================================

Chapter 405: This Is A Game

================================

“Kladis.”

The person who led this contingent of players that numbered around a thousand or more was none other than the City Lord of “Battle City” Warjillis, Rentaw. He and Siva had a special relationship but it was something that was purely… lax in nature. It was unknown, though, why he had come in here.

Rentaw only gave Kladis a passing nod as his gaze was focused on the deadlock between the allied, the Haven Dust Company, the Red Dragon Flag, and the Aviators.

Between his and Kladis’ groups, there were around 50m with Kladis and Rentaw only five or so meters away from each other.

“Are you going to join in the fray?” asked Ren.

“Later.” Kladis narrowed his eyes, a seething anger was obviously hissing out as he answered. “I’m not here for their scuffle.”

“Is that so…” Rentaw remained unperturbed and so seemed to care less as to what Kladis planned.

Between them, they only had a casual ‘business’ deal to work on since they were both high-ranking people in their respective organization.

Rentaw didn’t care if he’s here for revenge or not.

What Ren cared about is The Box and those…

…………….the Aviator’s Mobile Suit Units.

“I’m going out first then.” Ren said flatly.

“Shoo… shoo…” Kladis dismissed him as if he was an annoying fly.

Rentaw didn’t get angry since Kladis was always a man that one will easily get annoyed with. If you’ve spent enough time interacting with him, you’d know straightaway that he wasn’t someone you can get along with in any way possible —if you’re a guy.

He was already flying but he still made a jumping motion and led his troop towards The Box’s path.

As soon as he joined in, the chaotic battlefield had become more chaotic. It suddenly became a five-sided warzone driven by personal demands.

The demons…

The Red Dragon Flag…

The Haven Dust Company…

The Hydra Society…

And the Allied Defense Forces…

It was unknown to them how and why The Box had suddenly remained afloat between them, as if there was an invisible hand that made it so that it wouldn’t get anywhere else aside from this place.

As it floated there, ownerless, greed shone in the eyes of many as their visions focused only on that metallic box object that hovered in midair.

“Get it!”

No one knew who said those words but even the Aviators all hurried over to get back their Supreme Commander because he was a large variable in the survival of their entire Belphegor Armada.

Kladis watched as they played their game and he was also genuinely fascinated by the naked display of human nature.

“It is beautiful.” He was clearly mocking the nature of humanity but on the other hand, it was indeed a rare scene to see ‘human nature’ takes its natural course and make a bid for this grand display.

And just like that, minute ticked by…

The battle zones shifted as the aerial dogfight went on with its flow. The first to dwindle in numbers is the Allied Forces because they’ve been here since the early hour of the event.

And so the rest of the forces in midair came into a passive deadlock where none of them took any kind of advantage over the other.

The most infuriated of them all were the demons as the ‘person’ they were fighting over was their own Supreme Commander.

As frantic and suicidal their attacks came, it’s not as if the players were robots, incapable of thinking.

Gradually, the players came up with unique ways to deal with their kamikaze assaults, rendering their attacks useless and their approaches neutralized.

But because there are the existences of the other forces, even including the allied forces, everyone became aware that they wouldn’t get anywhere if none of them were willing to sacrifice an arm to get the killing blow in.

The question is: who will break the balance?

Even the demons understood this since they had become aware that their plans wouldn’t work any longer, with their advantage merely relying on their numbers and nothing more.

Their units’ weakness was magic—in fact, they and the Terrans are each other’s’ weaknesses.

It was only because the demons multiply fast that they were able to defeat the Terrans and force the entire civilization into an extinction run, sacrificing even their home world, Terra, with the last bastion of their race being this tiny planet —Terroa.

(AN: this backstory was mentioned in the prologue of Volume 4, Book of Legends; as well as the past ruminations of Janus in Volume 5)

But a home ground disadvantage was different to these Aviators even with their numbers.

With their suicidal tactics neutralized, abandoning all else into a last assault was the last option.

Yet if they go entirely all out and abandon the other side of this shifting battlefield, there was no saying that the rest of the enemies will swarm and take out their survivors in a flurry of attacks.

Actually, they didn’t care much if these guys have their own internal issues as long as their issues are not centered around The Box, which is actually the issue they have here right now.

“Prepare the Hepta-Pyramid Formation again.”

“They’re going to attack all sides. Steady your will and don’t cave in. Support Mages at the ready and reinforce any lines that need supporting!”

“You guys from the Red Dragon Flag doesn’t like to meddle in the affairs of the world… why are you even going all out here?”

Rentaw, seeing these, felt that this trip was really a far offed mission from The Empire.

(AN: take note = Southern Isles have Blue Card Legion as the premier guild; Espada (east) is The Union; Tiara (North) has no single dominant force; Flowerion (west) is ruled by Flowerion Empire with Hydra Society being a subordinate guild; and then, central continent (Zenturo) being watched over by the Wall of Jeremiah, an organization under the Council of Elders’ Bright Light Sword Faction… the former Silver Cross Knight Order)

The reason why Rentaw was here is pretty simple.

It’s because of Siva and what he did in Warjillis.

