Chapter 268: Day-1: Start of the War

One day ago;

Searvale Kingdom;

The sun hasn't risen up yet. Because it's too early, most of the players who live in the Eastern continent didn't come online.

However, there are still more than 400 thousand players that took up their positions in the borders. Every one of them received a quest to defend at the border.

The majority of them are gaming enthusiasts. While they are greedy about War points, they still followed the orders like soldiers, well, atleast more than ninety percent of them. 

They knew that with wild monsters gone, they can only level up by going into dungeons or completing quests. The last way is to gather war points as the War Shop also has EXP scrolls.

Meanwhile, on the other border with Uflenor, a campsite was being established. Thousands of soldiers along with the Generals were stationed.

As for the Queen, Rini, and Wil, they are neither on the border nor are they at the campsite at the moment.

Following the Queen's plan, they reached the outskirts town of Lelilune in disguise. It is a nearby town.

"Now, you remember the plan, right?" The Queen asked Rini. "Don't move too fast."

While Rini nodded, Wil commented as he looked up in the sky. "Your Majesty, the clouds aren't clear. Should we wait until the sun rose completely?"

The Elven Queen also stared at the sky that appeared cloudy and also saw the partial sun. "Hmm, the climate might actually turn into our favor."

While in the real world, it only takes a mere 2 minutes for the sun to rise above the horizon from the moment top reached the horizon, here, in this world, it takes like 45 minutes.

Wil doesn't know the reason, though, as he never cared about it.

*Ding! Siren sent you a party request.

"Huh!" Wil was taken aback as he looked at Rini.

"Accept. I'm the player representative. You can earn 10% more War points if you are in my party." Rini said to Wil in her usual expressionless tone in the presence of the Queen. Because of the programming, the Queen wasn't the least interested in the War points. It was translated to her as a contribution.

However, Wil rejected Rini's party request as he doesn't want his in-game name to be revealed.

Rini frowned at first, but then, she shrugged her shoulders. If this guy doesn't want to reveal his identity, then, it isn't her problem.

They waited until the sun rose completely above the horizon.

*Ding! The three-way war between Reverie, Uflenor, and Searvale is started.

*Ding! Until the war is over, the three kingdoms will be protected by a barrier. Access to the Teleportation formations outside of the kingdom will be blocked.

While it surprised many players, especially the helpers from other kingdoms as it wasn't mentioned previously, Wil, on the other hand, was calm and collected. He already knew the War will end in a day. No… He was confident that he can end the war within a day…

"Mr. Lupin, summon your cloud." The Queen had given the order. "Princess Siren, we will fly a bit above you. There might be a chance that we cannot see you, so, make sure the Phoenix  let out flames all the time, just in case."

"Or I can let Pyre use the Fire Wings." As Rini made eye contact with the phoenix that was standing behind it, its wings turned into fire.

Because he stood near them, Wil felt the heat hitting him and he moved a few steps away, meanwhile, the Queen was perfectly fine as she was in the same party as Rini.

The Queen frowned at her action but she felt it isn't the time to argue with her. So, she just nodded and turned to Wil and took a glance at the gourd in his hand. 

She spoke in a serious tone, "because of our relationship with Lady Marten, I'm putting my trust in you. I hope the gourd will turn out exactly as you have mentioned. Or else…"

She narrowed her eyes and stared at Wil in silence.

While holding onto the gourd, Wil replied with a nod while summoning the cloud beside him. Meanwhile, his staff was safely stored inside the gourd as they are technically the same piece of equipment.

This is what Wil discovered during the previous evening.

Jumping onto the nimbus cloud, he pointed his behind, "Your Majesty…"

The Queen nodded and sat behind him. "Oh! This feels like a cushion…" Her face flushed at her involuntary comment before she forced herself to be calm again. 

In order to hide her embarrassment, she cleared her throat and spoke in a dignified tone, "what are you waiting for… Let's leave…"

The cloud slowly ascended towards the sky while the Phoenix flapped its wings.

***

Level 300 Wild Zone, Kingdom of Eiron;

A team of hundred and one exited the dungeon portal.

Several of them worn Epic grade set with at least one legendary-grade while their leader has an entire legendary-grade-equipment set.

