Infinite Realm

"Need any help?" A voice sounded from the sidelines.

The voice had a tone of confidence that was very obvious to a listener. It was as if the problem that assaulted Chesces and his teammates would surely be resolved upon their entry.

"What took you guys so long?" Chesces let out a sigh of relief even as he faced off against one level 8 Mud Bear and two level 7 Earth Snakes.

"Hurry up and join in, if you want a piece of the cake that is."

Chesces didn't need to turn around to know that the speaker was the very person he was waiting for, Azure Dragon.

Azure Dragon smiled at Chesces' words. Behind him were the other members of Emperor's Might, most of which participated in either the battle with Sygrart or had experienced the battle at the Middle region's 10th floor like the [Druid] Kylian, the [Guardian] Griffin, the [Assassin] Ore and even the 'Queen', Snow Goddess Yukino. They had all gathered at this moment, forming the most powerful team that Emperor's Might's Riverdale branch could form as well as one of the strongest player teams in the entire Black Rock province.

Azure Dragon didn't hurry to join the battle but instead assessed the entire situation. Chesces was aware of his behaviour so he didn't urge him but commanded his team to hold on for just a little while longer. Within 5 seconds, Azure Dragon had gotten a summary of everything as well identified the weak points in the beast horde.

"Ore, attack from the left wing with Riley and finish off those kobolds. Griffin, support the front line with the other MTs. The rest...Kill."

Azure Dragon gave off his orders with a calm and collected attitude as he began the casting rites and chants for a powerful spell.

The players behind him then dashed towards the monster horde as their killing intent soared. These players weren't your average cabbages or potatoes that you could spot anywhere. Every one of them was a bonafide Expert and was capable of taking 4 or more average players down with ease.

Since Chesces' 10-man squad was able to hold out against a more than 26 mob of monsters, the addition of Azure Dragon's team of 8 men was more than enough to tilt the balance towards Emperor's Might.

Slowly but surely, the rate at which the monsters fell began to increase. Within a minute of their entry, one kobold had fallen and the monsters' numbers had dwindled by 30%. Two minutes later and not only was the last kobold long dead, but the monsters remaining added up to a pitiful number of just 7 of them. It took the 17 men and 1 woman, just a few seconds to finish them off.

"Finally." One of the MTs in Chesces' team sighed with relief as he decided to take a break.

The backline players[1] like the healers and mages began gathering the loot from the battle. While these monsters were a bit weak, the materials they dropped were still valuable, otherwise, most guilds wouldn't have been worried about the Kobold king's actions of seizing the area.

"What happened here? How did you get into such a miserable position?" Azure Dragon approached Chesces. As the branch guild leader, it was beneath him to gather the loot even though he was a backline player.

As he heard this, Tawaki involuntarily shuddered as he was ready to take the blame but Chesces replied.

"It was a slight moment of carelessness. I never expected the monsters to be close to us and I messed up my strategies. I accept all the blame." Chesces said with a straight face.

Azure Dragon stared at him in the eye and though he knew that Chesces was lying, he didn't want to push the matter anymore, lest an internal strife would occur. The current timing wasn't good for that as the unity and utmost solidarity of the team were necessary for the next series of actions.

"Your pay for the month will be deducted by 30% and you will have to pay the usual fine to the guild. You almost cost us this mission so this is the least you get. Just make sure it doesn't happen again." Azure Dragon grunted coldly.

Even though he didn't want to push the matter, he still had to exert his superiority and display his dissatisfaction, lest his teammates take him as a paper tiger.

"Understood." Chesces nodded.

Despite being often referred to as the 5th Hand of the Emperor, in the branch guild here, he was lower than Azure Dragon in terms of authority. Because of this, he had to bow his head to him.

Tawaki glanced at Chesces with admiration in his heart. In truth, the previous event was due to a slip-up from him.

As an [Assassin], Tawaki was tasked with scouting the path ahead for the team alongside Ares. But to be more efficient in a certain sense, the two divided the job amongst themselves and took shifts.

It was Tawaki's turn to scout the area and monitor for any abnormal movements but he had failed to notice the monster horde in front. It wasn't that he was blind but Tawaki had gotten distracted by something and failed to check on a particular area. When the team then proceeded forward, they encountered the monsters before them. However, it was too late to turn around so they were forced into battle.

After the failure at the Middle region's 10th floor, where Tawaki was killed by one of the Kobold chief's guards, Azure Dragon was displeased with him and his ranking in the team had dropped. If it was discovered that this ambush was a result of a lax attitude from him, chances were that Tawaki would be demoted and sent to a remote area of another VR game to start all over. Such a fate was extremely terrible especially for a pro player whose livelihood depended on gaming. Hence, Chesces' actions of taking the blame for him had inevitably won his admiration.

"We need to hurry up. Black Tempest's group is waiting for us on the 7th floor."

With the absence of the Kobold King and the increased monster count, the Outer region became a levelling heaven of sorts. Players could form teams and fight till their satisfaction or, for the weak, till they got tired of dying. With the rise in the number and quality of monsters, everyone saw this as an opportunity to increase their levels so, most of them had gathered at Black Grill's Cave.

While the original threat of a Town level destruction seemed to have ended, the mission assigned by the various Town heads remained and the glory attached to finishing off the very first World-class BOSS in the game still existed. Hence, none of the players returned to their places and began grinding monsters in Black Grill's cave, in a bid to reduce the Kobold king's available forces just before they confronted it. Of course, this idea only remained in the minds and hearts of a few top guilds. The majority were only here to participate in the fun and at the same time increase their levels since the concentration of monsters had drastically surged.

Emperor's Might was one of the guilds with the lofty goals of completing the Town head's mission as well as getting the first-ever kill on a world-class BOSS in IR, however, they knew that their level was too low to face off against the Kobold king. To solve this issue, they decided to increase their strength as they progress towards the Middle region.

To increase the levelling efficiency of their team, they had divided into 3 groups with one being lead by Chesces and the other by Azure Dragon. As for the last one, it was lead by Black Tempest.

Chesces' team was originally doing alright but ended up suffering an ambush due to Tawaki's mistakes. As for Azure Dragon's team, having a majority of the best players of the guild with him, the team was able to breeze through most of their obstacles with ease.

Black Tempest moved far earlier than the two teams and was a scouting team for the others. While it didn't consist of a majority of the strong figures, their total battle strength was still alright, and was able to rank among the top in Riverdale. Even as a branch guild, the average players of Emperor's Might can't be compared to the normal average players or casual players. They were a super guild after all, so they didn't accept any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Every one of them was at least a Veteran rank player otherwise the guild would just send them to the streets.

"Remember, our goal is the Middle region. I won't tolerate mistakes like this any longer."

While Azure Dragon seemed to be speaking to Chesces, he had increased his voice by a notch showing that he was talking to everyone. This task was too important to him and if he did well, the upper echelons of the guild would support him more and they might even allocate him more resources and experts. At that point, seizing control of Black Rock province would be a dream within sight for him.

No matter what, Azure Dragon didn't want to see this mission end up in a failure and coming to nothing.

'No matter what.'