Twilight, early dawn, even the moonlight couldn’t travel to the west.

In an empty lot at the Spirit mountain, a cheerful voice could be heard,

“Yah. Are all of you here?”

Like the uncles who usually gather at the sauna after a warm bath, everyone had sleepiness in their eyes and there were people everywhere.

And they were none other than the elite members of the Lotus Guild.

“Uh, I am sleepy. Save me…”

“I’m not sleepy as I have been sleeping, but I’m scared of what would happen in the future.”

“Same here.”

The lotus rankers, half-asleep were checking at the condition of the characters, they looked like a group of zombies.

But unlike the zombies, the head of them was somewhat (?) vivid.

“The goal is to go to the level of 8 before the update. Do you understand?”

When their head had spoken out, dissatisfaction flowed from every side.

“No, we are just starting now. Isn’t that a not-possible kind of plan, Ian?”

“Wah, not even 7 but level 8, huh? there is no one who has even take the level transcendence of 8 till the moment…”

The dissatisfaction of the zombies was all wiped away at one response,

“No one who has taken the level 8? I’m at level 9.”

“…”

“That, hyung you’re not included in it.”

There was a bit of turmoil, but somehow the Lotus members soon finished the maintenance.

Although they were mumbling and grumbling, they were the top rankers.

And it was already known to everyone that transcendence was a very important factor which had to be taken before the update.

It was necessary to enter the Warrior’s village faster than anyone else to pre-empt the content.

Which was why the attitude of the guild members was unique.

Herz looked over at the guild members and clenched his fist thinking.

‘I’ll put the name of Lotus as 1st in the guild ranking of the world.’

The massive update of ‘Warrior’s Village’, was much more important than any other update that had ever existed in the history of Kailan.

Till the very moment, in every update, users have been competing in their own servers, but this was the very first time that the users from all over the world would be competing.

When the turmoil subsided and everyone was ready for battle, Ian spoke with his golden spear in his hand.

“Kay, let’s get started.”

* * *

The Archeron river, the river that divided the boundaries between living dead and the dead, the most famous river in the Underworld.

The reason why the Archeron river was so famous in the underworld was simple.

And yet, no other user other than Ian had ever seen the other side of the Archeron river.

Of course, it didn’t mean that there weren’t users who hadn’t crossed the Archeron river.

Just like Ian had crossed the Archeron river thanks to the Underworld King, there were users who had crossed the Archeron river in the Underworld by deliberately dying.

But unlike Ian, they couldn’t open the dimensional door, and according to the situations, they couldn’t go deep into the Erebus.

So, Ian was the only one who had been able to see Cocytos, the second river.

And the famous river, Archeron, had become famous in the Underworld for this and that reason.

Around the Archeron river, numerous rankers and guilds were camped to raise their transcendence level.

Since the 9-10 transcendence level undead were appearing in the hunting grounds of the Archeron river, it gave a good amount of experience to the users.

And the good aspect of it was, the Underworld and the Archeron river were endlessly long.

Despite numerous guild parties of the world servers entering the Underworld, they didn’t have to suffer due to a lack of hunting ground.

And of course, the Titan Guild rankers were all the hunting grounds of Archeron.

In addition, the transcendence level of the Titan Guild could be considered at a top of all the servers.

And the Titan guild was the guild which had taken the place in the hunting ground of the Underworld the very first.

The flag of Titan Guild was flying along the Archeron River.

And underneath, the leaders of the Titan were in a meeting.

“Emily, have you got anything about the Lotus?”

“Yes, master.”

“Huhu, maybe they have tumbled down… where are the Lotus Guild members now?”

At the question from Shakran, Emily responded with a smile,

“They seemed to have hurriedly entered the Spirit Dimension the very morning.”

“Huh? not the Underworld but the Spirit…”

“Wouldn’t it be natural for them to choose a place lacking with users like the Spirit Dimension and not an overcrowded region like the Underworld?”

“That is true.”

Shakran was feeling good.

Because of the big update, they were having the opportunity to beat Lotus.

‘Huhu, Ian, this guy doesn’t seem to have made a good decision this time.’

After the underworld had opened, the Lotus hunted in the Underworld for a few days, and then the guild members suddenly went to the human system.

And it was learned by Titan that it was the instruction of Ian.

Before raising the level of the transcendence, Ian had ordered them to raise their human level first.

‘Because of that, we were able to raise our transcendence levels much more easy. We were able to get a read on the main and the best hunting ground.’

The first time Shakran had heard about Ian’s order, he felt anxious.

He couldn’t understand why Ian had given such an order to his mates.

The content of the terrestrial system was old, and the content of the Middle-Earth was new, and it was natural that he wasn’t able to understand why the level in the human dimension was being given a top priority.

But after digging into it a little more, he figured out.

-Anyway, the Middle-Earth that had opened was just an ‘Experimental Version’ and the level of 10 could be raised, so it seemed wise to raise the level in the human system.

At first, the found information about the Lotus seemed very reasonable.

In addition, if there were many levels in the human system, the power difference when the nation war breaks out would be great.

But in the end, Titan and the Shakran decided to stay on their original plan.

As the level of transcendence couldn’t be exceeded more than 10, he was determined to level up to the limit first.

Shakran, realizing that it was an update which could be updated at any point in time, thought that it was important to access that content immediately.

‘In the end, my decision was the right one.’

Shakran, which had a pleasing smile, asked Emily,

“So, Emily, have you figured out the transcendence level of the Lotus Guild yet?”

At the question of Shakran, Emily answered immediately.

