The tactic of the executive members of the Kaimon Empire that induced internal conflict within the users of the Luspel Empire worked really well.

The controversy that started to spread through the community grew to the point it was uncontrollable, and it was publicized throughout all of Kailan.

The forces of the establishing guilds of the Luspel Empire were strong, but when looking at the whole empire, the fighting power of the mid-upper level users could be considered the strength that was almost the foundation of the empire.

Simply put, as the establishing power wasn’t able to receive the support of the middle class, the Luspel Empire began to shake from its roots.

There were even cases where amongst the users that were affiliated with the top-ranking guilds, there were some that were disappointed and walked away from their guilds.

Articles related to this began to continuously pour out from all mediums including the official community.

• The uneasy balance of Kaimon and Luspel begins to crumble.

• The Korean Kailan server, will the two giant countries crumble for the first time in the world?

At first, there was a lot of people saying that the press was pouring out articles that were too provocative.

They were doubtful that the giant empire that was Luspel would collapse so easily.

However, as time passed, more people began to predict the fall of Luspel.

The Allied Forces of the Kaimon Empire, who took the opportunity, began to push through the east side at an incredible speed.

As that speed was amazing to the point it was truly terrifying, dozens of central continent bases that were affiliated with the Luspel Empire were handed over to the Kaimon Empire in an instant.

And the Allied Forces of the Kaimon Empire strategically excluded the Pyro Domain from the beginning.

The thought that if they continuously knocked on their door, they would eventually be able to take over, but to do that, the time and expenses that went in were too big.

Summarized into one word, the expression ‘chicken ribs’ was most correct.

Their existence was the same as the rib meat of a chicken as there was too little meat to go through all the trouble of eating, but it didn’t sit well to give it to someone else either.

Leaving enemy territory alone right behind their back itself could be discomforting, but the Kaimon Empire moved aggressively.

As about one month passed like that, close to 80% of the territories were handed over into the hands of the Kaimon Empire, and the front line was pushed down to the very back where the giant guilds of the Luspel Empire were guarding.

Experts predicted that the giant guilds of Luspel would collapse immediately, but they still desperately endured on.

This was because if all of the central continent went into the hands of the Kaimon Empire, then the eastern continent, which was the mainland of the Luspel Empire, would be in danger next, and in the position of the established guilds that possessed multiple large-scale domains in the outskirts of the continent and the northern area, they needed to block it at all costs.

And during that time, Ian and the Lotus Guild began to expand their territory in the central continent little by little.

They had occupied several bases that surrounded the Pyro Domain.

* * *

The Lord’s office of the Pyro Domain.

Ian and Herz, as well as Fiolan, the Lord of the Pyro Domain, were sitting down and sharing a conversation.

“Jinsung, if you use all of your Fame, how high can you raise your noble title?”

At Herz’s question, Ian, who took a moment to check his information window, began to diligently calculate his Fame.

“Hmm, since I have about 5.2 million Fame right now…”

Fiolan was completely flabbergasted as she asked back.

“Huh? 5.2 million? No, exactly what must you do in order to collect that much?”

“This is just my opinion… But I probably collected about 200 thousand Fame just from my dragon letting out his breath in the siege warfare that we went through against the Allied Forces two months ago.”

“Now, now that you mention it, you do have a point there…”

“On top of that, since I’ve been constantly poking here and there around the central continent and hunting, if you look at it, 5.2 million is not that large of an amount.”

Ever since the moral controversy of the establishing guilds of the Luspel Empire stuck out, the general public thought that Ian and the Lotus Guild would take revenge on them no matter what method it took, but surprisingly, the Lotus Guild did not make any sort of move.

They just quietly developed their strength in the middle of the central continent.

And during that time, Ian poked around the middle of the central continent like it was his home as he continuously raised his level.

This was because right now, when most of the rankers that were affiliated with Kaimon were gathered at the front line in the eastern zone, even if they were inside the territory of the Kaimon Empire, no user that could stop Ian existed.

On top of that, because Ian’s level was almost at 170, even most decent Kaimon NPCs couldn’t even stop Ian.

Whether it was a dungeon or a field hunting ground, Ian hunted whatever he confronted, and if a Kaimon Empire user or NPC existed in the hunting ground, he even massacred them indiscriminately.

The result of that was that he had gathered this enormous amount of Fame.

“Seriously, even in games, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”

“Rather than that, wouldn’t the phrase some people have everything going their way be more accurate?”

Ian lightly ignored the two people, who were grumbling, as he substituted his Fame to the promotion requirements.

And he opened his mouth shortly afterwards.

“Since I need 1.2 million in order to become a Marquis, and 2 million in order to become a Duke, it looks like I can go up to a Duke in one go. However, since I have too little Fame left once I go up to a Duke, it’s too irrational to become a Duke yet.”

At those words, Herz scratched the back of his head as he spoke.

“Euh, so there was also Duke after Marquis.”

“Yeah, idiot. But why do you ask about that?”

“I thought that you might even be able to raise your title to ‘Archduke’.”

“Archduke?”

As Ian asked back, Fiolan responded instead.

“If you raise your title to Archduke, we could combine the domains of our Lotus Guild and declare them as a ‘Dukedom’.”

“Hmm…”

Herz grinned as he added on.

“For the first time in all of Kailan, we could become a dukedom.”

Currently there were a total of seven domains that the Lotus Guild owned.

The Lotus Domain and the Ollibus Domain in the northern continent, and including the Pyro Domain, they had an additional five domains.

Of course, as the rest of the domains in the central continent excluding Pyro had the risk of being taken whenever, they didn’t place a high importance on them, but either way, the profit they could earn from the creation of the seven total domains was tremendous.

