The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 150

Chapter 151
Popping champagne at halftime, huh?
The Lloyd Society called to inform Eivass that the attack time had been confirmed.
The attack would take place on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.
Considering it was Monday afternoon, the raid was scheduled for midnight tomorrow.
Lawyer York had even provided Eivass with a list of the attackers and their composition.
There were a total of four Demon Scholars, two at the Third Tier and two at the Second Tier. They would be accompanied by two Demonic Hounds, one Whip Demon, and one Blade Demon.
This lineup… could only be described as classic.
The Whip Demon was a common demon species, also known by players as a “supervisor.” It acted as a buffer for demons, constantly bestowing various enhancements on all nearby demons, but it was very fragile itself. It was usually protected by spellcasting demons.
The Demonic Hounds were the original second bosses of the Pelican Bar instance, artificial demons created by the Demon Scholars. They had the strength of roughly a Second Tier entity, their advantage being their high attack frequency, strong offensive drive, and willingness to fight to the death. Therefore, it was best to eliminate the Demonic Hounds immediately, as they would be troublesome to deal with if they became entangled.
The only one that was somewhat difficult to handle was the Blade Demon.
This was also a purely melee demon, with no flashy teleportation abilities. It possessed no control skills or ranged attacks, only pure speed and formidable martial prowess—the Blade Demon was a demon that had been transformed after death from a villain obsessed with swordsmanship, who callously used people to test their blades, or challenged the strong and brutally killed them.
As a demon directly transformed from a human soul, it also bore the Mark of Sin.
However, Blade Demons were relatively weaker and easier to control compared to other demons with the Mark of Sin. This was why they were not classified as Upper Demons.
In recent years, with the development of the era, few Blade Demons had been born. The last batch of Blade Demons were born hundreds of years ago.
Based purely on their Path abilities, Blade Demons were roughly equivalent to a Third Tier melee Extraordinary. However, their exquisite combat skills and extensive combat experience increased their threat level in direct combat by at least one Tier.
In terms of in-game performance, the Blade Demon was the only Lower Demon, and even among all Phantom Demons encountered up to level forty, it was the only one that used a mix of fast and slow attacks. The interval between its combo attacks was variable, and its transitions were very fast—it possessed the combat intelligence to directly transition its attack to find the landing spot after seeing a dodge action.
Furthermore, it would consciously target weak points. Blade Demons could imbue their weapons with various elemental damages, and based on their target, they would choose to attack with the element against which the target had the weakest resistance.
Because of this, dodging was almost ineffective against them, and parrying would likely fail as well. Its pursuit drive was also very strong; players being chased by it would find it almost impossible to create distance to receive healing from the Path of Devotion. Its only weakness was its fixed hatred—once it locked onto someone, it would never switch targets.
When fighting a Blade Demon, the strategy was to bring crowd control skills and focus fire to eliminate it quickly. The longer the fight dragged on, the more dangerous it became.
As for the four Demon Scholars, their levels were not high, they were all fragile, and they had no home-field advantage. However, if left unchecked, their channeling of rituals to output damage would be quite potent.
Their entire lineup emphasized “each man for himself.” It was a classic NPC team composition, lacking any demons that provided disruption or protection, opting to rush headlong into the fray from the start.
It was akin to an opening move of “trading bases.”
Although they had almost no mutual defensive capabilities, because each demon was the type that made you think, “You’d best focus fire and kill it first,” their combination became somewhat troublesome. If you managed to eliminate any one of them, the others could still exert pressure.
Even though for the strong, they were destined to perish with a single skill, for Eivass, who was ostensibly only at the First Tier, this was almost an inescapable predicament that “even if known, could not be resolved.”
“You said I could handle it myself?”
Eivass questioned, “With this kind of lineup, how do you expect me to react?”
“Don’t be angry, Mr. Moriarty…”
York, on the other side of the phone, chuckled sheepishly, his voice trembling slightly.
Eivass felt as if he could see York wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief solely from his tone. “That’s why I was so anxious when I couldn’t reach you—we were afraid you might actually get killed!”
“But there’s no other choice. Originally, Vice President Boka only intended to send a few Second Tier Demon Scholars to attack you. He gave two reasons: first, ‘to reduce the scale of the attack and prevent Avalon’s vigilance from spiking and causing the authorities to underestimate us’; and second, internally for the Lloyd Society, he said, ‘the Society wants to deplete our strength, deliberately sending our people to their deaths, and we need to conserve our power.'”
“Isn’t that perfectly reasonable?”
Eivass retorted, “He’s not wrong, is he?”
“Yes, I thought so too… but the President stopped him.
“The President said that your identity is rather delicate and crucial, so any attack targeting you, no matter how small, would be a major incident, and Avalon’s vigilance could not be alleviated by reducing the strength of the attackers, thus Mr. Boka’s reasoning was invalid; moreover, many people know you’ve joined the Lloyd Society. If you were to face a full-blown assassination by Demon Scholars at this time, it could serve as a smokescreen, confusing Avalon’s investigators and temporarily separating the Lloyd Society from the Noble Red Society, buying us time.”
