Lionel looked at them and began to explain while pointing at the maps.

"Our base is stationed here, and the nearest System facility is in here" Lionel showed the places. "We have to conquer the facilities that are nearest to each other so that we can offer support if there is a need."

Then, he pointed to the suburbs of the city and said. "These marked areas are where we will farm for points from factions that attack the civilians."

"How were you so prepared? It was as if all the factions knew what was arriving..." Asked Bryan.

"Well boy, while you were doing your missions, we were farming city points by doing city missions. One of the bonuses is that you could buy information in one of the facilities with the city points. The city points required to buy those information were so high that an individual could not buy them, so the factions were formed with the initial purpose to buy information, but later, with the information on hand, they began to prepare for what was coming." Looking away from the map and into Bryan's eyes, he completed. "We thought that there would be some factions that would attack the civilians for points, so we had a plan prepared for that as well."

"Any more questions?" Asked Lionel.

"Don't think so." Bryan turned to Jess and asked. "Do you have any Jess?"

"No." She said.

"Okay. Now, let's go to the part where you participate. Your function will be to protect the facilities that we have conquered. Do not underestimate this function, most of the facilities have already been taken, most of them were taken by us and by the Elder faction. We now have to protect it from anyone who tries to take them."

"Both of you will be positioned here. This position makes possible a quick movement and support to the other facilities if there is a need. Samuel will be going with you as well, after all, I heard that you guys have a good synergy." Lionel said.

"Okay. We are going now." Bryan said while turning to leave.

"Wait." Lionel said.

He extended his hand and on it were three pieces of metal with a few carvings. they were small. "Put these behind your ears and we will be able to communicate from a distance. If you want to talk to someone just put a finger at it and think about the person and the message you want to send."

"Thank you." Said Jess.

They left after this.

"They are too powerful. I have the support of the whole faction to buy skills and equipment to get powerful, but they only have themselves, and have already advanced to this point." Said Lionel to Samantha while looking at the door from which the trio left.

"They cannot be controlled, that's true. But that doesn't mean we can't use them." Samantha said with a grin on her face.

"There's danger in everything, but we have to use every weapon at our disposal." Said a voice coming to a corner of the room.

________________________

Bryan, Jessica, and Samuel left the headquarters and went to the place where they were instructed to be.

"Do you think this war will last until the end of the week?" Asked Samuel.

"It's hard to know. There are a lot of factors at play here. The factions have varied levels of powers, but we don't know how much." Said Jess.

"But at least we know the power of the top brass from the revolutionaries." Samuel

"Well, we can't know for sure. Maybe we only saw what they wanted. Remember, we are not being used to attack the facilities that were already conquered by other factions, that means that they have enough power to do that without us, and we are only the backup plan." Jessica said with a serious expression.

Upon hearing this, a realization dawned upon Bryan. Their group was very powerful, but even so, they were not using them to their full potential. maybe they wanted to use them as a hidden card, or maybe they were just not trusted enough. There could be a million different reasons for that to happen.

"The reason doesn't matter. The important thing is that we are alive, and I will make everything so that we still are by the end of this madness." Bryan said with a stern expression.

They agreed with Bryan and began to wait for orders.

They were stationed on top of a building and could see that many places in the city were on fire and buildings were being struck down by bombs. The facilities were indestructible until now, but the normal apartments were not. Bryan began to ponder the reason why the system distributed the buildings that could be bought to the outskirts of the city, and the ones that were too far from the range of price that the people that just arrived from the tutorial could afford were near the center of the city.

Two reasons could be possible for him, the first one is that the system was trying to protect the civilians from the conflict, and because of that, the affordable houses were on the outskirts, far from the concentration of facilities. The second reason was that those houses were never meant to be controlled or taken by anyone, if not the faction that leads the city.

By what the system had done until now, the second reason seemed most probable to him. The system wanted them to grow stronger, not to shelter them.