They are the elites of guild Salvation that was backed by Wymarc, the biggest Oil and Gas Company in the world with over 400 Billion dollars of annual revenue and 20 Billion dollars of annual profits.

Although it is a publicly owned company and the chairman only has 6% shares, Zhu Yun, the chairman's youngest son is still someone who was born with a golden spoon, no… a diamond spoon…

With such status, people might think he might be another arrogant young master but he was different.

Even in the real world, he was widely known to be down to earth person who never spends a single cent that belongs to his father. Whatever he earns from his salary, he even donates to orphanages and earned the Federation's humanitarian award in 2019.

Inside the game, one can say, he's the complete opposite of Wil too.

If Wil was rumored to be a notorious oppressor, Zhu Yun is known to be generous. He was good, not only to his subordinates but also forgives the enemies for attacking him.

Adding to the top of that, somehow, he has an incredibly lucky rate, which explains the legendary grade equipment on them.

However, that kind of good personality also made him being prone to attacks by the guilds over and over because of the equipment he carries over his body.

The only problem that poses the guilds was that he will always be surrounded by the hundred elites who are also martial artists in real life. With good equipment, each of them can kill 100-500 casual players easily.

So, yeah, one can imagine why he was never being killed until this date.

"Congratulations, Boss Zhu for reaching level-250." 

They kept on congratulating the young man who had a smile on his face.

"Thank you, Mr. Walter." "Thank you, Mr. Lee." "Thank you, Ms. Zhong…"

Like his personality, he thanked everyone by their names that were congratulating him.

Zhu Yun, who just reached level-250, then changed his lower-level legendary grade equipment to level-250 ones. "Ms. Zhong… Here, these bracers will be useful to you." "Mr. Sian, take this Armor" "And, Mr. Walter, here's the helm."

After giving away level-200 legendary grade to his subordinates, he looked at his character, and mumbled, "Hmm… I still need the staff and boots. And there are still 2 dungeons chances left."

Thousands of players, who are stationed on the border, are staring at the group with greedy expressions. The leaders of several other guilds knew that they can't attack them and snatch.

So, they made a deal with some enemy guilds to attack them and split the gains later. 

Now, they were waiting for the perfect time.

"Everyone, let's go and clear the level-280 dungeon." They heard Zhu Yun spoke to his group. The remaining nodded and turned around to leave the place.

Meanwhile, at one of the groups in the border;

"Guildmaster, they are leaving. We have to block them, now." An elite player spoke to the leader of guild Merciless that's focused mainly on PK.

"No, it isn't the time yet. There are other hungry wolves in the area too. Revealing our intentions first will become heavily disadvantageous to us. We will wait. Until, then, just follow but no action."

He glared at their back for a while before his ears perked up as someone shouted, "Who is that?"

Merciless glanced at the sky and saw a man in black robes was riding a broom while standing on it. He had a hood to cover his head and a mask to cover his face. He has a staff in his hand and his name is red in color.

To distinguish allies from enemies, the system created a mechanism so that the allies will see the names are blue as if they are in the same party, regardless of their kingdom.

Meanwhile, they will see the enemies' names in red. The same goes vice versa. 

The guild leader frowned, "the red name…"

"Angel race players, Attack the guy…" Merciless then sent a message on the Ally channel.

As he was floating a bit too far in the sky that was out of their weapons range, he ordered the ones with wings to deal with him.

But, who could have expected, not even a second later, the sky was brightly lit as if there was another Sun rose up and a thousand fireballs started to rain down, hitting everywhere.

As each fireball is 1 meter big and 50 cm wide, it covered a wide area and thousands of players who were hit were killed on one strike.

However, He didn't stop there.

While everyone was busy dodging the fireballs, he raised his staff once again and spoke an incantation, "I, the successor of Archmage Solomon, hereby summoning the spirit of the gatekeeper of Tartarus. Heed my call, Minos."

*Roar* everyone heard a powerful roar followed by seeing the appearance of a giant Minotaur with an Axe.

Minos

Grade: legendary+

Level: 500

HP: 622 Billion

Description: Son of Zeus, once the king of Crete Empire, now, serving as the guardian of Tartarus.

"Kill…" He spoke in a cold tone.