A long night (1)

Time went by quickly. Venetia was bustling with life with more and more people making their way toward the town. The announcement of the upcoming Night of Macabre brought a wave of excitement over the player base and reignited their interest in the game. But soon after, Venetia issued a statement that it would be rewarding the players to protect the town during the event.

Players were invited to defend the human settlements over the continent, but it was purely volunteering. The city lords and mayors had faced many Nights of Macabre before and were very well prepared. They could hold off the waves of Undead by themselves. The players were only here to assist; it was a way for the game system to make the event optional as not every player was interested in the game.

But Venetia was different. It was a player-owned town that did not even exist three months ago. The town's foundation was still shaky and weak. The resources they had were limited. To reduce the pressure caused by the Night of Macabre, Venetia's adventurer guild issued special quests to help defend the town. The news spread quickly, causing the players staying at neighbouring towns to rush to Venetia to benefit from the quest. Between volunteering and being paid to participate in the event, players naturally preferred the latter.

Standing on top of the city wall, Iris and her main monsters observed the excited players walking around the town. The sun had already set but Venetia was brightly lit by hundreds of streetlamps. Most players and guards held torches and several beacons had been prepared to be lit up at a reasonable distance from the town.

While most of the players were excited, what Iris and the monsters felt was fear and anxiousness. The players were only here for fun; at best, if they performed well, they would be able to redeem some additional rewards from the special shop but for the monsters, if they failed to protect Venetia, their home, they would all disappear.

There were more than twelve thousand players currently staying at Venetia, but it was barely enough to protect the town. Not all the players would be willing to participate in the event and in average, the players' level was only 27. In comparison, the guards of cities ranged from level 20 to level 40. Venetia's main guards which consisted of the lionmen, were all above level 40 but they were lacking in numbers. It was clear that Venetia needed to rely on the players' actions.

Furthermore, Venetia also lacked defensive structures. The city wall was only half-built, leaving one side of the town completely defenceless, let alone the part of the town that was outside the city. It did not have any war machines like cannons or trebuchets and formations that could protect the defenders against projectiles were also lacking. Venetia relied solely on the strength of the guards. The fate of Venetia was uncertain.

"I deployed 400 Lionmen around the perimeter of the town. There are still 200 hundred more left in reserve for the future rotation. Out of the 500 Humans we have, 400 will be fighting on the West side while the rest will stay in reserve. The Redaken mercenary group will also fight there. The Elphames and the Naiads will stay here on the city wall and protect the North side; they will have a much better range for their arrows and magic skills. Karyn and I will defend the East side together with the members of the Temple. As for the South, we will have to leave it to the Black Spire mercenary group and the Church." Mars, the Lionman made a quick explanation of the current deployment of the monsters.

The Night of Macabre was a battle of attrition. They needed to last for twelve hours; it would be unwise to send all their forces to fight from the very beginning. The monsters also needed to rotate among themselves and rest between each battle. The weakest monsters would fight close to the city wall to avoid being overrun by the Undead but the strongest needed to fight in the open. Unfortunately, the strongest monsters, the succubi, were unable to fight. It was due to the presence of the Temple and the Church.

They were two main religious bodies of the continent of Zero; while the Church worshipped 'God', the Temple, worshipped Gaia and the Sacred Beasts. As Venetia started developing and stabilising its position, the two religious bodies both sent a delegation to the town to settle down and preach their religion.

At first, Iris avoided and ignored the two delegations, but they were persistent and did not leave the town despite receiving the cold shoulder. The Church dispatched a group of nuns to build an orphanage while the Temple wanted to set up a charity for those in need. They came up with various excuses but no matter how they tried to disguise it, the two religious bodies simply wanted to set up a foundation in Venetia. Iris naturally could not allow this to happen. She was a dungeon master. While she did not know the stance of the Temple when it came to dungeon masters, she knew far too well how the Church hunted them down and destroyed dungeons to collect dungeon cores.

For now, the two religious bodies were unaware of Venetia's real nature. They simply wanted to get on Iris' good side. With the arrival of the players, there was a massive number of clean souls that were just waiting to be converted. To gain Iris' trust would be of great help to them if they wanted to convert more people; after all, she was the first player to build up a town. With this in mind, the two religious bodies offered to help in the defence of the town at no cost. Not only would Iris owe them a favour, they would also get to demonstrate their strength to the players.

Iris had no reasons to refuse additional help. However, with the presence of the religious bodies, the succubi were unable to act. While monsters like Lionmen, Naiads and Elves were looked down upon by most religious groups, they were still accepted by the majority of people. To show how open-minded and diverse they were, the religious groups were forced to tolerate the presence of these monsters who were not hostile against humans.

However, succubi were classified as demons. They were a hostile species who actively sought to harm humans by plundering their essence. While the Church and the Temple could not comment on the presence of Mars, Neptune and Karyn, they would not remain silent if Venus suddenly appeared by Iris' side. Conflicts were bound to occur.

"Ten more minutes before the start of the Night of Macabre. Everyone should get into position." Mars commanded. His mane danced with the wind as he observed the other monsters. Being the commander of the guards of Venetia, most players recognised him and followed his command.

As he had planned, the monsters quickly got into position but most of the players did not. Instead, they stood at the very edge of the town with a calm and casual attitude, as if they came here to watch a show. Among them stood Albatross, one of the elders of Blue Lagoon and Endless, the one representing Vultex.

