Chapter 343: The Prelude of War Conquest - 3

Kwang-!

A roar sounded, and a huge gate opened at the beginning of the fifteenth division of the Devildom.

At the center of the large gate, a red light was shining. The gate was around 3 meters in width and 5 meters in height. A large sound came along with a red whirlwind.

A few moments later.

The gate opened with a bunch of users on the other side.

Thud- Thud-

The ones who appeared from the gate were a complete mess.

The knight's armor was blackened all over, and the robe of the wizards and the priests were nearly as bad as rags.

The one who appeared first was a warrior class wearing a light armor.

Martin—who was dusting away the dirt stuck on his armor—mumbled to himself.

"Huh, I caught it. The gate doesn't seem to be used till now. I thought that there weren't any gates after the 30th division."

In general, the magic gate opens after a week or two when one uses it, and then it doesn't regenerate till a month.

So even if there wasn't a gatekeeper, one could have thought that another had approached it. However, it was tough to imagine someone clearing the division below 30.

The first discovery appeared too, so there was no doubt.

Ian and his party entered the 17th division, so how did the discovery appear?

The reason was simple.

Both Ian and Martin's race were different, and the content pre-emptive reward such as first discovery reward was designed to be applied separately to each race at times.

That had also been the intentional project plan of the developers to make more users transfer to the new race, Asmodians.

After that, all the other users started to come out of the gate in turns. Chase who came out late responded to Martin.

"I guess so Master. I was sure that a level 400 Noblesse would appear... but I can't see a Noblesse anywhere."

He then looked over at Irahan who said.

"If it wasn't for me, we wouldn't have even passed through."

Martin replied to what he said.

"That would be the same case for you...?"

But, Irahan was the only one who was nervous.

"What nonsense? My DarkRuna guild would have been able to clear it all alone. I hope you don't forget that fact."

Martin didn't feel like agreeing with that, but neither would he use his energy to argue with the fool on the other side.

It was because of his long battle with the keeper. His fatigue had reached its peak, and he felt that it was a shame to use up his calories for a guy like Irahan.

Martin ignored Irahan and started to check all the users who passed through the gate.

"Hmmm... the damage is bigger than what I had expected."

They didn't have much difficulty when reaching the 17th division.

Both the Royal Guild and the DarkRuna Guild incurred losses in power.

And this was a natural thing.

It was probably because they were the elite Asmodians; that was probably why everyone was present every time they passed through each gate.

Thanks to it, that it took less than a week to get to the 17th division from the 30th division of Chaos.

However, from the gate of the 16th division, gatekeepers began to appear.

They had to fight because they were Noblesse that was on level 350, who guarded division 16. However, the next division—division 15—was a real hell.

A level 415 Noblesse Wizard and 390 Noblesse warrior were guarding the gate.

But due to that, they had lost almost half of their party members. That was something that never happened before.

Fortunately, all the main players were saved.

[You are the first to enter the 15th division of Devildom.]

[Earned 100,000 fame points.]

[For the next week, all the stats that are acquired in the 15th division of the Devildom will be increased to 1.5 times.]

[Over the next week, the amount of exp gained is doubled, and the item drop rate is also doubled.]

When the message appeared, Irahan thought to himself.

'Hmm... why didn't this appear in the 17th division? It doesn't make sense unless someone had cleared it before us...'

Irahan knew for certain that the first discovery was different for each race.

So, he thought that it was possible for a human to go through the 17th division.

But, that just didn't make any sense.

Since all the portal that was connected to the human world had been closed off, it didn't make sense for a human user to be left in here.

If a human had been to the 17th division, then it had to be before the outbreak of the dimensional war, and that made no sense.

At that time, the average level of users was below 30.

While Irahan was lost in his thoughts, he was approached by Sorlin the head of the DarkRuna Guild.

"Irahan, I just finished counting. A total of five died, including Leon, and the other seven are safe."

Irahan nodded.

"Sorlin you worked hard. Let's do it right this time."

"Yes, Master."

On the other hand, Martin who completed management came towards Irahan.

"What are we going to do Irahan? We need to find the dungeon and move as fast as we can... I don't think it will be easy to destroy."

Irahan slowly nodded and agreed in response to what Martin said.

"You have been saying that all this while. But nothing will work if there is a lack of concentration."

Irahan directed his eyes and looked at the party members.

"Take a day's rest and then we'll find the 'Tomb of the Forgotten Soul'. Once you get a good night sleep and are done with all your maintenance... we'll meet same time tomorrow, okay?"

Martin nodded in response to what Irahan said.

"Okay, Let's do that."

* * *

"Oh...? Is Ian hyung not here yet?"