“Firstly, the transcendence level of Ian was around 5, and it would be near 7-8 by now.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t know about the rest of them. Except for Herz who is of level 3, the others are with level 1.”

At that response, Shakran laughed out loud.

“Huhu, yeah. That would be about right.”

“Ah, by the way… there was something that took me by surprise.”

“Surprise…?”

“That, the Lotus Guild chef class user.”

“Ah, I know. The one called as Harin…”

“Yes.”

“What about that friend?”

“I was a little surprised when that person had taken the transcendence level of 5. All the other users were around 1, so I wasn’t able to understand how she was able to shoot to level 5 by herself.”

At those words of Emily, Shakran smiled,

“Huhu, that surely is unexpected. However, it isn’t something that had to be taken into consideration right? Nobody in our Titan Guild has even taken the level 6 yet.”

“That is right, Master.”

The meeting of the Titan Guild was being held in a friendly atmosphere.

The biggest rival of Lotus which had always been behind it, so they were trying to set up the strategy.

“Then in the end, in the Korean server we need to vary the Asmodian rankers, I guess.”

“That is right, master. There has been a story about Limlong reaching the transcendence level of 8. I haven’t confirmed it right away.”

“Limlong… he sure is a very dangerous one.”

“In fact, the most dangerous person in the Devildom is Limlong.”

The head of the Titan Guild, who had been able to establish a rough plan till the date of the update, ended the meeting in a cool manner.

And as the rough plan had been made, it was only a matter of days until the update, and for them to go crazy hunting.

‘This may be the last chance to cross the Lotus…’

Shakran, who thought of Ian couldn’t help but smile.

The first person who would enter the transcendence level 10 and enter the Warrior’s Village, Shakran thought that he would be the person.

* * *

Late evening, in the office of the Kailan’s planning team 3, a full swing at night.

The team had always been a night working team, but it was a bit too much lately.

The massive update was just one week away, and the users were taking on the content faster than expected, even after the work hours, the work didn’t end.

Even though it was around 10 o’clock, none of the members of the planning team 3 went home.

“Team, have we found any planning errors in the Spirit Dimension?”

Na Ji-chan responded to the frustrated voice of deputy Hong Ji-yoon,

“Ah, really Hong, how about you tone down the voice a bit? If you keep talking like that, my heart might fall down.”

“How can one not speak like this in such a case?”

“Huhu, at least pretend to care…”

“That isn’t so important now anyway. From the support team, we got compliant.”

Looking at Hong Jiyoon who was all tensed, Na Ji-chan just shook his head.

But, his mood wasn’t so bad.

Rather, it was a bit of an unfortunate situation for all the team members to remain at work.

‘After, after this project is done, I’ll have to go and grab the Korean beef with all these.’

Na Ji-chan thought to himself, and looked over at Hong Ji-yoon and opened his mouth,

“So what, was that a complain? I told you to take care of them at some point.”

“Right, ‘at some point’ you said.”

“Right, that I said…”

“But, this doesn’t seem like something that can be placed into that simple category.”

“Hmm…?”

Hong Ji-yoon’s words made Na Ji-chan feel anxious.

‘What? Has something huge happened again?’

Na Ji-chan thought and then opened his mouth trying to repress the anxiety that was deep inside of him.

“The, what was that problem?”

At the question of Na Ji-chan, Hong Ji-yoon responded quickly,

“You know about the Spirit Dojo that Ian tried last week? The public relations video was pulled from the planning team…”

“Yeah, the Spirit Dojo. There is no way I won’t know that.”

“In the meantime, the new users in the Spirit Dimension had done a lot of tries.”

“And… so?”

“The problem is with the Spirit Dojo, the complains we got were about the balance in the Spirit Dojo.”

Na Ji-chan was puzzled at the words of Hong Ji-yoon.

The Spirit Dojo balance, there was no problem with it at all.

Just one week back, he had personally monitored the battle scene of Ian.

“Yeah? There was nothing wrong with the balance in the Spirit Dojo… I monitored it myself.”

“You… you did?”

Na Ji-chan frowned slightly and spoke again,

“Maybe that thing, was it from the guy who had been trying constantly?”

“I don’t think so. The IP addresses of the complaints were from all over the world.”

“Huh…?”

And the words from Hong Ji-yoon continued,

“The content is the same.”

“Summarize it.”

“There is nothing to summarize. They state that the difficulty of the 9th floor was so hard, that they are assuming that the planning team had made some mistake.”

“Huh…?”

Na Ji-chan seemed much more flustered, and immediately was hitting on the keys of the keyboard.

To load the information of the NPC currently set on the 9th floor of the Spirit Dojo.

To check and see if there was a balance problem immediately.

Tatt-!

Na Ji-chan hit on the keyboard in a moment, and the information came on the monitor.

And Na Ji-chan went stiff at what he saw.

“…!”

Hong Ji-yoon was getting tensed as he looked at Na Ji-chan who stared blankly at the screen.

“What is it, team leader? Is it true that the balance of it has collapsed? Is there a problem?”

However, even as the questions kept on piling up from Hong Ji-yoon, Na Ji-chan didn’t answer and was still looking at the monitor.

With a weak voice, Na Ji-chan was embarrassed as he spoke,

“Balance collapse is right, but it isn’t a problem.”

The entire planning team 3 was in confusion at the response from Na Ji-chan.

The day in the office of the Kailan’s planning team 3 was going peaceful, and a day or two later the long-awaited ‘Warrior’s Village’ update was on schedule.