Board & Conquest: A Godly LitRPG

Every flyer on the board was violently pulled down to earth.

Sagesse, Soumis, and even Epona's sentient winged chariot were immediately sent plummeting towards the ground by the increased gravity; that alone would be troublesome, but Wepwawet immediately saw the true cruelty of Hastur's plan when he realized Soumis and Victoire had been flying above Lake Hali's moat.

The Anchored status forced flying units to the ground; which meant immediate sinking when swimming in a body of water.

And Victoire, for all of her power and valor, still needed to breathe.

He's trying to drown my Commander! Wepwawet telepathically contacted Soumis in midfall. "Soumis, throw Victoire to safety! Now!"

"Y-yes!" Thankfully, for all his other faults, the dragon knew how to follow orders. "Soumis will not fail his princess again!"

The dragon grabbed Victoire, then clumsily flung her at the island. The Anchored status slightly altered the trajectory, but she managed to crash onto her shield—using it as a buffer to soften her landing—on Carcosa's waterfront. She bounced off it, and it hurt, but she survived with only a few bruises. Sagesse also managed to control her flight enough to reach a nearby roof and land halfway gracefully.

As for Soumis, he sank.

The dragon fell into the moat and was swiftly dragged into its watery depths. His warm scales caused the liquid to turn to steam upon on contact, and his thrashing sent waves across Lake Hali, yet not even a dragon's might could overcome a Titan's will. The moat proved far from shallow, and he began a long, dreadful descent into a dark abyss.

"Soumis!" Victoire reached over the edge of the waterfront, her heart suddenly overcome with concern for her mount. "Soumis!"

Wepwawet was about to open communications when Filou's scream of fear echoed in his mind. "Your Godliness!"

Wepwawet immediately focused on the squire and froze in horror. An intangible Filou had begun to fall through the street pavement in an instant in front of his shocked teammates.

"Filou!" Viviane and Mistouffe both called out at once as they tried to grab hold of him, to no avail. The Anchored and Intangibility status combined to send the poor wererabbit plummeting through bricks and stone faster and faster.

"Filou, focus on your surroundings!" Wepwawet tried to guide the squire. "Imagine yourself stuck in one spot!"

Filou tried to follow his command, but it was already over within seconds. He continued plummeting through stone at increasing speed until he reached Carcosa's bottom, and then he fell screaming into the darkness of Titanspace. His presence swiftly became akin to a distant star to Wepwawet, like a presence in the night sky bright enough to be seen, but too far away to be heard or interacted with.

Filou, Brave Heart has been ejected from the game!

Wepwawet winced in sympathy for his Champion. He could recover Filou as soon as the Incursion ended—if they won it, otherwise Hastur would devour his soul—but being sent spiraling into the void would likely traumatize him for a while. Not to mention that since he wasn't technically dead, a revival Miracle like Underworld Escape wouldn't bring him back to life.

Had that been Hastur's plan for the Pallid Mask from the start? To use its intangibility attack to cause unlucky Champions to fall through the board? This combo turned the monster's mere touch into a lethal weapon.

And that's just the Pallid Mask, Wepwawet thought upon observing Hastur's clock of incoming doomsday. He has seven Apocalypse counters up, which means he's both halfway through his combo and raised Magnos' Rank to 8… which means he's roughly as strong as Soumis.

Epona grunted when her turn came. Her chariot Champion had managed to land on the northern island, but whatever card she drew visibly disappointed her.

"Bad luck?" Wepwawet guessed.

"Nothing good." Epona turned to Sun Wukong. "Can your Providence transform an Artifact equipped to one of your units?"

"Only if it's one of mine," Sun Wukong replied to Epona's frustration. "Sorry, I found all the loopholes already."

Epona scowled in disappointment and materialized a golden ring on her latest Champion's hand. "I play the Rank 6 Andvari Gift-Ring Artifact and equip it to Jeanne D'Arrow, then end my turn. She's on her way to you, Wepwawet."

Wepwawet nodded and focused on Victoire, who was staring at the boiling moat in which Soumi had fallen into. "Victoire, there's no time to waste."

