Is this really a Game?!

After Reign was finished with the inspection, he made his way over to the mountain range. He didn’t use the portal but ran to the mountain range as his speed allowed him to get there relatively quickly.

On the first mountain, he could see many players moving about and hunting. The presence of demons had almost completely vanished from the first couple of mountains, but there had been some resurgence at some mountains as the more powerful demons had started moving.

There were still no movements from the Tier IV demons, and that was mostly because they were preoccupied with defending their territory against the monsters that resided inside the depths of the mountain range. The monsters were powerful and would occasionally come out to hunt, which led the leaders of the demon tribes present in the mountain range to move and fight against the monsters.

None of them had the luxury of taking a break or dealing with the humans that had recently become a big problem for them as more of them were rising in power and overtaking their territory. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒆𝒕

The Tier IV demons were mostly low and mid-grade, Reign didn’t know if there was even one high-grade Tier IV demon amongst them, but he had to admit that he didn’t know that much about them since most of the info he had of the leaders of the demon tribes was from the weaker demons and almost none of them knew just how powerful the leaders were.

It was a huge boon for Reign and the others that the depths of the mountain range were so dangerous and that the demons at the very top were preoccupied with dealing with the monsters there, otherwise they would have never been able to get such a foothold in the mountain range as the demons would have attacked their main base fairly quickly after figuring out how dangerous they were.

The frequent conflicts that arose between the demon tribes were another thing that helped them out, and it was only the Tier III demons that really had the freedom to go and pursue them, which was exactly why Reign and the others had gone on the offensive and attacked so many bases in the past.

Instead of waiting for the demons to come to them and attack, they would attack them and draw their attention away from the first couple of mountains where the players were leveling up.

Now that there were Tier III players in the territory, the demons were unable to simply charge at them and get rid of them as they suffer great casualties, especially if only one demon tribe was to attack.

The demon tribes, although relatively large, were still smaller in numbers compared to the players, at least when it came to the higher-ranked combatants.

The demons fought against other demons and monsters, but living in the mountains led to many of them lazying around since they didn’t have as much freedom to move around and explore the other mountains as the players had.

The demon tribes each had a strict hierarchy and each demon had a job to do, whether that was to hunt, gather other resources, patrol …

Compared to the relatively carefree players, there were simply far too many restrictions placed on them, leading to them not improving their strength fast enough compared to the players.

That was of course done by purpose.

The system had given much to the players early on, especially the ability to buy necessities from the shops that were present on the castle grounds. With the territory being relatively large now, Reign was also able to buy many buildings where players could do many things.

There were even small shops that he and the others had purchased and placed in the territory in order to have things that were not available from the shops that were on the castle grounds, which led to people being able to purchase a wide variety of things.

The system was fair and even though the monsters had the advantage over humanity early on, they also had many disadvantages, like the barriers that were placed between the many zones that would immediately weaken the monsters greatly if they passed them.

The monsters also didn’t have access to any shops from the system and had to do everything by themselves.

Building houses and bases, getting food and water, gathering resources in order to make weapons and the like, all of that was needed in order for the more intelligent monsters like the orcs and demons to improve and get stronger while the players could simply hunt monsters to gain S Coins and purchase all of that while getting equipment from the monsters as well.

From what Reign knew, that was not the case for those that were in Riplas. Their entire world had already been powerful before the system, mana was present and magic was something they had access to in the past as well.

Killing monsters was the primary way to gain exp and level up, but equipment rarely dropped. The system had done so simply because there was no need for high equipment drops as the many kingdom and empires in that world already had talented blacksmiths that were well proficient in making powerful equipment.

No planet went through the same thing as the system would automatically check the planet and see what it needed the most.

Earth, as a planet where mana was barely present and where only a small number of people even had the knowledge of its existence, had a much higher need for help from the system.

As time passed, however, the system would take back many of the things it had given to Earth before they would be left to their own devices. Reign knew that although that would happen, there was still plenty of time before that and he believed that he and the others would be more than capable of defeating any foe that appeared on Earth at that time.

With Beast and the dagger he had received from Drayce, even a Transcendent was not powerful enough to endanger them, as long as the Transcendent in question was not at the very peak of the realm, that is.

Reign quickly went to some mountains further away from the base before finding a demon patrol. He quickly killed all but one of the demons before grabbing the poor fellow and taking him back to where the mountain range started.

He hoped that the demon could also see the holes in the barrier between the mountain range and the grasslands, and he was fortunately lucky as the demon could indeed do so.

After making sure to check where all of the holes were, Reign stabbed a couple of lower-ranked spears between the holes before killing the demon as he had lost all purpose.

Not only were the holes present, but there were plenty of them between the mountain range and the grasslands, Reign was just happy that he and the others had pretty much taken over this area, which meant that it would be very hard for the demons to notice them here, but the same could not be said for other places as well as the mountain range was vast and bordered with a couple of different regions.

His vision was slowly starting to make sense as he now understood just how the powerful monsters and demons would attack Doncaster, but he was already ahead of them.

Thanks to him having knowledge of the incoming attack, if it was to even happen, he had already placed defenses that would minimize casualties. With him being Tier IV now, he had even more options when it came to traps and different types of defenses, not to mention the fact that the golden tree would provide a shield for the territory, similar to the one back at the castle.

That, coupled with his now improved strength made Reign confident of defeating the enemy if they dared to attack them.

Even though he was only a low-grade Tier IV being, if he was to transform into his Nephilim form, he would not only gain access to all three new abilities, but he would also gain a large increase in his stats.

If he was to go all out and use his transformation and all the buffs he had, even Reign was not certain just how powerful he would be. A mid-grade Tier IV being would definitely not be his match at that time and perhaps only a high-grade Tier IV enemy could stop him, but he doubted such a powerful enemy would appear.

Even if they did appear, he was further strengthened in Doncaster thanks to the golden tree and all the buffs he received from the territory, which made him a terrifying presence at this stage of the game.

Nobody knew of his race and just how powerful he had gotten after the evolution, and that would be the one thing that could ruin the plans of the enemy, no matter how well they had prepared.

If Shadow and the others were here before the enemy attacked, then Reign was further certain that they would win without much difficulty, but he doubted the enemy would wait for much longer.