Chapter 151: Champagne at halftime, right?
Lloyd's had called to inform Aiwass that the time for the attack had been set.
The times are Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
It was Monday afternoon, which meant the attack would be at midnight tomorrow.
Lawyer York even gave Aiwas a list of the attackers' names and configurations.
There were four demonologists in total, two at the third level and two at the second level. They each brought with them two demon dogs, a whipping demon and a blade demon.
This lineup... can only be described as quite classic.
The Lasher is a common demon type, also known as the "Overseer" by players. It acts as a buff machine for demons, constantly buffing all nearby demons, but it itself is very fragile. It's usually protected by magic demons.
The Demon Dog was originally intended to be the runner-up in the Pelican Bar dungeon, a man-made demon created by demonologists. Its strength is roughly the second-highest, but its strengths lie in its high attack frequency, strong desire to attack, and relentless fighting spirit. Therefore, it's best to kill it instantly, otherwise a drawn-out fight will be a hassle.
The only one that's a little difficult to deal with is the Blade Demon.
This was a purely melee demon, without any fancy teleportation abilities, no control skills, and no ranged attacks. It was simply incredibly fast and highly skilled in martial arts. Blade Demons were the kind of demons transformed after death from those obsessed with swordsmanship, wantonly killing people to test their skills, or challenging the powerful and brutally killing them.
As a demon directly transformed from the human soul, it also bears the mark of mortal sin.
It's just that Blade Demons are weaker and easier to control than other demons with the Mark of Sin, so they are not classified as high-level demons.
Over the years, with the development of the times, the birth of Blade Demons has become rare. The last batch of Blade Demons were born hundreds of years ago.
Judging from its Dao abilities alone, the Blade Demon was roughly equivalent to a third-level melee transcendent. However, its superb combat skills and rich combat experience increased its threat level in head-on combat by at least one level.
In-game, the Blade Demon is the only one among all the lower-level demons, and even among all the phantom demons encountered in the first forty levels, that can use fast and slow blades. The intervals between its combos are variable, and its moves are very fast - it has the kind of combat IQ that can immediately change moves after seeing the rolling movement and find the landing point.
It will also consciously attack weaknesses. The Blade Demon can enchant its weapons with various elemental damage, targeting its target of hatred and choosing the weakest resistance to attack the opponent.
Because of this, rolling is almost ineffective against it, and parrying is highly unlikely. Furthermore, its pursuit drive is extremely strong, making it unlikely that a player being pursued by it will distance themselves enough to receive healing from the Path of Devotion. Its only drawback is its fixed aggro: once it targets a target, it will never change its target.
When fighting a Blade Fiend, you need to use control skills and focus fire to kill it quickly. The longer you delay, the more likely it is to get into trouble.
Then there are four demonologists, all of whom are not high level, are all squishy, and have no home field advantage. But if you leave them alone, they can still do quite a lot of damage if they perform a ritual and stand still to output.
Their lineup emphasizes the principle of "everyone relies on their own skills." It's a very classic NPC team composition, with no disruptive or protective demons, and they just go straight for the face from the start.
Changing home at the beginning is the case.
Although they have almost no joint defense ability, because each demon is of the type that "you'd better focus your fire to kill it first", it is a bit troublesome to combine them. Because if you kill any one of them, the others will be able to exert their strength.
Even though they would all be killed instantly by a single skill attack from a stronger opponent, for Aiwass, who was only at the first level, this was practically a dead end that "even if he knew the answer, he couldn't break it."
"You said I could handle it myself?"
Aiwass asked, "How do you expect me to respond to this lineup?"
"Don't be angry, Mr. Moriarty..."
York on the other end of the phone smiled awkwardly, his voice trembling a little.
Aiwass seemed to be able to see from his tone that he was wiping his sweat with a handkerchief: "That's why I can't contact you, so anxious - we are also afraid that you will be accidentally killed!
"But there's nothing we can do. Originally, Vice President Boca only wanted to send a few second-level demonologists to attack you. He gave two reasons: one was to 'keep the scale of the attack low to prevent Avalon from vigilantly rebounding and causing the authorities to underestimate us'; the other was to Lloyd's internally, saying 'the association wants to deplete our strength and deliberately send our people to their deaths, so we need to conserve our strength'."
"Isn't this good?"
Aiwass asked in return: "Is what he said okay?"
“Yes, I think it’s okay too… but the president stopped him.
"The president said that your identity is both delicate and crucial, so even a minor attack on you would be a major event. We can't reduce the attacker's strength to ease Avalon's vigilance, so Mr. Boca's reason is invalid. Furthermore, many people know you've joined Lloyd's. If you were to face a full-scale assassination attempt by a demonologist, you could create a smokescreen, confusing Avalon's investigators and temporarily separating Lloyd's from the Noble Red Circle, buying us time."
Attorney York did his best to repeat the words of the two senior executives: "The final voting result is... the president's side has significantly more supporters.
