327 Chapter 3: Heaven's Star Charges into Battle

The leader of the Heaven's Star Guild was a young man by the name of Max. In the past couple of years he and a lot of his friends had become explorers. They were still on the young side being college age and all, but they had dreams of adventure and decided to embrace them with all the change going on around them. So they formed a little group that trained together to become explorers.

They weren't exactly amazing as explorers seeing as how they never dived into unfound dungeons or tried to take over their own territories, but they did take on system dungeons from time to time to grind levels. Over time more people started to get dragged into their group as they started to form a small guild. It was mainly made up of likeminded individuals that were in exploration for the fun of it more than to be the strongest. Most members of the guild treated dungeon diving as a game since they never went into dungeons that were at or above their level. It made things extremely low risk for all of them.

In the guild all of the members went by aliases to hide their identity from those outside of the guild. They treated them like gamer tags and had fun coming up with wacky names that described something memorable to them. In Max's case he went by the name Morning Star. It was a name he often used in games that he played growing up as a kid, he didn't even have to put several numbers around the name since nobody else would have had it in their small guild.

The Heaven's Star Guild had exactly one hundred people in it at this point and was forced to stop bringing in new recruits since the guild capacity was already filled. If they wanted to bring in new members to the guild then they would have to upgrade to a mid-sized guild and at the moment they didn't meet the requirements. To gain access to that they would have to own their own territory and clear a natural dungeon over level fifty. Both of those accomplishments were out of their reach at the moment.

Although the guild was filled up to the brim, it was filled up with people that were all around level fifty. Max was the highest level member in the guild and he was only level fifty-three. They would have an extremely hard time trying to clear out a haze filled territory on their own and if they joined up with any other guild while doing so they highly doubted they would be allowed to keep the territory. They knew that they were a weak guild that wasn't in the same league as some of the other guilds that took everything so seriously. Plus they had started up well over a year after the other larger guilds that stood at the top.

So Max and the rest of his guild all knew that trying to grab a territory on their own for the moment wasn't possible. They'd probably end up getting half of their members killed even if they tried. That's when they lucked out and found James Town. When they found the place they were busy fighting through the forest nearby that was filled with level forty creatures. The experience wasn't amazing, but it was decent for their level and they were sure if they grinded in the area for a couple months everyone in the guild could reach level fifty-five. At that point they would have a shot at taking over a small town of level forty or so without too much trouble in their opinions.

While training in the area they noticed that there was no guardian beast in the forest or a dungeon for them to grind in, so they knew that some other group had to have come through their in the past. They were afraid their training area would be taken so they explored the area a bit more to see if there were any other groups around that could try to take control of the forest from them. It was during their scouting that they all got a message that appeared in front of them. It was a message from the system that told them they were approaching someone's territory that was off limits. There was also a counter next to the message showing that the territory would only be off limits for a couple more weeks.

After being forced to turn back Max decided to take his group aside and have a little discussion. Although his little group was having fun creating a guild and everything they were quickly getting left behind by all of the other guilds. The reason for this was obvious, they weren't willing to take any risk. The guilds at the top constantly challenged themselves pushing humanity forward with their efforts. The issue with that was the fact that small guilds that were recently formed like Max's were getting left in the dust. All of the easier dungeons had been conquered and claimed as territories. There were still plenty of small towns around for the taking, but a small guild could end up losing a lot of members trying to take one on.

With all of that in mind Max figured having a territory war with this soon to be available base was their best option. Not only was there no risk of death when it came to territory wars it would be a great experience for his guild members. It would allow them to see what challenges they would have to face going forward and hopefully learn a valuable lesson. He didn't known who owned the territory, but after the war was over he'd make sure to be a good sport about it since he knew that his side was more than likely going to lose. Whoever owned the territory was strong enough to take it in the first place and he wasn't sure if his group would have been able to do that to begin with.

The two weeks until the territory could be challenged passed by rather quickly as everyone in the guild put their all into training and maxing out their stats as much as possible. When the time came they made their way to the territory and challenged it once they were all set up. They didn't know much about the defenses of the place outside of the large walls surrounding the town and the few turrets they could see on top of them. They figured the tanks could take the front and block any turret shots until they made it close to the town and then they could try to break through the wall and take on the ones who owned the territory. It would be difficult since they were the invading side, but they wanted to give it their all.

