A long night (3)

"Is it not time for us to move yet? The fourth phase is about to start. They do not look like they are going to be able to hold on for much longer." A nervous guild representative said. Nine different guilds joined hands in this operation and out of the nine, his guild was the weakest. If it was not for the rewards he was promised, the guild representative would never have joined such a risky operation.

The end prize was Venetia, but it was impossible to divide the town between the different guilds. Venetia would be valuable only if it was owned by a single guild. An agreement was signed between the different guilds. For now, Dystopia would claim ownership of the town and one week later, the guilds would fight each other to decide who would be the final owner of the town. The rest of the guilds who participated would be rewarded with a portion of the town's revenue and a few rare items from the winning guild.

"It is already the fourth time you are saying that. Don't look down on these NPCs. They can last for a little while longer. The mayor did not even come out of her office yet. It shows that she is confident in her monsters." Excel answered with a tinge of annoyance.

"I am certain the mayor must have reserve troops waiting inside. At this rate it will be better to just give up and join the battle. Look at how many Undead there are. If we joined in, we would have already collected thousands of 'Wish Bones' and other items." Endless commented while swinging his blade at the wind to vent himself. He glanced at Excel, but the latter did not seem to react.

The guild representatives could only bitterly smile as Endless pointed out what they had missed. As they did not participate in the battle, they had no rights to collect the drops of the Undead. It was heart-wrenching to watch the weaker players collect all these drops under their eyes.

All the guilds were working together, spreading their members around the empire to cover the most towns as possible. They funnelled all the loot they collected into a single member who would then redeem the most valuable items from the special shop.

Any player could access the shop simply by opening their interface. An additional tab was added where the players could see the available items. At the top of the list were unique items that could only be exchanged once among all the players in all the ten servers and already, a few items had disappeared.

There were three types of loot that could be used for exchange: Wish Bones that dropped from bone monsters like skeletons, Imbued flesh that dropped from flesh monsters like zombies and Corrupted Souls that dropped from phantom like monsters the wraiths and ghosts.

It was clear that the top rewards required the collaboration of many players to obtain. The best rewards were growing weapons that could be infinitely upgraded. These were extremely rare items but unexpectedly, a large range of weapons, one for each battle style and class showed up. However, the players needed at least a million of each type of drops to redeem even one weapon. And yet, two weapons had already disappeared. The Sceptre of Amaranth that suited the Black Mages and the Spear of Dragneel designed for Spearmen had already been redeemed.

Aside from the top tier rewards, many first-tier rewards had also been redeemed. The guild representatives were in contact with their superiors at all time, monitoring which item was being redeemed. This applied a lot of pressure on the guilds; in the hands of an elite, each item could turn into a weapon of mass destruction.

"Talk for you. I have more than a thousand members sitting here doing nothing. If I did not follow your stupid plan, I could have gathered tens of thousands of drops. Now, all these precious drops are being shared among these useless players." Albatross grunted. His guild, Blue Lagoon, had yet to redeem any valuable reward. They were aiming for the top weapons but upon seeing that two weapons had been redeemed, worry rose in their heart. It meant that the top guilds were already able to redeem these weapons. Soon, all of them would be gone but Blue Lagoon was still far from being able to redeem one. Blue Lagoon was an extremely powerful guild but if it was unable to get their hands on any of those weapons, their standing would inevitably fall.

"No need to be so aggressive. Don't you see that I also have a thousand members sitting there? We are all suffering from the same penalty. Blame your guild's inability." Excel replied back sharply. How could she not feel the stress building up? The messages kept flowing in the group chat of the leaders of Dystopia. Despite being the acknowledged number one guild, they were not the one who collected the weapons. They were supposed to know everything about the event; all the tips and tricks to maximise the number of drops they obtained and yet, they had failed to redeem a weapon first.

"D*mn! It is just frustrating to stay here doing nothing. I would rather much be fighting these Undead. Almost eight hours have passed but Blue Lagoon has yet to collect enough drops for a weapon. I suppose that one of the guilds who redeemed the two weapons is Dystopia, right?" Albatross said with a defeated expression.

All the guild representatives turned their attention to Excel. She was the one who remained the calmest during the entire progress of the event. In their eyes, it meant that Dystopia had an edge over them and had already collected a top tier reward.

Excel could feel the stares of the guild representatives. They were all waiting for her to acknowledge Dystopia's superiority over the other guilds. Excel's expression darkened; as much as she wanted to lie, it would be pointless to do so. Sooner or later, the real owner of the two weapons would come out. She could only bite her lips as she replied quietly. "It was not us."

"What?"

"It was not you?"

The guild representatives exclaimed in surprise. Her words brought a wave of turmoil among the representatives. If even Dystopia was not the first to collect the weapons, which guild was able to accomplish such a feat. From Albatross' words, they could safely infer that it was not Blue Lagoon and judging by Endless' disgruntled expression, it was not Vultex either.

The guild representatives eyed each other, going from the strongest to the weakest guild. Yet, none of them seem to be confident enough to say that their guild redeemed one of the weapons.

"Who could it be? A guild from another server? One that is even stronger than Dystopia?"

The guild representatives quickly started to communicate with their own guilds, informing them that it was not Dystopia who redeemed the weapons.

While they were busy speculating, a player came running from the town and stopped in front of the nine guild representatives. "Sorry to interrupt you but the mayor has just left her office. She is making her way to North side of the city, to the city wall."