If considering the fact that the Titan Guild and the DarkRuna Guild, who were quarreling over first and second place in the overall guild rankings, didn’t quite have 15 domains that they possessed, it could be considered a surprising level.

Thanks to that, the Lotus Guild had met almost all of the requirements in order to become the very first ‘Dukedom’ in Kailan if Ian just obtained the ‘Archduke’ title.

It wouldn’t be the Lotus Guild but would become the ‘Lotus Dukedom’.

However, Ian’s reaction wasn’t that positive.

“If I went all-in for about a month to gather Fame, it should be more than enough for me to get to archduke. However, I have no intentions of doing that yet.”

At Ian’s words, Fiolan widened her eyes as she asked back.

“Why’s that? The fact that we become a dukedom, it means that we will be a nation. We can obtain a power that’s incomparable to before.”

Firstly, once they become a nation, quality of the people and the military power that they could train itself changed.

It would become possible to build a facility that could foster knights that were the same as the public knight academy, and the various contents of magic towers or special defensive towers would open up.

Fiolan was talking about that.

However, Ian shook his head.

“The moment we declare ourselves a dukedom, the arrows of Kaimon that are aimed at the unification of the continent will return to us again. You even know the reason why I’m not expanding the number of bases in the central continent right now.”

A total of seven domains. And currently, the Lotus Guild was ranked at 11thplace in the guild rankings.

To be honest, this figure was a figure that Ian cleverly made.

He wasn’t increasing any indexes that could be appeared on the outside.

It would be accurate to see it as consideration to reduce the awareness towards the Lotus Guild from the top-ranking guilds of Kaimon.

Since the Lotus Guild that was being seen on the outside was not enough to be of threat towards the Titan or DarkRuna Guild yet.

Herz nodded his head as he opened his mouth.

“Hmm… But then again. If we suddenly declare dukedom, they’ll probably come to nip the bud. Then, Jinsung, what is your thought?”

Ian slowly opened his mouth.

“Now is the time to increase the internal strength. Until the Kaimon Empire Army is right in front of Myuran, let’s continuously grow our strength and wait for the chance.”

This time Fiolan asked.

“And then what about afterwards?”

Ian’s gaze turned towards Fiolan.

“We will lead all of the troops that we have gathered up until then and return to the Lotus Domain.”

“…?”

The Lotus Domain he was talking about was the base in the northern continent that the Lotus Guild first obtained.

At Ian’s unexpected statement, the two people’s gazes gathered at his mouth at the same time.

Ian’s words continued.

“We will return to the Lotus Domain and swallow up all of the domains of the guilds affiliated with the Luspel Empire that have grown weak nearby, and we will proclaim dukedom then.”

This was the first time that Ian was explaining his giant picture that he had continuously thought of for the past two months.

“And the users of the Luspel Empire that would soon fall, we will take in all of them. Since above everything else, we have ‘justification’.”

Herz slowly nodded his head with a dazed expression.

“That’s right, we’re the only guild that endured until the end against the Kaimon Allied Forces in the middle of the central continent.”

“Yeah. We just need to maintain that image until then. And we’ll bring up a new nation in the northern continent.”

At Ian’s words that poured out without rest, Fiolan felt chills all over her body.

“Wow… I didn’t know that you were thinking that far ahead. Up until now, I thought the reason we were gathering strength was to back-stab the Kaimon Allied Forces.”

Herz agreed with Fiolan still wearing a dazed expression.

“Me, me, too…”

Fiolan opened her mouth again.

“That’s why I thought that we were declaring ‘dukedom’ at an unexpected time and plot so that the tables turn with the troops we gathered until then…”

Ian smirked.

Since at the beginning, he had the same thought as Fiolan as well.

‘However, if that’s the case, then even if we become a dukedom, we’ll just be a subject country affiliated with a large empire known as Luspel.’

It was a golden opportunity to escape the fence of the empire and independently raise a nation.

Ian thought that this opportunity was a chance given by the gods.

On top of that, there was another reason.

‘If we back-stab the Kaimon Empire Army with the strength we’ve gathered together up until now, we’ll just be helping those shrewd guys, Splendor and Oaklan, so we can’t be doing that, no?’

If the empire fails, then it would be no different than them, the first establishing guilds, failing as well.

Of course, amongst them, he was planning on taking the same route as the Valiant Guild.

Ian opened his mouth towards the two people.

“Either way, we must continue to increase our fighting power, but we must hide that. You could see it as our goal is to suffer devaluation as much as possible from outsiders.”

Herz and Fiolan nodded their heads at the same time.

“Okay, I understand what you mean. It looks like we’ll have to keep everybody quiet inside of the guild as well.”

“No kidding, if it’s as Ian’s plan is, it looks like it will be quite a long-term plan.”

And Ian added on.

“Oh, there’s also something else I remembered.”

“What is it?”

The corners of Ian’s mouth slightly curved upwards.

“Samuel Jin will most likely request for assistance soon.”

Herz was startled as he spoke.

“Huh? With what sense of honour will that crazy dude request for assistance?”

Ian smirked.

“Since we haven’t taken any stand up until now. He might think that we don’t know the exact situation, or he might even try to make a deal with us.”

With an expression full of anger, Fiolan asked Ian.

“Then how do you plan on responding?”

“We must say that it’s difficult enough for us to just protect the Pyro Domain. What will they do from that side when we say that we don’t have energy to spare?”

However, even at Ian’s response, Fiolan wasn’t wearing a satisfied expression.

“That’s it?”

At her question, Ian grinned as he replied.

“No way. We must take as much revenge as we suffered.”