Invasion!

The four teams of Foresight, Heavy Smasher, Dragon Hunt, and Tenmu stood outside a staircase that went down beneath the earth. The thick smell of stale air washed over them as they looked down the stairs.

Who would go first they all wandered, but that answer was answered quickly enough as Foresight began to descend, with Heavy Smasher close behind followed by Tenmu and Dragon Hunt at the back.

They all walked down the stone stairs, the ancient stone walls forcing them to walk one by one, luckily, no attack came their way as they descended.

Soon, they came upon a room with a coffin, on the wall behind said coffin, a strange purple flag could be seen, an YGGDRASIL player would recognize it as the flag of Ainz Ooal Gown. Small columns adorned the walls, Gringham, leader of Heavy Smasher, approached the coffin with caution as everyone prepared for a trap to be sprung, yet no such thing came.

Instead, they were greeted by a coffin filled to the brim with gold and jewelry.

Gringham gasped in shock as he looked at the immense horde of gold before him. Gasps of the others and the various teams followed this reaction.

"By the Gods! We could take this and never work again!" A member of Heavy Smasher accidentally let out, causing the air to turn cold.

The leader of Dragon Hunt, the old man Parpatra Orion, immediately drew his spear as his companions and the other teams followed.

This wasn't their gold to take for themselves. They wanted their cut.

Recognizing the increasingly hostile atmosphere, Parpatra spoke.

"Now now, this is a lot of gold, I'm sure we can agree to the fact there is a lot more inside the tomb most likely yes?" Everyone nodded at his words.

"In case none of you have noticed in your stupor, there are three exits heading out of this room-" They all looked around in shock, how had they not noticed? "-how about we all pick a direction and go? We can leave this pile as a gift for those who will come after us."

Hekkeran raised an eyebrow at what Parpatra was trying to do, of course, this would avoid conflict for them, but this "gift" is nothing but a curse for those who will come after them.

Reasonably, what will happen is that they will all kill one another for the immense pile of gold, and even if they don't, the workers outside will be filled with jealousy when they see how much gold is in the tomb, this will cause them to rush inside to get as much stuff as they can, but another portion will do something different...

They will try to steal, assassinate, and extort. Normally that wouldn't pay off, but when this much gold is in play... Anything that will allow one to get even a part of the pot is worth a try.

This will lower the amount of workers alive, which means that the gold will be split between the survivors, the fewer the people alive, the more gold the remaining people will get.

'You sly old man.' Hekkera thought, but he said nothing.

This plan would also benefit him after all, all he had to do was be careful and let everyone know while they were alone.

The others, seemingly unaware of this nefarious plan, agreed to it.

Tenmu headed to the left, Heavy Smasher headed deeper into the tomb down another staircase, and Dragon Hunt headed left, which meant that Foresight would also head deeper into the dungeon.

Heavy Smasher was less than pleased with it, and Gringham voiced his distaste for this very quickly. However, after Hekkeran pointed out the fact that the odds of this being the only corridor were abysmal, he shut his mouth.

Aarche looked at the pile of jewelry and gold coins and felt tempted to take them, but as she reached her hand out, she snapped it back to herself as a scary thought entered her mind.

'This is a trap isn't it?' She looked at Parpatra, who was already walking away with his comrades, 'There's no way he also didn't think of that...'

He wanted more people dead. That's the only conclusion Aarche could come to.

"Hey Aarche! Move it, we can't fall too far behind." Imina shouted at Aarche, who pipped up and jogged over to her friends.

Foresight and Heavy Smasher continued onwards, eventually coming up on a T section and leaving their separate ways, up till now, the journey had been extremely peaceful for everyone, which delighted both groups. Though Parpatra was certainly not lowering his guard yet.

Foresight continued to march onward, the cold stone walls were all that could be seen for quite a while until the sounds of zombie moaning could be heard.

Hekkeran peeked around the corner, ahead of them was a larger room filled with tens of slow lumbering zombies and some corpses scattered around.

Hekkeran quietly relayed this to the group, who all let out a sigh of relief.

Twenty zombies would have been a considerable threat maybe, but ten and a few barely intact corpses? They would kill them easily!

As everyone agreed to take the fight, Aarche couldn't help but feel a shiver go up her spine as she turned around, seeing nothing, she rushed out behind her friends, who were already approaching the zombie horde.

As Hekkeran ran towards the zombies with his blade drawn, Roberdyck prepared to unleash his divine magic and Imina prepared her bow, Aarche couldn't help but feel like she was still being watched.

This manifested itself as she took a few extra seconds to cast her spell, at which point Roberdyck had already managed to banish most of the weak undead as a wave of holy energy washed out from his hand.

"Seriously Aarche, what's going on with you?" Imina asked her as the two guys also looked at her with concern.

"I-" Aarche hesitated, "You know that kid? The one that woke me up and I wanted to stay away from?" Everyone nodded, "Well since we met, I've felt... Watched, I don't know how but I have, and it's unsettling me."

"Well we can't leave now, we might not get any of the loot if we do," Imina noted, the entire group nodded at this.

"I know, but let's just be careful okay?"

"That was the plan either way, now let's keep moving, we shouldn't stay in one place for too long," Hekkeran said, and so the group set out and began to explore deeper.

Meanwhile, the creature responsible for the feeling of danger Aarche was feeling could be seen sitting in a large library drinking a soda while a fresh burger awaited on the counter to be consumed.

Thoth looked at Aarche and nodded to himself.

All was going as planned for now.

