When Maria returned to the game, she spawned in one of the Goddess Faction bases and quickly took off to regroup with Lizzy and the rest who were at the Iron Mountains Fortress. Tomorrow was going to be the day when the faction NPCs entered the stage and things would become more serious. Once the NPCs arrived, the neutral areas that hadn’t been conquered or were still being contested would immediately close off and the war would start for real.
The Goddess Faction had managed to stay in the war and had conquered 10 areas until today so they had 10 fortresses in total. The number of players they could have in the Realm of War was 100,000 so it was a good number to stop at and prepare for what was to come tomorrow. The other 2 factions had a few more than they did but it wasn’t by too much. The Celestial Order had 13 fortresses while the Pantheon only had 12. Originally, they had the most fortresses but lost 2 of them in battle.
One was lost to the Celestial Order and the other was lost to the Goddess Faction. It wasn’t planned but when the Celestial Order went to attack one of the Pantheon’s fortresses, it was a coincidence that Maria and her faction had gone to attack one of the Pantheon’s fortresses as well. Since they were dealing with 2 attacks it was confusing and in the end, they lost both of those fortresses since they wanted to cut their losses.
Having the most fortresses didn’t mean anything if the players sent into the Realm of War were mediocre. Only the elite players would play a significant war in the final battle while the rest were regulated to be supporting actors or worst, cannon fodder.
Maria arrived at the Iron Mountain Fortress in no time with her flying speed and this time, every one of the faction’s leaders and elite players was present. It was an important discussion so those that were living in different time zones had to match their sleeping schedule for the next few in-game days. Thankfully for Maria and her friends, it was the weekend so they didn’t have to worry about school and could be online when the war started.
“Alright, everyone, I’m glad that you all took some time off your schedules and sleeping hours to attend this meeting,” Lizzy started off by saying once the meeting began.
“We all know that tomorrow is likely going to be the day when the final battle that will conclude this Main Story Quest stage since the NPCs will be arriving with their armies.”
“Do we have a plan, Guildmaster Lisbet?” One of the guild masters raised their hand and asked.
“There’s no concrete one as of yet. We’ll have to adjust to the NPCs’ movements and act accordingly. However, the NPCs’ might will probably be too much for a few of us to take so only those that are level 180 or higher should move together with the NPCs.”
“What about the rest of us?”
“The rest will have to stay away, especially once the battle starts. You don’t want to be caught in the crossfire and get ejected from the realm.”
“Okay, but what will we do then?”
“Depending on what happens, your jobs will be to attack the enemy players or even their fortresses. As for which side we’ll target, we might need to split the players into teams, those that have reached the requirement to follow the NPC army and those that will attack the bases of the two factions,” Lizzy said.
“Wouldn’t this divide our forces too thinly?” Lilith said as she raised a concern.
“The NPCs that are coming will fill in those numbers,” Maria suddenly said.
Many people didn’t understand since they hadn’t interacted much with the NPCs but Maria knew that there were more NPCs on the planet that sided with Gaia than those that sided with the two factions who were hellbent on their war and didn’t care about the planet.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“It’s something Gaia told me before we entered the realm. As long as we manage to hold out for as long as we can without being ejected from this place, her forces will storm into the realm after a few days and deal with the forces of the two factions. All we need to do is worry about the players and the only way to permanently keep those guys out is to destroy their fortresses.”
A guild master stood up and said right after, “Wait, doesn’t this mean we should concentrate our forces on destroying the bases then?”
“Haha, no, of course not,” Maria said as she shot down the thought. “Remember, our goal is not to win this battle by destroying everyone else but to kill as many Summons as we can so we can provide Gaia with enough energy to restore the planet. The outcome of this war is inconsequential to us.”
Maria’s reasoning was sound. There was nothing on their quest window which indicated that they needed to win the deciding battle. They only needed to win the war by killing as many Summons as they could since that was their true objective.
“What Maria said is true, the quest did say we only needed to provide enough energy for the Goddess, not to win any of the battles,” Sky said, agreeing with Maria’s words.
