Agatha The Legendary Guild Master

I stood there, my place motionless, as anger started to swell in my heart. There was a traitor, no mistake about it, but what I didn't account for to be two or three traitors in one go.

I was sure I didn't misread Rendy, but when I thought about Richard, I felt more rage boiling in me. I stayed calm, as possible, while controlling the balloon to flight into the direction I agreed upon with Nina.

Randy couldn't pull this betrayal alone, and that only meant that Richard helped him, or Rendy, or both. Dealing with these uncertainties was a nightmare to me, as I preferred to fight legions upon legions in battles, and not suffer from such treacherous actions.

Just as I reached the place of meeting with Nina, I was surprised to see an army was waiting for me there, and Nina was trying to lose them on one side of the place. the players there were numbered in tens of thousands, even reaching a hundred thousand players.

I just looked at this horrifying scene, without any impression on my face.

"Are they the ones that attacked us?" I asked Diana, Rog, and Gen who were standing silently, lowering their head in shame, from their failure.

"No, they were only those five balloons," Rog was the one to reply, as he pointed towards the distance, where I spotted Nina's balloon was trying to lose the tracking of ten more behind it.

They were ten, not five. I sighed, it seemed I had lowered my guard earlier than expected. I thought I was safe, but I was well schemed by my enemies, betrayed and lost many of my strengths by my own mistakes.

I sighed, angrily blaming myself in silence.

"Do you want us to prepare for battle?" Diana asked, as she tried to ask for redemption in this impossible battle with impossible odds.

Not if I didn't interfere of course.

"No," I firmly replied, "this is a challenge, direct challenge issued to me, and I will respond on it personally."

I moved a couple of steps forward, then I jumped, using the robe of the balloon, which I just threw over the edge of it, to fall rapidly on the ground.

One girl, standing with a spear in hand, facing all these endless numbers of players.

The moment my feet touched the ground, I heard a chorus of laughter, as it seemed my little jump amused them. I glanced silently, while taking out my artifact, the prison.

Before I dropped down, and along the way to here, I kept selling many things in my porins, pearls and medallions were sold out without reservation. During the way to here, I didn't spot a lot of demons, but I absorbed any demon I spotted into my artifact.

However I didn't intend to release them, as their number was mediocre. I held the artifact tightly in my hand, hearing their mockery and sarcastic rude insulting comments, as I muttered to myself:

'Absorb them all.'

'There a…'

'Absorb them all!'

I didn't need to waste any time calculating their number. Absorbing a single player cost me only one gold coin, so even if their number was in millions, I was able to sustain absorbing them.

Suddenly, the whole world ushered in complete silence, like some god had killed all the sounds in this world. I turned around, enjoying this sense of silence for a moment, before taking a deep breath and shouting:

"Is there any bastard who wants to scream or laugh at me again?"

I was met by silence, as no one replied, as no one was here except for me and my players. I didn't stand there anymore, as I caught the swinging robe, climbed it up, while controlling the balloon to move towards Nina.

I didn't absorb only the players on the ground, but also the players on the ten balloons, who were chasing Nina. They were all like my balloon in rank, but gaining ten at one go was a strike of fortune.

I moved rapidly towards the staying still balloons, as once I boarded mine, I started to distribute the trophy:

"Diana, Rog, Gen, Rody, Elyo, Gabri, Goda, you all will take one balloon each, board it with some players from here, and follow me."

My arrangement was a surprise for them, as they thought I would collect them into my inventory, or give some to Nina. I intended to give one to Nina, as once we met, she sobbed while saying:

"I'm sorry, I thought we can save our friends."

I looked at her swelling red eyes, to know she was crying for a long time already, perhaps since I told her that our friends were all dead. I sighed, as she turned out to be this tender heart.

"Don't blame yourself like this, look we have three balloons here, you take two and I will take one."

I changed my arrangement, as after all she deserved more than one. She just glanced at the balloons, without much interest, before asking with her crying tone:

"Are our friends really dead?"

I nodded, as she cried higher, as she yelled in pain:

"Why did this happen? you mentioned a traitor, who is he? I won't stop before killing him with my hands!"

"You know him, or to be honest they are two," I replied.

"Two?" she muttered, "Who?" she asked.

"One is Randy," I said, observing closely her facial reactions. She wasn't much surprised, as I thought, while saying:

"That damn filial brother, I always thought he was discontent with his fate, unsatisfied with his life, always thinking about what his brother had and abandoned. Never thought he would turn out to be a traitor."

She had the same opinion as me, which made me wonder if she would agree upon the next name in mind.

"And the second is Richard."

"No way!" she immediately said, with genuine shocking expression, and exclamation out loud, as she couldn't imagine Richard would be the second traitor.

"I left him in charge, and when I left, I warned him from Randy. Randy could never do anything without the support of Richard," I explained.

"I can't believe it," she muttered, "Richard was always by my side, always killing and attacking nobles, how can he suddenly succumb to them?" she then went to silence before saying, "I'm sure it was Rendy, this family is a filthy one, bad blood is running in this family, I'm sure it was Rendy."

I silently glanced at her, sighing helplessly, as I knew she would suspect Rendy first. A noble that left them was someone who can't be trusted, as who was crazy enough to ditch all this wealth and comfort?

However, I was sure Rendy was honest when he spoke about leaving them, as I was sure Randy was a traitor. I pursued my lips, and said nothing, as identifying the traitor right now wasn't important. I just was curious about the fate of that ex-noble, was he alive?

If I was in those two shoes, then I would have killed him for sure, erasing all evidence from my sight. I was sure they were confident in their chances to win, as they would never suspect I would realize the truth.

I didn't need to stay here any longer, as I took one balloon and stored it into one of my porins, while the other two were given to Nina, who thanked me a lot, before assigning two teams of her to ride and control the balloons.

We started with two balloons only, but now we were ready to continue marching forward with twelve balloons, a dozen balloons created a magnificent scene to behold.

We wasted a lot of time already, but the gains were enormous. I didn't go to sleep again, as I stood on the edge of my balloon, hunting down any demon I could see.

After a while, I decided to just use my artifact frequently, as I started asking it to absorb any demon nearby.

This way I managed to increase the number of absorbed demons by folds. I didn't need to look around in caution and concentration, like I was afraid of a stalker, but I just sat in relaxation, on the floor of my balloon, and used the artifact to absorb demons.

The journey went smoothly without any surprises, as we needed to fly slightly over a day before we reached the borders lining the third and fourth layers apart. Through this journey, I managed to spot some simple looking forts.

I thought of snatching some, training myself over how to siege a fort, but I realized I had artifacts, strong enough to shake the whole world. I didn't need to train on these weak forts, didn't need to train at all.

We passed through the barrier, smoothly like that, and just before we could continue up ahead, I was faced with another challenge, a challenge that made me laugh no matter how hard I tried not to.