The two guilds had all signed up for the quest issued by the adventurer guild, but they were not forced to participate and risk their lives by any means. Instead, they had other plans.

"Are you sure this is going to work? I have 1000 members involved in this. I don't want to pay the penalty for not completing the quest." Albatross broke the silence, intently staring at a female player.

"Why are you so nervous? You can just go and fight the Undead if you want to. Nothing is stopping you from doing so." The woman answered with a sarcastic smile.

Albatross was not the only one who was nervous about this move. Many guild representatives had similar thoughts. Just this morning, that woman called Excel arranged an emergency meeting with all the guild representatives. Most of them were already staying in Venetia because of the recent auction for the land plots and upon seeing Excel's identity, they were simply unable to refuse.

The meeting served only one purpose; to find a way to dethrone Iris and gain control of Venetia. While the town was resourceless, lowering the value of the land plots, the guilds could easily turn this town into their own backyard to train their elites away from the attention of the world. This was the main reason why the guilds were interested in Venetia but at the same time, it would be pointless if they did not have complete control over the town.

Excel came up with a single proposition; to use the Night of Macabre to force Iris to either lose the town or give up a significant portion of it. Judging by the recent moves of the town, it was clear that it lacked defensive measures and was going to rely on the players to survive the night. However, most of the players in the surroundings belonged to the guilds who attended the meeting. The players could sign up for the quest and give a false sense of security to Iris but when it would be time to fight, they would simply ignore the commands.

The players did not dare to fight the terrifying level 40 and above Lionmen. But when they would all be entangled in the battle with the Undead, nothing would stop the players from backstabbing them. There were no rules that said the players were not allowed to fight the guards. Actually, the players were even free to kill each other in town but they would then face punishment from the guards. But if their crime went unnoticed, the players would not face any consequences.

It was the same in this situation. The players did not dare to fight the NPCs but if they were all busy with their own fights, they could take advantage of the situation and remove the main forces of Venetia. Left with no defenders, Iris would then be forced to submit to keep Venetia alive or Venetia would be destroyed, and the guilds would then be free to fight over the method of building a town.

The guilds were very apprehensive of such an underhanded move. They were not even sure if that method would work but Excel's identity was enough to convince them all. She was a member of Dystopia, one the major guilds of the Sylvester Empire, standing toe to toe with Blue Lagoon and Vultex. However, compared to these two guilds, Dystopia did not limit itself to only one server. It had branches in all the ten empires of the game.

On the surface, Dystopia was not very different from the other guilds, but all the insiders were aware of its uniqueness. Dystopia was a guild founded by an alliance of all the giant conglomerates including Alphabet, Microsoft, IBM and so on. They were all tech giants who used to have the ability to control the world.

The reason for their immense influence was not that they had managed to gather a huge player base from the start. Their most valuable asset was the fact that they were the one who programmed the game. In short, they knew all the tricks of the game, how to obtain the most overpowered items and find the hidden treasures.

While Gaia did her best to hinder their development by changing the parameters set by the programmers, at the end of the day, the growth of Dystopia could not be stop. The core of the game could not be changed easily. As for the parameters that Gaia was able to change, it was not hard for the members of Dystopia to reverse engineer her work. After all, Gaia was an AI who followed logical thinking and more importantly, Gaia itself was also designed and trained by them.

"Everything will go as planned. Let them exhaust themselves. We will probe Venetia's mayor in a few hours when she will realise what precarious situation, she is in. If she refuses to submit, then we will have no choice but to act. I do not know how many NPCs she has under her command. But unless she has level 60 NPCs with her, Venetia is bound to fall in our hands."

"And what if she does have level 60 NPCs?" A sceptical guild representative asked what everyone else had in mind.

"Then, we will have no choice but to obediently join the fight and give away part of our loot to prove that we completed our quest. As long as we do so, the mayor will have no right to attack us. But do you really think she will have a level 60 NPC? The city wall is not even complete. There are no cannons to help defend either. Only with the help of our Tier 5 and Tier 6 scrolls does this town have a chance to survive."

The Tier 6 scroll was Excel's trump card. After endless grinding in a dungeon, Dystopia managed to get their hands on a Tier 6 Scroll containing the spell, Cataclysm. It was more than enough to deal with any level 60 monsters that might show up. It was the ultimate weapon of her guild that she would only use if absolutely necessary. The price the guild paid for it was not small. She could use it to threaten Venetia but using it on the town would be a complete waste. She would lose a precious scroll and destroy the resources she had a chance to obtain.

"Keep an eye on the mayor's movement. Inform us if she does have hidden reinforcement waiting."

"What about the Church and the Temple? These two NPC religions must have many powerhouses among them. What if they choose to intervene?"

"Leave them alone for now. The NPCs are not stupid and have a sense of self-preservation. They won't risk their lives for a town that does not welcome them. And if they do die, then it will be fun to watch how Venetia deals with the aftermath. Even if she manages to pull it through; she will have to use valuable resources which will make them more vulnerable in the future."

"Why are you all so anxious? Just sit down and relax. Don't tell me you are nervous because you will be missing on a few drops. The rest of your guilds can collect more than enough loot by themselves."