326 Chapter 2: Fenrir Guild's First Territory War

Although Joshua was always up for a challenge he knew where his limits were at the moment and was willing to train till level eighty before rushing into such dungeons. It might take a couple more months for him and the rest of his group to reach that level of strength, but it would increase their chance of survival in such high level territories. So for now these new territory wars were going to be what had most of Joshua's attention along with the rest of his guild. In their free time they would go out and level when given the opportunity during the long breaks between territory wars.

It was still early in the morning as Joshua made his way out of the office of the town hall. There were actually buildings in the town that he could stay in to rest that had beds, working showers, and the works, but he decided to stay at the office since it would be where the others would appear when they teleported into James Town. There was a shower on the top floor of the town hall so he didn't have any issues getting cleaned up for the morning. After munching down an energy bar along with some morning coffee he was ready for the day.

As Joshua was making his way down towards the main hall he could hear a portal pop up outside the building which he knew belonged to members of his guild. It didn't take long for Henry to make his way into the entrance giving Joshua a simple wave.

"I see you got up early. I'm guessing I was the first one to show up?" Henry asked with a small smile. Although he acted calm and hid his excitement rather well it was clear to Joshua that he was looking forward to the territory war as much as Joshua. Neither one of them seemed nervous after having been involved in taking down a far larger town, they both knew that they were well out of the league of any other small or probably even mid-sized guilds.

"Honestly I don't expect much from whoever's going to try to challenge the territory. I'm willing to bet they aren't exactly planning on having to deal with beast when they come around. After all Lilly is the only one with the ability to control them for now." Henry explained while scratching his chin in contemplation. It was the posture he always had when he was planning something.

"I'm not expecting much of a fight either, but it will be interesting to see how our defenses hold up. We're going to need this town to be able to hold its own in the future when we start taking other territories as our guild grows. I don't plan on rushing things, but it'll be good for our guild if our territories can defend themselves without us having to rush over every time." Joshua explained before they both heard another portal pop up outside of the building. It wasn't long before both Adrian and Aito made their way into the room. Adrian had a big grin on his face while Aito had a slight smile showing a bit more excitement than usual.

"Guess we didn't get here first." Adrian said as he pulled up a chair at the table and sat down. "I thought that I had actually gotten here quite early for a change."

"Well knowing Joshua I'm willing to bet he spent the night here." Aito said with a bit of a questioning tone as he looked over towards Joshua.

"You wouldn't be wrong. I wanted to be here to set up the defenses just in case someone decided to try to catch us off guard and challenge the territory in the middle of the night." Joshua explained.

"Well you didn't have to worry about that. A message would have been sent to all guild members if the territory was being challenged at any point in time. Then you'd have half an hour to get prepared before the invading guild is given the chance to strike. Half an hour may not seem like much when it comes to large scale preparations but the invading guild needed some sort of advantage after all. Otherwise the only way for anyone to be able take someonelse's territory would be through brute strength." Henry said with a chuckle at the fact that Joshua had gotten ahead of himself.

"Yeah we've seen some territory wars personally when we filled in with the Phoenix Guild on occasion. The defending guild always has the advantage in these things from what I can tell. Giving the invading guild a chance to decide the time of the invasion and get in extra preparation is the only way to make things a bit fair in my opinion." Adrian said with a shrug.

"So I guess you guys have been in your fair share of territory wars then?" Joshua questioned since they were still waiting on the others to arrive. Now that he knew that they'd have thirty minutes of time to get in position from when the invaders declared war he wasn't as anxious about things.

"We haven't been in to many since Laura only asked for help on occasion when her guild was spread too thin to guard multiple territories. Madalyn never asked really, she seems to be able to handle her territories just fine on her own. Of course she's pretty much scared everyone off from trying to go after her bases at this point." Adrian said as he started to ramble a bit.

"Anyways all you need to know about these territory wars is that the defending side always has the advantage as long as they're of similar strength. That can't be said if it comes to one side being much stronger than the other." Aito said cutting off Adrian's rambling.

"Territory wars can get a bit chaotic if they're close, but we haven't personally been in such a situation. Since we weren't a part of any guild until you came along we were able to join other guilds part time to help out in territory wars. Having people like us around usually tips the scales quite a bit." Henry explained with a small smile.

The four friends spent some time discussing their plans for the upcoming battle for a few minutes before another portal appeared. This time around Jayce's group were the ones to arrive. They were fully geared up, but Joshua highly doubted that any of them would actually end up fighting. After they arrived Amy and Lilly arrived next. The two of them both seemed excited in their own way for what was going to happen soon. Amy's excitement was more obvious with her high energy while Lilly just seemed to have a larger smile plastered on her face than usual. Lastly Laura, Madalyn, Isabella and Natalie all showed up together.

Joshua was expecting everyone in his guild to come, but he wasn't expecting Laura and the others. They weren't going to be able to get involved in the territory war after all so it was a bit strange that they would come along. "How come you guys decided to come?" Joshua asked with a bit of confusion.

All of the new arrivals grabbed seats at the nearby tables so that they could join the rest of the group. Madalyn was the one to respond to Joshua's question. "Well we came to watch the show of course. Seeing how well your defenses hold up will give us a good idea on how we want to set up the large town. Besides we came to give you a heads up."

"A heads up?" Amy asked a bit confused.

"Well we have a pretty good idea of what group will be trying to take your territory." Madalyn said with a bit of a smirk starting to make its way on her face.

"Did you have members of the alliance looking around for information or something?" Henry said a bit surprised. "I wouldn't think you guys would waste your time on such a thing."

"We didn't waste our own man power for this. After all there is a guild that is made just for such a task." Isabella said gaining everyone's attention. "We went to the Cypher Guild for this. They put all their time into gathering information and selling it to other guilds or individuals."

"Yep they work fast to. If you need to find someone then go to them, if you want to know about a dungeon's location go to them, hell they even have a fair bit of knowledge about our alliance that I wouldn't have expected." Laura said with a frown. "Anyways that's not the point at the moment. I believe Madalyn was about to tell you what we know about the group that's going to try to invade." After that everyone grew silent as they turned to see what Madalyn had to say.

"Well for starters the guild that is coming to try to invade this time around is new and small time. I guess most small guilds are small time, but this one is ridiculously so." Madalyn said with a chuckle. "They go by the name of Heaven's Star and they all seem to have aliases for names. It's a bit stupid, but it seems like they have been treating all of this like a game. Honestly it makes sense why they would try to challenge your territory, they probably don't have the confidence to take on a challenging dungeon and there isn't any risk of death in a territory war."

"I'm surprised they were the ones that were able to challenge the territory first if that's the case." Natalie said a bit taken off guard by the new information.

"They lucked out. Their guild had been training in the nearby forest for months. When they didn't find a guardian for the area or an undiscovered dungeon they eventually found the town. So they were the first ones to challenge it." Laura explained.

"Even if that is the case other guilds probably are using this guild as a test subject. They want to figure out as much about the town defenses as possible before declaring a territory war themselves." Natalie explained. She was used to seeing similar things from how the world government guild handled things.

While they were all discussing the upcoming clash a system announcement suddenly appeared for everyone in Joshua's guild to see.

[Your territory has been challenged by "Heaven's Star". You have thirty minutes to prepare before they are allowed into the territory without your permission. Good luck in defending your territory!]

After reading the message a large smile spread across Joshua's face. Even if it was some small guild that fancied themselves video game characters he was going to enjoy his first territory war.