Soon, the news was out. The number four faction, the Mages Association, had been rent to the ground by Draco, all their Rank 7 powerhouses turned into meatpaste. The number five faction, the Merchant's Guild, has also been thoroughly robbed and then flattened into pieces.
Even more horrifying, the entirety of Cario Continent, one of the top 50 continents in the Mapped Zones, had been completely razed to the ground and captured by Vita Kingdom and Umbra.
Shock!
Fear!
Horror!
Many NPCs and monsters factions that listened to this refused to believe it, screaming out their unwillingness. However, the truth was there and easily verifiable by many different means.
It caused many of them to feel like the world was coming to an end, and that they had to flee to the unmapped zones. The measly Immortal Adventurers they took for playthings had now matured enough to cause them trouble!
Meanwhile, the players who had been killed by Draco and co on that fateful day had regrouped and formed an faction of their own within the power faction. Once they realized the power of Draco, they were filled to the brim with regret.
They glared at the older players and those who remained neutral or sided with umbra with bloodshot eyes. If you know Umbra was so strong, why didn't you tell us? Why did you intentionally harm us? Despicable!
Naturally, these players were speechless and filled with grievance.
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we tried to tell you but you slapped us aside and called us cowards, small-minded and unambitious! How dare you twist words now!
However, it fell on deaf ears. In this current era, the hardest thing to do was not become president of a country, but to make a person or group of people admit that they were wrong.
Why should they accept that they are wrong when there is a perfectly good majority and/or alternative faction they can lay all the blame upon?
Not only did it allow them to justify all their mistakes and actions, it also felt good!
So these players had come together and had elected a few among them to become leaders of the batch. These fellows were the strongest among them and had the most clout, so they came together and hatched a devious plan.
Umbra wanted to conquer stuff right, then let them conquer! After they do, don't they have to consolidate and then expand further?
However, do they have enough personnel to do that? Even on earth, the current number of Umbra's members wasn't nearly enough to achieve such a feat, much less on the exponentially larger Boundless.
Hehe, when they expanded outward too much and stretched themselves thin, they would then descend like locusts and pillage, rape and plunder! They would ruin of all Umbra's hardwork then run, and this was the best way to vent their anger!
And this was a clever plan that perfectly captured Umbra's biggest weakness, their limited numbers! Even though every single one was an elite, that was not enough for something like this.
However when the players saw what Umbra did, they roared like wounded beasts and smashed everything around them. They were filled with fury and indignation for the world!
How could Umbra do this?! How could they be so cruel? So brutal? So… smart?!
Naturally, if they could think of it, couldn't Deployed Soldier and Sublime Notion think of it too?
As such, the natural counter to their weakness being exploited was to destroy everything! Hence we now had an answer for why the member of Umbra's airships shot every inch of land and razed everything from forest, to savannas, to mountain ranges, into waste.
After all, Draco had various ways to restore the continent so he didn't much care. If the enemies wanted to use this against them, then let's ruin every single avenue for them to fight back so they could only feel grievance and despair!
The players of the power faction had been coughing out blood since this came out. They sat in their seats limply like dead dogs, their eyes glazed over and despair coloring their fortunes.
Those who still had some life in them were trying to resurrect Sun Tzu so that he could come and berate Umbra for not following the art of war! Who used fucking Scorched Earth on their own captured territories while moving forward??
Meanwhile, the players had all run away to far continents from Cario, but didn't dare enter the Unmapped Zones because the power level there was higher, transportation to get there was harder and their respawn points were locked to the mapped zones anyway.
Draco and his two beauties didn't mind. They were all experience in the bag and once they cornered the,m it would be time for a rich and fruitful harvest.
As it were, they were rather standing in the Ancestral City of Dragons with solemn expressions. Even though this city was theirs and they could see various Dragons moving about and bringing some life into it, they still felt like they were entering the maw of a beast.
That was because today, they would court death!
…cough, rather, they would enter the Divine Dragon Treasury and grab whatever Divine items they needed and see if there were some Semi-Origin stuff they could take within reason.
But knowing the rules of Boundless and the AI, how was this any different from courting death?!
The Evil Trio shared a look and immediately entered the Divine Dragon Treasury. Eva then slowed down time so that they could move faster and then swept through all the stored Divine items which numbered s hundreds of thousands.
From materials, to equipment, to items and even rarities never seen in the world, they took everything.
The more they took, the slower they moved. It was not that they were getting heavier and so could not move, or that their inventories were filling up. That was obviously nonsense.
