Chapter 135: Did you really think I wouldn’t see through your little ploy?

It sounded so easy.

Lure Raze Dawg into the dead Ant Queen’s corpse and force him to stop. That alone would give the rest of the plan a chance to work.

Knowing the answer was not the same as executing it.

Death Wheel kept coming.

The golden-black rotation tore across the poisoned water with the weight of a siege weapon. Every revolution dragged sparks from the stone floor and threw poisonous spray into the air.

The combined greatsword was no longer just a blade in Raze Dawg’s hands. It had become a spinning wall of legendary metal, black-gold aura, and brutal momentum.

No normal shield could stop it, and even the bravest tank could only hope to change its angle before his HP vanished.

The vanguard understood that without anyone needing to say it.

Their formation spread under Martin’s orders, but fear moved with them. Shields lifted too early. Boots slid through shallow poison.

A ranger drew his bow, lowered it, then drew again because every possible target disappeared behind the spinning arc. One healer’s hands glowed with a prepared spell, but her eyes kept jumping from tank to tank, unable to decide who would be the first to break.

"Is he not getting dizzy?" someone asked, voice tight with stress.

"The skill probably stabilizes his vision during the spin," Martin calmly replied.

That answer made the silence worse.

Raze Dawg was not wobbling. He was not slowing down. His laughter did not even shake.

Inside the golden-black wheel, his body remained centered while the legendary weapon screamed around him, cutting through water, shell fragments, and loose stone as though the battlefield existed only to be carved apart.

Martin saw the vanguard’s fear clearly. Shoulders rose. Feet drifted out of position. The tanks who had survived the Ant Queen’s swarm now stared at Death Wheel as if their shields had already broken.

He had already promised to mention their contributions in his report to Cassandra, and he regretted spending that card too early. Saying it again now would not hit the same way.

Just then, Potato Block tightened his grip on his ruined shield and spoke up.

"I’ll sacrifice myself! I’ll enter the opened vent and use my taunt from inside!"

Potato Block... thanks, man.

Martin kept those words to himself and nodded.

"Do it," he said. "We’ll guide him toward the corpse with your taunt. If he commits even once, I’ll apply my skill and drag him underwater."

Relief moved through the vanguard in small, guilty flashes. A few players shot thankful looks toward Potato Block, but he ignored them and stayed close to Emperoar.

"He attacks anyone because he knows he can kill us all," Martin said. "His level lets him resist taunts, too, so we’ll stack them with other debuffs and force him to choose which effect to resist. If he has to decide what to defend against, we can steer him where we need him. We only have one chance."

All players fanned out, including Martin and his teammates.

Potato Block moved into position near the Ant Queen’s corpse and slipped toward the opened vent.

The other tanks followed without forming a proper wall. They staggered themselves into angles, leaving one route ugly, crowded, and full of shields while the other seemed just open enough for Raze Dawg to take.

Rangers stopped aiming for his body and began firing into the ground instead. Arrows struck stone ridges, shallow water, and cracked shell plates, shaping the path without making the shape obvious.

Mages added small curses and control spells, nothing grand enough to waste a major cooldown, only enough color, pressure, and irritation to make one side look more annoying than the other.

The formation would have looked wrong to anyone expecting a proper defensive line, but every crooked angle and half-open route served Martin’s plan.

Even then, fear kept leaking through the gaps. One tank swallowed so hard Martin heard it through the party channel. Another backed up half a step, noticed his own retreat, and forced himself forward again. The line did not collapse, but it trembled.

Death Wheel came closer, splitting the poisoned water beneath it.

Potato Block slammed his damaged shield down near the opened vent and shouted his taunt from beside the Ant Queen’s corpse. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Other debuffs followed at once. Crippling Arrow. Curse. Taunt. Slowing Mark. Every effect flashed in different colors, stacking over Raze Dawg until the air around him looked like a storm of broken system lights.

The plan worked long enough to make everyone believe in it.

Death Wheel’s path curved.

The massive rotation dragged toward the corpse, following the pressure the vanguard had built around it. The Ant Queen’s dead body waited ahead, its cracked shell rising from the poisoned water like a collapsed fortress.

Several players held their breath.

If Raze Dawg hit it, even his legendary weapon would have to bite through layers of shell, curled legs, and poison sacs. The spin would not stop forever, but even one stutter would give Martin the opening he needed.

Death Wheel reached the corpse, then stopped.

It had not crashed. The shell had not caught the blade.

Raze Dawg had stopped it himself.

The golden-black wheel broke apart into a single lowered greatsword, its edge hovering a few inches from the Ant Queen’s cracked shell. Poisonous water rained down around him. Steam curled off the weapon.

His boots slid half a step from the force he had killed, but his stance remained steady.

No one moved.

The entire vanguard stared.

Raze Dawg slowly turned his head, his grin calm, cold, and satisfied.

"...Did you really think I wouldn’t see through your little ploy?" he asked.

The words landed harder than the weapon.

A few shields lowered by instinct. Someone’s prepared heal flickered out before it could be cast. The ranger who had been aiming at the floor stopped drawing his bow entirely.

Raze Dawg looked from face to face, drinking in the exact moment their hope cracked.

He had not only avoided the trap. He had waited until they believed it worked, then stopped before the corpse so they could understand how badly they had failed.

He didn’t know Martin had already thought beyond that.

The Ant Queen’s corpse had hidden more than a fake route. It had hidden Martin.

While Raze Dawg savored the vanguard’s despair, Martin moved along the corpse’s blind side, where steam curled between cracked shell plates and poisonous spray still hung in the air.

He kept his shield low and his steps short, giving Raze Dawg no shout, no warning, and no wasted breath.

Raze Dawg noticed him only when the shadow of the shield crossed his face.

By then, Martin was already there.

"I knew you’d see through it," Emperoar whispered coldly. "A shotcaller doesn’t plan for one answer. He plans for the answer his enemy wants to choose. And you wanted this one. You wanted to stop us at the last second and watch everyone sink into despair."

His shield surged forward.

"That’s the kind of play a bully with top-grade items always takes."

SHIELD BASH!

BANG!

The shield slammed into Raze Dawg’s face with a flat, brutal impact.

No flame burst from it, and no thunder cracked through the cavern. The damage number that flashed above Raze Dawg looked almost insulting compared to his level and gear, yet the sound spread farther than it should have.

It cut through the hiss of poisoned water, the scrape of the legendary greatsword, and the broken breathing of the vanguard.

Everyone heard steel crash into the face of the man who had made them feel helpless.