"We can't leave him down there!" Victoire protested. "He's annoying, but he's one of us!"

If only she knew what happened to her squire, too… "I'll handle him, but time is growing short. Reunite with Sagesse and intercept Magnos before the next shift, or his sacrifice will mean nothing."

Victoire clenched her teeth, but she was a soldier first and foremost. She gave the moat one last glance before rushing back into the streets to reunite with Sagesse and continue the hunt. Wepwawet split his attention between trying to reassure Viviane's distraught group that he could retrieve Filou in time and checking on their lost dragon.

"Soumis?" he called out to his Champion.

"Y-yes?"

The flat answer took Wepwawet aback. He focused on observing the world through the dragon's senses and found himself in a dark abyss whose bottom was nearly half a mile deep. The dragon was trapped there, shivering yet alive.

"Soumis, you're unharmed?" Wepwawet asked in utter disbelief. "And still conscious?"

"Oh yes! Soumis can hold his breath for a very long time!"

True, Soumis was a dragon. His tiny brain didn't require all that much oxygen to function.

"Soumis hates water!" the dragon complained. "It is wet and clings to his scales!"

"Okay, try to climb your way up and catch up to the others. I'll lead you to the shore," Wepwawet said. They had no time to waste, and it might take a while for Soumis to reach the surface again. "You are close."

Magnos was just around the corner.

The enemy was here.

Victoire could feel its malevolent presence in the air as she approached the feet of the Panopticon of Terror. The colossal tower loomed over the streets of Carcosa, its monstrous green eyes staring both at the gods in the sky and the mortals on the ground. One glared at Victoire as she stepped on the pavement, and another kept watch over Sagesse jumping across the nearby roofs.

The cursed gravity effect that affected them, while preventing flight, apparently hadn't caused buildings to collapse under their own weight either. Victoire wasn't sure how it worked, and didn't have much time to figure out how. She only had minutes left before the city transformed again.

Soumis risked death to give her a chance to complete their hunt. As much as she disliked him, she couldn't waste his sacrifice.

"Victoire, to your l–" she heard Sagesse call from above with a birdlike shriek.

Victoire turned her left just in time to see a blast of yellow eldritch power aiming straight for her.

She managed to raise her shield to protect herself, but she might as well have abstained. Her god-granted Ice Mirror blessing triggered and shielded her with a magical carapace that sent the spell right back at the sender. The eldritch blast bounced back straight at the upper floors of the Panopticon and exploded into a burst of sacred ice. Many of the eyes somehow shrieked when struck by shards, and the tower shuddered.

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The abomination called Magnos crashed onto the street in a cataclysmic impact.

Victoire had received a detailed description of the enemy Commander from Lord Wepwawet, but the thing in front of her barely fit it anymore. It was a great and lanky creature with too many joints in its arms and legs, thrice the size of a man. Its sagging and pallid skin looked stretched from within, like a human disguise struggling to contain the evil within. A grasping black hole sucked air into its toothless mouth, and its yellow eyes glowed like malevolent stars. What ice covered its torn clothes didn't seem to impair it.

Its hand reached out for Victoire with a snake's speed and vicious claws. She barely had time to sidestep to avoid it, but he was onto her in an instant, lunging at her so fast her legs couldn't keep up.

"Level 2 Slow!"

Sagesse's voice echoed across the street from a nearby roof, and the air rippled with her spell. Her range was only twenty meters, but that was plenty of space to catch Magnos. Its lightning-fast hands quickly slowed down. It remained frighteningly fast for its size, yet not enough to outspeed Victoire.

This will not go as you plan, monster, Victoire thought as she struck the ground with her spear and called upon the power of her crown. It had bitten off more than it could chew. "By the ancient pact, I compel you to appear, oh Questing Beast of Glatisant!"

That damned dragon appeared in a burst of lightning, dispelling the darkness shrouding Carcosa.

"Greetings, minions of Carcosa!" she said with unbearable pride, like a queen expecting a warm welcome. "I, Glatisant, have come to discuss with your King in Yellow about global democrat–"

Magnos clawed at her face so hard she hit the Panopticon nearby. Glatisant lost a scale and a drop of yellow blood dripped from the small wound; a sight that Victoire found both frightening and somewhat cathartic.