After the thirty minute grace period the countdown ended and they were allowed access to the territory. They were still on the fringe of the forest since the area was considered a part of the territory, but they seemed to be out of range of the turrets for the moment. Max took a deep breath before getting all the tanks in his guild to line up in the front. The spell casters and healers were at the back of the formation while the close ranged fighters were right behind the tanks ready to charge in once they got to the wall. Max was standing at the front alongside the other tanks with his shield up ready hold the line and his sword on his back for when he was given the chance to actually get some action.

After everything was set they started to move forward into the open plain that surrounded the town. When everyone in the guild got within the plains another message popped up for them all to see. The moment the last member of the guild entered the max amount of invaders had been reached. After the message disappeared they continued to push their way forward as they made their way to the wall. After a few minutes the turrets on the wall started to turn in their direction. It was surprising that the turrets were already targeting them from so far away. The range of the turrets was far larger than any of them had expected.

All of the tanks that could afford to be up front immediately set up their shield walls to protect the rest of the group. Once they got close enough the two closest turrets opened fire. The first rain of bullets collided with their shield walls and caused the entire group to come to a halt. The power of the turrets was enough to slow the tanks down, but the shield walls were holding up as long as they kept feeding mana into them. Even so they weren't expecting the turrets to slow their movements down so much. They would lose well over half of their mana by the time they got close to the walls.

After a few minutes of trying to push through the rain of bullets the turrets suddenly stopped firing. For a moment Max thought that the turrets had ran out of bullets or something, but when he heard one of the turrets fire off again he turned to look at the fresh rain of ammo only to see a few bullets coming their way. Although it was only a few bullets this time around when they crashed into the shield walls they exploded causing large cracks to form along the barriers. Not having dealt with such a thing before many of the tanks started panicking a bit as another round of bullets came flying in and destroyed some of the shield walls.

With the shield walls breaking down the mayhem that ensued was already too much for their group to hold together. With no shield walls to defend the back line a few rounds of bullets got through and exploded behind the tanks. They lost around thirty people to the bombardment before new shield walls were put up, but when they were up again the turrets stopped firing. This time around the turrets didn't start up again, but they got close enough to where another couple turrets were aiming in their direction along with the first two. At that point Max already knew that they wouldn't have a chance of getting any closer.

Luckily all of the people that were killed off in the last attack didn't end up in bits and pieces on the ground, but instead their bodies disappeared in a flash of light the moment the system decided they had received lethal damage. While Max was sighing in relief at this fact some odd looking figures started jumping down from the wall ahead of them. These figures were human in shape, but as they moved closer to Max and his remaining guild mates he noticed that they were actually robots.

Max quickly used observe on the approaching robots and saw that they were all level fifty which told him that the town was at a higher level than they were expecting. From the amount they were seeing there had to be at least a hundred of the robots and half of them had close range weapons like swords or spears while the other half seemed to have different types of guns as they stood at the back. When the robots got close enough for them to start sending spells at them the remaining members of the back line started firing off as fast as possible.

Before they could even see what effects their spells would have on the approaching army of robots one of the tanks screamed in pain as the robots at the back focus fired on him. The ones in the front started dashing forward through all the spells as they avoided the more powerful ones while knocking aside the weaker ones before smashing into the front line of tanks. It was apparent right away that the robots were powerful as they started tearing through the tanks. Max was having trouble holding off just one of the robots let alone the three in front of him that were trying to push through.

While struggling against the front line he was forced to dodge back whenever he tried to attack an opening since the robots at the back were firing on him every single time. Many of the tanks on the front line fell for that exact move as they were left wide open. It was a tactic that Max wasn't expecting from some basic robot guards. His ranged fighters however were having trouble helping out since they were afraid of hitting their own men.

It was when Max was finally able to take down one of the robots that he heard a scream of pain come from behind him causing him to turn around and look as he backed away from his attackers. He was surprised to see a large group of massive dogs tearing into his back line. They were big enough to hold the mages at the back by the neck with their mouths as they crunched down and caused them to disappear in a flash of light. That was the turning point for the match as the back line collapsed instantly from the surprise attack.

Max turned back to the front only to have to dodge another round of bullets while holding off the remaining pair of sword wielding robots that were on him in an instant. He was forced to listen to all of his guild mates getting put down around him up until the point where he was the final man left standing. He was surrounded by massive dogs and several robots that had already wore him down to the point of mana exhaustion. He let out an audible sigh as a spear from one of the robots knocked his shield away. He didn't know how exactly how he died, but he could feel himself being pulled away from the battlefield. This territory war had been lost.