There are eyes everywhere and no matter how much Rentaw tried to hide it, when Hydra Society discovered the ‘mess’ that Rentaw had when he let Siva off with Akhenaton and did not even try to rob him off of it, he was stripped off of his ‘dream job’ and was ordered to return to The Empire to serve as an emissary in service of the Empress in The Emperor’s stead —whenever needed.

On the surface, at least, the Hydra Society was a loyal subordinate but in the eyes of the Players, it was one of the luckiest and largest organizations to ever be trusted by a big name NPC.

Meaning, there was a nigh-unlimited amounts of opportunities for them to earn bounty and special rewards when doing Imperial Quests and Missions.

This one is one of them.

[Salvage as much of the Demon Technology]

It was a simple mission statement but it had a rather headache-inducing amount of difficulty.

It was labeled an [X-Ranked Difficulty] mission. It was, perhaps, the first of this kind in the history of the game.

Obviously, the “X” had multiple meanings.

It may be that it was really an X-Ranked mission, or, just like how some of the games he’d played and novels and movies he’d seen before, the “X” may just be an indicator that this mission has an obscured difficulty ranking, or perhaps the trouble this mission could cause can’t be scaled that’s why the system could only evaluate it as an X-Ranked.

—this is really troublesome…

Ren could only grumble to himself and give out his orders to the NPCs and Players he brought with him from The Empire, “Hear my command: gather as much alien technology as you can find and if it’s necessary, only use force when you are provoked; otherwise… we might provoke a war.”

A simultaneous reply rung on his communicator as the gathered ‘agents’ from The Empire spread out in the city, even including the King Candidates that they’ve sent to join in the fray.

50% of their numbers were in a passive stance in this battle zone, and they aren’t as zealous and as frenzied to get The Box as the demons and these three other forces.

“And it’s even obvious that he’s not here for any of these things…” Rentaw could only look down at the direction of Kladis. Everyone knew how he got tricked a castle and a battleship by Siva.

But then, just as the battle for The Box was about to enter another high note…

The Mobile Suits’ heads looked up as the pain-in-the-butt Jet Planes all stopped moving.

And because they were in a heated battle in just a few seconds ago, it was followed by the Players and NPCs all looking up as well.

Those in the perimeters of the battlefield all looked up; those in the barrier zones scavenging also saw this and looked up; and for the people waiting for something else to happen or to appear, also couldn’t help looking up… towards the mothership.

It had happened before, earlier, just a few hours ago, but now it happened once again but it was on a deeper impact.

Silence. It was an utterly deafening, horrifying kind of silence in a battlefield that no ghastly way in any words could explain how…

It was a silence that gnawed in the soul as they saw what was happening in the battlefield —no— to the mothership, the center of attention, itself.

15 kilometers large, casting a large shadow over the entire battlefield and area above the Castle City of Jeremiah; a monstrously gargantuan humanoid piece of horror………… was melting from its chest.

“What’s happening…”

“How is it melting like that?”

“It’s Siva! There is no mistaking it! He’s still inside!”

Everyone could connect the dots. Game events are all like that. Once the trigger succeeds on one particular significant task on their given mission or quest, there was bound to always have something like a cinematic movie; or something to proclaim the player’s milestone on completing it.

And with Game Logic given, these ‘milestones’ and in some forums are even called ‘rewards’, were all always bound to be flashy and as well as public.

The “Darkest Dawn” event in Dragona’s highlight is the firing of its historically descriptive Big Cannon...

The “War of Two Powers” —when it was reported to the media— was said to have been a set up by an NPC on a bigger and wilder scale, and that when the unknown goals set up by this event failed to reach the standard, the NPC itself destroyed the Mining City Xargoal-6 that ultimately affected the world’s Light Stone manufacturing industry; and it therefore also have something to do with the increased activities of the Demon Armada.

The event in Alexandria highlighted the emergence of the Devil Generals and the destruction of the southern quadrant of the capital.

(AN: because Walled City of Alexandria is situated directly at the center of the continent of Tiara)

And the latest, most brilliant event, the attack of the Dragon in Alexandria following its destruction, to those who didn’t know the truth behind this, all had recognized the fact that Siva triggers one event after another; especially with how this trend was all but already proven with his consecutive events.

Hence, as soon as they saw the mothership melt in a bright red and orange fiery light from its chest and down… they all immediately knew that Siva had done it again!

What followed this claim were the endless flow of shout-posts in the forums and chat groups.

The players below the mothership were in contact with their friends in the real world through emails, and it was confirmed that swarms of aliens and the three Supremes had entered the central region of the mothership.

Seconds later, the melting of the chest where the large damaged hole was located exploded in a loud blast that everything within the nearest 300m were obliterated regardless of their alliance.

A ring of dust clouds spread like a sphere of fire as debris and bodies, and air and sound —all of them were blasted away from the mothership.

It should be noted that nobody could come close to the nearest 2km of the mothership because of the defensive line established by the crazed demons.

And even those who escaped from the mothership had been ambushed by the Mobile Suits waiting in front of the large hole on its chest.

To escape this predicament, all escapees had no choice but to use their T-Devices to teleport away from the battlefield.

