Even now, the +7 Enhancement of Ice Emperor's guardian sword was so good that it could be called a scam. Given that the options the sword provided increased with each enhancement level, the +15 Enhancement Ice Emperor's guardian sword would go beyond the 'scam' level and break the balance of the system.

So I exclaimed again to justify my decision to myself, "Yeah, let me forget about it!"

Obviously 3 billion golden rings, 3,000 remaining stat points, and even 30,000 coins would be nothing compared to the +15 Enhancement Ice Emperor's guardian sword, so I shook off my regrets and focused on hunting again.

At the level 1500 hunting ground Land of Titan one week later.

Puck! Puck! Bang! Bang!

While I was concentrating on hunting in the Land of Titan as usual, a message suddenly rang.

[Hello. This is 'Revival Legend'.

- We will notify you of some changes.

1. The current 40 regions will soon be merged into one.

2. Following the access ban on those below level 100, the access ban on those below level 200 will be activated sooner or later.

3. After the 40 regions are merged into one, the EXP given by monsters in all hunting grounds will increase, and a new higher level hunting ground will appear.

4. The event planned right before the merge of 40 regions will start quickly.]

"?"

Of course, messages like this rang quite often until now.

However, I felt something very unusual in this message.

In other words, I instinctively felt they were rushing something

As a matter of fact, the current 40 regions were formed by gradually merging two to five regions of the numerous regions that existed previously. For example, Korea, where I belonged, was merged with Japan and Mongolia first, then with China, India and Vietnam later.

Considering that, it seemed more reasonable to combine 10 or 15 regions together rather than 40 regions all at once. This was more logical, given the fact that coins and EXP would increase in all hunting grounds, aside from the access ban on those below level 200.

"Well, I think I know the reason why such a message was announced."

Of course, I had no hard evidence, but I had a strong feeling that it was because of those people who left for that place that had no particular name, referred to as just ㅇㅇㅇ.

And those guys were none other than the Talagapa Guild of Argentina.

At that moment, another message rang as if to confirm the fourth clause of the message that said, 'the event planned right before the merger of 40 regions will start quickly.'

[ The 'Strongest Regional Guild Selection' event, planned right after the 'Strongest Regional Player Selection" event starts right away .

- How to proceed.

: For the next three days, the representative of each guild can apply for the 'Strongest Guild Competition' through the signs installed in the central plaza of each city or province.

: A team can consist of up to 30 people, and when the 3-day application period is over, the participating guilds will be matched randomly from the next day.

(According to the number of participating guilds, the draw is randomly drawn into initial tournament brackets of 1024 and 512.)

: Differential rewards are given to the winner as well as those guilds that have advanced to the round of 16. In addition, the winners of each of the 40 regions will gather separately to participate in the selection of the strongest amongst all 50 regions. However, you can only participate in this event when you are level 1000 or higher.

: Due to the nature of the event, there is no penalty even if you lose.]

I was the winner of the 'Strongest Regional Player Selection' event. Back then I won not only in Region 11 that I belonged to, but also in the 'King of Kings' event to find the strongest player across all regions.

So if I changed the name 'Strongest Player' to 'Strongest Guild,' this event was basically a carbon copy of the previous event I won.

I felt good about it because I was going to be the winner again not only in my region but also among all other regions as well.

However, the reason I could not be just happy about it was because I had some doubts that the fast pace of this event might not be necessarily favorable to me.

The fundamental reason why I rejected the Talagapa Guild's offer was because I wanted to put it off until later if I was forced to engage in a fatal fight with the enemy.

But I stopped thinking about it.

Why? I couldn't figure out the answer no matter how hard I thought about it, and the best thing I could do at this point was to win 1st place in this event to select the strongest guild coming on the heels of the event to select the strongest player.

***

While Juyoung Hong was lost in thoughts, checking the message, something was happening in the ㅇㅇㅇ area.

"Gosh, we made the wrong choice."

"Damn it! Damn it! They should have told us about it in advance!"

"We should not have come here!"

Now, there were only 5 members of the Talagapa guild left, so they were screaming out of despair. But they did not stop running away.

Even though they knew that the enemy clearly had the capacity to kill them right away, and was fooling with them, they could not afford to stay idle.

***

Looking back, I won too easily in the 'Strongest Player Selection' event, which was exactly the same as the current 'Strongest Guild Selection event.'

In the previous event, more than half of my opponents gave up immediately instead of confronting me when they saw that I was their opponent. Now I am much stronger than before.

Starting off with the 14,000 stat points I gained from Jihye Suh of North Korea, I obtained the 'All Buffs, All Debuffs' trait, which I didn't have back then, as well as the rewards I received from participating in the Borneche Expedition.

Besides, the rewards that I recently obtained were much greater than those I had earned before the "Strongest Regional Player' competition had started. For example, in terms of stat points, I received over 10,000 and 30,000 stat points at once in that order, and although it was not stat points, 'All Buffs, All Debuffs' was definitely worth more than tens of thousands stat points.

This meant that even without forming a team of up to 30 guild members, I was confident of winning 1st place not only in my region but also among all the strongest teams in all 40 regions. In other words, my confidence was not based on any arrogance on my part, but my unrivalled power.

So I opened my mouth casually.

"I will win 1st place under any circumstances. So you don't have to form a team of 30 players based on their rankings. And I don't think it would be a bad idea to use this occasion to show one or two team members how Myongjin rewards their loyalty."

Of course, not only my father, mother, brother, sister, sister-in-law, but also Director Sok, Chief Secretary Dongyoung Ahn, and Myongjin Shelter Security Chief Captain Jungdae Lim, who was busy playing the double role of North Korea's Yuljung Kim of North Korea, were included in my team in advance because they were either my family members or equivalent.