"Haha, we got all the points now! Boss, let's serve the other guilds some surprises!"
"Yes! It's time for us to grab first place!"
"No, wait. Let's win a few more challenges and destroy everyone before the last challenge starts!"
Despite only achieving second place the mood among TwinThieves was understandably ecstatic. The opposite was the case on Infinito's side unfortunately. The elven thief they sent didn't know which strategy to follow and lastly decided to trust her gut feeling. Unfortunately, this didn't turn out well for the guild. While she gathered eight chests before ending the challenge, she ultimately lost her guild some precious seconds.
Overall, the distance between the four guilds shrank after the ninth challenge. Infinito was still in the lead but only had an advantage of about twenty seconds on TwinThieves. Another fifteen seconds behind that were Beast Den, followed by Dream Avenue with a gap of forty seconds.
Everyone remained confident knowing that nothing was decided yet! While Beast Den was more concerned with not losing third place to Dream Avenue, TwinThieves had their greedy eyes on Infinito.
The gangsters in the guild kept shouting disorderly. Slowly the voices demanding to use their points increased. Finally, Sevrance and Miss I never Miss came to a conclusion. They browsed the points shop before landing on a certain powerful scroll.
"Should we do it now?"
"Yes! This is our chance!"
"Mhm!"
Sevrance nodded lightly, his face hidden behind a black mask. Only his black eyes could be seen, appearing chilling and charismatic at the same time. With a thought TwinThieves lost a frightening 800 points and a scroll appeared in the assassin's hand. It was of an earthly brown, feeling incredibly heavy in his hand. The air around it seemed to quiver as dust fell form the scroll. Sevrance didn't hesitate. He activated the scroll, and a yellow light suddenly shot into the sky.
"They are attacking us again! Damn it!"
"Hmpf! This won't help them. We won't be brought down easily!"
Cyclone and Balm both gritted their teeth as they watched the yellow light. But suddenly their expressions turned to ones of surprise as the attack didn't come towards them and instead shot towards Infinito.
"What?! Why aren't they attacking us?!"
"Are they underestimating us??"
"That guild leader must have a screw lose. What is he trying to achieve by attacking Infinito?!"
Fortune stood close to the two guild leaders rolling her eyes:
"Girls, can you make up your minds? Do you want them to attack us or not?"
"Yes!"
"No!"
Cyclone and Balm answered simultaneously. Realizing their opposite answers, they were just about to try and convince each other when a few people around them couldn't suppress their laughter, snorting behind their hands. The two guild leaders' ears turned red.
"Don't you all have zombies to kill?!"
Cyclone tried to hide her embarrassment with a fierce shout and also turned towards the front, firing lighting at the zombie hordes. But just then something attracted everyone's attention as TwinThieves's attack reached Infinito's stronghold.
Mountain Lord looked towards the sky with a solemn face. He knew that TwinThieves had just made a fortune. If they decided to spend it all, his guild would surely suffer from a terrible attack.
Under the eyes of all the Infinito members the yellow light exploded above their heads, turning into a beautiful firework. But the players couldn't enjoy the sight as a sinking feeling suddenly hit them. The yellow sparks suddenly shot towards the ground and in a blink, they passed right through everything in their way, sinking into the ground.
Mountain Lord's thoughts raced. He pushed his senses, trying to understand what the scroll's effect was. It didn't take long until he felt something. A tremor ran through the ground.
"It's an earthquake!"
Swiftly coming to a conclusion Mountain Lord didn't hesitate to browse through the points shop. Gradually the movement of the earth intensified. The players had to try their hardest simply so they wouldn't fall to their butts. And for some reason the zombies were able to completely ignore the earthquake, pushing towards the stronghold.
"Guys! Don't falter now! Keep attacking!"
Mountain Lord shouted his orders, barely managing to make himself heard over the earthquake's sound. The terrifying force running through the ground kept increasing as Mountain Lord finally found what he had been looking for. He instantly spent most of the guild's points.