Showing both tactical intelligence and focus, Magnos blasted Glatisant with a magical blast from the mouth and attempted to seize Victoire with its hands; having had its own magic turned against it had taught it to rely on physical strength when it came to its main quarry. Victoire deftly dodged its fists smashing up the pavement, and countered with thrusts of her spear. Her blade felt as if it was cutting through boneless flesh, and the creature bled yellow smoke rather than blood.

But it bled all the same.

"You're strong…" Victoire said when she heard the noise of thundering wheels coming their way from across the street. The cavalry had arrived. "But you're alone."

A chariot rammed into Magnos from behind at thunderous speeds.

Victoire barely caught a glimpse of the woman driving the vehicle and her sword of light slicing into Magnos' chest while she drove by. The blow tore a good third of its chest apart, with the chariot beginning to turn around the Panopticon in preparation for a second run.

Magnos opened its mouth to blast the vehicle with magic, only for a burst of lightning to hit him in the face. Glatisant had recovered from the earlier attack and lunged at him with electricity coursing through her eyes and teeth.

"How dare you strike the very face of intelligence?!" she shouted in genuine outrage while wrestling with Magnos, teeth to claws. Getting slapped midspeech had managed to infuriate the dragon. "You people are worse than republicans! You are uncultured anarcho-barbarians!"

The two seemed evenly matched in terms of strength, until Sagesse intervened again. "Level 4 Gravity!"

Her magic immediately fell upon Magnos the same way its Titan master had tried to slay them earlier. The sudden pressure caused it to falter, allowing Glatisant to throw it to the ground. Victoire immediately seized the opportunity to jump into the fray and reinforce all of her allies' weapons with her Winter Infusion power. She struck Magnos' leg with her blessed spear and caused ice to spread from the wound, trapping it in place.

You are no Archon, Victoire thought as she, Glatisant, and Sagesse worked together to pin down Magnos against the ground. We've fought and beaten so much worse than you.

The Valentian woman from before completed her turn around the Panopticon and approached them at full speed. Magnos let out an ear-piercing wail and thrashed around in a failed attempt to throw Glatisant off its back, yet the ice and increased gravity kept it firmly against the pavement. It could only turn its head at the vehicle aiming straight for it.

The winged chariot ran over Magnos' skull and crushed it into a bloody paste.

The second of Hastur's Commanders bit the dust right as Sun Wukong's turn came to an end.

The Monkey King hadn't done anything besides drawing a card and hoarding mana, but he didn't need to do more. Wepwawet couldn't suppress a smile at the irony of it all. Hastur had done everything in his power to raise Magnos' Rank as quickly as possible, yet this only made the creature more vulnerable to Sagesse's Rank-based disruption spells.

Still, they were lucky to have killed Magnos before the monster Ranked up anymore. Hastur had probably intended to keep that Commander for last as a trump card for the endgame.

"Only one left," Epona said with a faint smile.

"You've seen nothing yet," Sun Wukong whistled upon checking his turn countdown. "Three, two, one–"

An explosion rocked the eastern side of the board, catching everyone's eyes. Two great ogres had toppled a statue of the King in Yellow and shattered it under the orders of a certain Naga Commander.

As it turned out, Sun Wukong's Champions had been aiming for one of Hastur's Altars.

Everyone had been so focused on trying to catch up to Hastur's Commanders to notice them, but the naga and ogres had toppled one of the King in Yellow's statues. This immediately reduced his mana influx by a third before he could receive his surge, only bringing in a meager five points to his already abysmal reserve of two.

When it comes to paying maintenance costs in a B&C battle, Doctrines usually go first, then Animisms, then Artifacts, Wepwawet recalled. Which means Memory Hole goes first, and the Panopticon of Terror will follow.

The result was immediate. Hastur's mana reserve shrank to four as Memory Hole took its toll, followed by an error message.

The maintenance cost of Panopticon of Terror could not be paid.

