Lizzy and the others arrived on the battlefield and saw the devastation that was caused by Maria and her Summon. The enemy factions’ players were no longer around since they had already begun retreating the moment they had arrived close by to the battlefield but thankfully enough, they did find their players still on the battlefield and were recuperating together with Maria.
The leader of the group that was with Maria had reported that there were around a thousand players in their group at the start but now, that one thousand had been reduced to only a few hundred. This was already good since the enemy forces sent to intercept them were around 10,000 players which was 10 times the amount they had. 5,000 normal players split into 2 groups, each from the Celestial Order and the Pantheon, were sent to probe their strength at the start. Maria had gone to intercept the 2,500 from the Pantheon while they dealt with the 2,500 from the Celestial Order.
They did their best but still lost quite a lot of players. Despite the players being only ‘normal’ players, those normal players were still much better than their group since they had better equipment as they were part of the top-ranking guilds.
Maria was able to deal with the 2,500 players on her end but ended up having to fight with the 5,000 elite players that were deployed afterward but if those elite players had attacked the Goddess Faction player group, no one in the group would’ve been left alive except for Maria right now. Thankfully, both sides had held out and Maria was able to force the enemy elite players to retreat since she had stalled for enough time that her faction’s reinforcements arrived to save them.
This time around, Maria didn’t win but she also didn’t lose. This confrontation ended with an undecided outcome, but Maria couldn’t help feeling a bit bitter about this since if the battle continued, she would’ve eventually lost. She wasn’t going to deny that she had been hiding behind Bahamut’s protection so once that protection expired after an hour, she would’ve been defeated not long after. There was only so much she could do by herself but she wasn’t going to complain that she was outnumbered because, at any given time, she could’ve used her ability to summon her Personal Army which would’ve turned the tide in her favor immediately.
Her 10,000-strong Personal Army had many 3rd-class Ascension NPCs that would be able to single-handedly dominate 100 of the elite enemy players since they were quite high-leveled–50 to 100 levels higher than her. Then there was her Summon Vassal skill which allowed her to bring Ash, Carmilla, or Alexa to her side with the former 2 being at the level of NPC bosses.
With her Queen sub-class, Maria could never be outnumbered so she couldn’t complain but in this battle, she had decided not to use it since her Personal Army was currently fighting her war on Vanhal. Bringing them over to Gaia to fight Gaia’s war wasn’t something that she as a Queen, could do on a whim. Her objective as the Queen of the Dire was to take over the Blood Continent, not to save planet Gaia. That was her own personal problem that she needed to resolve alone with the players of her faction.
“Mary, I’m glad you’re alright!” Lizzy said as she immediately went to hug Maria who was slowly getting up from her spot.
“I-I’m a bit exhausted right now…I used up a lot of SP and had to keep myself focused for so long which is extremely tiring…” Maria replied as she hugged her back.
“That’s why you shouldn’t have done something that reckless! You really are an idiot through and through!”
“Hey, that’s mean…”
“Don’t deny it! I just remembered that with your flying capabilities, you could’ve just flown away and avoided the battle entirely! However, you actually stayed and fought them!”
“Well…I couldn’t just leave these guys behind…right?”
“Oh, please, I know that you stayed not for them but for the thrill of the battle. You can’t trick me with such an excuse!” Lizzy said as she flicked Maria on the forehead.
“Ouch, that hurts!”
“Enough chit-chat, let’s get out of here before those guys decide to come back and attack us!”
Lilith came over and helped Maria up and said, “Hehe, you did well. It was crazy, but you did well!”
“T-Thanks, Lily.”
“Haha, I just can’t believe you’d be crazy enough to actually fight 5,000 players! That Summon of yours is crazy though, to think it could help you stave off the attacks of that many players. You’re lucky that we came in time before the Summon wore off!”
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“Yeah, I would’ve been screwed if you guys hadn’t come. Thanks!”
“Oh, so now she’s showing thanks?” Lizzy said as she flicked her on the head again.
“Owuh!”
“Shut it, you nearly died earlier. No more reckless acts from you, got that?”
“I only acted recklessly because I was certain I’d be able to live…”
Another flick came and this time it left a bright, stinging red mark on Maria’s head. The group quickly returned to the Iron Mountains without any obstructions. The newly arrived group recuperated for a bit while Lizzy and the others began working on building the base that Gaia told them to make the moment they arrived in the Realm of War.
A few hours later, just before the completion of their base, a few Celestial Order and Pantheon player parties came to the Iron Mountains and began attacking their faction’s players. Unlike the previous time, these players didn’t hesitate to use their Summons to attack them and the Goddess Faction players finally noticed that these players were the Red Named players that had been a problem for the two enemy factions.
“Dammit, why are these PKers attacking us? I thought they’d just be causing more trouble for their factions but now they’re actually helping?” Lizzy asked.