Unseen to anyone thick pillars suddenly appeared below the wall, reaching deep into the ground, providing the wall with a strong foundation. The earthquake not only made life difficult for the players but also dealt sever damage to the stronghold. But thanks to the foundation the damage decreased by a lot. However, having to spend so many points on something which might not be useful later still hurt Mountain Lord quite a bit.
While Infinito were fighting with the earthquake, others watched with daunted feelings. Cyclone murmured to herself:
"Maybe it is better that they didn't attack us…"
Beast Den was similarly apprehensive. Watching the spell unleashed by TwinThieves, Fat Tiger lost some confidence in being able to catch up with the other guild.
After a while the earthquake gradually died down. Right then Mountain Lord was hit with a notification as C asked him to send a team of ten candidates to the arena. Without him noticing, the arena situated below the hill had already changed at some point. It turned incredibly dark, barely illuminated by strange, purple crystals growing sparsely on the flat, rocky ground.
Having just suffered a heavy blow Mountain Lord knew he had to raise everyone's confidence. Thus, he chose the guild's second strongest team, reminding them to fight with everything they had. They needed to increase their lead on TwinThieves!
The candidates felt a heavy pressure. They were sent to the arena and realized that the tenth challenge was a standard boss fight. Suddenly a portal appeared in the sky, swirling with ominous violet energy. A tall monster fell out of the portal, crashing into the ground, causing the rocks to crack. Infinito's team felt the pressure as they faced a monstrous void dweller like the one Hotpot fought recently.
However, while the other guilds watched intently to learn about the next challenge, they were surprised to find a heavy fog suddenly shrouding the arena. Surprisingly, their view was blocked so they couldn't study the boss's skills in advance. Not able to gauge how powerful of a monster they were facing, the other guilds had to carefully chose their candidates.
But this far into the race everyone came to the same decision. As every second was precious each guild sent their second strongest team to take down the boss as quickly as possible. Cyclone and Balm even considered directly sending Hotpot but with five challenges left they decided not to use this trump card yet.
Thus, the guilds one by one chose their candidates, giving them some potions to boost their damage. Finally, it was Dream Avenue's turn and the team around Final Fend, Braag, and Melodious Edelweiss suddenly appeared in the arena. When the void dweller dropped from the sky Final Fend's eyes immediately lit up.
Ever since the start of the game he and his sister often talked about what they experienced that day after logging off. It was nice to suddenly have a shared interest like the game. Yesterday, Silver Blade told Final Fend in detail about the quest and their fights against the bosses. Thus, the young man now had a good idea about the void dweller's abilities. He hastily briefed his team as mmuch as possible before the fight officially started.
Only the respective guilds knew how their teams fared against the boss. But about ten minutes later the results were revealed when Infinito's arena suddenly returned to normal. Mountain Lord breathed a sigh of relief but quickly his eyes narrowed as TwinThieves also finished the fight barely five seconds later.
Although TwinThieves's players were a notch below Infinito's, their guild leaders decided to invest in more potions, narrowing the gap. Beast Den came to a similar decision and finished fifteen seconds later, neither narrowing nor widening the gap.
Dream Avenue finished last, but the quality of their players showed at that moment. Without investing heavily in potions, they closed the distance again, now only twenty seconds behind Beast Den. Suddenly the other guilds felt some pressure as Dream Avenue came closer step by step. They realized that if a few more battle challenges came, Dream Avenue might actually overtake the others.
"Don't talk bullsh*t! Idiot! Just keep your eyes on first place! As long as we finish the challenges first, what can Dream Avenue do?!"
"Exactly! We will take first place! It's our time to rise!"
Among TwinThieves most players still remained dismissive. Only their guild leaders kept neutral expressions, not showing their thoughts.
However, the opposite was the case with Beast Den and Infinito. Mountain Lord as well as Fat Tiger and Glorious Sunrise both observed the narrowing gaps with solemn faces.