Chapter 381: Outplayed

"Ugh… this is bad." Mars cursed inwardly, his gaze locking with stunned disbelief on the figure before him.

Morgana hovered above the camp, wings spread wide, her hair shimmering in the torchlight like liquid silver. Her lips curled into a wicked grin, fangs glistening, eyes glowing with predatory hunger. The six vampires at her side hissed and shrieked, crimson eyes burning holes in the darkness.

'How?'

Mars' mind raced. How had she found him first? His scouts were scattered across the forest, his nodes secured. Every move had been calculated, every possibility accounted for. And yet here she was—at his throat before he even had the chance to advance his camp.

The thought clawed at him. She hadn't stumbled here by accident. No—she had planned it. Allowed him to capture the northern nodes, sacrificed her own future resources to paint false trails, killing his scouts in the west. She had fed him a lie, and like a fool, he had believed it.

Mars' grip on his spear tightened until the wood creaked. His golden barrier shimmered around the camp, holding back the tide of shadows for now. But it would not last. He could already feel the strain gnawing at his divine essence, every second bleeding strength.

"Hmm?" Morgana tilted her head, as if reading his thoughts.

"What's wrong, Mars?" she purred, her voice sliding into the night like velvet laced with venom. "You look… startled."

Mars ignored her for a moment and scanned the six vampires, wondering how she managed to go around the rule he had placed and summon a non-human unit.

'She cheated?' was his first thought. But he quickly reconsidered it after noticing that her vampires had traces of divine energy in them. 'She changed them into bloodsuckers; maybe one of her concepts is related to shadow and blood.'

"I must say I'm truly surprised," Mars admitted, crossing his spear before his shield. "But sadly, it ends here. You gave it a shot, but it wasn't good enough; you brought too little force with you."

Morgana's smile widened, cruel and knowing. Her crimson eyes glittered with amusement, as though Mars' words were the most delightful joke she had ever heard.

"Too little?" she echoed, her voice dripping with mockery. "Oh, Mars… you in numbers. Spears, shields, formations, machines of war. But I don't need numbers. I only need myself."

Her wings beat once, sending a rush of cold wind through the camp. The torches sputtered violently, shadows stretching like skeletal fingers across the ground. Her vampires shrieked in unison, their bodies quivering as if barely restrained by her will.

Mars narrowed his eyes, swiftly assuming a fighting stance, but suddenly Morgana and her vampires simply vanished in a swarm of bats.

"Eh?" Mars muttered, his stance firm but eyes darting wildly. Confusion flickered across his face. He thought that Morgana would attack him, but she retreated instead.

Where did she go?

Ding!

"Hm?" Suddenly, a game system notification echoed in his mind, and when he opened it, he almost cursed out loud.

'I'm a fucking fool!'

His resource nodes in the north, the west, and the east were being taken one by one; aside from the nodes in the south, the rest were in danger.

'Shit!'

This was just a distraction. This was all a diversion; she attacked his camp with the smallest force possible so that the rest of her army could surround and take the nodes.

"COMMANDER!" Mars bellowed, golden sparks trailing along his arms. "The enemy is ambushing our nodes. Split forces—four, no, three companies to defend the ones in the north and west, the rest defend the east and possibly the south. DO NOT GIVE OUR NODES TO THE ENEMY!"

Every ounce of his commanding presence flooded from him in waves—demanding respect, obedience, forcing his will upon his men.

"YES, GENERAL!" The legionnaires roared, scattering to obey, their armor clattering as they rushed into formation.

Mars' jaw tightened, the golden light from his spear pulsing with his fury. His mind raced even faster than the chaos outside—she had played him perfectly. Every instinct told him to crush the silver-haired goddess where she stood, but another part of him was overjoyed.

This is the first time in ages that he had a worthy opponent. Someone clever, someone skilled, someone with vision, someone cunning. Someone who wasn't as boring as the other gods.

A cruel smile tugged at the corner of Mars' mouth, even as the ground shook from the pounding of his soldiers' boots. His eyes burned like twin embers beneath the iron crest of his helmet.

"Yes…" he whispered to himself, gripping his spear until the shaft hummed with divine energy. "At last, a wolf among sheep. A goddess who dares hunt Rome."

The system notifications flared again, harsh red symbols blinking over the glowing map.

[Node Lost: Western Farm]

Then another.

