CH 499

Baroque Kingdom was the kingdom closest to Beyond the Heavens Kingdom. It had maintained a close relationship with the Barras Kingdom in the past, sending support to Barras Kingdom in the form of troops in exchange for the various items and products that they created.

But that was not the case anymore.

The Baroque Kingdom had cut off all ties and exchanges with the newly established Beyond the Heavens Kingdom. Because of that, they lost the supplies that the Barras Kingdom sent as support and their kingdom was now plunged into heavy financial burdens and difficulties. The fact that they maintained a close relationship with Barras Kingdom meant that they were only a bit better than them in terms of influence. In other words, their influence, when compared to other empires and kingdoms, were abysmal. Thankfully, the number of territories under their kingdom’s rule and the people that they governed was on the higher side so they were still able to hold out for a bit longer.

Lance, a sentry guard stationed at Baroque Kingdom’s southernmost city Erdejid, yawned loudly, “Fwaaaaa. How about having some beer after our shift for today?”

“Beer sounds nice.”

He chatted together with the people on duty with him. But while they were doing so…

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud—

“…?”

Lance felt the ground rumble and shake. The vibrations passing through the soles of his feet told him that it was definitely caused by something so he hurriedly took out his magic telescope and peered at a distance.

What he saw made him shriek in shock, “Hi, hiiiiiiiiiiik?!”

There were roughly 20,000 monster corps advancing towards where they were. The problems that they were about to face did not end there. The monsters in the monster corps were all at Level 450~490. There were even masked knights riding on top of these gigantic monsters. Then, an even more shocking fact presented itself in front of the soldiers.

“Th, that…!”

Lance’s expression turned ugly after seeing the figures of creatures that were as big as mountains with the faces of a lizard and shiny scales covering their bodies. They were all flying through the skies while flapping their wings strongly. Then, one of the beings sent out a huge hellfire that devoured and slaughtered Lance, along with more than 200 troops stationed at Erdejid and its walls.

Vwoooooooooong—

The loud blare of the horn from the intelligent monsters rang loudly as the monster corps began to advance towards Erdejid.

***

Notifications began to ring for the players present in Erdejid.

[Kingdom Quest: Erdejid in Crisis.]

Rank: SSS

Requirements: None

Rewards: EXP acquisition rate and item drop rate x2. A high contribution might grant you a noble title.

Penalty for Failure: None

Description: Erdejid, the largest city in the southernmost region of Baroque Kingdom, is being attacked by unidentified assailants, monsters and dragons. Baroque Kingdom’s greatest heroes, please lead the victory in the battle against them.

“What, what the hell?!”

“A kingdom quest?! Wait. Erdejid is in crisis?!”

“Dra, dragons…? Is this for real?”

“I heard that the unknown assailant is Crazy Tyrant Akhan.”

“That crazy bastard came to our server again?!”

The players trembled. Crazy Tyrant Akhan was originally from the American Server and was hailed as a lunatic that should never, ever be touched in Athenae. The problem was that Crazy Tyrant Akhan’s power was comparable to the power of those world-renowned players. Especially because he was a player that showed great advantage and force when it came to large-scale battles.

Just when the players were plunged into great confusion…

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

“Uaaaaaaaack!”

“Keuhaaaaaaaack!”

…screams rang loudly in the area. When they turned their heads, all they saw was the collapsed walls of the fortress and monsters running rampant. In a blink, 20,000 of Erdejid’s troops gathered. Then, the commander cried loudly, “Foreigners, please! Join us in this battle! Those that can fight! Join us!!!”

For a brief moment, the players felt terror and fear. However, they still joined the war at the behest of the 20,000 kingdom troops. Then, notifications began to spread in the entire continent. Kingdom quests were like that. They were amazing in a way that there would be no requirements and anyone could accept, whether they were from a different empire or kingdom.

And now, the best guilds of Korea had gathered together: the Iris and Ares Guilds, together with Avalon Guild, the guild that replaced Artheon Guild from the top 4, after they became subordinated to Beyond the Heavens Kingdom. At the same time, countless players and kingdom troops moved to protect Erdejid.

Alas, in just three hours after the war broke out, the story of Erdejid being taken down had started to spread in the continent.

***

Iris Guild Master Callian, Ares Guild Master Ares and Avalon Guild, the guild that emerged as one of the four major guilds, Master Gorilla Musk or GoM for short, were all riding on horseback in front of around 70,000 player troops and waiting on the decision on who would become the commander.

