He met Gorgon's charge.

The resulting collision of two ten-foot-tall behemoths shook the entire shopping mall.

Clobber was brave. Clobber was strong. Clobber was also completely outmatched.

Gorgon's hammer came down, and Clobber's brief but heroic stand came to a very messy end.

But it was enough. Isabelle, Lillith, Reina, and Fenris scrambled out of the dungeon, emerging back into the gray, polluted air of the outside world.

They were battered, shaken, and now two members short.

The ogres, led by a roaring Gorgon, pursued them out of the entrance.

"They're overconfident,"

Ragnar whispered, his eyes narrowing. He watched as the dozen ogres poured out into the open street, leaving the safety of their Domain.

"They think we're beaten. Isabelle. Now."

Isabelle spun around, her face a mask of cold fury.

"Wrecking Crew," she commanded, her voice like ice.

"Avenge our fallen."

The ogres, caught in the open, suddenly faced a coordinated counter-attack.

Reina and Fenris flanked them, moving with blinding speed.

Lillith cast a mass confusion spell, and the ogres began stumbling into each other, swinging their clubs wildly.

The Wrecking Crew returned looking less like a conquering force and more like a band that had just lost a battle of the bands.

Their new armor was dented, their expressions were grim, and the empty spaces where Stoney and Clobber used to be were loud, echoing holes in their formation.

Isabelle gave her report in the Throne Room, The loss of two comrades was a bitter pill to swallow.

Ragnar Vhagar, Demon King and now certified bad gambler, listened from his throne.

He felt a pang of something unfamiliar.

It wasn't just the sting of losing a 25 CP investment and a 50 CP gacha-fail. It was responsibility.

"It's my fault," he said, the words tasting strange in his mouth.

The admission silenced the room.

"I underestimated him. I saw a low-level Farm dungeon and assumed a weak master.

That was a rookie mistake. I won't make it again."

He dismissed the team, telling them to get what rest they could. The new house he'd built for Isabelle and Pixia suddenly felt less like a generous gift and more like a necessary morale-booster.

As they filed out, leaving only him and his tiny pixie advisor, he started pacing.

"Alright, Pixia," he began, his voice a low growl.

"Run the numbers. Tell me what I'm missing.

Gorgon is a brute. A simple, muscle-headed Orc who just pumps out big, dumb Ogres.

Why is that strategy so effective? My team is smarter, better equipped, and has a former Sword Saint leading them. We should have crushed him."

Pixia floated over to the magical map table that had appeared after her library merged with his dungeon.

Her tiny face was scrunched in deep, academic concentration.

"My Lord, it is precisely because his strategy is simple that it is so effective, particularly in this early phase of the world's restructuring.

Gorgon's build is a classic. It is, if I'm to use a term from your old world, the trending 'meta' right now."

Ragnar's gamer brain, which had been dormant under a layer of stress and vampirism, suddenly flared to life.

"The meta? You mean like the most popular, overpowered strategy that everyone copies from a guide online?"

"Precisely, my Lord,"

Pixia confirmed, her tiny wings buzzing with intellectual excitement.

"The System, as it is designed, rewards directness and simplicity.

Demon Kings who specialize their Bonus Points in the 'Creation' stat can produce high-cost, high-power subordinates in large numbers.

More importantly, they can create more Bloodkin. An army of five or ten elite Ogre Bloodkin, like the ones Gorgon commands, can overwhelm most defenses through sheer, unstoppable force.

It is the Zerg Rush of this new reality. Quantity has a quality all its own."

Ragnar stopped pacing, a cold understanding dawning on him.

He had been trying to play a complex strategy game, but the current rules favored the player who just built the biggest, dumbest death-stack and smashed it into the enemy.

He'd been trying to play chess while everyone else was playing with hammers.

"But it's a flawed strategy," he mused, tapping a long, pale finger on the map of Gorgon's mall.

"Gorgon has no tactical sense. He's overconfident. He relies on brute force. That's his weakness.

But how do I exploit that without losing my entire elite team in another suicidal head-on charge?"

He thought about his own strengths. He wasn't a pure Creation-build.

He was a hybrid, a strange mix of accidental genius and intentional chaos. He had advantages Gorgon couldn't even comprehend.

"The first pillar of my empire," he said aloud, the idea solidifying as he spoke,

"is my B-Rank Alchemy.

Gorgon can pump out ogres, but can he equip them?

My team went in there with custom-forged, enchanted gear. That's an advantage pure Creation-builds don't have.

Better equipment means better performance and higher survival rates.

He can make a big stick, but I can make a laser-guided, explosive stick."

"A sound analysis, my Lord," Pixia agreed. "Superior technology is a proven counter to superior numbers."

"The second pillar," Ragnar continued, a new fire in his eyes, "is Domain Expansion.

You, Pixia, are the living proof. By absorbing your Domain, I doubled my territory and my potential CP cap. I can out-produce him in the long run if I keep expanding.

I need to conquer more land, absorb more True Cores. It's a slower path to power, but it's a more stable one."

"And the third pillar?" Pixia asked, her voice filled with anticipation.

Ragnar looked towards the new house he had built, a silent acknowledgment of his most valuable asset.

"Experience. Isabelle. She is my ace in the hole.

Gorgon's Bloodkin are strong, but they are just created monsters. They follow orders.

Isabelle has years of real-world combat experience.

She knows how to lead, how to adapt, how to think. She's a weapon that Gorgon could never create, no matter how high his Creation stat is."

It all clicked into place. Alchemy, Expansion, and Experience. Those were his keys to victory.

He couldn't beat Gorgon in a direct slugging match. He had to play a different game. A smarter, meaner game.

"Gorgon wants a war of annihilation,"

Ragnar said, a slow, wicked smile spreading across his pale face.

"We'll give him a war of a thousand cuts. A war of attrition."

He turned to Pixia, his eyes burning with a new, cold purpose.

"Get me Isabelle. I have new orders for the Wrecking Crew. Their mission is no longer to conquer the mall. It is to harass it.

They will launch lightning raids, kill a few guards, and retreat.

They will destroy his supply lines. They will ambush his patrols. They will be a constant, infuriating thorn in his side.

We are going to bleed him dry, one drop at a time.

He has the bigger army, but I have the smarter one. Let's see which one breaks first."

Pixia's eyes shone with pure, academic admiration.

"An excellent strategy, my Lord.

You will make him exhaust his resources, stretch his defenses thin, and drive him mad with frustration.

By the time you are ready for the final blow, he will be a king of a hollowed-out castle."

Ragnar grinned. The game had changed.

It wasn't just about levels and stats anymore. It was about economics, logistics, and psychological warfare. It was a proper, grand-strategy game.

And he was just getting started.

The new strategy against Gorgon the Tyrant began immediately. It was a cruel, repetitive, and deeply satisfying campaign.

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