Quest: Goddess’s Shield Rank: SS Type: Chain Quest Description: Gaia’s final wish is to prevent the war from happening on Gaia, but after seeing that it is inevitable, she wants you to help her minimize the damage done to the planet. The Goddess has used a large amount of her Divinity to grant you and the rest of her followers the ability to heal the planet but the requirement is the energy expelled when a Summon is sent back to the Void Sea. Take part in the war and prevent the planet’s destruction! Objective 1: Kill as many Summoners and Summons as you can! (Duration: 3 Weeks) (Complete)
Objective 2: Interfere with the War alongside the other followers of your faction. Kill as many Summons as you can and send them back to the Void Sea to help restore the planet’s condition! (0/???) Rewards: Unknown Penalty: - - - Note: Failing or Completing the Quest will lead to a different Main Story outcome
Note*: At the end of the war, when the number of total Summon kills are tallied, if the Goddess’s faction does not send more Summons back to the Void than any other faction, then the second objective of the quest will be declared as a failure!
Lizzy then continued by adding, “That’s why we need to send only a few of our strongest players to help the NPCs, thus the level requirement I suggested. We’ll only be the ‘distraction’ while the true fight will happen on the other two teams’ end.”
“Understood.”
“That’s a good plan.”
“I agree with it.”
Many of the leaders in the room were a bit unsatisfied earlier since Lizzy had placed a level limit on those attending the final battle with the NPCs. They thought that Lizzy was trying to exert her power as their leader unfairly by hogging all of the potential rewards obtained by the final battle but that wasn’t the case at all. She was just looking at the bigger picture since their quest clearly stated that they didn’t need to win the final battle.
Those strong players would only play the role of being a decoy while the true fight for their faction would happen on their ends. Thanks to Gaia’s blessing that enhanced everyone in the Goddess Faction’s EXP gain, a lot of the previously low-leveled players that were unqualified to enter the Realm of War if they were on the other 2 factions’ side, had leveled up by a lot.
They killed player parties that were 10 to 20 levels higher than them on average every single day so, with the EXP gain buff, they leveled up quickly. Many of the Goddess Faction players were now close to level 180 while all of the leaders had passed that level. The average level disparity between the Goddess Faction and the two others had narrowed to the point where there wasn’t that large of a difference anymore.
Attacking the 2 factions’ fortresses and the players that were left to defend them was now plausible for the Goddess Faction thanks to this drastic strength increase. Thanks to that, Lizzy was more than willing to let the other guilds play a bigger role in their faction quest.
Lizzy turned to the two strongest players in their faction, Maria and Sky, and said, “Sky, Mary, I need you guys with me tomorrow at the final battle’s stage. We’re going to summon our Primals once we see the other two factions start fighting and using their Summons.”
“I’m fine with that,” Sky replied with an eager smirk.
“So we’re going to kill as many Summons as we can from both the players and NPCs tomorrow, huh? I better tell Bahamut not to hold back then.”
Everyone was surprised to hear that Maria was still holding back some power but was that really the case here? Even Maria didn’t know but she did remember that when Bahamut was in his original form, he had crimson wings, not the black ones that she saw from when she first summoned him. That slight difference, even though only an incarnation was summoned, should still be significant. From the TV broadcast earlier, Maria saw that Sky’s Leviathan was extremely powerful and she somehow felt that Bahamut was lacking in comparison.
She wondered why even though both of their Summons had shown their own unique powers but she felt that Bahamut was missing something crucial when she had first summoned him. It was likely that he was holding back his power or something so Maria said this in hopes that she was right. If she wasn’t then she could just pull out her [Perfect Shin-Zantetsuken] that she had been keeping in reserve all this time.
Anyway, she still had more power to show so what she said earlier wasn’t a lie. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow to arrive so for the rest of the day, she went around hunting enemy players and their Summons while the Goddess Faction leaders continued to cement their plan and make contingencies in the event some things changed during the course of the war.