“Gorilla Musk. I can do… Hoo… Why the hell do you have to use Gorilla as your nickname… Hoo…”

“Cough. Will Athenae roll out the change nickname feature soon?”

GoM wanted to be special. So, he set his ID like that. It was like he wanted to show off that anyone that heard his name would feel like they could smell him as if they were next to him. However, his face still could not help but turn ugly after hearing those words. Still, it was not the time for them to talk about this. The current situation that they were in was just that serious.

“This is an opportunity. With the monster corps already occupying Erdejid, they would definitely make haste and aim for Baroque Kingdom’s capital, Evond. If we can stop them, then not only will we be able to get the king’s enormous rewards, our names will also remain in the history of Athenae forever.”

Crazy Tyrant Akhan was definitely the craziest out of all the crazy bastards in the world. However, not only were their guild members present, each of their guild’s high rankers were all here. There would also be 30,000 kingdom troops arriving soon, which would bring their total to 100,000.

The guild leaders also received a new quest notification. The quest was none other than ‘Saviors of Baroque Kingdom’. Through this quest, they were able to acquire the information about the dragons. According to the description, the dragons’ power had been reduced by 30% since they forcibly came over here from the American Server. That was why they thought that it was worth a try. Also…

‘From what I heard, Black Dragon is extremely powerful to the point that the power that ordinary dragons could wield are only half as powerful as his.’

The guild leaders believed that they were more than enough to kill their enemies. Since the Food God did it, why couldn’t they do the same?

Then, GoM said, “According to rumors, the monster corps’ main goal is the Beyond the Heavens Kingdom and they only passed by the Baroque Kingdom.”

“Hmm.”

Ares rubbed his chin in thought.

‘Why did they even have to do something that troublesome? Do they really have to do something like that?’

But just when he was doubting their enemies’ motives, Callian suddenly added, “I heard that Valencia, Beyond the Heavens’ capital, has been attacked at the same time. This info must definitely be true since I heard it from one of the players in Beyond the Heavens Kingdom themselves.”

Ares’ face turned more serious when he heard Callian’s words, ‘Don’t tell me…!’ Then, his mouth gaped open, “Crazy bastard…!”

Ares’ face turned ugly. There had to be no other reason except for the fact that Crazy Tyrant Akhan was showing them that he had enough power to trample on Baroque Kingdom and head towards Beyond the Heavens Kingdom. He was underestimating the other players, which made them feel that their pride had been trampled on. Ares hated Beyond the Heavens Kingdom but this was a separate matter altogether.

“A player from another country came to our own country to wreak havoc. I can’t wait to see how we’ll trample on him.”

They could see the faint shadows of the remaining monsters from the 20,000 strong monster corps appearing in their field of vision. At the same time, the 30,000 kingdom support troops also arrived.

“For victory!!!”

“For victory!!!”

Shiiiiing—

Shiiiing—

Nearly 100,000 troops rushed towards the 20,000 monster corps and the unknown masked men.

***

[Breaking News. The alliance created by the allied forces of Korea’s best guilds—Ares Guild, Iris Guild and Avalon Guild—and the kingdom troops have been annihilated.]

[Breaking News. Around 5:00 p.m. yesterday in Baroque Kingdom’s Eneth, the allied forces that fought against Crazy Tyrant Akhan and his army were wiped out.]

[Breaking News. The 20,000 strong enemy troops are currently heading towards the capital of Baroque Kingdom.]

[According to rumors, the 20,000 strong enemy troops will head straight towards Beyond the Heavens Kingdom after taking over Baroque Kingdom.]

[This is the worst disaster that has ever hit the Asgan Continent yet Joy Co. Ltd. remains silent.]

[According to reports, Baroque Kingdom’s King, Lloyd de Barread, has convened an emergency meeting.]

Although they were late, the Athenae players hurriedly went to Ztube to watch the reruns and confirm the authenticity of the reports, once they heard the rumors. The situation was completely horrendous. There were the knights wearing masks that were riding on the monsters. Each and every single one of them held tremendous power. They were working with the monsters seamlessly to cut down several players in one strike. And that was not all. There were also dragons hovering in the skies above them that added to the chaos by bombarding everyone below with their magic.

While everything was plunged into great chaos, the 20,000 troops continued to march forward. Shockingly enough, there was a huge blue shield that surrounded the bodies of every single member of the monster corps. Even their weapons, fists and feet would glow red whenever they attacked. From what it looked like, the attacks were 1.3x stronger than usual.

However, as their HP and defense had plunged to a lower level, the players could easily hunt them once the shields that covered them were broken. The only problem here was that the shields were very difficult to break.

