After Eva sent the message to deploy the core members, the evil loli smiled widely and cruelly. She had kept their participation to a minimum in order to get a feel for the battle and allow the non-core members to rack up some kills.
Everyone in Umbra was at Rank 2 and quite a few had Classed Up into Rare, Semi-Epic, and Epic Classes, so with the x4 overall boost from Hikari's White Light Blessing they were literally bulldozing through the void monsters so badly that they began to flee at the mere sight of a human with the badge of Umbra. As one could expect, none of Umbra's members had died yet.
However, the same could not be said for the members of Meiren, Kamisuo, and Desecrators. Around 10% – all of which had been basic members – had already moved onto the shadow realm, without getting revived by Hikari for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, the ones still alive found it hard to join their comrades with Hikari's White Light Healing focused on them.
The non-combat members of other guilds who stood at the outskirts of the battle took pictures of this occurrence endlessly. Update 1 had introduced Photo Mode and it had not taken long for players to discover there was no delay in taking these photos. They had therefore naturally begun mimicking video recording by 'clicking' on the photo option repeatedly.
Well, a video was basically just a bunch of photos, or better yet, frames attached together in order to create a sequence. Once they exported the images, they could use their own video editors to combine them into one and make them presentable. Of course, there would be no sound, which was a total bummer, but one had to take what one can get.
The other fighters of various guilds who were seeing the effect Umbra had on the battlefield as a whole were shaken. So, this was what it meant to be the number 1 guild of the entire game! Even the universally agreed number 2, Kamisuo, were unable to replicate this!
In fact, were they not affiliated with Umbra, they might be doing far worse right now! Still, these other players could not complain about unfairness. Gentle Flower's IQ was high, and she had taken a risk back then by giving into Umbra completely when they had still been fresh and new.
Noble Soul of Desecrators had followed along because he had trusted in Gentle Flower's judgment and because he had recognized Draco as a rival. Both of their bets had paid off and now they were reaping the dividends.
Joker of Myriad Cards, as well as Happy Scholar of Lorebinders were the living example of the other side of that equation. Their guilds had been at the Legendary Rank not too long, but now they were barely hanging in there as Semi-Legendary Guilds due to the losses they had suffered during the First Guild War as well as the financial and social repercussion of that Emergency Quest.
They would have fallen further had they not be wickedly fleeced- *cough* pitied by the lovely Sublime Notion who had cut them a deal, granting them heavy discounts and a hefty loan for what was fundamentally no different from eternal slavery.
To this day, it was not rare for Sublime to wake up in the middle of the night laughing with glee when she remembered how she had completely stripped her fellow humans of everything they could call their rights as they had knelt before her.
One could even say that Sublime had gotten a good night's sleep every day since then, always smiling and laughing in her dreams.
Eva was completely aware of this, yet she didn't care anyway. Joker and Happy Scholar were not their enemies in the truest sense, just two retards who had proceeded to make a set of bad decisions leading them to their current situation. They held no enmity with Umbra or Draco, so they were useful tools in Eva's book.
Besides, Joker had been one of Draco's staunch supporters when he was building Hellscape, so Eva pretended like they didn't exist.
The battle was truly progressing beautifully… for a select few. While the majority of players were being cut down like weed, screaming in pain and fear, possibly developing a deep-seated trauma that the AI would subtly wipe away to have them come back for more, the members of Epic and up to Legendary Guilds were doing semi-fine.
Epic Guilds here numbered 2,000. They each had lost an average of 70% of their members, and their numbers were declining steadily. In about 3 minutes, it would be down to their guild leaders and core members.
The Semi-Legendary Guilds were doing slightly better. They numbered 900 and they had lost about 50% of their members so far. Eva gave them 10 minutes before they would be left with only the upper echelon.
The actual Legendary Guilds stood out greatly. As the ones acting as the vanguard, their number had sharply dropped to about 300, all of them spread over the entire mapped continents. They only lost 30% of their members and they were making headway into the enemy forces, culling them just as fast as they came. Eva believed that they would fine for roughly the first 60 minutes.
There were only 3 Semi-Divine Guilds as of now, Meiren, Kamisuo, and Desecrators. Since they had allied with Umbra, they had enjoyed explosive growth in terms of funds, resources, and equipment.
Ignoring the difference in Rank, they were even more powerful than they had ever been in the previous timeline! They still had a lot of room to grow too, so if the old Gentle Flower would have a chance to appear, she would have to kowtow to this timeline's Gentle Flower despite being wiser and older.
Since they had only lost about 10% of their members, they could last until the end with Umbra, not to mention that Hikari had got their backs. It would be hard to lower their member count any further.
As for the only Divine Guild in existence, Umbra, they were just tearing the place up like angry monkeys. To understand the visual of the battle, just picture 10,000+ fighters beating some poor beast-like entities in dogpiles.
After about 30 minutes, when the forces of the other guilds and almost every other player was dead, leaving less than 10 million players on the battlefield, Sublime Notion sent out a message addressing all their members in the Guild Chat.
"All troops withdraw or focus on Rank 1 enemies. The core members will deal with the remaining Rank 2 foes. - Sublime Notion."
Once the members of Umbra read this, their heart shook.
The legendary core members were mobilizing! They were actually mobilizing! Holy shit!
Every member of Umbra worshiped the core members like they were Gods, for their power, prowess, and skill were the highest one could find in the game. They were celebrities in the game and mini-celebrities in the real world.
