Everyone present believed that Hecate was likely stronger than Maria because of that one victory she had over her, but Hecate knew that wasn’t the case. If it wasn’t because of the protection that she had from her Primal, she would’ve been logged out from Maria’s reckless suicide attack. From that event, Hecate believed that Maria was a person who was even crazier than she was.
During that battle, Hecate knew that she had a slight advantage over Maria and if they continued to fight, it would’ve ended with her eventual victory. She may not have killed her, but at the very least, Hecate was certain that she could’ve driven Maria back and forced her to retreat. Maria knew that as well, but instead of taking the loss, she decided to do whatever she could to try and eke out a win.
‘Instead of allowing herself to be killed by me, she instead killed herself. The person who defeated her wasn’t me at all… kehehehe…’
Hecate thought that that was very attractive and had become overly obsessed with Maria since then. She even became a secret viewer of Maria's streams though lately, her object of affection and obsession had stopped her daily streams. She desperately wanted to meet her again in the game, so that they can have another intense bout with their fists and swords.
‘She’s just as crazy as me when it comes to fighting…hehehe…she would rather commit suicide than lose to someone else!’
This was what Hecate meant by what she said earlier about her interests being somewhere else now. She wanted to fight Maria again and this time, defeat her properly or lose to her. It didn’t sit well with Hecate that everyone praised her for defeating Maria when she actually didn’t do it–at least, in her opinion.
‘I’m going to properly destroy that girl~’
Eos was explaining things on Hecate’s behalf, but when she started releasing her bloodthirst at the exciting thought of being able to fight against Maria again, the people in the glade turned towards her fearfully and began gripping their weapons tightly.
They thought that they had done something wrong and they were about to be attacked, but thankfully, Hecate’s other persona, Ophelia, interrupted her thoughts and took over their body. Eos was able to finish explaining Hecate’s motives and plans to destroy her own faction, so Ophelia was finally able to speak.
“I-I just want the p-people who f-followed me to h-h-have somewhere to g-go…when I l-leave…” Ophelia struggled to say. She wasn’t used to talking with so many people at once, so she stuttered a few times. Her stuttering and awfully nervous way of talking caused everyone present to grow a bit confused.
“...?”
“Hm?”
“Huh?”
Only Eos knew what was up because he had previous interactions with both Hecate and Ophelia, so he signaled to the people present to just remain quiet.
“A-All of you will b-benefit from the P-P-PK A-Alliance’s destruction… j-just m-make sure t-to take in the p-p-people from the g-groups that I-I’ve list-listed…” Ophelia finished saying her piece and handed Eos a list of people and groups who were part of the original PK Alliance.
They weren’t murderers or crazy warmongers that enjoyed bringing hell to others. Instead, the original PK Alliance before it got too big and had its waters muddied by others, was just a gathering of those who truly loved to fight.
These people gathered together because they had previously been beaten by Hecate and Ophelia. They wanted to fight her again so that they could one day beat her, but everyone that challenged her again, thinking that they had grown stronger, was faced with defeat. Since they couldn’t beat her, they stuck around because they couldn’t accept their loss. This was how the original PK Alliance had formed.
Now, however, it was full of really reprehensible groups and people that only wanted to wreak havoc in the game and destroy the harmony of the regular people playing the game.
Hecate, Ophelia, and her gathering of people who only wanted to fight, didn’t care about these people which allowed them to grow in numbers until, eventually, they became quite large to the point where their reprehensible activities finally caught her group’s attention. She didn’t like what they were doing, so Hecate and Ophelia decided to just destroy the alliance. Of course, the people around her knew what she was going to do and, since they only followed her, they were on board with her idea.
Hecate only needed someone to start her little plan and she heard about Eos, a guild leader who had quite an ambitious plan to build a kingdom for himself on Vanargand. She concocted a plan that–presently–attracted Eos and convinced him to cooperate with her and pull in others who were willing to follow him.
