Second World

"Hurry up! We have to destroy the guild core first!" Scarface exclaimed anxiously. He continued shooting ranged attacks while Grimclaw hacked at the guild core frantically.

"Troublesome fools," Ronald uttered and fired his two revolvers consecutively.

His bullets struck the guild core multiple times, adding the speed by which the guild core's HP was drained. Scarface wanted to call him to stop. If the guild core was destroyed by his bullet instead of Death Associates' members, then this would all be for naught.

But before Scarface opened his mouth, he saw Ronald's revolvers were already back in their holsters.

He turned back and saw the guild core with just a sliver of HP. Ronald had absolute control of the damage he produced, even if it somehow triggered a critical hit. He left just enough HP for Grimclaw or Scarface to deal with.

Grimclaw smacked the low-HP guild core and it was shattered to pieces.

"Yes, I did it!" He exclaimed triumphantly. Since he had not yet heard any notification about their guild core being destroyed, this meant he had done it before Jack did back in Death Hall.

"Don't stop! You have to select the option to transfer our headquarters!" Scarface shouted.

"Option?" Grimclaw looked at the shattered core. There was indeed an interface window there, asking him if he wished to take this guild's guild hostage token, destroy this headquarters, or transfer their guild headquarters here.

When Grimclaw was just about to press the option to transfer their guild headquarters, he and every Death Associates member heard a system notification, "Your guild core had been broken by Everlasting Heavenly Legends, vault's contents and 20% of current guild resources had been taken. From now on, Everlasting Heavenly Legends will possess Death Associates' Guild Hostage Token, gaining the rights to 15% of guild resources gained."

Grimclaw's finger hung in the air just an inch from the hologram button.

"NOOO...!!!" Scarface yelled.

Outside, still controlling the guild army, White Death was staring at the empty air ahead with a pale face. "Vault... Vault's contents...?"

---------------

"F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!" Yellow Death had been swearing non-stop when he watched his guild's guild core destroyed without being able to do anything. He nor his comrades could approach Jack with the green vipers, spirit weapon, and Arlcard blocking their way. Almost half of them had even met their ends from the three, especially from Arlcard's perpetual sword of death.

He had been praying to hear the system notification of their headquarters getting transferred while Jack was hacking their guild core, but the notification never came.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Green Death called. They had failed. Staying further would just add casualties.

"Hehe, now we have three guild hostage tokens. From those three, I can say our resource income is around one and a half top guilds' total income," Jack muttered after hearing the notification. He then turned back and said with a grin, "Now, I have the time to entertain you, people."

They felt like they had been marked by the God of Death after hearing Jack's words. Those who were still ignoring Green Death's call to retreat were now running towards the exit.

When Jack was about to chase, suddenly the environment changed. The guild hall around him disappeared and he found himself outdoors with the others on an open field. He could see his guildmates with a group of enemies in the distance. The entire complex of Death Hall had disappeared.

"They had transferred their headquarters," Peniel informed. "A bandit outpost should appear somewhere within this region to replace the missing headquarters here. Now, a guild without headquarters had the chance to get a new headquarters by conquering that outpost."

Death Associates members that were in the same room with Jack were also taken aback by their headquarters vanishing. But they had heard the notification, so they understood first and reacted sooner than Jack. They immediately ran in all directions to flee.

"Should we chase?" Arlcard asked.

"Calculating options. Recommending pursuit of enemies at eleven or three o'clock directions. Targets are more grouped in those two directions. Waiting for confirmation to carry out pursuit."

Jack looked at his spirit weapon. "Wow, your talking ability has also improved," Jack commented. Before, even though the spirit weapon could talk, the talks were very simple exchanges. Now, after Storm Breaker upgraded to a unique grade, it was as if the AI within had also upgraded.

"If you don't want me to chase, I will take my leave," Arlcard said. He was not interested in killing these outworlders, it didn't provide exp.

Jack looked at the fleeing enemies. He was thinking about chasing after Yellow Death and killing him for the third time, but then decided against it. He figured they had suffered enough after losing their guild hostage token. He was not a cold-hearted bastard who relished in people's sufferings.