Still, T-Devices doesn’t work inside the ship and so they still had to get out of it to use them… thus the struggle of many.

Less than half of them made it out and the rest all perished either inside the mothership… or through the ambush of the Mobile Suits.

—all before the grand explosion.

This only proved the difficulty of this event and the truth behind the words of Panorama’s Bounty.

Rentaw was aghast as he stared at the big burning body of the alien mothership. They have all seen a depiction of an exploding space ship in many old and new blockbuster movies; but they had never been around when one of such large spaceships actually exploded right in front of them.

BOOM!!!

Visible tremors rocked the very fabric of space. It caused the wind to howl as their visions darkened at the color-inverting spectacle.

Their sky had been blackened by the dark clouds summoned when the mothership descended but it now parted when the explosion occurred.

A soft yet suffocating stretch of mild blue; the sky with no traces of any form of clouds brightened in the moment of explosion but the very next moment defied their common sense as the white turned a vivid black, then yellow… then blue again.

It was a breath-taking sight where particles were pushed, crushed, reformed, and pulled beyond their limits, collapsing into their tiniest, most minute specks of quarks, before colliding with another foreign atom where their particles combined and then crumbled again...

—repeating the cycle in speeds incomprehensible to any normally known particle theories…

But in all histories and records of particle collisions, this may perhaps be the quietest of them all.

This grand explosion was caught on every camera available and the resulting shockwaves shattered the balance in the battlefield as every Aviator inside their cockpits, every NPC on their posts, every one of the players participating in this “event”, were all caught in the monstrous blasts of winds that swept everything in the ship’s vicinity tumbling, twirling, flipping, and fluttering like pieces of rags in midair.

Of course, the most joyous of these lots were the allied NPCs as majority didn’t care about fame and glory, and were only focused on defending their homes from the Demon Armada.

The destruction of the mothership lasted for only a minute as the suppression of the planet gave it the grip that compressed the supposed actual event of the ship’s plasma core’s meltdown.

In this planet, the suppression of anything related to the LAGRAM Armada was absolute.

Where its expected grander and brighter explosion was ‘gathered’, all plasma particles were sucked in and what remained there was only a writhing black sphere —the same appearance and perhaps even property as the one on top of Akhenaton’s crown.

“Is that…” Ren’s mind worked fast as he managed to quickly catch his ground and steady himself in midair.

All these time, he never cared much about the fight for The Box and only wanted to accomplish what Mission the Empress herself gave to him.

[Salvage as much of the Demon Technology]

It was a simple mission statement but its difficulty was an unregistered “X” rank.

Rentaw immediately knew this might be the item he was supposed to have.

“All available units… don’t let anyone get that black sphere!” Ren’s command were heard and every imperial agent around him mobilized right on a dot while those unavailable continued to salvage every available demon technology they could find prior to their initial orders.

The only difference now is that the Hydra Society did not even bat an eye to The Box that was now at the hands of the spear-wielding Red Dragon Flag.

“Get it back!”

“That’s ours!”

“Kill them!”

The members of the Haven Dust Company and the Allied Defenders recovered from their stupor as an all-out skirmish erupted once again for The Box…

…while the demons, all of them, only looked up at the sight of their wrecked ship whose only parts left were the legs and the arms while the every part of its stomach upwards, aside from the head, chest and all, have gone missing.

And then, after a while… one of the nearest Mobile Suit to the wreckage roared loudly.

Another roaring wave occurred.

It was a roar of relief.

……and fury.

Pieces of the ship floated down slowly as if it was being sucked by the black sphere as it fell down towards the city below it.

Alien metals in ugly melted forms, some were still burning while some were completely grotesque in its appearance, fell down in bulks, with a few of them actually having surviving aliens and players who managed to escape the event actually sticking at them, hugging even, like a raft in the ocean.

(AN: event here is a relative term used in Physics to describe the actual ‘event’ of any atomic activity that results in (or generates a) phenomenon right at a single point in space-time; or in other words is the fundamental-foundational observational ‘entity’ in the Theory of Relativity)

This slow descent caught the eyes of a few side characters and they also saw the survivors hugging these ‘planks’ of metals as if it was their darling.

One could only imagine just how it felt like to be in the middle of that grand event and still survive.

If it was in the real world, perhaps the ‘event’ alone was already enough to generate an anti-matter ‘event’ that could have shattered the planet.

“This… this is a game… yes…”

“Right.”

“I’m so glad this is just a game.”

Those smart people who knew just how frightening a single ‘event’ could be and how much energy just one ‘event’ can generate was totally frightened.

A single drop of water, when undergoing ‘fission’, can destroy an area of about 50km in diameter.

So what about an object many kilometers in size?

The whitening and then blackening of the skies just a few minutes ago surprised them and only when it all calmed down did they realize that they have just survived a possible calamity.

So all of them were glad this is just a game.

When the wave of roars came, eyes focused on the direction the Mobile Suits were looking and in there, they saw a metal platform… and in it… were two people —no— one is an armoured person and the other was a mythological creature, a centaur, but with four arms.

The two of them can only be understood as being in a showdown for they each had their weapons at the ready and their gazes kept at each other with nothing but hostility on them.

“Siva…”

.

.