It was because the more they took, the more pressure they felt from their fates. By the time they grabbed every Divine item, they were reduced to crawling on their floor while soaked with sweet, blood dripping from the side of their mouths.
Right now, the pressure was so intense that they could not stand up. Their power level allowed them to sense the general trajectory of their well being, just like other Eternals, and they could feel it screaming at them.
CALAMITY! CALAMITY! CALAMITY!!!
The smart thing to do would be to put what they took back and leave, but their greed and arrogance shone. How could they spit out what they had already swallowed?
Besides, what was a Calamity to them now might not be a calamity if they completely unsealed themselves, so harrumph! Bring it the fuck on!
They were even ready to face Origin Gods, much less whatever the AI thought it had in its books. With that resolve, they broke the shackles of fate and stood up, a defiant look in their eyes.
However, this did not absolve them but rather aggravated things. The severity of the calamity doubled and suddenly, the Evil Trio were hit with a vision of the future.
In this vision, they saw that there was a wide portion of sea that was edged with blackness. The faces of the Evil Trio changed slightly as they realized that this was a representation of the border between mapped zones and unmapped zones.
Then a single stern of an airship poked through the blackness and moved out. Then another came, and another came, and then then more. Hundreds and hundreds more rushed out, numbering thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands.
Then millions and tens of millions!
Each of these ships were at least Epic Rank!
Each of these ships was led by a Rank 7 Combatant!
At the head was a giant island that was floating along behind the ships. There were massive cities with hundreds of powerful lifeforms all kneeling to statues of a few hundred magnificent beings who hovered in the air over the island.
All True Gods!
The all wore confident and arrogant expressions as their armies entered the mapped zones with impunity, capturing and establishing territories as they went forward.
The vision disappeared and the Evil Trio gasped as if they had been holding their breath the entire time. They shared a solemn look as seriousness emerged on their faces.
As for regret, don't expect them to feel it. After all, they were destined to expand their influence beyond the mapped zones and even stick their crummy hands into the unmapped zones.
Hahaha, they even planned to invade all the side realms as well as small worlds, not letting even a single floating rock in space go, much less these fellows. So from their point of view, they were destined to be enemies anyway, and dealing with these fellow would allow the Evil Trio to understand the power of the unmapped zones.
Shinoka Continent was an outlier because it was basically Eva's backyard, a continent spawned from Japanese Mythology. Since Amaterasu was the highest being in that mythology, there was nothing Eva couldn't do there.
These fellows were clearly brought here head of time by the AI, maybe they were going to come years later or maybe they were going somewhere else and ended up here.
It didn't matter. Their origins didn't matter and their power didn't even matter.
All Draco, Eva and Shuangtian had to do to be able to fight True Gods was to reach Rank 5, when they would gain authentic Divine Source Origins and could produce as well as use Divine Energy.
At that time, they could defend themselves from True God attacks and could not be oneshot. However, they would still suffer Rank and Level suppression as well as State of Being suppression.
However, there was more than one way to kill True Gods. Also, if the mapped zones were being invaded by so many True Gods, would those dogs up in the Divine Realm sit still?
Suddenly, Eva's eyes flickered with intense evil, and her thoughts passed to Draco and Shuangtian. When they heard what Eva was thinking, their lips trembled and they were shocked that Eva could be so heartless.
However, this was actually Riveting Night's idea!
What was the idea?
Cripple the top echelon of the opposing army by setting up a trap!
The True Gods of the Mapped Zones were dying and being beaten back by the grey rot in heaven right? Then, capture or trick these new True Gods into rushing into the Divine Realm and lock it!
Lets add new defenders against the almighty grey rot!
Obviously, the True Gods of the mapped zones would be willing to help with this! It was like seeing portals open up behind them with an epic theme playing, showing allies from all over the multiverse who were back after being turned to dust.
How could they not be excited?
Thinking like this, Draco and Shuangtian couldn't help but smile and glance at Eva with a hint of fear.
Cruel!
Insidious!
Wicked!
The Evil Trio were about to check out the Semi-Origin sector when they were summoned out. They left and saw that Alduin and Paarthurnax had been the ones calling them, and they had excited expressions on their faces.
"King Draco, we have good news. After absorbing this world's energy and slowly converting over, we can now bring out almost 10% of our full power!" Alduin revealed in a deep voice.
Draco's eyes flashed with a deep light. 10% of a Semi-Origin God's full power was enough to smash weaker True Gods to death. This kind of backing was timely but not really game changing given the circumstances.
Draco acknowledged their information and praised them, but when he left the Ancestral Dragon City with Eva and Shuangtian, the three shared a look and made a decision.
It was time to stop playing around and level up!