Aiden angrily stormed through the streets of Mauden while grumbling to himself.

"I'm sick of all these fucking guild wars and shit. Why, for what fucking reason would anyone want to go to war right before an update. " he paused for dramatic silence. "Before THE UPDATE?"

This got him a lot of annoyed stares and after he realized he was standing in the middle of the street and screaming like a madman he quickly set off.

He was on the starting planet of the game, the most populated place in the game… At least by human standards. Some of the aliens had colonies with tens of hundreds of billions of inhabitants.

Well theoretically at least, there is probably no way anything could process so much information.

By the way he didn't really need to be shouting to be noticed, his full-body Adias energy armor and gun of the same brand got him enough looks.

That's what usually happened when a higher level player came back to the starting planet and entered the 'residential' area, which basically contained tons of warehouses, spaceship hangars, and many crude looking player homes.

At first the planet was mostly controlled by aliens, however it has been completely take over by humans.

That was the first Galaxy grade quest. Basically these were quest that threatened humanity as a whole in the game, and all the players banded together to fight the enemy.

Actually players could trigger these as well, since if a group angered some aliens, it could be a full out war.

But the thing Aiden was mad about is that there was always ALWAYS a Galaxy quest after a big update.

'Why would anyone think that having these little squabbles is going to lead to anything?'

'Your little brother started playing the game and wants his own guild? I don't give a fuck!'

He cursed his guild leader as he turned a street.

'But now our enemies are continuously attacking their base and we have to babysit them…'

When one of the players tried to come up to him to ask him something, he delicately pushed him out of the way, which meant that after they hit the ground they only slid 2 meter before stopping.

He didn't even turn around when the player yelled he would skin his pets alive and shove their pelts down his throat.

Truth to be told, he didn't have any pets else the guy would have been in a world of trouble.

"It's the AI update man! AI! Ever heard of them?!"

And he was mad for a reason… Well, not many people agreed with his reason to full extent, it being that everything is going to be smart and now pointing and pressing the trigger on a gun wouldn't be enough to kill things.

Of course people knew things would become more skill based, but the general idea was that the update was more lore based, making the NPC’s more life-like and immersive, with combat only being just a part of the update and not something to worry about.

He finally reached his destination when he arrived to an area surrounded by an energy fence at least 10 meters tall. Inside it was almost completely vacant of buildings except for what you could only call a fortress.

He clicked his tongue as he fished out an identification device from his inventory, which was to him basically just a glorified employee card.

As soon as the item left his inventory the doors opened and after a moment he grudgingly stalked through the door towards the building.

“And I had to walk here as well, how lovely… I hate the starting area rules.”

He had to walk for 5 minutes before he reached the huge building which actually looked very plain. It was basically a dark-grey hexagon shaped oversized building block…

A building block peppered with tons of weapons all over.

Next to the fortress were many ground vehicles of which about the half of were also military vehicles. Tanks, Battle Mechs, Portable plasma cannons, Photon Artillery, Shield Curriers all the good stuff. The other half was transport and construction vehicles.

These were all the prerequisites of an official fight classified as a "Ground Battle", even if the rules were as simple as:

1. No use of vehicles capable of flying(Levitation is allowed but only vehicles that have a max levitation height of up to 3 meters)

2. Any Collateral damage must be paid to those who suffer the damage

And that’s it.

The fights being official ensured that people in the area knew a battle would be happening and wouldn’t join in not knowing what’s going on.

Despite the abundance of vehicles not too many people were to be seen, most of them would be either controlled from a station, or they used combat AIs.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The game encouraged players not to camp in Control stations however by making people actually fighting on the battlefield a lot stronger. You could still be OP this way… If you could afford having a dozen or more machines and you were able to control them all at once efficiently.

AI controlled vehicles were the weakest in this aspect, so usually they were equipped with the strongest weapons possible to be installed, but this meant they were basically stationary and had almost no armor. And so they were always placed behind shields.

This has been the meta ever since the balance patch that nerfed the AI controlled vehicle damage.

He walked in through one of the hangars irately and threw short and impolite greetings at his other guildmates as he went towards the waypoint on his HUD.

Despite his rudeness the other players were not offended. They knew him to have a short temper so they greeted him like they would anyone else. But obviously no one tried to stop him for a chat.

And that’s how he basically crashed into the room indicated by the waypoint. The large bang of the poor door slamming into the wall quieted down any conversation in the meeting room.

He paused for a few seconds looking around the room with a scowl and raised his hand for a few moments which was meant to be a greeting before he started making his way towards the center of the room with angry steps. Some nodded or returned the wave, but they stayed silent.