In the 17th division of Devildom.

A small garden in the back of the tower.

Hoonie, who entered the hall looked around for Ian and Canoel.

"Uhh, I feel like I'm dying for sleep. How does sleeping for 30 minutes sounds like? But I never saw Ian hyung brake his promise..."

And right when Hoonie was mumbling to himself, Ian who was sitting on a rock in the open field came to his view.

"I'm already here. Did you contact Noel?"

"... there was no way you wouldn't have made it in time. I just got a message saying that he needs to eat."

An unexpected sudden mission was invoked in the Tower of Commander.

Ian and his party managed to clear the mission with all their mental powers.

All the familiars and the Undead had to be sacrificed, but they didn't have 24 hours of death penalty.

And after exactly eight hours.

Ian and Hoonie both showed up at their designated place.

"Once Noel arrives, we'll go. I don't want to waste a minute or a second either."

Ian involuntarily shook the Judgment of Spirit King, and Hoonie just lay down on the ground.

"I'll sleep for ten minutes till Noel hyung comes, hyung wake me up if he's already here."

Just as Hoonie was about to lay down, Canoel's voice came from afar.

"Oh-kay, I wasn't late, right?"

Hoonie was the one who answered him.

"A little late hyung..."

* * *

"What are the specs for the 17th division's gate?"

Hoonie was the one who answered the question which was directed to Ian.

"Two level 340 Noblesse, and three level 320 monsters."

Ian smiled and rubbed Hoonie's head.

"Well our Hoonie has a great memory, and he is putting effort to use it."

"No hyung, you have way better memory than me. So remember these things yourself."

Hoonie's words weren't informal.

Hoonie and Canoel truly felt that Ian's mind was truly amazing.

He would be able to remember the cooldown time of the active skills of all the party members, and the way he just keeps giving out orders one after the other in battles was never easy to adapt too.

In fact, if Ian, Hoonie, and Canoel had been a warrior or a knight class, it wouldn't have been so surprising.

Of all the top rankers, there were very few people who had the ability to control small party quests.

But these men were warlocks and summoners.

Ian would give orders after carefully assessing a target's ability, and he would then summon a familiar that was suited for the current situation.

Considering that most of the users didn't find it easy to properly utilize the unique abilities of their own familiars, this was a fraudulent thing only Ian could do.

Hoonie was grinning, which made Ian smile and replied.

"You're noisy, shut up. Since you ordered your hyung, I'll do as you please."

"Hiss."

Ian started to try and remember the details of the 16th division.

'As we go further down the area, the level of the gatekeepers are going to rise rapidly... maybe a Noblesse close to level 400 might make an appearance.'

Ian and his party were prepared for it, but for now, they nervously took steps towards the gate of the 16th division.

However, at the next moment, the three of them got suddenly confused.

It was because a system message had popped up that said something that they would have never thought of.

[You have reached the gateway to the 16th division of the Devildom.]

[After a moment, you will move to the 16th division of the Devildom.]

"Huh...? Why?"

Hoonie and Canoel were both saying nice things, but Ian was feeling troubled.

'What is this? Has anyone from the Asmodian race already entered the 16th division?'

Ian quickly passed to the 16th division and then managed to reach the gateway of the 15th district.

However, once again the discovery message hadn't come, and Ian and his party passed the 15th division gateway with a free pass.

Hoonie who was standing in front of the tower mumbled.

"Phew, after hearing that Hoonie had come into the 15th division, all the gatekeepers seem to have run off! Haha!"

Ian sighed and spoke to Hoonie.

"Shut up idiot. I had never heard of gatekeepers running off. Someone has passed through before us."

Canoel—who found something—called Ian and Hoonie.

"Wait! There's something here."

"Huh...?"

Ian and Hoonie both moved and found things right in front of the gate.

"What is this? Are they just glass bottles?"

"There is a broken sheet of metal armor."

Ian blinked his eyes.

'Surely, as I thought, somebody got here before us. Maybe some Asmodian users?'

Ian bent down and picked up an empty potion bottle.

At the mouth of the bottle, the moisture was still present, which meant that the users had just left.

And Ian's head started to work rapidly.

'I'm not sure who they are, but they must have logged out right before we went through the 15th gate.'

Of course, they could've entered inside the 15th gate, but that was not really a great thing to do.

"I don't know who, but thanks to them we got to save a lot of time, right?"

Ian smiled.

Even if it was Ian, he would've needed some time to get rid of the keepers of the 15th and 16th.

And in a situation where they had only two days until the quest completion, this was a nice way to save time instead of dealing with the keepers.

On top of that, an evil thought just went into his head.