Since the core members fought, quested and dungeon crawled on their own, none of the members got to see them fight first hand, already being more than happy to receive their guidance every so often. They just knew that their core members all had broken Legendary Classes, with one of the Five Generals even obtaining a Divine Class!
Once the word was passed on to the members of Meiren and co, they also felt feverish excitement. The true overlords were about to come out, and these poor void monsters didn't know what was coming.
As such, they all pulled back, drawing the various Rank 1 void monsters away from the Rank 2 ones who had been mixed into the fray. The monsters did not notice anything strange until they realized that it was awfully quiet.
The players who had been scrambling to control their advance had stepped back and were dealing with their juniors. Most didn't even look at them anymore, like they had ceased to exist after a certain point in time.
It wasn't until 18 people stepped out from the back of Umbra's camp that the Rank 2 void monsters felt the aura of death upon them. These 18 humans looked only slightly different from those they had been butchering and consuming up until now, but their auras were a whole different ball game.
From the right to the left, there was Sublime Notion the Seneschal, Deployed Soldier the Great Commander, Happy Saint the Ferromancer, Jada and Jade, the Fire/Ice Lord duo, Loving Aunt the Enchantress, Silent Walker the Lord of Shadows, Warm Spring the Demi-Angel, Dreary Traveler the Lich, Slim Fatty the Sword Supreme, Almighty Rambunctious Buttlover the Orator, Kiran the Martial Artist, Cobra the Slayer, Boyd the Maverick, Uno the Vanguard, Rina the Paragon of Fire and Local Lord the Piece of Shit-*cough* Elemental Berserker
Local Lord was the only one lacking a Legendary Aura, because he had only just logged in recently. He had been offline for a great while to make preparations to move to the Central Country from his Ancestral Palace in Beijing, as he was part of a super special program created by Draco.
He was greatly envious of this, but felt better at the thought of the many things Draco had shown him and promised to hand over as soon as he'd arrived. Even at this moment, his body was on a plane heading towards the Central Country, so he thought to pop into the game during the flight, and at a good time too since the event had already been underway.
Before the core members could set out to battle, two more silhouettes appeared in their vision. Fitter Cleric and Essence Stalker approached the group calmly and greeted everyone.
It was fine for the most part, but when Essence Stalker and Local Lord met eyes, they both frowned, showing expressions of disgust and hate. This was due to their bloodlines roiling in their bodies, informing them of the identity of the other.
Local Lord sneered. "To think this ill.u.s.trious guild would accept mere dogs like this? I've heard you've never even taken the test, otherwise there would be no way you would be here now!"
Essence Stalker smiled lightly and relaxed his halberd on his shoulder. "The guild's recruitment scheme is normally perfect. It was designed to be a wall that blocked off the useless trash that hoped to leech off the guild."
Essence sighed. "However, every wall, no matter how sturdy, has one weakness: it can always be breached by the incessant nibbling of rats, creating a small hole for them to crawl in."
Local Lord's expression became ugly as his killing intent flared, yet Essence simply matched him with ease. However, before they could exchange blows, they paused, since they felt the eyes of Eva upon them.
Local Lord looked up to see the Vice-Guildmaster that everyone called a beauty, but found that he could not see her face. It was as if all light before her face was swallowed into a black hole.
The others though, had no problem. Judging from the way Essence's mouth fell and Fitter Cleric looked shaken, her beauty must truly be out of this world. Frustrated and jealous, Local Lord wondered why only he couldn't see her for some reason.
Hmm, maybe if he got a Legendary Class too? Well, it did not matter. Once he met up with that Draco idiot, he would absorb all he could from him and then kill him.
Eventually, all these high-quality women would be pressed beneath him, from the loli to the ill.u.s.trious beauty up there. Local Lord even drew up a timetable for how he would play them to death beneath his crotch, yet he was snapped back to reality once he felt Eva's eyes on him again.
It couldn't be that she could read minds, right? Haha, no way. Still, to stare at him and so coldly at such a time, did he do something to piss her off? Whatever the case, it only made her attraction value go up in his mind.
Sublime, oblivious to the hidden thoughts of the vile beast beside her, commanded with a wave of her hand: "Advance!"
Uno hefted his shield Reinhold, an Epic one he had gotten a while back that he quite liked due to its impressive passive skill.
｢Reinhold – Shield
Rank: Epic
Durability: 500,000/500,000
Passive 1 – Dispersion: Attacks that land on this shield have 30% of the incoming damage dispersed into the air.
Active 1 – Shield Toss: Throw the item like a boomerang, dealing 130% blunt damage and stunning the target for 5 seconds. The Shield will return to the arm of the user. Cooldown: 10 minutes.｣
Uno banged his shield forcefully, then activated one of his Legendary Class passive skills that he had kept dormant till now.
｢Protection Aura – Passive skill
Effect: All allies within an Area Zone have their physical defense raised by 70%, their magical defense by 60%, their physical resistance by 20%, and their magical resistance by 10%. Their base HP is also increased by 60%.｣
Uno stood squarely behind his shield and activated one of his recently acquired Epic skills for the defensive classes called Hard Landing!
Like a miniature Hulk, Uno launched himself high into the air, and despite his heavy armor, he remained airborne for a split second before his eyes flashed with evil, and his body came plummeting down with his shield held first, right into the mass of Rank 2 void monsters!