Even though high-rankers have stepped forward, everything that they did was still useless. With the masked knights cutting down the small fries, the clever dragons focused their firepower on the high-rankers. It was different from the situation with Black Dragon Vormon before. After all, Black Dragon Vormon was alone back then. Right now, several dragons were working together. There were even masked knights and an entire monster corps joining the fray.

The viewers that watched the video were all left speechless. The only thing that they could do was use their keyboards and express what they felt about the situation.

[Everything would be over if they can’t stop them…]

[This is crazy. Is the Athenae Management doing its job?! How can they let a player do that?! Dragons on top of a monster corps?! And what are those masked knights?!]

[Athenae should explain this. ASAP.]

[F*ck! At this rate, Akhan will devour the entire Asgan Continent, right?!]

Everyone was hoping that they would quickly fix this.

***

Joy Co. Ltd.’s president, Kang Taehoon, felt an incoming migraine as his head throbbed fiercely. The conference room was covered in a thick layer of silence.

‘How did this situation come to be?’

In fact, they believed that the situation was impossible. That was why none of them had expected it to become a reality. The first thing that they pulled up was the information about Akhan’s staff.

(Death God’s Ruler’s Staff)

Rank: God

Requirements: Level 500 or higher, the one that received the Death God’s favor.

Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.

Durability: ∞ / ∞

Attack Power: 350

Special Abilities:

•All stats increase by 39%.

•Commanding Abilities increases by 200%.

•Passive Skill: God of Death’s Blessing

•Passive Skill: Berserk Monster

•Active Skill: One Man Army

•Active Skill: Death’s One Man Army

Description: The Death God, one of the Absolute Gods, has given his staff to his favored successor and has given him the authority to manage and lead the monsters.

The Death God’s Ruler’s Staff was an item with ridiculous effects and skills that were overpowered. The active skill: One Man Army was a skill that could allow the staff user to manage and lead monsters that were around 50 or more levels higher than the owner. It was a skill that can support and increase a tamer’s skill by ten more times.

The issue was Crazy Tyrant Akhan’s main class. His class was ‘Death God’s Descendant’, a God class. The Death God’s skills and abilities were extremely compatible with a tamer. In the first place, the number of monsters that Akhan could lead was already tremendous and with the Death God’s Ruler’s Staff in hand, this ability was amplified and made even stronger. The One Man Army skill could also fit perfectly with the higher skill Death’s One Man Army. It was a skill that could allow the staff user to lead monsters thirty times their usual amount.

Because of that, all of the operators of Athenae were very much concerned with the artifact. In fact, even the supercomputer, Athenae, showed great distaste and even felt very repulsed with this artifact. However, time passed by and nothing noteworthy happened. This was mainly attributed to the fact that the God of Death’s Ruler’s Staff would disappear a week after the Death’s One Man Army was used. It was the skill’s severe penalty. After all, no player would be stupid enough to waste one of the greatest artifacts in existence just for a short bout of pleasure and delight.

However, the artifact fell into the hands of Crazy Tyrant Akhan. He even went so far as obtaining around ten of the parchments called ‘Penalty Seals’ from all over the continent. It was a parchment that had an effect that could ignore penalties. In fact, the Penalty Seal could help the parchment user to avoid receiving other penalties for skills with extreme penalties. In the case of an artifact skill, the artifact would be sealed for three months.

But was that all? Of course not.

‘He used the passive Berserk Monsters in a very efficient method.’

The Berserk Monster passive attached to the Death God’s Ruler’s Staff was a skill that increases a monster’s attack power by 25%. However, it had an extreme penalty that reduces the monsters’ HP and defense by 70%.

But Akhan had obtained the treasure, ‘Shield’s Tears’, that the Shield God had left behind in the world. The Shield’s Tears was an item that created a shield with extremely high defense around the one that used it. This was not a coincidence at all. All of the items in Akhan’s hands were ridiculous, and made him the most absolute existence in the game.

There was only a 0.1% probability of this happening, but Akhan made it happen.

President Kang Taehoon sighed and got up. Team Leader Park Minggyu also got up and followed him to go to the bathroom.

“President.”

Kang Taehoon looked back at Park Minggyu. Truth was, Park Minggyu had heard some rumors when he went abroad for a meeting. At first, he thought that it was just a rumor but looking at the situation that they were in, it seemed like that rumor was true.

He looked at Kang Taehoon gravely and asked, “Is it true that Crazy Tyrant Akhan was one of the early developers of Athenae?”