"Vice President Boca is saying that you should get some help. If all else fails, there's no need to hold back... Your primary goal is to protect yourself."
Aiwass made a sound, smacked his lips, and said nothing.
Mr. President, you are quite eloquent.
What he meant was to throw Aiwass out as a pawn.
If Aiwass, despite being a member of Lloyd's in public, continued to be attacked by the Noble Red Cabal, it would prove that there was not a very close relationship between Lloyd's and the Cabal.
Lloyd's is made up of businessmen.
Businessmen have no convictions; they are more timid and like to protect themselves, but at the same time they prefer more aggressive and more profitable strategies.
Therefore, after he said this, it is impossible for others to agree with the decision of Boca Vice President from an objective perspective.
As the head of the Moriarty family, any attack on Aiwass would likely lead to a full-scale counterattack from Avalon - and from this perspective, the president directly denied Vice President Boca's "hero plan."
Compared with "preserving strength under the oppression of association" and "directly using counter-logic to prove that Lloyd's may have nothing to do with Noble Red", the benefits are obviously more stable but lower.
He knew the personalities of other senior executives at Lloyd's very well, so the reasons he gave were more convincing than those given by Vice President Boca.
Wow, the internal fighting is so intense?
The friendly fire they inflicted on each other was far greater than the damage the Inspectorate inflicted on them...
Aiwass is a man who has officially joined Lloyd's.
Mr. President, aren't you afraid at all that Aiwass will turn against you if forced into a corner?
Aiwass narrowed his eyes and fell into thought.
...Unless, he's already planning to withdraw from Lloyd's. Because he didn't respond to Vice President Boca's second question, that meant he was planning to end his fence-sitting and fully side with the Noble Red Society.
On the other hand, the actions of the Noble Red Society were so bold that they forced them to attack Aiwass... They might have thought of asking the authorities to deal with Lloyd's on their behalf.
As expected of an organization that transcends the Dao, the internal strife is fierce.
Avalon hadn't even been acquired yet, but they had already started fighting over how to distribute it.
It was precisely because Aiwass was so valuable that the chairman couldn't tolerate this. His "defying logic" approach was essentially a cover-up. What he really wanted to do was to protect himself from Lloyd's backlash.
If Aiwass defected, Lloyd's would be dragged down by Aiwass, allowing him to jump to Noble Red. If Aiwass didn't defect, he would be suppressing Vice President Boca's faction. A heretic is worse than a pagan, and for the president, Vice President Boca, who had clearly formed his own faction, was a heretic.
From this perspective, he is not actually a pure transcendent.
This generation of "Lloyd" has a strong sense of authoritarianism and is consciously trying to maintain its own power.
This may be the reason why he did not firmly join Noble Red at the beginning, but still kept one foot in Lloyd's.
It's ridiculous. An ambitious, power-hungry businessman...
But it is precisely because of the existence of such people that the alliance between Lloyd's and Noble Red has a flaw.
You like to pop champagne at halftime, right?
Okay, then I'll open a few more bottles for you.
"I see... No need to hold back, right?"
After a moment of silence, Aiwass responded briefly.
Then, ignoring Lawyer York's nagging, he hung up the phone and acted like he was very angry.
But in fact, Aiwass was not angry at all.
Instead, the corners of his mouth curled up, and he was in a happy mood: "The opportunity has finally come."
"Is this the fake death plan you mentioned earlier?"
Yulia, who had been holding her breath and standing motionless beside him, asked.
She was a little worried: "Is it really okay?"
"Trust me, Yuli. I never do anything reckless."
Aiwass thought for a moment and slightly modified his original plan: "I will invite Princess Isabel over tomorrow and tell her that you want to enroll - your grades are definitely sufficient, you just need to take additional exams.
"I'll have her come over this afternoon, and you can pester her and tell her you want to follow her to the palace. That way you won't be in danger. Yuli is so cute, Her Highness will definitely like her."
"But...what about the assassins at night?"
Yulia's thoughts were clear: "Wait until night, and then I'll clamor to come back... and then be escorted back by the palace guards?"
"Need not."
Aiwass smiled gently and said softly, "I can handle it myself. Didn't you give me your little butterfly? It will protect me for you."
"Miss Shadow Demon and I will too."
Lily added, "We might be missing for a while after this. Miss Yulia, remember not to reveal any flaws."
Yulia nodded seriously: "I will try my best."
——Good luck.
Aiwass narrowed his eyes like a fox and looked out the window.
If the president wasn't so greedy, his plan would have some loopholes.
And now, the last loophole in Aiwas's plan has been filled by the president's own greed and selfishness.
"Aleister...I'll ask Vice President Boca for you."
He recited softly, the corners of his mouth raised, his voice as soft as chewing candy.
Update meow~
Tomorrow is the first show of Little Butterfly——
I decided not to ask for leave. I will play Bodu 3 after finishing the coding!
(End of this chapter)
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