[Node Lost: Northern Mine]

Each message struck like a dagger to his pride. His resources—the veins of his mighty legion—bled out before his eyes.

"Damn you, Morgana," Mars hissed, though there was no venom in his tone. Only exhilaration. His blood thundered in his veins like war drums.

"You've turned my legion into prey. But prey learns. And when it does…" His grin widened into something feral. "…it devours the hunter."

The blonde officer sprinted back to him, panting, armor smeared with ash and blood.

"General! The first company is ready to march."

"Good," Mars nodded sharply. "Lead them and reclaim our nodes back."

"Yes, General!" The blonde officer saluted, his chest heaving with both fear and determination. He spun on his heel and barked orders, the first company thundering out of the camp gates like a tide of steel. Their shields glinted, their discipline holding strong despite the whispers of terror that still clung to the air.

Mars watched them go, his eyes narrowing at the crimson mist that lingered where Morgana's swarm had been. The moment the first company disappeared in the tree line.

Morgana attacked again.

The night split open with a rush of wings. Four shadowy forms plunged from the sky like spears of darkness, their descent so fast the torches guttered and went out.

The soldiers barely had time to scream before the first vampire landed in their midst, claws raking through bronze and flesh as though both were paper. Blood sprayed in an arc, painting shields and tents in red. The second form crashed into a squad of spearmen, scattering them like dice thrown across stone. Their formation crumbled instantly, discipline vanishing beneath the shrieks of men being dragged into the black.

"Morgana!" Mars roared, divine power bursting from his voice and shaking the ground beneath his feet. He drove his spear forward, golden light lancing through the darkness, skewering one of the descending shapes mid-flight. It screeched, an inhuman wail, before exploding into ash and smoke.

The others quickly retreated after claiming one or two soldiers each.

"Fuck!!" Mars cursed, his roar shaking the tents as he spun, golden sparks bleeding from the tip of his spear. His teeth ground together, jaw tight with fury. The scent of blood was thick in the air, mingling with the smoke of shattered torches. His ears rang with the echoes of men screaming, then falling silent as their lifeblood was drained.

The camp was unraveling. Every time his legion tried to march, the shadows descended, ripping holes in their formations, then vanishing again before he could strike them down. It wasn't war—it was slaughter, and Morgana was the conductor of this grim symphony.

He was forced to use his golden barrier again just to keep the vampires away. For now, Mars was the only one who could kill them; his men were human with no magical power or skills to face the dark monsters.

'If she can turn her entire army into vampires, then this game is lost.'

Just the thought of an army of these bloodsuckers filled him with dread. However, he quickly regained his composure, since there was no way for Morgana to create an entire army of these monsters. Her divine energy can't keep up.

At least that's what Mars thought. After all, it was the same for him; he could bless his men with his divine energy, turning them into… basically demi-god warriors capable of single-handedly slaughtering entire armies on their own. That was his plan: to transform two of his best men into demi-god warriors so they could wipe Morgana's army while he fought the goddess alone.

But it drained him—every blessing, every spark of his essence poured into men who would eventually fall, taking his divine investment with them. To transform an entire legion would cripple even him. Surely Morgana faced the same limit.

She has to.

.....

"Heheheh."

High above the ground in the darkness of night, Morgana was doing her best not to burst laughing her ass off.

"Ahhh~.... Little Mars is still a boy."

That's because Mars had the misconception that this game was just a game, no matter how close it was to the real thing, a simulation. Yet Morgana realized—or her theory was that all of her troops were real human beings, or at least their souls were real.

Slaves of the Nexus were being used as NPCs for games.

When Arwen told her that she sold herself and the rest of her kin to the Nexus, Morgana wondered why the Nexus accepted that deal and why it needed them in the first place.

What could a mortal slave give to something that is considered the invisible hub of the gods?

But after trying this game, it was like all the pieces of the puzzle came to the center, and she figured it all out.

Again, at least she thinks that she figured it out.

"I'll ask Lucy about it later."

Anyway, Morgana had taken her plan to the next level. At first, it was just trying to lure Mars into a trap by slaying his weaker scouts, but when Morgana chased them in the woods and saw how 'human' they were. The plan changed and shifted into a different type of warfare.

Psychological warfare.

"Let's see how Mars' troops would stay sane after this."

For Advance chapters, you can find in My Patreon

https://www.patreon.com/Midnight_Paradox

https://discord.gg/NBqGDtmxnp