"…"

"I see. Then, let us go and meet her. I guess it is right time to probe the situation." Excel broke the awkward atmosphere.

…

"Boom Boom Boom!"

As the fourth phase of the Night of Macabre started, loud rumbles sounded in the distance. The ground shook with each rumble. A huge wave of Undead appeared; on top of the previous Undead, Poltergeists, Soul Remnants and Decayed Carcasses joined the fray.

"Boom!"

Still, the rumble did not stop. All the monsters could feel the threatening aura making its way toward Venetia. It was another Boss Monster that was accompanying the wave of Undead. In the distance, a large pair of eyes could be seen partially hidden by the fog. The eyes were empty and soulless. Judging by the height of the eyes, the incoming creature was at least a giant! This time, it was coming from the East and would crash into Mars and the troops of the Temple.

"How is it looking?" Iris anxiously asked. She could feel the ground shaking with each rumble. The footsteps of the creature were enough to bring fear into the defenders.

"Fighting the waves of Undead is still fine for now. Although the strength of the Undead increased, the interval between each wave also increased. At first, waves of Undead emerged from the fog every three minutes but now, the interval increased to ten minutes." Neptune reported. She casted a lot of spells during the last few hours but did not look exhausted. It was all thanks to the buffs given by the Blue Moon which greatly helped spellcasters like her.

"What about the huge boss?"

"We don't know yet. We don't even know which monster it is, but Mars should be able to handle it. Based on the rumbles we are hearing; the creature must be quite slow. You don't have to worry about it."

Iris nodded in silence. She could see how tired her monsters were. Fighting for eight hours straight took a toll on the monsters but thanks to the huge supply of potions she previously bought from the dungeon shop, they should be able to hold for a few more hours.

The only positive note about the Night of Macabre was the enormous amount of DP she was collecting. All the powerful players and NPCs who stayed in Venetia were generating a lot of DP. Furthermore, endless waves of Undead that were being slaughtered by the defenders. Iris' total DP count already rose to 2.8 million DP in just eight hours.

Soon, the mysterious creature emerged from the fog, revealing its hideous figure to the defenders of Venetia. It was a level 50 Flesh Tyrant. The Flesh Tyrant was a creature following the same bloodline as the Abominations. It was a giant made of flesh; an amalgam of various dead creatures vulgarly patched together. It was 20m tall, dragging a large shipwreck behind as a weapon.

"Boom!"

The Flesh Tyrant continued to advance toward Venetia. Each step left a giant mark on the ground. Worthy of being a boss monster, just its presence alone afflicted all the defenders with a powerful debuff: "Intimidated". It reduced all the stats of the surrounding creatures by one.

"Are you sure it is going to be fine? It is a level 50 Boss Monster." Iris exclaimed with worry.

"Mars is also at level 50. He can deal with the Flesh Tyrant. And remember, compared to the wild Boss Monsters, we are wearing a full set of equipment. We are much stronger than wild monsters. Even Karyn, who is at level 43 can deal with it because of her unique title. With her extreme agility, she can abuse the Flesh Tyrant's weakness, its speed." Ceres reassured her.

"But what worries me is that there are still four more hours to go. The first Boss Monsters was a Bone Drake at level 40 who appeared at the fourth hour. The second one is a level 50 Flesh Tyrant who appeared at the eighth hour. Looking at the pattern… We should expect a level 60 Boss Monster near the end of the Night of Macabre. Even Venus, who's at level 53 might have trouble fighting back."

Iris and the surrounding monsters fell silent upon hearing Ceres. The situation was indeed not ideal. 'I have almost 3 million DP. Maybe I can buy something in the dungeon shop that will help the monsters.'

'The defensive weapons like cannons are already out of the picture. Because they required complex engineering work, they cannot be directly bought in the dungeon shop. Should I buy a new monster? But even with 3 million DP I cannot buy a level 60 monster. Should I buy something to help alleviate the fatigue of the monsters? Because of the guild players' actions, my monsters had to waste a lot more energy.'

'Speaking of the devil…'

As Iris was browsing through the list of available items in the dungeon shop, she noticed some movements in the corner of her eyes. There was a large group of players making her way towards the city wall. Leading them was a player named Excel.

Iris frowned lightly. She was naturally aware of the players' plan; their secret gathering did not go unnoticed by the monsters. Although they bought the land plots and could construct their own private areas; at the end of the day, these land plots were still within Iris' dungeon. With the power of her dungeon core, she could watch any area of her dungeon. The players were unaware of their lack of privacy.

Not only did Iris know about the guild representatives' combined operation, she also knew about the guilds' individual plans. She saw her mother, Vanity receiving harsh criticism for failing to recruit her into Blue Lagoon. All the guilds without exception had been scheming to obtain Venetia and kick the others out. But a scheme known by the enemy was completely useless.

"Miss Iris. I know you are busy because of the event but will it be possible to have a word?" Excel shouted from the stairs leading to the top of the city wall. Two Elphames were guarding the stairs, not allowing any non-monsters from going up. While the Elphames were far weaker than the Lionmen, being only level 26, Excel and the other players did not dare to fight them yet.

Iris turned her attention to the players; her eyes met Excel's. 'Are they going to pull the trigger now? Venus and the other succubi should be nearby. As long as we deal with them quickly, the church will not be alerted. They should all be busy on the other side of the town.'

"What is it? Are you here to explain why you and your guild members are not on the battlefield despite accepting the defence quest? I hope you realise that there is a penalty for failing the quest."