"Hey, I just learned something important." Alex sent a message to Liam the moment she stepped out of the divine temple.
After getting the quest and talking to the priestess for a few seconds, she couldn't find anything else to do there and decided to head out.
It looked like she needed to finish that quest first to get more quests.
So she directly started walking back out of the city, while informing Liam about what she had found out from the priestess and that map.
"I am currently stepping out of the divine temple. The priestess here is telling me that the demons are winning this war." She sent the next message.
Alex did not know if this piece of information had any significance to it or not but for once she was happy to find out something that Liam had no idea about.
There was even a small smug smile tugging at her lips.
She happily drank in some more of the divine city air and took a few steps, when the reply for message promptly arrived.
"Is that all? Did she say anything else?"
"Huh?" Alex stopped in her tracks and her face twitched as she stared at the message, "Is that all? Is he serious? He doesn't think that this is a big deal?"
She bit her lips and furiously typed a reply back, "I also received a random quest." She tried to think hard if she missed anything else but that seemed to be it.
"Ok." Another reply arrived.
"..." Alex did not know why but she suddenly felt like strangling someone.
Just as she was about to close the system interface and continue with her day, suddenly another notification popped up.
[Ding. Warning! Crimson Abyss Guild Residence is under attack!]
[Ding. Warning! Crimson Abyss Guild Residence is under attack!]
[Ding. Warning! Crimson Abyss Guild Residence is under attack!]
"What the hell!" Alex almost jumped in surprise. She then hurriedly messaged Liam but this time no reply came in from the other side.
She gave up on him and then opened the guild channel to see what was happening when she finally noticed all the shenanigans that had transpired in the last couple of hours.
She saw Liam's message in the guild channel and the all out brawl that was happening in the 'Rock Temple'.
Apparently what started as some sort of guild outing had evolved into a chaotic battle among several guilds.
That region was now even flagged as a PVP heavy zone and there were warnings in the guild chat asking others to not go over there.
There were also several people complaining about the guild and lact of proper authority and now on top of everything, someone was attacking their guild residence!
Just what the heck was going on!
She had only just now left the guild and so many things happened? And no one had even bothered to inform her about anything?
This was not good. Alex gritted her teeth. The main problem was that all their core members were still in the nether realm so their guild was basically a loose cannon right now.
They desperately needed more trustworthy members and they needed them now. They also needed more organization before everything turns into a clusterfuck.
Making a mental note, Alex started running out of the divine city, rushing back to the guild residence.
Luckily, she wasn't too far away and would be able to arrive there soon.
Even as she was running, she once again opened the interface and still, there wasn't a single reply from Liam.
Did this guy just not care about the guild residence or perhaps… did something really bad happen? She couldn't help but assume the worst.
Her thoughts started running wild and she quickened her pace wanting to get there before things became too worse, but the next second another notification popped up.
[Ding. Crimson Abyss guild has successfully defended against the attack!]
[Ding. Crimson Abyss guild has successfully defended against the attack!]
[Ding. Crimson Abyss guild has successfully defended against the attack!]
She abruptly stopped her run, almost stumbling down, and stablized herself. "Are you serious?!" She blinked and stared again, now more confused than ever.
It had only been one minute since the under attack warning and they had already defended? What was this? A child's game?
Just what the hell was going on?
She took a deep breath and once again started heading to the guild residence. The attack might be over but she still needed to know just what had happened.
Now it made sense why Liam did not even flinch on seeing the warning notice. Maybe he anticipated this and made preparations?
"That must be it."
She brushed past the brambles and the tall trees and ran through the wilderness and as she did, she once again came to a screeching halt.
Suddenly everything made sense.
The map she had seen on the priestess war table and the fact that Liam trapped several guilds into wiping out completely in the spatial rifts, what if these two were connected?
Alex chewed on her nails nervously.
Of all the people she knew that this game was not merely a game. So if the demons are winning the war, she did not know what was going to happen.
Taking another deep breath, she opened the system interface to once again send a message. This was too important.
"Liam, I think maybe because of the huge number of recent losses, we might be losing this war. What do you think? Is this because of whatever you did?"
"Come on. Reply. Reply." She mumbled looking at the interface when a response promptly arrived the next second.
"Of course, it is because of what I did."
"What…" Alex opened her mouth and dumbfoundedly stared at this message. She could even imagine him smiling as he typed these words, the same cocky smug smile.
"Fuck!" She cursed out loud and then typed again.
"I have a feeling that this will end very badly for us. I mean… since you have the demons under your control or something like that, is there anything else you could do to change this outcome?"
Seeing that there was no other reply coming her way, Alex resumed her trip back to the guild.
Meanwhile… at the other end…
Liam continued to stare at the message. It was not that he did not want to reply but he himself did not know the answer yet.
Alex was absolutely correct. This change in outcome was definitely his doing.
He did not consider that the small strategical move he had made could have such a big impact, but it did.
It looked like these two victories were the difference between one side winning and the other side losing.
This meant that the margin of the victory had originally been very slim.
In his previous life, the humans had successfully defended all the spatial rifts and chased out the demons. They had celebrated this event as a great glory to all mankind.
But only now he understood the reality of it.
They had only managed to win by the skin of their teeth and now that he had meddled in this and tipped the scales, everything had changed in an instant!
Liam stared blankly at the system interface as he mulled over this. He now had a better idea of things but the main question still remained…
Which side should win?
Which side should win so that he could reap the maximum benefits?
The humans in the Xion realm won the war the last time around but that did not seem to play any role in the future landscape of earth.
Their victory did not translate to his world's victory? Then perhaps their loss would translate to earth's betterment?
"Hmmmm…" Liam silently pondered over this. This was important so he did not want to make any decision hastily.
There was still some time for the war so he decided to think about it some more before coming to a conclusion.
Besides, no matter what decision he made, things might already be out of his control.
He was only coincidentally able to cause a domino effect this time creating significant ripples that made one side win and the other side lose.
He might not be able to repeat this again even if he wanted to.
Engrossed in his thoughts, he tossed and turned on Luna's back. They were also on their way returning back to the guild residence.
After the news spread, more and more players started appearing at the site of the battle and most of the players were PVP lovers.
Things became even more chaotic and even the graveyard was not left out. So it was no longer convenient for Liam to stay back there.
Also, he had already obtained two of the three recipes he had come here for, high-grade mana potion and high-grade health potion.
With these two in hand, he could now start to practice the next grade of alchemy and if successful could easily become a Master.
So the duo did not linger around and quickly headed back to the guild residence.