Liam wasn't sure how the egg was going to react but as soon as he took it out of the inventory, the air around him visibly changed.
Everything became blurry with several fumes of vapors coming out and amidst this blur, wisps of fire essence started separating out and flying towards the egg.
They swirled around the egg almost forming another layer, sort of shell, on top of the existing one.
"Hmmm… So she is not able to absorb the essence?" All the wisps were collecting and coalescing outside. However, they were not going in.
"What is happening?" Liam did not have too much time to think about it as the ground under him started shaking.
Since the crater was extremely unsteady, he needed to move to another spot. This was essentially a test of his balance and reaction speed.
However, such a thing was challenging probably only to the lower-level players. By the time, the cracks started appearing, he had already moved to another spot casually.
But when he looked down at the egg again, Liam was pleasantly surprised. The yellowish orange colored fire essence shell that had formed had completely disappeared.
And more importantly, the small spot of white on the dark purple colored egg had grown a bit bigger.
"So that's how it is…" Liam smiled. He then watched as this same process repeated itself for a few more times.
He also needed to keep moving to gather the fire essence as Luna was very efficient at sucking out all the essence from a spot within just a few seconds.
In this way, Liam almost covered half of the entire crater when the next batch of players finally showed up.
Liam grinned. A volley of arrows and spells flew towards him as he instantly summoned the defensive golem.
He then leisurely placed the egg inside his inventory and began the round two of the assault.
"He already knows we are here. Don't hold back. Attack. Attack." Someone shouted and this time a group of about 100 players emerged from the shadows, surrounding Liam and the army of demons.
Instantly, all sorts of attacks landed on the group and the golem's health was reduced by a chunk. However, this situation completely changed the next second.
Under Liam's command, the demon hybrids roared with ferocity and dashed forward to attack the players. It was once again a complete chaotic bloody brawl.
Liam used both the golems and started casting [Lava Rain], [Blizzard], and [Sandstorm].
He had picked up a few more skill books after running the previous invasions so he now had a lot more skills in his arsenal.
This combined with his Level 42 stats, every single attack he tossed out was like a grenade, and several huge damage numbers floated up.
His formidable strength and the demon hybrids' raw brute strength easily overpowered the increased numbers of players now surrounding them.
However, Liam highly doubted that this was all that was waiting for them. Unless Sterling was a complete and utter idiot, he wouldn't have come back without adequate preparations.
And this was exactly what Liam was also anticipating.
He wanted to see just what sort of preparations the stormtroopers are capable of.
He had heard about this guild in his previous life and it was nothing special. Derek was the only shining star in their guild.
And now that he had already recruited him, there probably should not be any other surprises. This was why in the first place, he gave them time to reorganize and strike back.
This was quite risky, but he needed the loot from the guild. He had a whole platoon to equip now. The better their gear, the better would be their output.
It was not feasible to obtain unique and epic items for these demons, but it was still within Liam's capacity to obtain rare-grade weapons.
He could either grind dungeons or elites for several hours. Or he could raid a guild like stormtroopers and just take everything that they had.
So Liam sincerely hoped that Sterling had made adequate preparations for this second round.
And just like he had expected the number of guild members had definitely doubled. Most probably this was the entirety of their strength.
There were more than 100 players on the battlefield and all of them were equipped with high-grade items.
Liam licked his lips as he started moving around.
Each of his demon soldiers was trying to deal with two or more opponents and this time he did not bother targeting anybody specifically.
He simply unleashed every bit of mana he had and rampaged about on the battlefield, striking left and right and taking down whoever he could.
This quickly freed up a lot of the demon soldiers and sequentially they were then able to double back and fight better without being overwhelmed.
Also, since they had already killed some of them once and reaped a lot of better gear, they were able to fight on equal footing, matching the huge number.
As seconds slowly dragged on, the demons started gaining the upper hand and the fight was once again taking the familiar course of events just like it had before.
But until the end, Liam did not dare to relax.
Especially after seeing the special group of four experts, he knew that he would be a fool to underestimate even these kinds of opponents.
So he squeezed every last bit of power he had and cleared the enemy as fast as he could without giving them any chance of a comeback.
Even at the end when only a few players were remaining, he still took care of them with the same ruthlessness.
And just like that, a couple more minutes later, the second round also ended smoothly without any surprises.
Liam looked at the carnage around him and let out a long sigh of relief. "I really thought they might have some trump cards. I guess I gave them too much credit."
He took one more look around to make sure that no one else was present and he then ordered the demons to collect the loot.
Their invasion time was almost up so he also busied himself and took Luna's egg to gather whatever fire essence he could in the remaining time.
A few minutes later, the group once again returned back to the nether realm, teleporting safely to the city square.
Meanwhile… on the spot where Liam had just left, a group of players arrived.
These players were geared from top to bottom in at least rare-grade items, some of them even having multiple unique items.
Behind this smaller team, another huge team of players arrived. Compared to the other team, this group was very miserably equipped.
Some of them even lacked basic items like chest guards and bracers.
And on top of this, these players all looked absolutely frustrated.
Why wouldn't they be? They had just now lost a battle in the most ridiculous way possible.
To make matters worse… right when they had managed to gather sufficient strength and back up, enough to topple the opponent, the target had already disappeared!
There was no third chance!
There were no demons in the crater and the black-masked player had also mysteriously disappeared!
Sterling sighed at this depressing sight and he turned to look at Victor with his eyebrows drooped down. However, as soon as he did, he already regretted his actions.
If there was one person more miserable than him in the current crowd, then it was Victor. The man was dumbly staring at the system interface in front of him.
"The quest?" Sterling reluctantly asked.
"Guild leader… that…" Victor gulped.
"Just spit it out."
Though he sounded tired, Victor could clearly see that the person was extremely furious. He gulped and obidiently answered. "The quest is failed."
And befor he could say anything else…
[Ding. You have been kicked out of the guild]
"FUCK!" Victor screamed. The person was right there in front of him, so he rushed over there trying to seek justice.
"Sterling, you can't do this. I brought this quest to you. I know we failed, but we can try again and that time we can win. Why did you kick me out?"
"I am the one responsible for this. You can't just leave me like this."
However, hearing all his ranting, Sterling only sneered. "Useless piece of shit. Do you know how much our guild lost today because of this?"
"Did you even talk to the NPC properly?"
"You could have obtained more information! You could have gotten more details about the strength of the army. But no, you just came running to me and dumped this quest on top of us!"
"Get the fuck out of here and don't come back."
Victor gnashed his teeth at this unfair accusation, but he was helpless to keep talking back. If he did, he knew very well that Sterling would probably not hesitate to kill him on the spot.
The only option he had now was to simply leave quietly.
And as he was about to do that, a loud booming voice sounded with a thick Indian accent. "Hindsight is always 20-20, Sterling. Don't take out your anger on him."
One of the players from the smaller but remarkably geared support team walked over to Sterling and this was the same hunter who had crossed paths with Liam previously.
Madam simply smiled in a relaxed manner as if he was just out for a walk. He did not seem to care that the quest had failed and that the demon army had disappeared.
"Take him back to the guild. Though I would have preferred if you had called me over sooner, we still managed to get some information.. So this trip wasn't entirely useless."