Is this really a Game?!

Swish 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘭．𝑜𝘳𝘨

Swish

Thousands of people suddenly started moving around the capital. The soldiers that had been stationed there, the assassins that were working for the royal family, and even some higher-ups of the empire were on the move.

The mana signature of a Tier III monster had suddenly appeared inside the capital, something like that warranted the highest measures to be taken in order to not allow the monster to run rampant and destroy much of the city.

Reign and the others had put on cloaks and were silently approaching the castle.

That was where the arrays and formations were located, and the first thing that they were planning on doing was to disable them before the enemy could notice that it was them that had arrived.

They knew that it was only a matter of time before someone was able to piece the clues up and find out that it wasn’t just a monster that had arrived in the city, but people as well. Some of them might even be thinking that right now, but without further proof, they were not doing anything just yet.

The group was together for now, but once they reached the castle, then they would be dividing themselves into three groups.

Each of the three groups would have one of the Tier III combatants in them in order to make sure nothing went wrong with taking down the arrays.

The enemy had 3 Tier III combatants as well, which although should make them quite even in terms of their top combatants, was not the case since Eisenhorn could fight against peak Tier III combatants like Reign, and the enemy only had the queen that had such power, making them weaker overall.

Making their way to the castle proved to be relatively easy thanks to the ruckus that the giant mole had created.

The monster had dug into the earth right after Reign and the others had gotten out of the hole and were trying to return to the mountain range as there was an ominous aura covering the capital, which made it quite afraid of staying there any longer.

It hadn’t been tamed, merely beaten into submission by Reign and Eisenhorn, which meant that after the two were gone, it had no reason to stay here any longer.

The monster started digging and tried to escape, only for a giant dome to appear around the capital, trapping the monster inside of it.

Whether the defensive shield was put because of the monster, or because of Reign and the others, nobody knew, but one thing was certain, however, they were not going to be able to get out.

The only thing they could now do was to get to the arrays and stop the enemy from activating them, which would give them an edge over the enemies.

They blended in with the shadows and made sure that they weren’t spotted by anyone as they made their way to the castle.

For some reason, even though there were thousands of enemies moving through the city, not a lot of them were left guarding the castle.

“Great, the mole made them all panic, there’s barely anyone there.” A general said as he stared at the castle whilst grinning heavily.

“No, that’s not it, something is wrong here,” Raigon said with a heavy expression on his face.

“The soldiers guarding the castle are not the ones that would charge in during an attack, they are royal guards and they will stay at their posts until the very end, they being away is not a good sign, not at all.”

“They already know we’re here, don’t they?” Licht asked Raigon who nodded his head.

“So, what should we do, do we enter the castle and walk in the obvious trap they had planned for us, or do we try to leave and attack later again?” Reign asked Raigon who shook his head.

“There will be no time to attack later, even this attack of ours was seen through, there’s no way that they won’t be on full alert later as well.”

“Yes, I don’t know how they knew that we were coming, but it’s obvious that we can’t simply walk out of here, since they know we have arrived, they will make damned sure we stay here,” Eisenhorn said as he grabbed his sword.

“Right, well, shall we?” Reign asked them all before taking off the robe he wore to hide his identity. With the enemy being aware of their presence, there was no use in hiding any further.

They all made their way into the castle, and upon getting on the first step of the stairs that led inside it, an invisible barrier suddenly appeared around the castle, fully shrouding it.

Immediately after that, multiple lights appeared from inside the castle as the arrays and formations were activated.

The whole castle and even the capital were covered in the lights as all the soldiers could feel that their strength was rapidly growing thanks to the lights. Even a low-grade Tier I soldier was now as powerful as a peak Tier I, a huge increase that would make this battle much harder.

Four roars suddenly echoed through the capital and the surrounding area as four Tier III auras suddenly appeared in the castle.

The four auras did not belong to any Tier III combatant which the group knew of, which meant one thing.

“They have summoned the avatars, and they are all Tier III,” Raigon said with a heavy expression on his face as he clenched his hands into fists.

For the avatars to actually be so powerful was something they put into consideration, and was one of the main reasons why they wished to take the enemy by surprise. Four Tier III combatants were still a major issue, even if they were low-grade ones.

“You guys take care of the avatars, leave the rest to me.” Reign said as he moved up the stairs.

“Reign, you don’t have to do that, we, we can fight them,” Raigon said in a low voice as Reign turned around to face him.

“I know you can, but I don’t think they will give us any other choice.” Reign smiled as four monsters suddenly appeared in front of the stairs.

The four monsters were a tiger, a minotaur, a horse, and a wyvern.

“Look, they even made sure to have an aerial monster to stop you from moving easily through the sky.” Reign smiled as lightning appeared around him.

“I’ll be going ahead, take care, you guys.” Reign disappeared from the spot as he easily passed through the four monsters who were seemingly not interested in him at all.

‘They don’t even care about me, huh?’ Reign asked himself as he suddenly stopped in his tracks and slashed at the tiger that was next to him.

With a blinding light, lightning suddenly covered the area as the head of the tiger fell down on the ground.

In an instant, however, the head and body suddenly disappeared before the tiger appeared at the same spot once again.

‘It can’t truly be killed, just like Raigon had said.’

The four avatars that were summoned by the array were not real monsters and they would be impossible to be killed. It would only be after the monster cores were completely spent and had no more energy than the avatars would disappear.

Killing the avatars would speed up the process as their being rebuilt by the array cost a hefty amount of energy, but nobody knew exactly how long the avatars would stay active.

Reign simply sighed as he saw that the avatar of the tiger had no reaction after being killed by him. He glanced down at Raigon and the others once more before nodding at them and leaving the area.

He could feel a pull from deeper inside the castle. He moved through the empty castle seemingly devoid of any life before coming to the throne hall.

Lios, the princess, the king, and the queen were all sitting down and waiting for him there.

“Hey, you guys didn’t need to wait for me, that’s quite polite out of you.” Reign said with a smile on his face as he stared at the four people with clear hostility.

He had fought for them, killed their enemies, and protected their kingdom now once, but twice now.

And what did he get in return?

They tried to kill him.

The worst thing was that they tried to kill him without any reason at all. He had no idea what the second step of the system might have been if they didn’t attack him back then, but there was always the possibility of the system giving him a different challenge.

Reign had no idea. Perhaps the system knew of all of this ahead and was able to peek into the future, which meant that this was how the challenge was always supposed to end.

“Hello, Reign.” The king said in a solemn voice before getting up from his throne. Lios and the princess did the same as the queen merely continued sitting and observed Reign with great interest.