The clashes continued the whole day. In Bryan's vision, the lives were nothing to the system. Instead of giving away to someone to govern the city without a struggle, it chooses how there would be the most casualties.

"We only have to survive despite what the system throws at us." Bryan thought to himself.

***

The day passed uneventfully. There was no call for help from Lionel.

"I think they have been successful, they didn't even need our help." Said Jess.

"Well, it doesn't matter. Let's keep waiting." Bryan pondered how the situation was going. Maybe they still hadn't made their moves yet.

The days passed quickly, and there was a stillness in the air. The morning of the last day of disputes had arrived, the sun was shining on the horizon and the clouds were peacefully floating on the sky as if there was no danger in this world.

The trio was still waiting for some orders. The last day of the week had arrived, and there was still no movement. There were several combats through the city over the week, and many buildings were gone now. Samuel had contacted the headquarters to make sure his family was alright some times and confirmed that they were still safe.

"Hey, get ready." The trio heard

They looked at each other and nodded to confirm that they had heard the same thing. They got up and got their weapons ready.

"There are some troops southwest to your position that intend to invade one of our facilities, stop them." The voice instructed.

With a mission insight, they began to go toward the southwest. They jumped from building to building, moving quickly. After only 4 minutes, they arrived at their destination.

They could see organized troops on the ground, well divided into squadrons and with shield bearers, lancers, swordsmen, and archers. They were marching through the street with an iron spirit.

"I will jump directly in the center of their formation first, and after giving a strike, Samuel will jump to fight and protect me while I run wild. Jess, you will do the same as always." Bryan instructed them.

They nodded and got ready.

Bryan activated the cloud walker skill and concentrated the lightning inside of it. He suppressed the lightning so that the noise of thunder wouldn't get out.

In the moment that the center of the formation was in front of their building, Bryan jumped.

He began to descend to the ground like a meteor.

"GET READY." He heard from below. There were already some people that had cast shield and were attacking him as well.

"Shit, we were discovered, they knew we were coming." Bryan thought.

Numerous attacks were coming toward him, and he was midair, without an opportunity to defend himself. If he didn't do anything, he would be torn to shreds.

Instead of attacking, he released the lightning-like rain.

"BOOM"

A big screen of dust got up and the buildings shook.

"NOOOOOO.” Screamed Jessica from the top of the building.

Samuel readied his shield and jumped from the rooftop, disappearing in the dust.

After a few seconds, the dust cleared and Jessica looked bellow to see what was happening.

Bryan was Kneeing on the ground, with Samuel protecting him from some people that were already attacking them. Although Samuel’s focus was his shield, he could use his sword with deadly efficiency as well. He was killing anyone that got near them, while some energy shields were hovering around them, protecting them from harm.

Bryan’s upper body had several cuts and wounds, and his right leg was also wounded.

Bryan released lightning to defeat the enemies around them, making them retreat. Even with his leg wounded and without being able to attack in a melee range, he could pretty much kill anyone in here. He got up and began to retaliate in full while Samuel protected him.

Jess got ready to Release her arrows when she realized something. If they were discovered, where was the person that spotted them?

She turned her attention to her surrounds and began to prepare an arrow, she made it look like she would attack the battlefield below.

Just when she was prepared to release the arrow, a silhouette appeared from the shadows that were being projected by the side of the building in front of her and tried to cut her throat with a dagger.

Being prepared for this situation, Jessica jumped backward while making an ice platform, to make sure that she would have some footing in case of need, and released the arrow at the person.

Seeing the arrow coming toward his direction, the person positioned his dagger in a position to deflect the arrow and prepared for impact.

"Do you truly think that my arrows are so easily avoided?" Jessica smirked.

She stirred her energy and the arrow exploded while making contact with the person's dagger.

The icy explosion shoots the person toward the building on the other side of the street. But instead of a collision, the person vanished in the building's shadow.

"Shit." Jess said after seeing the person disappearing.