Is this really a Game?!



The players were not only reinforcing the wall and making it stronger, but they were also adding some of their own things to it. Large towers were being erected by some players while others were making turrets that would be placed on the towers, as well as smaller ones for the wall.

The demons had placed some form of turrets on the wall, but they were weak, unable to deal any significant damage to the monsters. It wasn't as if the demons were unable to reinforce the wall more or place some arrays and defensive turrets on it, they simply chose not to.

As for why, well, it was because the wall was the one thing that all of them were involved in. It was built thanks to the cooperation between all the tribes, and none of them wanted to waste any more funds or materials to further reinforce it, not to mention that they disliked placing turrets since that would mean that the weaker demons could potentially kill a monster and take the exp,  which they resented thinking about.

The wall was the place where most of the newly evolved Tier IV demons would farm exp by defeating the monsters that were coming out from the depths, it was a valuable farming spot for them, and none wanted to make it less effective. The more powerful demons would sometimes go into the depths to get more exp since simply killing low-grade Tier IV monsters was not enough for them, and the number of mid-grade Tier IV monsters that attacked was pitifully small.

With the players, however, that was not the case.

Not only were the players all from one faction, but they didn't mind allowing others to get the exp as they could get more from the monsters. With the depths right in front of them, and without having to worry about anyone betraying them, the players could easily go in after managing to evolve to Tier IV and hunt the monsters down.

The demons would go inside occasionally, and when they did, it was all of them that did so, only leaving a few low-grade Tier IVs at the wall to defend it in case something happened.

They didn't trust each other, and with only two tribes having a high-grade Tier IV, it made the others an easy target if they didn't all go together. The depths were still a mystery to them, and it was the main reason why the most powerful amongst the demons were not fighting against one another.

As Reign and the others became more powerful, and in turn the players started hunting down demons, the many tribes started cooperating as well. Their differences could be put aside when a powerful opponent was attacking them, but even then, there was always some scheming going on.

Nobody wanted to take the brunt of the attack and the demons were always looking for excuses why they were late to help another tribe or why they had attacked the tribe by 'accident' as well. 

Reign stared in wonder at the wall that was being built to be even more sturdy. The fog was slowly but surely expanding, even the demons knew that which was why he wanted to use the wall for as long as possible and allow the players to get some easy exp.

Either the wall would be completely covered by the fog, or they would find the source of the fog and get rid of it, those were the two options present to them.

Of course, the fog covering the wall wouldn't block the players from defending it, but it would make it more difficult, not to mention the fact that the two portals were also close to the wall, and from what Aethion had told him, the fog would render them useless.

With the funds Reign and the others had, it wouldn't be too hard to destroy the portal and build another one a bit further away, while the monster portal could easily be placed somewhere else, but the question was how many times would they need to do that?

Reign was also trying to figure out if there was a way to somehow block the fog, or at least to cover up an area and make it impossible for the fog to influence it, but Aethion had no idea if that was possible.

He had never really interacted with the fog and only knew the basics of it. Even though he was certain that there were things that one could do to limit the fog's expansion, and perhaps even make small bases inside of it, he had no idea how to do that, even though the system was not helping Reign out with this.

Perhaps it was because the system deemed the fog not dangerous enough to help Reign out, or maybe Reign simply didn't have enough influence to get such knowledge. Whatever it was, it meant that Reign and the others had to continue doing what they had previously done, explore the depths, and find out what was making the fog appear.

Even Eldar and the other Transcendents were unable to help them when it came to identifying what lay inside of the fog, or how to prevent it from expanding further. Drayce was the one person Reign and the others had hoped would know about the means to do that, only to be disappointed after being told he had no idea.

Whether he truly didn't know or simply didn't wish to help them didn't matter as the end result was the same.

Reign looked around, only to suddenly see Jack, Eldar, and Drayce looking at the wall.

"Hey, how are you guys even here?" Reign asked the trio who greeted him enthusiastically.

"Well, you kind of took over this place, even placed two portals, so we are allowed to come here, of course, we have to be careful and not get too far away from the portal or the wall, otherwise the system would give us a warning," Drayce said before looking at the fog that was covering some of the mountains that lay behind the wall.

"You see, none of us have ever seen the Ominous Klinchor Vitality Draining Fog of the Mad God Plosarkon personally before, so we just wanted to take a glimpse," Eldar said with a calm expression.

"Yeah, I wanted to at least see this before going on my trip, it'll take me a while to come back." Jack suddenly said, prompting Reign to stare at him in confusion.

"Trip, what trip, where are you going?" Reign asked Jack who smiled at him, but before he was able to answer, Drayce did.

"He is going to celebrate, his master recently reached Sainthood."

"Wait, Jack, your master was actually a Transcendent?" Reign asked with even more confusion. He had been told by Jack about his master and just how powerful he was, even how he had used some different forms of swordsmanship to slaughter Saints, but he was never told that he was not a Saint himself.

"Oh, you didn't know, he didn't know?" Drayce asked Reign first then Jack who looked at him with some annoyance.

"Oh boy, I didn't know that you had no idea who Jack's master was," Drayce said with some guilt visible on his face, but none of the people present was buying it.

"You see, Jack's master, sir Musashi is one of the rare people that have denied themselves the evolution to Sainthood." Eldar suddenly said from the side.

"Even though he could have reached the realm decades, if not centuries ago, he decided to stay in the realm of Transcendent until he was satisfied with his power and reach the highest possible level with his sword, only then would he finally allow himself to become a Saint."

"Many had speculated that he would die, such a task was almost impossible as learning everything there was about the sword in each realm took too much time, and even though he was one of, if not the most powerful Transcendent of this and probably any era in the past, he still continued practicing, until finally deciding to reach Sainthood a while ago."

"Even though he was in the same realm as me, I don't think I would be able to survive two attacks from him, that is just how ridiculous his strength is," Drayce said with a serious expression, which said a lot considering the fact he was also considered to be one of the strongest Transcendent currently alive.

For someone that had such power to be unable to survive two hits was incredible, but killing multiple Saints while being an entire evolutionary step lower than them was even more so.

"The old master's only goal is to reach the highest possible realm with the sword, he cares for nothing else, no treasure can move him, no promise of wealth or power can sway him, and no beauty can shake him, he is like a rock, immovable in his decision," Jack said from the side before sighing a bit.

"Honestly, I and my fellow apprentice brothers and sisters had also thought that master was trying too much and that he would die before being able to accomplish his goal, but we have all been proven wrong."