Lawyer York did his best to relay the words of the two high-ranking officials. “The final vote result was… the President’s faction had significantly more support.
“Vice President Boka’s suggestion is that you perhaps find some help. If necessary, don’t hold back… your own preservation is your primary objective.”
Eivass tutted, clicking his tongue.
This President was quite silver-tongued.
His implication was to throw Eivass out as a pawn.
If Eivass, as an apparent member of the Lloyd Society, were to continue to be attacked by the Noble Red Society, it would prove that the Lloyd Society and the Society did not have a very close relationship.
The Lloyd Society was composed of merchants.
Merchants had no strong beliefs; they were more timid and preferred self-preservation. However, they also favored more aggressive strategies with higher returns.
Therefore, given his statement, others, thinking objectively, could not agree with Vice President Boka’s decision.
Eivass, as the head of the Moriarty Family, would indeed provoke a full retaliatory response from Avalon if attacked—and from this perspective, the President directly refuted Vice President Boka’s “hero plan.”
Compared to “conserving strength under the oppression of the Society,” the strategy of “directly creating a logical contradiction to prove the Lloyd Society might be unrelated to the Noble Red” clearly offered more stable, albeit lower, gains.
He knew the personalities of the other high-ranking members of the Lloyd Society very well. Therefore, the reasons he gave were more convincing than Vice President Boka’s.
Good heavens, the internal conflict was this intense?
The friendly fire they inflicted on each other was even greater than the damage dealt by the Inspection Bureau to them…
Eivass had legitimately joined the Lloyd Society.
Was President Moriarty not afraid that Eivass would betray them if pushed too far?
Eivass narrowed his eyes, falling into thought.
…Unless, he had already decided to withdraw from the Lloyd Society. Since he had not responded to Vice President Boka’s second question, it meant he intended to end his fence-sitting stance and fully align with the Noble Red Society.
Conversely, the Noble Red Society’s bold actions, pushing them to attack Eivass… might not be without the intention of having the authorities deal with the Lloyd Society on their behalf.
As expected of a Transcendent Path organization, their internal power struggles were formidable.
They were already fighting over how to divide Avalon, which they hadn’t even acquired yet.
It was precisely because Eivass himself held immense value that the President could not afford to tolerate this. His “logical contradiction” approach was essentially a facade. What he truly wanted was to ensure he wouldn’t be bitten back by the Lloyd Society.
If Eivass betrayed them, the Lloyd Society would be dragged down with him, allowing the President to jump to the Noble Red; if Eivass did not betray them, then he was suppressing Vice President Boka’s faction. As the saying goes, a heretic is worse than an infidel. To President Moriarty, Vice President Boka, who had clearly declared his own faction and started anew, was the heretic in his eyes.
From this perspective, he was not a pure Transcendent.
The “Lloyd” of this generation possessed a strong sense of authority, consciously maintaining his power.
This was perhaps why he had not firmly joined the Noble Red at the beginning, but still had one foot in the Lloyd Society.
How ridiculous. A merchant with ambition and a lust for power…
Yet, it was precisely because of the existence of such individuals that the alliance between the Lloyd Society and the Noble Red developed a flaw.
“Popping champagne at halftime, huh?”
Fine, I’ll open a few more bottles for you.
“I understand… no need to hold back, right?”
After a period of silence, Eivass responded concisely.
He then ignored Lawyer York’s lengthy explanations and directly hung up the phone, putting on an act of being very angry.
In reality, however, Eivass was not angry at all.
Instead, he smiled gleefully, his mood uplifted. “The opportunity has finally arrived.”
“Is it the fake death plan we discussed earlier?”
Yulia, who had been holding her breath and remained motionless beside him, asked.
She looked concerned. “Is it really okay?”
“Trust me, Yuli. I never do anything reckless.”
Eivass thought for a moment and slightly modified the original plan. “I will invite Princess Isabel over tomorrow and discuss your enrollment with her—your grades are more than sufficient, you just need an additional examination.
“I’ll have her come in the afternoon, and you can cling to her, saying you want to go to the Royal Palace with her. That way, you won’t be in any danger. Yuli is so lovely, Princess Isabel will surely like you.”
“But… what about the assassins tonight?”
Yulia’s thoughts were clear. “After dark, will I beg to return… and be escorted back by the Royal Guards?”
“No need.”
Eivass smiled gently and softly said, “I can handle it myself. Haven’t you already given me your Little Butterfly? It will protect me for you.”
“Miss Shadow Demon and I will too,”
Lily added. “After this, we might be missing for a while. Miss Yulia, please remember not to show any cracks.”
Yulia nodded seriously. “I will do my best.”
—Good luck.
Eivass narrowed his eyes like a fox, looking out the window.
If Mr. President hadn’t been so greedy, his plan would have had a few loopholes.
And now, the final loophole in Eivass’s plan had been filled by the President’s own greed and selfish desires.
“Alister… please extend my regards to Vice President Boka.”
He murmured softly, a smile on his lips, his voice as gentle as if he were chewing on candy.
Update!
The Little Butterfly will debut tomorrow!
I’ve decided not to take a break and will play Baldur’s Gate 3 after finishing writing!