Chapter 45: 100,000 Eastern Players Surrounding 10,000 Westerners!
...
Ding, ding, ding—!
The system notification pings were relentless, sounding like a Gatling gun in Seito's ears. He didn't filter them—as long as the username looked Eastern or local, he hit "Accept." These were the rank-and-file; they didn't need security clearance to act as the guild's iron fist.
The member count of the Fatui exploded.
1,000... 5,000... 10,000... 50,000...
It wasn't until the count hit 100,000 that Seito finally disabled the auto-accept. He opened the guild announcement tab.
[Sei: Assemble at the Floor 11 Boss Labyrinth.]
He sent the message and glanced at his companions. "Let's move. Time to clear some trash."
Minutes earlier... Floor 11 Labyrinth Entrance.
A sea of Western players stood their ground. Most were travelers or expatriates currently playing on the Eastern Server who had answered the call of Laughing Coffin. How did a notorious PK guild get these prideful players to follow them? Simple: "Whale" power. They were being paid to be here.
At the front of the formation stood a high-ranking officer of Laughing Coffin. He wore a grim, stylized skull mask that radiated a murderous aura.
"Pathetic," the Skull Mask hissed, glaring down at a middle-aged man kneeling before him.
Laughing Coffin had been robbed. In every other game, they were the ones who did the stripping and killing. To be mugged within days of God's Domain launching was a stain on their reputation that couldn't be washed out with words. When the Western headquarters heard about it, the Guild Master had personally ordered this hit on Seito.
World Top 3? The Skull Mask scoffed. Just hype. No one stays undefeated forever.
"Sei has that skill... the one that looks like Kamui. Can we actually hit him?" Radiant Knight asked, standing beside the officer. As a representative of The Church of Light, he was feeling significantly less confident than his ally. Anyone who had seen the footage of Seito's "intangibility" knew how terrifying it was.
The Skull Mask waved a hand dismissively. "Relax. I completed a hidden quest earlier. I have a debuff skill that increases an opponent's skill activation time by five seconds."
He grinned behind his mask. "That 'Kamui' is just a skill. Once I lock his casting, we focus fire and delete him before he can blink."
The Radiant Knight nodded, feeling a spark of hope. With a hard counter to Seito's defense, ten thousand players could turn him into a pin cushion in seconds.
They waited.
Then, the horizon began to change.
At first, it was just a few dozen players. Then hundreds. Then thousands. A massive tide of Eastern Server players began to materialize, stopping exactly one hundred meters away from the Western formation. They didn't charge; they simply stood there, an ocean of silent steel.
"What is... why are there so many?" The Radiant Knight stammered. "Are they all here to watch?"
He hadn't checked the World Chat since his initial provocation. He had assumed it would be full of insults toward his mother, so he had muted the global feed to keep his focus.
The Skull Mask was equally confused. He had been fine-tuning his equipment and hadn't noticed the shift in numbers.
"Um... Boss?" The kneeling man whispered, his voice trembling. "You guys haven't looked at the chat. The Fatui started recruiting. Their numbers are... well, they're at least ten times ours now."
Skull Mask: "..."
RadiantKnight: "..."
Smack!
"F***!" The Skull Mask delivered a backhand to the man's face. "Why are you just telling me this now?!"
"I—you told me not to speak unless spoken to!" the man cried, clutching his cheek.
"What now?" The Radiant Knight hissed, his voice tight with panic. He wanted to log out. He wanted to be anywhere else.
"We fight," the Skull Mask growled, his eyes darkening. "If we run now, the guild loses face globally. Besides, you were the one who called him out. You think he's going to let you walk away if you log out? He'll hunt you across every floor."
RadiantKnight turned pale. You son of a bitch, you're the one who told me to post that!
But he knew it was true. There was no escape.
As the minutes ticked by, the surrounding army swelled. The 10,000 Western players were now completely encircled by a staggering 100,000 locals. The atmosphere was heavy, but on the Eastern side, the mood was almost festive.
"Look at them. They were so loud five minutes ago, now they're quiet as mice."
"Hey, look at that group of girls in the back! I call dibs on the blonde ones!"
"Screw you, I'm going for the ones in the priest robes!"
"Lmao, you guys are actually picking loot before the fight even starts?"
The banter was cut short by a sudden ripple through the crowd.
"THE GUILD MASTER IS HERE!"
The 100,000 players snapped to attention. Like the parting of the Red Sea, the massive army split down the middle, creating a wide, unobstructed path.
Seito strolled forward, hands in his pockets, looking less like a general and more like a man taking a walk in the park.
Where were the others? Sora, Shiro, and the girls were too shy to walk through a crowd of 100,000 cheering people, so they had opted to use the "Guild Member Teleport" to jump into the center of the fray once the fighting started.
For now, it was just him. One man, walking toward ten thousand
.....
Thank you for reading.