic retreat, they ended up bumping into others, spreading the virus even further.

Unbelievable. How did he read me so well?
I had to assume Genocide was inevitable at this point. The virus stacks were spreading too fast. People had gotten too used to ignoring it since it was nerfed, and now they were paying the price.
If it were just Gang Jaegyung’s damage, we might be able to handle it. But the real threat wasn’t Genocide itself — it was the Apocalypse that would follow.

If our health dropped below 40% and we were hit by the Omen debuff, there was a 50% chance we’d get instantly killed. Unless a miracle happened and we all survived the 50/50 roll, one Apocalypse could wipe out the entire team.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Don’t back up too far trying to avoid the virus.
[Alliance Commander] Honeybread: Keep your positions. Moving too much just spreads the virus further.
While I was typing, Gang Jaegyung once again pulled back like a coward, probably cackling to himself as he refreshed the virus debuffs.

Infuriating.
But right now, all I could do was ignore him. There was no other option.