Is this really a Game?!

"Hey, don't wander off, this area is explored, but we don't know what might have changed since the monsters decided to attack us back then, there might be some danger even here right now." Raigon suddenly told two men who were looking around and had strayed a bit from the rest of the group before turning around and continuing deeper inside the mountain range.

The mountain range is situated on the right side of the kingdom and was one of the natural barriers that divide it from the kingdoms on the other side.

It's fairly large and the kingdoms on the other side are actually not in the same area as Riplas and the other kingdoms.

Since the mountain range is fairly close to the capital, there was always worry about it and whether or not it was safe for the capital city to be so close since nobody knew whether the monsters would attack them or not.

The worries came true a couple of times in the past, and even fairly recently thanks to them going inside and fighting against monsters.

The kingdom of Riplas had suffered monster attacks for some time, but the monsters were never truly powerful and the most dangerous attack before the last one only had 5 Tier I monsters, which were all separated and were thus easy to get rid of.

Raigon and the others had made their way around the kingdom before reaching the large mountain range and had entered from the side.

There was a wall and gate where the mountain range ended in the kingdom and was placed there in order to help with any monster attacks. It would help out with the initial attack, and would also alarm the kingdom that something had happened.

Raigon, Reign, and the others of course didn't enter from there and had actually entered the mountain range from the side, by using Raigon's ability to create wings, they first sent Reign and two of the generals over in order to make sure that the area they would all initially enter from was safe.

Reign and the two generals met some monsters after Raigon had dropped them off, but the monsters were not even Tier I and died in a moment thanks to the two generals being Tier II each.

Upon releasing their auras, even though it was just a little bit of it and it lasted for a moment, more powerful monsters suddenly started appearing and attacked them.

All of them were of course dealt with, and Reign merely had to stand aside and let the two deal with the enemies since the monsters were way too weak for him to join the battle.

After everybody had joined up, they slowly made their way deeper inside the mountain range.

None of them had any experience with taming a monster, but they didn't plan on doing that anyway.

Their current plan was to find some Tier II or perhaps even Tier III monsters that were capable of flight. After doing so, Reign and the others would proceed to beat them to a pulp and force them to submit.

They would use Raigon's Creation ability to limit the monster in some way and allow themselves to control it more easily in the air.

After doing that, it would be time for them to attack the capital.

They would fly above it before swooping down and jumping from the monster once they were near enough to the city. That would allow them to gain the element of surprise and would make the battle that was certain to follow easier.

Reign and the others slowly made their way deeper inside the mountain range.

It was similar in size to the one Reign and the others had been fighting for the last couple of months, the main difference being the lack of demons, of course.

Reign was quite interested in the mountain range and truly wanted to explore it and find out just what manner of monsters could be found inside, but the time limit that was placed on them didn't allow him to do something like that.

The longer they took to attack the enemy, the more prepared the latter would be, and their chances of victory would be lower.

Not only were they facing an enemy they knew absolutely nothing about in the queen, but they also knew that the enemy knew everything about them and their powers.

Reign and Eisenhorn were definitely the two that the kingdom had the least information about thanks to Reign coming to them recently and fighting against the demon far away, while Eisenhorn had gained the blade aura fairly recently as well and actually knew little about it and its different uses.

That was clear back when he used the blade aura to cut through the layers of the world and allow himself and the others to escape. Had the enemy known that the blade aura could do that, they would have definitely prepared more before attacking them.

He and the others doubted that the enemy could come up with a way to counter his blade aura since it was something far above those in the leveling realm and only powerful Transcendents and Saints could actually do something like that, but they still had to take that under consideration.

Eisenhorn had spoken to the Transcendents that were waiting for him after he woke up, but for some reason, he only remembered bits and pieces of the conversation. He actually knew the reason, as that was one of the things he remembered.

That, and that he should under no circumstances try to ascend before at the very least reaching Tier VIII in order not to waste his talent. The reason for him not remembering was simple, one of the Transcendents had actually messed with his memory, telling him that it was for his own sake and that he would be able to remember more with each Tier he managed to rise to.

Reaching Tier III was something that he managed to do simply by learning the blade aura, and had nothing to do with the Transcendents.

As for him not ascending before Tier VIII?

That was something that they didn't need to worry about since his goal was to reach the absolute highest he could before ascending. He was a person that had managed to power through the loss of all his power and mana and reach rank SSS with his glaive before his powers had returned, he would always strive to do and reach the very top.

Raigon's powers were also something that the enemy knew about, but they were also incredibly hard to counter and would be almost impossible for the queen and the others to do so. Raigon was actually quite surprised by the fact that he was even allowed to reach such a high level since the king and Lios were always in the same group as the queen.

Perhaps their original plan was to slowly indoctrinate him over time, but something had changed.

They didn't know whether that was thanks to Reign appearing once again and managing to defeat the enemy, but it was certain that the original plan of the king and others was not to fight them, at least not like this.

The deeper inside the mountain range the group reached, the larger the mountains and lusher the vegetation was.

The whole mountain range was covered in trees and different fauna, even the peaks of the mountains were not spared. The temperature was low higher up,  but the trees and grass still persisted and grew on top of the snow-covered peaks.

The monsters they encountered were all beasts, but they were very different from the ones that Reign had fought before.

Odd monsters that looked like a combination of two monsters that were never supposed to breed could be found in abundance here, and even though they looked very unremarkable and weren't supposed to be strong simply because of their horrible body composition, they were quite powerful.

Boars that had elongated legs that looked like they would snap with a mere kick were incredibly fast and would attack by jumping toward you. They would use the legs as springs to lunge at the enemy with incredible speed that was above most monsters of their realm and the straight tusks they had could easily penetrate through a body.

Bears that had a shell on them and would fight by rolling on the ground and sometimes opening up in order to grab the prey and squish them underneath their powerful bodies were another type of monster that Reign found peculiar.

They were all Tier I, but there were already sightings of Tier II monsters nearby as well.

From what Raigon had told him, the Tier II monsters could be in the past a bit further away, but in the last couple of months, they had been moving increasingly closer to the kingdom and could be found easily now.

The kingdom had actually killed a large number of them in order to train up the weaker generals and the top troops, but there was no sign of the Tier II monsters dwindling in numbers and they had actually increased lately.

Nobody knew what the reason for that was, but it wasn't a good thing as having such powerful monsters near the border of the kingdom could end up quite badly.