Speaking about the person in question, Eos happily accepted the list of people that Ophelia had handed to him and quickly noted down the renowned PK Alliance members who made a name for themselves in the previous Main Scenario Quest on Gaia.
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Many of the members of the PK Alliance who were close to Hecate had extremely high combat power, which they had displayed in the War Realm stage of Gaia’s Main Scenario Quest. He couldn’t forget just how annoying and helpful they were during that stage of the quest and he wished that instead of following a lunatic like Hecate, they had followed him instead. This was his chance to finally recruit these people into his guild, since their own leader was disowning them and disbanding their alliance.
‘Hehehe, this girl really is crazy. To think she would willingly disband her own faction just because it was growing a bit rotten and because she was bored of it…I’ll be taking them all one way or another. With those powerful players on my side, I won’t be an easy target for Maria and her Dire.’
Eos was always wary of the Dire and the woman who was in control of it. The Dire right now didn’t seem to be on the move or anything, but they already had colonies spread throughout the Vanargand Continent which were occupying various resource deposits and hunting grounds.
All of the places those colonies were set up in were very strategic and everyone who was currently contesting power in Vanargand against themselves and the Lycan Kingdom, viewed those territories as neutral grounds. Of course, they weren’t actually neutral at all. The Dire was one of the major competitors and what people viewed as the likeliest to emerge triumphant in the game for hegemony over the continent.
Right now, they just weren’t moving or showing any activity because the Dire Empress, Maria, was supposedly busy with something else and people deduced with what little information they had on hand that it had nothing to do with the arrival of the players on Vanhal.
The backstory of the continent was about 3 powers fighting for hegemony over the world and the Dire was currently winning. The players believed that the three powers were the 2 original NPC powers, the Vampires and the Lycans, while the third power was Maria’s Dire.
The Dire had already taken over the Blood Faction, 1 of the 2 original powers of Vanhal, and reigned supreme over the Dreyra Continent. They were now trying to conquer the Lycans, the last native power of the planet, and even had them already cornered on their own home grounds, but suddenly, the Dire stopped pushing forward and this happened just before the players had arrived on Vanhal.
At first, the players thought that it was because Maria was preparing for their arrival and had many things to deal with because of them, but after a few weeks with no news about the next stage of the Main Story Quest and her complete absence from the public eye, people started to believe that she was busy with something else. It likely didn’t have anything to do with the Main Story Quest though, because Unitale’s devs had announced that Maria, even as the Dire Empress and a main character for Vanhal’s Main Story, was still just a player.
She couldn’t influence the progression of the Main Story Quest and this piece of information relieved many frontline players’ fears that she was trying to manipulate the Main Story Quest’s progression. Since the Main Story Quest wasn’t what was keeping her busy, then the big question remained, what was keeping the Dire’s Empress from continuing her conquest of Vanargand?
For Maria to be busy with something else that warranted her to stop all of her nation’s current activities, such as conquering the Lycans and taking over the Vanargand Continent, which was, in everyone’s eyes, extremely important. Just what was she doing then?
This was a question that no one could answer and many hoped that Maria would just come out and say what she was doing, but unfortunately, no matter how many people tried to ask on the forums or dig around for information from those known to be close to the Dire’s Empress–both NPC and players–no one got anything about Maria’s current activities.
The appointment of a few player vassals didn’t go unnoticed, however. Everyone was aware that Maria had appointed 2 players to become her nation’s Dukes and had given them land to manage. One of them was the Citadel Guild’s guildmaster, who was known to be Maria’s IRL brother and the other was someone whose identity had just recently been discovered to be her eldest IRL brother.
From their activities, no one was able to deduce that Maria was doing anything, since the two new Dukes were only managing their lands and doing the tasks their sister’s other vassals had given to them. There wasn’t anything too suspicious about their activities. They were just doing what any landowner and vassal inside of the game would be doing, developing their lands and serving their leader.
Everyone was curious about what Maria was doing, but they were all looking at the wrong place. Instead of looking at what was happening on the surface, they should have been looking further down and see what was happening under the ground.