Chapter 53 : Invasion

"Checkmate," Ragna said slowly while holding on to his gravely wounded chest.

Dreg's expression was one of a shock. Never could he have thought that the spell which Ragna cast before was to prevent him from running.

He didn't even use the spell to help him in the clash. He held that much confidence in himself!

Even though he suffered a bit from it, everything still went as he expected. Dreg was entangled by the Quagmire, unable to dodge Ragna's quick Earth Spike.

Magical symbol started to form beneath his feet at a rapid rate. At his last moment, Dreg didn't show any resignation. In fact, he had a slight smile on his face. The battle was fair, and his loss was justified. There's no need to feel resigned, only by first admitting one's shortcoming that one could grow.

Dreg still had rooms for improvement. A lot of them.

Just when the spell was about to be unleashed, Ragna suddenly sensed an intense feeling of danger. He abruptly canceled the spell and crouched until his head touched to ground.

SHUA!

Three arrows brushed past him with terrifying speed. If Ragna were just half a second late, those arrows would've burrowed itself into his body. With his current health, the outcome would undoubtedly be his death.

Ragna quickly looked at the direction of the arrow. He could faintly see three archers shooting from the direction a bit farther than the Ruin. It was coming from the area opposite the Base.

The archers had a robust body filled with muscle. Their clothing looks different from regular NPCs and Players. They wore a tribal-like clothing that emitted a faint light from the runes inscribed in the various part of it. The most distinct characteristic was their red skin. Yes, their skin was red, similar to blood.

Ragna quickly glanced at Dreg. The only possible explanation was that the Red Archers were his reinforcements. However, Dreg's equally shocked expression made him discard his previous thought.

Ragna quickly recovered. He sped toward Dreg while restarting his chant. He needed to kill Dreg first no matter what!

Seeing Ragna's killing intent, how could Dreg not understand what his intention is? He instantly stood up and retreated to the direction of the base. It seemed like God didn't want him to die today.

Ragna chased him, but the Red Archers once again released their arrows. Two of them went to Ragna, while the other went to Dreg's position.

Relying on their astonishing battle-sense, they dodged the arrows quite easily. However, those arrows still hindered their movement speed, making it a bit hard to retreat.

While still retreating, Ragna pointed his palm to Dreg's moving figure. A huge Earth Spike sprang, but it only hit a shadow. Now that Dreg had been given time to prepare, he naturally wouldn't be affected by such a random attack.

Ragna gritted his teeth; this fellow is as slippery as an eel. It took him a long and well-thought plan to be able to trap Dreg. Now that the situation had been different, he couldn't come up with another plan. Plus, almost all of his skills had been exposed, leaving him with a smaller room to improvise.

Pang! Pang! Pang!

The sound of arrows hitting the ground could be heard. Both of them tried their best to run. From the looks of it, there were more than just the three archers. Ragna and Dreg tried their hardest to discern the number of the enemies.

Strange.. There's the sound of footsteps. But the number couldn't be counted. No, it wasn't that the number was uncountable, but it was just too numerous.

Both of their expression turned pale. Ragna and Dreg instinctively looked at each other. Seeing each other's expression, they were sure that they were thinking about the same thing.

"DAMN!" They both cursed loudly. "It's an Invasion!"

In the Astral Realm, there's a common event that's happening throughout every city. The Invasion.

The Invasion is an event where the natives of Astral Realm would commence a full sized attack toward the City's Army. They would attack the base and force them into a war. A massive war.

The natives were different from the monsters because they had appearances similar to human. However, because of their red skin and slightly different features than human, they were called as Red Demons.

A normal red demon had a combat capability similar to human's NPC army. Their differences resided mainly in their tribal equipment and lack of disciplines. Their level was in the range of 40 to 50, with their commander being in 60.

The first Invasion happened in the City Capital's Astral Realm. From the footings and videos that the players had released, their combat capability was overall slightly lower than the Army. Adding the help of the players, the battle became one-sided. Though, it took them a few days to finally emerge as a winner.

Other City's Astral Realm also encountered the same invasion, but the time wasn't fixed. Even now, at the third day of the quest, there were still about half of the cities that hadn't encountered the Invasion.

The battle had huge benefits towards the Army and Players. The experience gained was tremendous. Plus, the materials and loots that dropped were of high quality. Everyone anticipated the day that the Invasion would come. They believed that the sole reason for this expedition was to repel the invasion of the Red Demons. Everything made sense because it explained the reason why the Army issued the Sub-Quest to scout.

However, there was always danger behind every opportunity. Every time the Invasion happened, a huge number of casualty also followed. Most of it came from the players that got killed by the first wave of the Invasion stampede. Because the players were spread throughout the realm, they couldn't even resist the might of the Red Demons. Furthermore, the forest was their home ground. Even if they lacked the discipline, they still had the advantage of their mobility.

Ragna and Dreg were anxious. Obviously, they weren't unwilling to become the sacrificial pawns for this Invasion.

While frantically dodging the arrows, their eyes met each other.

"Hey," Dreg broke the silence by calling Ragna

"What?" Ragna replied while coldly staring at him.

"Don't give me that look. Hear me out first, would you?"

Ragna frowned, "Go on."

"I think we should cooperate," He said while smiling a bit bashfully.

Ragna had an expression of disbelief when he heard what Dreg said. He immediately started his chant without even replying to him.

"No, no, don't start the chant," Before the Earth Spike could hit him, Dreg had vanished into flecks of shadow. "Come on, bro. You'll never be able to hit me!"

"Try me," Ragna replied coldly.

Dreg sighed, but he didn't stop trying, "Look, you are stronger than me but if we fight in this situation, there'll be no winner. If we are playing a board game, we are stuck in a stalemate. If we continue the fight, there's no guarantee that you'll win. Plus, I know that both of us had the capability to just flip the table, making both sides lose."

After hearing what Dreg said, Ragna's expression softened. He silently admitted that it was indeed the truth. If he pushed Dreg into a corner, there'll be no guarantee that he could escape from Dreg's desperate attack unscathed.

Seeing his words had an effect, Dreg became even more spirited, "If we cooperate, there's almost a hundred percent chance that we could safely escape to the base. About the contribution points..." Dreg let out a bashful smile, "Let's split it in half! Don't you agr-"

Before he could finish his word, a huge boulder flew through him at an incredible speed. Fortunately for him, he could avoid the attack after dodging desperately.

"Bro, you are too despicable! Shameless!" Dreg shouted angrily.

"You are the one who's being shameless! I found the ruin myself and won the duel fairly! Now you said that you wanted to split the contribution points by half? Just go to hell!"

Dreg sighed, seeing that the archers were closing in their distance, he became more frantic. Because of their scuffle, their speed was lowered, making the archers able to catch up.

Dreg gritted his teeth, "How about this! The Ruin's contribution point is all yours! But let's split the reward for discovering the Invasion by half. We found it together after all!"

Hearing Dreg's reasonable offer, Ragna was a bit perplexed. He agreed to what Dreg had said, but how could he just believe in him?

There was no way to guarantee that he wouldn't be backstabbed, after all.

The sounds of footsteps were starting to get louder and louder. If they kept on fighting like this, the Red Demon's Army would soon catch up.

Ragna couldn't just ignore Dreg. Thieves were capable of long ranged attack by using their throwing weapons. Ragna was sure that Dreg's long ranged attack wouldn't pale in comparison to his close-combat capability.

After a long and deep thought, Ragna clenched his fist before he finally said.

"Okay, Let's cooperate!"