Is this really a Game?!

( Author: Sorry for no chapter yesterday, I unintentionally released it for my other novel 🙁

Thank to how safe and convenient things were in Doncaster, the players had no issues with growing stronger and constantly reaching new realms. None had faced a bottleneck so far, and they were able to evolve relatively easily after reaching the peak of the realm and finishing the challenges that the system would give them.

It was only now, after people had reached Tier III, that this started happening. For some people, it happened even before the peak of the realm. Thanks to the system, they were able to immediately find out about it and start slowing down their leveling progress because as the more powerful they became, the more difficult it would be to use mana to reinforce their bodies and allow them to continue leveling up.

Tier III was a sort of barrier, well, to be more exact, the evolution from the third to the fourth tier was a sort of barrier that people needed to cross as they were moving from being low-tiered entities into middle-tiered ones.

The first three tiers could be called the beginner tiers, when people would rarely ever face a bottleneck and could easily level up and reach higher realms, it was also the tier where people would usually explosively grow and gain more power quickly.

The middle was different. Each Tier would actually still give people explosive growth and great power, but that was not without a price. Holding such great power was difficult for many, and in the universe, people had given names to the three stages one would go through during the leveling realm.

The first three tiers were called the Introductory Realms by the people of the universe as that was when most people would learn how to create skills, fuse them together, properly control and channel mana to their limbs and other body parts, and would learn how to fight with their selected weapons. The average fighter at the peak of the Introductory Realm would be able to attack at the speed of sound by using little mana, and their skills could allow them to wield great power enough to level a small hill.

The next three tiers were called the Warrior Realm, it was there that the players would usually start bringing out the true power of their abilities and would be able to do incredible feats like destroying an entire town by using all their powers. The Warrior Realm was also the big divide between those that were truly talented and had what it takes to work hard and overcome obstacles in order to progress further.

With the help of the system, even those without great talent could rise high above others if they were willing to put in the work. It was in this realm that the true powerhouses would be born.

As for the next three realms, from Tier VII to Tier IX, they were called the Power Realm as it was there that most would start getting in touch with world energy and would start preparing to transcend. Those in this realm were capable of moving mountains and cutting seas in half with their incredible power, some were even capable of going against weak Transcendents.

This realm usually represented the peak of power that those in the leveling realm could reach, only being eclipsed by the final one, Tier X which was also called the Peak. Many would strive to reach the peak of power as they would certainly possess a great future upon doing so, and almost all would fail.

To reach the peak itself was something that many would find even hard work was not enough, one needed to be talented, or very lucky and stumble upon fruitful encounters. Those that reached the peak of power were not only certain to transcend, but they were also almost certain to reach Sainthood in their lives.

The average level of the players on Earth was still just Tier III, and that was the low-grade Tier III, which meant that many had only now started seeing people reach a bottleneck and had to slow down their leveling speed.

Reign and the others were anomalies, however. With their great talents and the marks they were given, they could easily reach the Power Realm without facing any obstacles, Reign himself was a being that wouldn’t face any obstacle till the very peak thanks to him being a Nephilim, while the others were not far behind.

They were certain to reach high, and they would only face some bottlenecks in the Power Realm, which meant that their chances of reaching the peak were all high as well. None of them wanted to transcend before reaching it, however, as they knew just how important it would be for their future do to so.

With Adrian making them the new items, the only thing left for Reign and the others was to rest and recover before heading out to the depths once again. There was nothing else for them to do, there were no true enemies they currently had in the region they were in, and there was nothing else for them to do.

Killing the demons was one of the things they were planning on doing, but it was still not time to do so, even though they had so many Tier IV combatants amongst them. If they were to kill them, then they would have to place Tier III and Tier IV combatants at the barrier the demons had created, and they wanted to wait a bit more so that M’azgara could create a larger army and so that she could become stronger.

The stronger she became, the more monsters she could control, including the Tier IV ones. If they waited just a bit longer she could create a few more Tier IV monsters that they could use to handle the monsters that would try to leave the fog. Even though Reign and the others had managed to kill quite a few of them, they had come across multiple battles taking place at the barrier that the demons had created, which was the main reason why the demons were unable to deal with the players.

Reign and the others always made sure to go around and not enter the fog from the front as that way, they would stumble upon the monsters that are making their way over to the barrier, which was something they definitely did not want to do.

With the demons busy dealing with the monsters, the players were free to move around the mountain range and level up, which was still very important to them all.

And like that, 2 more weeks passed. Reign and the others continued fighting the monsters in the depths and raised their levels while the players did the same. More of them reached the peak of Tier III, and some had even managed to evolve to Tier IV. Magokur had also reached the realm after some time, and now there were 7 more Tier IV combatants in the territory. M’azgara had also managed to get stronger and could now control a total of 16 Tier IV beings, two more compared to when she just evolved.

Her army had grown to 500 monsters and she could slow it down now, which meant that Reign and the others could finally eliminate the Tier IV demons and take over the mountain range. The demons, of course, didn’t stay idle and had also managed to become stronger during this time, now possessing over 20 Tier IV combatants.

Reign and the others only knew that there were over 20 of them, but had no idea just how many of them there were. They had managed to reach the mid-grade of Tier IV and were also quite a bit more powerful compared to before, but had no idea if the demons had a couple of combatants that had reached higher and were potentially high-grade Tier IV combatants as they already had some mid-grade Tier IV’s before Reign and the others evolved.

After sending out multiple people and keeping a close watch on the demons, they were able to eliminate that speculation. From what they had seen, the strongest amongst them were mid-grade Tier IVs, and there were not many of them.

Even if they had high-grade Tier IVs, their number would be low, maybe 2 or 3 of them, and with Reign and the others being free to use all of their power, those numbers would not be able to change the outcome.

Being outside of the fog meant that Reign could freely use his Nephilim powers and Wolf and the others didn’t need to worry about controlling their powers either as the monsters wouldn’t be able to sense them from so far away.

The demons were powerful and Reign and the others were not taking any chances, which was why they had waited until there were over 30 of them that had reached Tier IV before attacking them.

They were not only doing that, however, as M’azgara’s army would join them, as would the players. The players were unable to do anything to get revenge against the attack on Doncaster that happened over a month ago, but they could fight the demons. The demons had joined the enemy back then, which meant that they would partially be taking revenge by attacking and destroying them.．