Guild Wars

Eva watched the slaughter below her nonchalantly, but took her eyes away eventually. The guild should be fine without her micromanaging everything as Sublime and the Five Generals had become extremely capable, not to mention the other core members.

Eva turned to the three ladies who were next to her. As one would expect, after Eva had warned them the day prior, they had come here without their children. Fortunately, thanks to their portable mansion, these mothers were quite close to their children who were currently being taken care of by the nannies in the super mini small world.

"The void monsters will be easy for you all to deal with. Hikari will imbue us with Aetheric Energy as soon as the event begins and we'll observe the battle first before joining in."

Zaine rubbed her chin. "Why waste Aether Crystals doing so? Void monsters have high magic resistance, yes, but at Rank 1 that should be limited to common classes and elements. My lightning and psychic attacks, Roma's Mystic Arts attacks as well as your Light Energy attacks should very likely ignore a large majority - if not all - of those monster's resistance."

Eva nodded. "That is true, but it's better to be safe than sorry firstly, and secondly, it will increase our damage output against them."

Zaine accepted this silently as did Roma while Hikari was just happy that she could be useful. Eva checked the timer to see that there were 150 seconds left until the Destruction Energy coating the Ruined Plains of Deriam would dissipate and release the vile fiends hiding within.

Tensions rose as the timer approached zero. Among Umbra, one would see calmness and excitement. Despite being part of the number one guild, only a handful of them had survived during the Emergency Quest. Those who had perished all planned on getting revenge this time.

Not only that, but they knew the rewards if they survived until the end were guaranteed to be plentiful. Also, if they could slaughter the monsters rampantly, it would be even better. After all, all of Umbra's members were Rank 2, so they had Rank and level suppression on their side.

However, Eva kept feeling like something was off. And this one was her bloodline's precognition, which she had almost no control over. It was likely the case because she had activated the 'game' version of the ability which might have slightly triggered her 'real' version of it.

Lo and behold, the timer came to an end. The players had all become a mixture of excitement and anxiousness as the blackish energy covering the entire Field Zones began to disperse slowly, revealing what was inside.

Players stood there with raised their weapons as they had gotten into formations, some following Umbra's arrangement while the vast majority proceeded to do their own thing. Deployed Soldier was currently roaring at the army of players he controlled, giving them rapid-fire orders about how to assemble and react.

However, the whole place suddenly became eerily quiet once the players could see what had been hidden beneath the cover of the blackish miasma.

The whole area was covered with void monsters of different sizes and shapes. They were so packed in the Field Zone that they looked like sardines. Some appeared like beasts, some like fish, some like birds, and even some that had humanoid shapes.

The one thing they all shared was that they willingly packed themselves as close to each other as possible, leaving no space free as their glowing red eyes gazed at the location of the players as one.

Their bodies were like a gaseous mass of dark-grey to light-black energy, and wisps leaked off them like they were on fire. This visual scene was so impactful to all onlookers that they had become frozen in silence.

Both parties just stared at each other silently for a few seconds. Players had yet to notice that among the horde of Rank 1 void monsters, there were actually many Rank 2's in the fray.

As for Eva, her face became black when her Control informed her about the 10 Rank 3 void monsters at the far back who were leisurely relaxing. They had to be the masterminds who had organized all the Rank 1 and 2's to behave in such a disciplined manner even though the Event had begun.

Eva took a deep breath and inspected all the different types as well as the Ranks of monsters here one by one.

｢Name: Void Fodder - Private Rank monster (Rank 1)

Level: 30

HP: 15,000/15,000｣

｢Name: Void Monster - Specialist Rank monster (Rank 1)

Level: 35

HP: 150,000/150,000｣

｢Name: Void Killer - Sergeant Rank monster (Rank 1)

Level: 45

HP: 1,500,000/1,500,000｣

｢Name: Void Destroyer - Captain Rank monster (Rank 1)

Level: 50

HP: 15,000,000/15,000,000｣

｢Name: Void Monster - Specialist Rank monster (Rank 2)

Level: 69

HP: 1,500,000/1,500,000｣

｢Name: Void Killer - Sergeant Rank monster (Rank 2)

Level: 75

HP: 15,000,000/15,000,000｣

｢Name: Void Destroyer - Captain Rank monster (Rank 2)

Level: 90

HP: 150,000,000/150,000,000｣

｢Name: Void Devourer - Major Rank monster (Rank 2)

Level: 100

HP: 1,500,000,000/1,500,000,000｣

｢Name: Void Devourer - Major Rank monster (Rank 3)

Level: 150

HP: 15,000,000,000/15,000,000,000｣

Eva immediately fell into the pits of despair once she saw this. Void monsters were feared for their trait of having the maximum health of monsters 1 Rank above them, but this was ridiculous!

The Rank 3 enemies had fifteen billion HP! This was enough for a low-tier Continental Boss which would require at least 2 Divine guilds, 5 Legendaries, and 100 Epic guilds working in tandem to even have a chance of success.

That was assuming that each of these guilds had at least some players/guild leaders 1 Rank above the enemy to profit off of Rank and level suppression.