He unsummoned Arlcard, Therras, and his spirit weapon. He then headed to where the rest of his guildmates were. After Death Hall vanished, Death Associates members were no longer protected by the wall. They immediately fled once the wall was gone.

"Bravo, expert. Bravo!" John clapped his hands when Jack regrouped with them.

"I know we can count on you," Jeanny said, giving Jack a thumbs-up.

"Yeah. We are getting quite a reaping from this raid. Have you two checked the content of the leader sections of our guild warehouse?" John asked.

Jack and Jeanny shook their heads.

"Take a look. It seemed that Death Associates people weren't aware of the rule that their vault's content will get taken if their guild core is destroyed. All those contents were transferred into our warehouse in our private section."

The two immediately checked their guild page interface after John's words.

"Wow," Jack uttered.

The number of items was more than what their private section could hold. There was a temporary space provided by the system to hold the overspilled items. This temporary space only lasted for twenty-four hours. If none of the leaders bothered with the goods inside this temporary space after twenty-hour passed, the goods would be automatically transferred to the general section of the guild warehouse. Every guild member could then access these items and exchanged for them using their guild contribution points. If the space in the warehouse's general section was still not enough to hold the items, then all the overspilled goods would be thrown out by the system and disappeared forever.

"I agree, they definitely don't know about the vault content rule," Jeanny said.

The loots from Death Associates' vaults contained a variety of items. Equipment, materials, ingredients, consumables, also lots of coins and mana cores. Since Death Associates were invading another guild, the probability of dying was high. So, almost every member stored their belongings inside the guild vaults. Especially those who found Amulet of Rebirth to be too expensive already. Even if they died, their coins, mana cores, and other belongings would still be safe, or so they thought.

Jeanny transferred all the coins and donated them to their guild coffer. As for the mana cores, she took them all. She could copy a lot of things with these mana cores.

"I bet they will return to using the city's banks again after this," Jack said with a laugh, but then he stopped when he saw one item among the goods they had pillaged from Death Associates' vaults. "This... Shit! It really is! They even left this thing in the vaults!"

*

Hex of Power Restraint (Unique Artifact)

Affected a 500-meter radius area. Everyone (allies, enemies, NPCs, Monsters) within the area cannot use any active skill or spell, tools, nor send or receive messages.

Need 1 hour to power up before being activated, can't move during preparation and activation.

Duration: 3 hours

Cooldown: 3 days

*

"This is the artifact they used on me when I tried to infiltrate their headquarters!" Jack exclaimed.

"Hehe, they even put this unique artifact inside their vaults instead of bringing them in their personal inventories. They must be pulling their hair in frustration right now," John chuckled.

"Okay. Let's return, everyone," Jeanny said.

Everyone used their guild return scrolls and disappeared from the place.

For success in raiding Death Associates headquarters, Everlasting Heavenly Legends received rewards from the bounty quest issued by the kingdom. The guild received a small number of reputation points for each Death Associates member they killed and a large number for successfully destroying Death Associates' guild core. Their guild title, Themisphere's National Guild, increased the number of reputation points they received even more.

Combined with the reputations they got from the invasion war, they were more than halfway toward guild level 5 already.

Aside from the bounty quest for guilds, there was also a bounty quest issued for individuals. The individual bounty quest rewarded coins for every Death Associates member killed. Unfortunately, Everlasting Heavenly Legends members didn't take the individual bounty quest before going on the raid. The bounty quest only appeared this morning, and John's plan required them to already strike the guild by then. Otherwise, they would have been able to cash in all those kills they made this morning as well. Only kills done after taking the quest would be admitted, all kills that were done before were not considered valid.

Still, this bounty quest remained in effect. So, many of the Everlasting Heavenly Members returned to the city to take this individual bounty quest. Other guilds and independent players after learning about the bounty quest, also took the quest. Everyone was now on the hunt for Death Associates members. There was nowhere safe for Death Associates to roam within Themisphere kingdom from now on.