NOVEL NEXT Chapter 84: Wolves of Vengeance
The corrupted wolf pack kept howling, summoning more of their kin. One after another, wolves emerged from the darkness until Nightfall Raindrop's group was completely surrounded. If this had been inside a dungeon, the sheer number of wolves would have wiped out any party in an instant.
But out here in the open wilderness, the wolves couldn't pile on top of each other. Their scattered formation only allowed their numbers to swell gradually—slow enough that the Orc faction players could fight for a while, but not enough to overcome the growing horde.
As the minutes dragged on, the Orcs' healers ran dry on mana. One by one, the frontliners fell. Then the rest followed.
When the last Orc dropped, the summoned wolves didn't vanish. Instead, they prowled around the small battlefield, fangs bared and ears twitching, as if waiting for the next unlucky player to stumble into their territory. Only a single corrupted wolf broke away, loping off into the distance.
That fleeing wolf was the first one Ryan had tagged. Without a target to hold its aggro, it had simply returned to its original hunting grounds.
The rest of the pack spread out across a few hundred yards, creating a living barricade around the corpses of the Orc players. These wolves were bound to the spot where their victims had died. They would not follow the monster that had fled.
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"Those idiots are done for."
Everyone watching thought the same thing. Resurrecting at a spirit healer required being at least fifty yards from your corpse—but the wolves guarded the bodies for over a hundred yards in every direction. Anyone who tried to revive there would die instantly.
Forcing a graveyard resurrection was even worse.
In contested zones, reviving at your body only cost a bit of stamina. But forcing a resurrection? That was a nightmare.
It meant losing 500 stamina, a brutal 90% reduction to all stats for five hours of online time, and the same 90% penalty to all damage and healing.
In other words, if you had to force a resurrection, you might as well log off or go level your professions. Dungeon runs or leveling were out of the question.
In this critical leveling race, a single forced resurrection could set a player back for days.
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"Serves them right!" Moonlight Beauty said with a satisfied grin. "That's what they get for camping my corpse!"
Then she turned to Ryan, curiosity lighting up her face. "But how did you get those wolves to turn on them instead of just chasing you forever?"
"Yeah, boss," AJ chimed in, scratching his head. "How'd you keep those things on you for so long without losing aggro, and then drop them the second those guys showed up?"
He'd been chased by mobs plenty of times himself, and they usually gave up after a hundred yards. Somehow, Ryan had held their attention until the perfect moment.
The rest of the group leaned in, eager to hear the explanation.
"Reckoning," Ryan said with a chuckle. "A Paladin's taunt."
The secret to his prolonged kiting was simple once you knew it.
"These summoned monsters share a single aggro table. I just kept my distance and kept tagging them with Reckoning. As long as I was hitting them, they treated me like an active threat and wouldn't give up the chase."
Reckoning might have been a taunt, but for Protection Paladins, it was also a bread-and-butter tanking skill—decent range, short cooldown, and reliable as ever.
"Shared aggro?" AJ frowned. "So if you hit one, they all come after you?"
"Not exactly," Ryan said, shaking his head. "They act like normal mobs. If you hit a different wolf, it builds aggro on that one too, and you'll end up pulling it along. But the ones I kept tagging all treated me as their top threat."
As they walked, Ryan began explaining in more detail—specialized tricks and hidden mechanics that, in the future, entire guilds would spend months testing and documenting. Right now, though, this knowledge was priceless.
"Don't get the wrong idea," Ryan said, gesturing toward the wolves still prowling in the distance. "A taunt doesn't lock aggro forever. The threat it generates is temporary. If you don't follow up with an attack, the monster's aggro will revert as soon as the taunt wears off."
He glanced at his teammates, making sure they were paying attention.
"Here's how it works: a taunt gives you one-point-one times the current highest aggro on the target. But most tanks immediately attack after taunting, which makes it feel like the taunt itself is what keeps the monster's attention. That's the illusion."
Ryan tapped the edge of his shield. "If you never follow up, the taunt is just a leash. The second it ends, the mob goes right back to its original target. That's exactly how I kited those corrupted wolves. I kept taunting, never hit them once, so my actual aggro was zero. All it took was someone chugging a potion, and poof—they took aggro."
He smirked. "Those Orc players should've just let the wolves beat on them without fighting back. Eventually, the aggro would have bounced back to me. But no… they swung their weapons, and that was the end of them."
"Yeah, well," Smoking Gun muttered, "most people aren't crazy enough to stand there getting mauled without swinging back. That's just… you, boss."
Ryan laughed. "Fair enough. Alright, let's move. We'll pick off small groups of Orc faction players where we can. If there are too many, we leave them alone. No point in getting greedy."
He opened his mini-map, eyes glinting with mischief. "Those poor bastards whose corpses are being camped by the wolves? They'll probably die a few more times before they finally give up and force a resurrection. No need to waste our energy on them."
"Poor souls," Nightwalker said with a half-grin. Then his eyes lit up with an idea. "But, uh… boss, do those summoned wolves give any experience? Couldn't we just… I dunno… pull a few more and farm them for levels? Like, set up a little rotation?"
The suggestion was met with groans.
"Forget it," one guild member said. "Summoned monsters give like, one-tenth the experience of normal mobs. Total waste of time."
"Yeah," another chimed in. "You'd level faster fighting boars."
Nightwalker's face fell, and the others chuckled.
Meanwhile, the Regional Channel grew increasingly chaotic. Messages flew by as reinforcements from the Alliance of Light poured into the area, launching a full-scale counterattack.
Ryan grinned. "Perfect. Let's find a good spot and ambush the next wave of Orcs. Maybe that little bridge up ahead."
He reached into his inventory, fingers brushing over the landmines he had yet to use. A devious plan was already forming.
From a distance, a handful of Orc players hesitated as they spotted Ryan's team. None of them dared approach alone.
Ryan knew their presence behind enemy lines was no secret anymore. More and more Orc faction players were tracking them, hungry for payback.
"They're getting bold," AJ muttered, watching the distant shadows close in.
"Good," Ryan said, a dangerous smile forming. "Let them come."
He raised his sword and issued the command.
"Everyone, get ready. We'll hold the bridge and give this next wave an unforgettable lesson."