In the world of Ethereal, Ethan had just finished killing his fiftieth Soulrender. As expected, a new system notification popped up.
Ding…
[System Notification: The nurturing of the Prismatic Stone, Phase Three Progress: Kill 0/500 Soulseekers.]
The sheer number of kills required made Ethan's jaw drop. At his current pace, it had taken him ten hours to kill fifty monsters. Five hundred would take a hundred hours, but the quest tir only allowed seventy-two. With just fifty-eight hours left, he wasn't sure he could finish in ti—and who knew if there would be a Phase Four after this?
But he had no choice. He had to push through. Even if he wanted to quit, he couldn't. His Teleportation Stone was grayed out, unusable.
Checking his experience bar, he saw he was at Level 41, 94% progress. The only silver lining was that the monsters here gave an insane amount of experience. Killing one of them was equivalent to wiping out an entire group of mobs in the Life Greenhouse.
"Well… might as well treat this as a grind for levels," Ethan muttered to himself.
But when he saw the Soulseekers, his heart sank. These monsters were tiny, floating eyeballs that drifted aimlessly across the map. They had almost no attack power—a single instant-cast Moonfire from Ethan was enough to kill them. The problem was finding them. They gave no experience and no loot, making the hunt feel like a waste of ti.
After seven or eight frustrating hours of running around the map, Ethan finally found the last Soulseeker in a hidden cave.
[Ding… System Notification: The nurturing of the Prismatic Stone, Phase Four Progress: Kill 0/5000 Blaze Wraiths.]
When Ethan saw the number required for Phase Four, he almost lost it. But then he noticed the monster's na—Blaze Wraiths. He rembered seeing them during his earlier map exploration. They were fire-elental creatures, and there were endless swarms of them in one area. With around 20,000 HP each, killing 5,000 of them would still be a grind, but at least they were clustered together. With his two AoE skills, Ethan wasn't too worried about these low-health, group-oriented mobs.
As Ethan settled into the endless grind, the Southern Frontier Region was also in chaos. A player nad WestGateLord had held the Divine Ability Scroll for eleven hours and forty-five minutes. Ethan had assud he would be the final winner, but at the last mont, he was killed, and the tir reset.
The battle in the Southern Frontier was intense, and the Northern Frontier wasn't idle either. Over the past two days, Skyblade and Slashblade had stopped running dungeons entirely, focusing all their efforts on attacking Blade Syndicate. Whether it was in open-world leveling zones or outside dungeon entrances, Renegade Alliance had stationed players everywhere. They didn't care about going red-nad—they attacked on sight.
Anyone who turned red would rotate out, and the next wave would take over. Zachary hadn't expected that after the guild's recent turmoil, Renegade Alliance would beco even more united, with everyone quietly determined to prove themselves.
Marcus Skeiner, on the other hand, was once again finding himself on the losing end of his collaboration with Zachary. During the battle in Larson Basin, he'd been crippled by just five mbers of Renegade Alliance. Then, during the town conquest, a Demigod-tier monster had wiped out his entire team. After that, he'd been ambushed and slaughtered in the canyon of Redridge Town.
Bitter and vengeful, Marcus had accepted Zachary's offer to poach mbers from Renegade Alliance.
Not only had Marcus failed to poach many mbers, but he was also being relentlessly hunted. Even his contact, ReaperX, had been killed so many tis that he was sent back to the Starter Zone. The four guild leaders who had left Renegade Alliance hadn't joined him either. So far, only about forty elite mbers from Renegade Alliance had defected to his side.
This recruitnt effort was supposed to be paid per head, but with such a small and underwhelming group, how much could he really earn? Frustrated, Marcus vented his anger on the monsters in the leveling zone. Wielding a single blade in his right hand and a shield in his left, he swung wildly, his movents fierce but unfocused. When he checked his damage output, it was less than 250 DPS.
Feeling utterly defeated, Marcus stopped attacking.
'This is another disaster. I just hope Renegade Alliance's rage blows over soon.'
For the first ti, he understood the pain and frustration of the smaller guilds and players that Blade Syndicate had harassed and hunted in the past.
As Marcus prepared to sit down and soak up so experience, chaos erupted in the leveling zone his three-hundred-man army had claid. The formation broke, and the players began to scatter in confusion.
Marcus was startled. 'What's happening?'
Above them, dark clouds of magic began to gather, looming ominously over the battlefield. The sheer pressure of the spell caused panic among the Blade Syndicate players.
"What the hell? Who's casting a large-scale magic spell?"
"It's… it's the advanced Warlock skill, Apocalypse!"
"Holy crap, it's atball from Renegade Alliance! Soone interrupt him!"
But the Blade Syndicate players were too busy scrambling to escape the spell's area of effect to even think about interrupting. anwhile, a group of about twenty players from Renegade Alliance charged into the fray from the outskirts of the Blade Syndicate camp.
Leading the charge were Skyblade and SeraphWarrior.
Skyblade was like a raging tiger, crashing into a group of seven or eight Blade Syndicate players with his Charge ability. SeraphWarrior, a hidden-class Judicator of Light, followed closely behind. Suddenly, he whistled, and a warhorse materialized beneath him, lifting him into the air.
The Blade Syndicate players stared in shock as SeraphWarrior rode straight into their ranks. Three seconds later, the warhorse vanished, and he raised his greatsword to the sky. A golden whirlwind erupted around him, sending a dozen players flying.
"Damn, show-off," Skyblade muttered, watching SeraphWarrior's flashy move.
Behind them, Slashblade and the others surged forward, carving a path through the enemy. The Blade Syndicate forces parted like water, unable to hold their ground.
"Follow left! Marcus is over there!" Skyblade shouted, having spotted Marcus's location.
The Blade Syndicate players began to retaliate. Despite the initial charge taking out dozens of them, this was still a three-hundred-man elite force—Marcus's personal army, the cream of Blade Syndicate.
"atball, how much longer on that damn spell?" Skyblade yelled as a barrage of spells, arrows, and bullets rained down on him. The individual hits were small, around 100 damage each, but the sheer volu was overwhelming.
Slashblade and five healers worked frantically to keep the team alive, while SeraphWarrior used his holy energy to heal Skyblade.
"Almost there! Hold on for two more minutes!" atball shouted in the party chat.
SeraphWarrior noticed Marcus trying to retreat. "He's running!"
"Leo, speed up and close the gap!" Slashblade suddenly called out.
Trusting Slashblade's judgnt, Skyblade didn't hesitate. He surged forward, clearing the way with his Rapid Strike.
"Holy Chains!"
When they were about 150 ters from Marcus's retreating forces, Slashblade began to chant…
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