Indeed, he had asked Ainz to have someone cast the [Negative Doom] spell, contradictory to its badass name, it's a pretty weak spell, though it can be upcast at higher tiers.

Depending on the tier it was cast at, it would exponentially grow in power. Thoth asked for the spell to be cast at the third tier, giving the following effects.

The target would feel watched, they would feel dread, their spells would have an increased cool-down and it would take longer to cast them, not by much, but a few seconds were a lot in a fight. At the ninth tier, it could increase spell cool-downs from a second to an entire one-hundred seconds.

It would have been a strong spell if it wasn't very easy to dispel, even a level fifty character could resist it no matter the tier or level of the person casting it, so it was mostly used in low-level PVP. Where its counter, [Positive Hope] made it pretty much pointless to use.

Thoth did not know this spell himself sadly, so he had to get a lich who knew it to cast it for him, he would let it know when to intensify the spell and when to lower it, this way, he could influence where the Foresight group moved.

Thoth glanced at the lich behind him who stiffened up in response. It was nervous and scared, and Thoth felt sympathy for the creature. As an Archangel, his presence must be very scary to the poor thing, not to mention that he is above the lich in rank by a long shot and Lord Ainz personally instructed it to do its best.

It must be shitting bricks inside, but oh well, that's life.

Thoth made sure to check up on the other groups too, specifically, he wanted to get his hands on that arrogant human who enslaved those poor elves.

'Oh lord, don't give me strength. Give him durability, because he'll need it for what I have planned.' Thoth thought to himself as a sweet smile blossomed on his face. The lich felt a shiver go up his spine.

Though Thoth was not aware of it, he had a reputation similar to Demiurge amongst the residents of Nazarick, many even believe that his "failure" in the Theocracy was a part of the grand plan Ainz has and that Thoth was merely playing his part.

...The sasuga syndrome has spread far and wide it seems, nonetheless, Thoth ignored the lich and waved his hand, causing a few more portal-looking shapes to appear around him.

Through them, the other parties could be seen, all of them traveling through.

"Ah, the old man will reach the pleiades soon," Thoth muttered out loud as he looked at the small group.

They seemed to be engaged in conversation about something, most likely Perpatra was sharing his plan on how to ensure their survival while maximizing profit. The sly old man...

Thoth felt no anger though, the thought of them taking things from the tomb did anger him, but he thoroughly suppressed such feelings. He would not become a puppet again.

Heavy Smasher could be seen running for their lives as a horde of liches chased after them, Thoth considered saving them but decided not to.

They were not worth the effort of negotiating with Ainz and Albedo. Not even close.

They continued to run until they reached a dark room, Thoth closed the screen as screams of men being eaten alive by hordes of cockroaches filled the library.

"...Quite painful," Thoth commented.

An astute observation, or as normal folk would say, "No shit Sherlock."

Perpatra and his group could be seen standing in front of a large structure with a triangular long roof with tall marble columns standing on an elevated platform, they were at the bottom of some stairs as the Pleiades stared down at them, suddenly hordes of heavily armored skeletons and zombies burst from the ground, each with powerful magical armor.

"Should I save them..." Thoth pondered, Perpatra would bring several benefits, he is an intelligent person, but would he be able to trust him in his organization...?

"...No, not worth it." The reason Thoth is being picky is simple, he can't attract attention from Albedo by saving so many people, cause then she would question what they were contributing to Nazarick, and he would have to lie constantly, make reports on their activities, and so on.

It's not worth the risk purely because it would attract her attention, and he wants to minimize this. Since if he does too much she might just make a group purely to keep an eye on him, the fact he is a huge threat to Ainz on its own makes it way more likely as well.

Besides, it's obvious the skeletons are leaving a few of them untouched, these are the ones who were forced into the tomb due to circumstances, Ainz is saving the good ones himself, so why should he intervene further?

He just needs to make sure Foresight doesn't suicide and that the arrogant enslaver gets what he deserves, all that he must do truly.

"Oho?" Thoth muttered as he looked upon Erya, the elf slave owner, who could be seen entering a larger chamber where Hamsuke and a bunch of lizards could be seen.

"Lich" the lich tensed up as Thoth addressed it, "if Foresight gets close to the teleportation circle at any point, inform me."

"Understood sir Thoth." It then bowed politely as Thoth teleported to Erya.

Erya looked at the large hamster in front of him and sneered, he could easily kill something this weak, he is stronger than Gazef Stronoff after all! He isn't. Obviously. But his delusions won't last much longer anyway so what need is there to correct him?

Thoth appeared behind the lizardmen who kneeled as they noticed him, Thoth merely waved it off.

The lizardmen around him were the two Shasha brothers, the leaders of the lizardmen.

"Sir Thoth, what do you need from us lowly servants?" Zaryusu, the smaller of the two brothers, asked.

Thoth merely looked at Erya and smiled.

The two lizardmen brothers gulped as Zaryusu spoke up, "Uh, I'm sorry to say but Lord Ainz ordered that he fight Hamsuke."

"Oh I know, I'll handle his corpse afterward."

"I-I see..." Zaryusu nodded and then stopped interacting with Thoth.

Erya stared at the small child in shock, wasn't this a member of Darkness? What was this supposed to be?

Of course, he did not have long to think as Hamsuke approached him.

"Intruder! I, Hamsuke, shall battle with you to the death to prove my skills to my master!"

"You three!" The three elves flinched in fear as Erya shouted "Cast support magic on me." Erya said as he brought up his sword.

They dutifully followed his orders.

Oh, Thoth would have fun.

-x-x-x-

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