Here, only Hikari, Roma, and Zaine were free of Rank suppression, but that didn't mean they could easily take on these foes. Killing enemies with at most, 6 million HP with ease was far different from those with 15 billion, not to mention that void monsters were one of the strongest and most dreaded types.

Even worse, they had the corrosion effect!

This wasn't just bad, this was… this was catastrophic! No wonder Eva had felt that she was receiving the worst kind of omens, because this was it! How could this even happen?

The tear Draco had made in reality with the Eyes of Caelo had not been big or wide enough to allow these kinds of foes to come through! The Rank 1 void monsters were also too weak to extend the tear further!

Eva's eyes zoned in on the tear itself and her expression darkened. Someone had forcibly spread it open to the point the main plane had difficulty closing it. No wonder the activation of the event had taken far longer than Eva had expected.

The tear was currently sealing itself - as that was the natural course of action - but the damage had been done. 10 Rank 3, at least 2,000 Rank 2, and more than 500,000 Rank 1 void monsters had passed through and now existed on the main plane.

Eva could swear on her two lives that this scenario was far worse than even the Great War. After ravishing the main plane, they would certainly head over to connected worlds and lay ruin there.

In comparison, Demons were just violent beings who liked to pillage and kill, but void monsters were the anti-thesis to all existence. They were worse than an undead army of the same size because at least undead existed.

Undead were just in a state of neither life nor death. As such, their enmity with life was just that, with the living. Void monsters had beef with everything made of matter, and would corrode it in time until it became anti-matter, but not the 'good' kind.

One could technically call them off-brand Black Dragons, only having about 0.001% of their power in an extremely diluted sense. Though not exactly the same would one actually care about the difference between being killed by an alligator or a lion?

A mere five hundred thousand void monsters, should still be culled eventually when going against the 100 million or so players gathered here in different groups, right? Well, this was somewhat true as no matter what resistances the monsters had, a numerical superiority like this was simply unbeatable.

Alas, given the effects that Abyssal Energy had on Immortal Spirits, a lot of people were destined to become very unhappy. Eva predicted that out of more than a hundred million, about 20,000 might remain to face the three Rank 3 monsters. All of them from Umbra and affiliates, naturally.

After the short staredown occurred, the void monsters roared as one and charged the players. The players, convinced of the power of their numerical superiority despite this bizarre scene before them, got ready to receive them.

The first clash was brutal. Hundreds of melee players and tanks who hoped to block the advance of the monsters were immediately sent for respawn, their accounts acc.u.mulating 10% corrosion.

Their weapons did not deal a single point of damage as the void monsters all had almost perfect physical damage immunity unless your item was Aether-imbued, and unfortunately, only Umbra, as well as its allies, knew about this trick.

As such, one could just imagine the outcome of what happened. Swordsmen cut through the almost intangible bodies of void monsters which was as effective as cutting mist, got clawed in half by the monsters the next second.

The players behind them were stunned by the instant slaughter. The HPs of the void monsters that got hit attacked didn't even change the slightest, meaning that those who died had done so in vain.

This was the terror void monsters represented to NPCs. To players it was not as serious - at least at first - but repeated deaths at their hands would yield a corrupted account. You would then become like a Void Fodder, a sort of forceful race change that had no real use to any sensible player.

Eva frowned from the back of Luxia. Sublime and co had messaged her, asking whether they should step in early to protect the many lives so they could become cannon fodder later or watch them die from the side and make a flashy entrance when despair was at its highest.

They only semi-recognized the new difficulty of this World Event, mainly because none of them had taken the time to check the updated quest details due to the attack of the void monsters.

None except Eva.

｢System to Local Area Announcement

A World Event-tier Emergency Quest has been created! The surrounding area has been locked down and for the duration of this event, it will be impossible to leave! One must cull the source of the emergency within the time limit, or only doom awaits!｣

｢Abyssal Invasion - Emergency Quest

Description: Void Monsters of the first three Ranks are present in the Ruined Plains of Deriam, planning to use the feast of Immortal Adventurers to strengthen themselves before they take over the entire world!

Conditions: There is only one way to complete the quest, kill all Void Monsters by any means necessary!

Rewards: 5,000% exp, 100,000 gold, and 5 Epic Treasure Chests.｣

Looking at the reward, Eva's heart sank further. The AI was extremely accurate with its calculations in situations like this. Last time, it had given only 1/5th of these rewards for those who could survive to the end, and they had only been expected to last 1 hour.

Here, they would have to kill everything to pass, and the rewards were earth-shattering to a normal player. There was no way Eva's estimation of 20,000 players would hold, because the AI would never allow that many players to hold on to 100,000 gold.

In fact, a clever person who followed the events of Boundless would be able to use the rewards given by the AI in situations like this to gauge the difficulty and the number of people who would survive.

Such a person would know that in this case, it was likely that apart from maybe the core members of Umbra and a few others, everyone else was scheduled for a painful and despairing death.

Eva sent a message down to Sublime.

"Do whatever you feel is necessary. -Eva"

Not like it would matter anyway. The end of the play had written itself, the actors just needed to go through the motions of the content now. Eva understood this very well as someone who got to know the AI very closely, even more so in this life.

As such, she just told Hikari and co to do what they wanted while making sure to survive. She could see Roma and Zaine itching to kill something while Hikari wanted to heal, buff, and revive.