The Animism will be destroyed.

Wepwawet watched with glee as the countless eyes of Hastur's vile tower closed one after the other. The building began to shrink in front of Victoire's group, bringing the Altar it carried down to earth.

"No…" Hastur said, shaken. "This cannot be…"

"Too bad, you can no longer see our cards," Sun Wukong taunted Hastur. "And I still have so many surprises in store for you!"

"Silence! We are not done yet!" Hastur raised his voice for the first time in the entire battle. "Cursed City Carcosa will now reshape itself!"

An earthquake shook the board as it changed. This one was the most drastic yet, with all the gods' Altars and the area near the Panopticon being shifted to the southernmost point, while the area where the Pallid Mask hid was moved north. Three full layers of moats quickly appeared to separate the two areas.

"We use Memory Hole's effect before we draw to remove Apocalypse: The Web's Conspiracy, Apocalypse: The Everhunt, Apocalypse: The Risen War, Apocalypse: The Buried Sky, Panopticon of Terror, and Statement Ends from the game to recover eighteen mana!" Hastur declared. "We use our providence, King in Yellow, to draw a card from our discard pile at random. Since Ex Nihilo is the only one there, we take and play it by paying nine mana. Now we will draw a card at the end of a turn for each one removed during it."

He's going all in, Wepwawet guessed. Removing both Statement Ends and Panopticon of Terror meant Hastur had completely given up on his lockdown strategy. He'll try to draw as many cards as he can in a single turn, even if it means giving us the means to counterattack.

"Next, we play these two Apocalypse Miracles: The Watcher's Eye and The Stranger Among Us!"

Wepwawet and his classmates all froze at once.

Two pulses of mana covered the board. Neither of them seemed to do much, but one probably had the most devastating effect possible.

"The first allows each of us to check the card on top of their deck, but the other… The other secretly replaces one unit on the field at random with a murderous doppelganger so perfect that none of us can identify its mimicry until it strikes," Hastur boasted, his doomsday clock hitting nine. "We end our turn here."

"Ex Nihilo will let him draw six cards," Epona noted with a grim scowl, "and he only needs four more Apocalypse Miracles to complete his combo."

"He's gambling everything on drawing them this turn," Wepwawet confirmed. "It's all or nothing now."

He checked his deck. True to Hastur's word, he could see that the top card was Tombraider's Punishment; a Prophecy that the enemy would not be able to foresee. That was by far the only silver lining. If any of his Champions had been replaced, he couldn't detect it and would need extensive telepathic communication to identify the traitor.

"I cannot find the spy among my Champions, if it is even there," Epona said.

"There's no time for finger-pointing," Wepwawet decided before relaying orders to his Champions. "All units move north to catch the Pallid Mask! This is the final stretch!"

All Champions immediately followed through with the order, right as Hastur's five minutes came to an end. Ex Nihilo activated and allowed him to draw six cards, refilling his hand.

Sun Wukong finally triggered his trap.

"I reveal my set and Providence-improved Rank 7 Prophecy, Gift Exchange! Now, you and I can look at the other's hand and pick one card!" The Monkey King sighed in relief. "Thank you very much for not picking Statement Ends and forcing me to discard my last card, or I would have been unable to activate it. Would have been a real shame."

Hastur gripped his newly drawn hand so tightly Wepwawet wondered if he was about to tear his own cards apart.

Why now? Wepwawet wondered. A look at Epona's face told him she was asking herself the same question. Why activate it now? He should have waited for Hastur to be on the verge of casting his last Apocalypse Miracle to snatch it out of his hand, unless…

Of course, Gift Exchange would allow him to see Hastur's entire hand! Sun Wukong likely wanted to check if Hastur had drawn all his remaining Apocalypse cards or check what he would likely play on the next turn to prepare; in short, give Hastur a taste of his own medicine.

And from the grimace stretching on the Monkey King's face, the situation was dire.

"One way or another," he said, "this will be the last round.

Wepwawet tensed like a bowstring. "He has them all."

"Yes." Sun Wukong scowled darkly. "He has drawn the last Apocalypse cards."