The match between myself the other three continued to escalate, Ryone pursing her lips as she examined the field. By this point, she had managed to get a few rather powerful seeds, but it didn’t seem like it would be enough to turn the tides. Terra’s tactic with the Forgotten had managed to critically delay our development. Worse, she was still more than likely receiving real time updates on our progress thanks to her spies within our bases.

At this point, the only way to guarantee that we get rid of the spies would be to abandon our base and start over, relying on Ryone’s barrier to keep the Forgotten inside. Even then, it just depends on how many people Terra has scattered around. The worst part… if we do that, we’re giving up all of our development so far, which would still put us at a huge disadvantage against Irena.

My brow furrowed as I thought that through, before shaking my head. There wasn’t much that I would be able to do to stop Terra’s ploy anymore. If I knew her goal ahead of time, I might have been able to do something before her people were so deeply entrenched, but now…

The only thing left to do was to go full force into development. I set up policies with my people to be on the lookout for the Forgotten, immediately attacking if they found them and being wary of hostile actions taken by other demons. While this led to a more paranoid community, there wasn’t anything else I could do about it. After a few minutes, it even resulted in the death of one Forgotten that got too close to a work site.

With this in mind, I pretended that the Forgotten weren’t there, and developed my forces as quickly as I could. Unfortunately… it was already too late. I looked up at Terra to try and read her expression, but what I saw out of the corner of my eye was a calm smile from Irena instead.

Above my main base, a golden circle of light appeared, illuminating the skies. The demons all looked up in unison, some even deploying defensive abilities to try and protect themselves and their surroundings. Ryone looked over in shock as a pillar of light descended, immediately wiping out my entire base. Her eyes focused on the ring of light, noticing something inside of it. “Binary?”

Drawn by her realization, I took a look as well, and could see shifting binary within the light. She used Ryone’s own invented magic system against her? Of course, there was more to it than that. This was a large-scale destructive magic that targeted specified coordinates. Coordinates that she had thanks to Terra.

I looked at the few demons I had that were outside of the city at the time of the blast, and began moving them towards Ryone’s territory. “We need to set up a new base.” I spoke through gritted teeth. The barrier that Ryone had established wasn’t meant for defense, merely to identify and attack spies.

Sadly, Ryone shook her head. “I think it’s too late.” She said with a bitter smile, a similar golden ring appearing above her city. “Irena wouldn’t have attacked like that unless she had the resources to strike both of us.”

Unfortunately, it was just as Ryone said. Her own city was subsequently annihilated by a golden pillar of light, leaving us with only stragglers. Still, stragglers were better than nothing, right? At the very least, we weren’t in cities infested with the Forgotten.

As I was thinking that, golden light flashed from the sky, six figures descending towards my scouts that I had sent towards Ryone. Wrapped in golden light, these figures wore highly advanced mechanical armor, their brilliant, white wings covered in thin layers of metal. “She went angels… angels with Arcanobinary.”

I couldn’t help but mutter to myself in surprise. With her troops fully armored, and mine little more than scouts, it only took a matter of moments for the battle to end. At the same time, ambushes were being carried out on both mine and Ryone’s remaining pieces, angels descending from the skies and targeting them all accurately.

Once the notification that the match had been lost, the platform went dark. Irena and Terra laughed, hugging each other and celebrating their victory. At the same time, I could only send a curious look at Terra. “I get how you found our bases, but how did you even give her the locations of all of our remnant forces?”

Terra grinned knowingly at that, turning to face me. “That’s simple. From beginning to end, I never focused on anything other than unit production. I had eyes on more than eighty percent of the map, so it was easy to keep track of where you were.”

Ryone’s eyes turned almost listless at that reveal. “So even if we had established a new base like he said…”

“I had a Forgotten stationed near every crystal vein on the map, yup!” Terra laughed at that, nodding her head. “I told Irena the plan from the start. All she had to do was focus on developing. I would sabotage the two of you and give live updates on your progress. Once we had made sure that you were far enough behind for a quick finish… well, the facts speak for themselves.”

I couldn’t help but not my head. In truth, this was a tactic that could only work in a team match. If it were a one on one, either one of us would have been able to defeat this strategy from Terra, or fight on even footing with Irena. But, because she ran interference like that, she managed to secure the win for Irena.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Still, a loss was a loss. I shot Ryone a bitter smile, which she returned right away. “Alright, then… to the victor go the spoils. What would the two of you like to do next?”

Irena and Terra both blinked at that, looking confused. “We weren’t playing for any stakes, were we?” Terra asked with a tilt of her head.