“They’ve been bought out by their respective factions to hunt down our players,” Lilith said.
“Did one of your spies tell you this?”
“Not my spy, but just an independent informant. She’s the Citadel Guildmaster’s girlfriend. We met by chance on Eur and she became my friend. She’s the one who’s been giving me some information on the Celestial Order’s movements.”
Maria overheard what Lilith said and couldn’t help but interject the moment she heard that it was about her big brother.
“Wait, what was that? Did you say the Citadel Guildmaster’s girlfriend?”
“Citadel? You mean Gerald’s guild?” Lizzy questioned once it finally clicked in her head what Lilith said.
“Yeah, is something wrong?” Lilith asked back.
“I didn’t know my brother had a girlfriend…” Maria said as she rubbed her chin thoughtfully. She decided to give up on thinking about it and continued to say, “Well, if it’s from Cindy, that self-proclaimed girlfriend of his, then the source is reliable.”
“I thought Gerald was turning on us but I guess it’s just him trying his best to help his little sister by acting as a spy. Anyway, this is going to be a problem,” Lizzy said.
She sent a few teams to block the PKers from moving any deeper into the Iron Mountains but they experienced a few casualties from doing so. A few hours later, the Iron Mountain Fortress was completed so now, the Goddess Faction finally had their first base in the Realm of War. It was then that Lizzy finally learned the use of the Fortress and she quickly had all of the players that were too weak to fight the PKers to quickly head inside of the fortress and hide.
“Dammit, the fortresses decide how many players we can have inside of the Realm of War. Although Gaia sent 70,000 of us at the start, many were ejected from the realm because they were separated from the main group,” Lizzy paused before looking at the player count in their faction chat channel before continuing, “We only have roughly 50,000 left of us left so we can’t afford to lose any more players as we can actually only have 10,000 players present in the Realm of War since all we have is just 1 fortress!”
“So unless we build more fortresses, every loss is a permanent loss, huh?” Sky said as she walked into the center hall where Maria, Lizzy, and the rest of the Goddess Faction leaders were in.
“Welcome back, Sky, how was it?” Lizzy greeted and asked.
“Well, we managed to drive the PK Parties away for now but they’ll probably be back soon enough.”
“Casualties?”
“Just a handful, but from what I heard earlier, that’s a problem, right?”
“Yeah.”
One of the guild masters in the hall joined the conversation and said, “The enemy factions have hired those PKers to whittle down our numbers until we’re only left with 10,000 players. It’s a smart tactic since it’ll also keep us busy from conquering any more neutral land to build fortresses in.”
“There are only so many places we can conquer. If we’re hindered by the PK guild, it’ll only become worse for us as time goes on,” Another guild master chimed in.
“We can always conquer one of the enemy factions’ bases, right?”
It was a pretty ignorant thing to say considering their situation but Lizzy thought that it was a plausible course of action. After all, they did have Maria whose Summon was extremely powerful so taking over a base seemed possible.
“We’ll only resort to that option if all of our other avenues have been cut off. For now, look at the map, we’ve got a few places nearby that haven’t been conquered by the 2 factions. We should move to secure those areas and replenish our forces. Remember, after a few days, the NPCs will start entering the fray. The number of NPCs we’ll receive from the Goddess will likely be dependant on how many fortresses we have so let’s get moving,” Lizzy said as she pointed at the unconquered areas on the map.
“What about those PK parties?”
“I’ll leave them to Sky and Maria, is that fine? You two are the only unaffiliated Awakened Players in our faction. I need to be with the teams that will conquer the areas,” She said as she turned to look at Maria and Sky.
“I already planned on dealing with those guys. They took out one of my friends earlier so I’m going to make them pay,” Sky said.
Maria was also onboard with the idea as she said, “Leave it to me. Since they’re being fearless and using their summons, it’ll be a perfect chance to get Gaia the energy she needs to restore the planet.”
“Great, I’ll leave those meddlers in your capable hands.”
With their plan settled, Lizzy mobilized the elite players in their faction and started moving towards the areas they needed to conquer. They met a few of the PK parties but Sky and Maria quickly dealt with them. The PKers had high levels thanks to their PKs but they weren’t all that powerful since dying once meant losing all of their equipment and items so although they were feared by the weaker players and some of the higher leveled players, Maria and Sky didn’t see them as a threat, only high leveled punching bags.
Until now, Sky nor Lizzy had revealed their Summons while the others in the faction had already started using their Summons since they needed the absolute edge in all of their fights. Losing their lives meant permanent ejection from the Realm of War, at least for now. This wouldn’t be a problem once their faction created more bases but right now, this was all they could do. It was dangerous because if they lost their Summon in battle, it would mean losing energy for the planet’s recovery.