The heavy footsteps were the only sound in the room before Aiden arrived before a girl.

She had a slim figure and long black hair. She wore black clothing which gave her a gothic look. She looked beautiful... Although that wasn’t really unique to her, this was a video game after all, you could look like anything you wanted… Within reason of course.

He looked into her purple eyes which stared back at her coldy as if to oppose the fury in his burning eyes.

They stood like that for a few seconds like lovers lost in each other's gaze.

Before Aiden ruined the scene by asking:

“What the fuck are we doing here?” His voice was quiet, yet everyone in the room heard it since it was completely silent.

The girl blinked once and if you looked hard you could see the internal sigh she let out.

“Obviously, we are here for a battle. It is you responsibility to fight for the guild when asked.”

“Why? Why would you fight before a DAMN update?! Everyone in the game knows that another Galaxy quest will come right after the update and we have to be ready.”

“We are always ready, we prepared for months.”

“The update is coming out TODAY! We should all be at the markets waiting to get the new items!”

“Our other members are alr…”

“HAH! Sure, they will get what the company needs, but what about what I want?!” He scanned the room before turning back. “What about what everyone in this room wants?”

The room went silent…

No one came to the defense of her as if confirming that they weren’t here because they wanted to.

“I clearly informed everyone that they would be getting a bonus for participating in this battle.”

“For being FORCED to participate.”

“I asked everyone their opinion before they agreed.”

“Oh really? I can’t remember agreeing to anything!”

“The majority of the people agreed to the battle, and you were informed in a message.”

Aiden clicked his tongue. They did probably send him something about it but he thought it was just some marketing garbage.

“Obviously they agreed, you would kick them out of the guild otherwise! I bet anyone who didn’t agree will get no bonus at all!”

This time it seemed like despite her cold expression so far she could not help but let out a sigh.

“That’s obviously not true, everyone will get a bonus of equivalent value.”

Before Aiden could continue she raised a hand.

“I admit that this is a personal matter I asked your help for, and I’m glad so many of you agreed to help even if you had other matters to attend to.”

Aiden snorted before commenting mockingly “Ob-fucking-viously they have ‘other matters to do’! If you want to help your little brother do it by yourself! Do you know how old my AI’s model is? It was added 17 years ago in two-thousand-twenty-fucking-eight when I just started going to elementary school! I want a new AI, and the blackmarket will be empty in second after the upgrade launches!”

Aiden didn’t notice because of his fury, but she looked away for a moment and her expression turned sad for a moment.

“One of the guild rules is that we do everything together, I can’t afford to not have everyone here, we our fighting against our biggest enemy.”

He shook his head sadly. “I really don’t give a shit you know. I dropped out of college half a year ago and lost my job a few weeks ago and I have to go to interviews basically every freakin day and what do I come online for? This fucking shit!”

The girl took a breath but couldn’t say whatever she wanted.

“You just love working me like a slave don’t you.”

Whatever compassion was about to come to her face immediately disappeared.

“You should be happy to be in this guild.”

“Yeah right, maybe I should just quit!” This got some blinks from the audience which seemed to be the first real reaction they had.

“Go ahead for all I care.”

“Great then we agree!”

“You forfeit you discounted premium subscription, and please leave all your items you got with the help of the guild here and leave right now.”

This made him pause.

They kept silent for about 20 seconds before one of the other girls finally spoke up.

“So do we still have to keep silent for dramatic effect or…”

Aiden’s rage finally seemed to abade as he glanced at the girl he was arguing with and seeing her angry expression he realized he was an ass.

Aiden’s ego still didn’t let him apologize in words, but at least his expression turned apologetic. She noticed this and her expression softened.

*Sigh* “Fine, you win! But I still hate you Lilith.”

“That feeling is mutual then.” Lilith had her usual cold expression but the tone of her voice was mocking.

“And one last thing… Sven, if I see this video online I’ll take that recorder and shove it right up your ass!”

That comment caused the whole room to burst out laughing.

Sven could barely contain his laughter as he replied. “Oh no no no, we will release this alright! Another episode the Aiden vs. Lilith drama.. WHOA!” Sven was startled when the boy lunged at him suddenly and barely managed to roll to the side.

“Pass it here! Quick!” Shouted one of the girls.

“Fuck you too Nira!” Shouted Aiden when he failed to get the device and he didn’t realize he gradually started grinning as he started chasing the others as they tried to keep the device away from him.

Seeing these 20-30 year old 'adults' playing around, Lilith couldn’t help it and her mouth turned into a small smile as well.