“I figured that if there were stakes involved, no matter how small, the system might interfere with your performance to limit your freedom.” I spoke honestly. In other words, I had only considered the idea before, and had just decided on it now. “So, winner gets to choose our next activity.”

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

Ten days in the Meeting passed by like a rather welcomed vacation, but vacations always ended too soon… By the time it was over, I was just regretting not being able to stay longer. I bet the highest Ranked Keepers can open up spaces like this whenever they want, though the idea of pausing Standard Time is likely closed even to them.

We hadn’t set up a specific point to meet at the end of the meeting, but that didn’t really matter. Once the red door appeared in front of me to take me back to the Admin Room, everyone immediately returned with me, as if having been teleported. At the same time, Standard Time resumed. I received three notifications all at once.

The first notification was of the points that I had received from everyone that had participated this time. To my surprise, Tsubaki managed to break the record for the number of points won with a full eighteen thousand. She also seemed slightly conflicted, going by her facial expression, but I would ask her about that in a bit. Sadly, there weren’t any special tickets this time.

The second notification was that my ‘invasion’ had been sent off to Bellarose, completing our trade agreement. Since I had arranged for that before the Meeting, there wasn’t anything else for me to worry about on that end.

Finally, the third notification was about my next opponent, a Keeper named ‘LoneWolf’. I was on the defense this time, so I would need to get information about LoneWolf as quickly as I could. Or, at least… that was the assumption I had at first.

As I was thinking who to ask about LoneWolf, a fourth notification appeared in front of me. I arched a brow, glancing down at it before my eyes widened.

Warning!

An attack ticket has been used against you! Your scheduled match has been altered accordingly. Please check the updated information!

I… have a very bad feeling about this. I looked over at Terra, whose face had gone positively pale, and refreshed the match information.

Opponent name: RagnaRocker

Battle Type: Defense

My eyes went wide as I saw that information. RagnaRocker was the same Keeper that had originally targeted Bellarose, one who according to the old man specialized in apocalyptic entities. It seemed like he saw that I was the one who blocked him from attacking Bellarose, and managed to get an attack ticket of his own to get revenge.

If he is aiming for revenge… does that mean that he had gathered enough monsters to confidently take out Bellarose, or is he just using me as an example to deter other people? If it was the former, then… whoever replaced Bellarose as his previous target was very likely doomed, since he would not have likely had the chance to inform the creatures under his control about the changed schedule.

Either way, this was bad. “Chel! We’ve got a problem!” I called out, startling the others that had returned with me. Terra lifted a hand and snapped her fingers, sending them all off in different directions to return to their own tasks, as Chel herself appeared in front of me, looking confused. With James having been unable to come with us to the meeting, Chel herself stayed behind as well. Her identity was rather sensitive, after all.

“Uh… what’s going on?” She asked, looking between me and Terra, seeing the serious looks on our faces. “Who is it?”

“RagnaRocker. An apocalypse specialist.” Chel’s eyes widened at my words, looking at Terra for confirmation and receiving a brisk nod.

“What method of apocalypse?” She asked hurriedly, already starting to pace back and forth.

“Void monsters, according to the information that I’ve heard. They don’t have any preset rules, just specializing in eliminating life from worlds.” Chel bit her lip when I explained that, her ears flat against her skull.

“That’ll be tricky. If he really wants to go after us, he can send world breakers. Forget just wiping out life, it could destroy entire dimensions. The potential of a world breaker is the standard to rise to the fourth tier, after all.”

My brow twitched as she spoke. “That’s… not a good thing to hear right now, Chel. I would like solutions. Ideas. Anything that we can prepare. We have one hundred days. I’d rather not be unprepared.”

“Right, sorry. This is above my paygrade. I don’t know how much I can do with my knowledge on the subject. The first thing we should do is drastically reinforce our void defenses. If he sends world breakers or specialized apocalypses, our current barriers won’t be enough. Combining the barriers with the Hyperlane Network will offer a small amount of defense and weaken the rules of a void monster in the protected territories, but everywhere else will be doomed.”

That… was at least a start. “So, we need to make sure in the next month that all of our inhabited colonies are under the protection of the network?”

Chel hesitated to answer, before ultimately shaking her head. “It’s not enough. When I say weaken, I mean that the apocalypse will only be able to almost kill its targets. Crippling ninety percent of the population is still an apocalypse in itself, it’s just a slower one. If they’re a world breaker, then the network won’t do anything.”

“We need backups, countermeasures, and failsafes. I’m going to have to make contingencies for any type of apocalypse that I can come up with. I’ll get back to you once I have more. Until then, reinforcing our void defenses and nurturing powerful Fallen Gods should be your highest priority.” With that, Chel immediately turned, rushing back to the hall to head for her room.