Chapter 188: A Sign of Downfall (1)


    The tactic of the executive members of the Kaimon Empire that induced internal conflict within the users of the Luspel Empire worked really well.


    The controversy that started to spread through themunity grew to the point it was uncontroble, and it was publicized throughout all of Kan.


    The forces of the establishing guilds of the Luspel Empire were strong, but when looking at the whole empire, the fighting power of the mid-upper level users could be considered the strength that was almost the foundation of the empire.


    Simply put, as the establishing power wasn’t able to receive the support of the middle ss, the Luspel Empire began to shake from its roots.


    There were even cases where amongst the users that were affiliated with the top-ranking guilds, there were some that were disappointed and walked away from their guilds.


    Articles rted to this began to continuously pour out from all mediums including the officialmunity.


    ? The uneasy bnce of Kaimon and Luspel begins to crumble.


    ? The Korean Kan server, will the two giant countries crumble for the first time in the world?


    At first, there was a lot of people saying that the press was pouring out articles that were too provocative.


    They were doubtful that the giant empire that was Luspel would copse so easily.


    However, as time passed, more people began to predict the fall of Luspel.


    The Allied Forces of the Kaimon Empire, who took the opportunity, began to push through the east side at an incredible speed.


    As that speed was amazing to the point it was truly terrifying, dozens of central continent bases that were affiliated with the Luspel Empire were handed over to the Kaimon Empire in an instant.


    And the Allied Forces of the Kaimon Empire strategically excluded the Pyro Domain from the beginning.


    The thought that if they continuously knocked on their door, they would eventually be able to take over, but to do that, the time and expenses that went in were too big.


    Summarized into one word, the expression ‘chicken ribs’ was most correct.


    Their existence was the same as the rib meat of a chicken as there was too little meat to go through all the trouble of eating, but it didn’t sit well to give it to someone else either.


    Leaving enemy territory alone right behind their back itself could be diforting, but the Kaimon Empire moved aggressively.


    As about one month passed like that, close to 80% of the territories were handed over into the hands of the Kaimon Empire, and the front line was pushed down to the very back where the giant guilds of the Luspel Empire were guarding.


    Experts predicted that the giant guilds of Luspel would copse immediately, but they still desperately endured on.


    This was because if all of the central continent went into the hands of the Kaimon Empire, then the eastern continent, which was the maind of the Luspel Empire, would be in danger next, and in the position of the established guilds that possessed multiplerge-scale domains in the outskirts of the continent and the northern area, they needed to block it at all costs.


    And during that time, Ian and the Lotus Guild began to expand their territory in the central continent little by little.


    They had upied several bases that surrounded the Pyro Domain.


    * * *


    The Lord’s office of the Pyro Domain.


    Ian and Herz, as well as Fin, the Lord of the Pyro Domain, were sitting down and sharing a conversation.


    “Jinsung, if you use all of your Fame, how high can you raise your noble title?”


    At Herz’s question, Ian, who took a moment to check his information window, began to diligently calcte his Fame.


    “Hmm, since I have about 5.2 million Fame right now…”


    Fin waspletely bbergasted as she asked back.


    “Huh? 5.2 million? No, exactly what must you do in order to collect that much?”


    “This is just my opinion… But I probably collected about 200 thousand Fame just from my dragon letting out his breath in the siege warfare that we went through against the Allied Forces two months ago.”


    “Now, now that you mention it, you do have a point there…”


    “On top of that, since I’ve been constantly poking here and there around the central continent and hunting, if you look at it, 5.2 million is not thatrge of an amount.”


    Ever since the moral controversy of the establishing guilds of the Luspel Empire stuck out, the general public thought that Ian and the Lotus Guild would take revenge on them no matter what method it took, but surprisingly, the Lotus Guild did not make any sort of move.


    They just quietly developed their strength in the middle of the central continent.


    And during that time, Ian poked around the middle of the central continent like it was his home as he continuously raised his level.


    This was because right now, when most of the rankers that were affiliated with Kaimon were gathered at the front line in the eastern zone, even if they were inside the territory of the Kaimon Empire, no user that could stop Ian existed.


    On top of that, because Ian’s level was almost at 170, even most decent Kaimon NPCs couldn’t even stop Ian.


    Whether it was a dungeon or a field hunting ground, Ian hunted whatever he confronted, and if a Kaimon Empire user or NPC existed in the hunting ground, he even massacred them indiscriminately.


    The result of that was that he had gathered this enormous amount of Fame.


    “Seriously, even in games, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”


    “Rather than that, wouldn’t the phrase some people have everything going their way be more urate?”


    Ian lightly ignored the two people, who were grumbling, as he substituted his Fame to the promotion requirements.


    And he opened his mouth shortly afterwards.


    “Since I need 1.2 million in order to be a Marquis, and 2 million in order to be a Duke, it looks like I can go up to a Duke in one go. However, since I have too little Fame left once I go up to a Duke, it’s too irrational to be a Duke yet.”


    At those words, Herz scratched the back of his head as he spoke.


    “Euh, so there was also Duke after Marquis.”


    “Yeah, idiot. But why do you ask about that?”


    “I thought that you might even be able to raise your title to ‘Archduke’.”


    “Archduke?”


    As Ian asked back, Fin responded instead.


    “If you raise your title to Archduke, we couldbine the domains of our Lotus Guild and dere them as a ‘Dukedom’.”


    “Hmm…”


    Herz grinned as he added on.


    “For the first time in all of Kan, we could be a dukedom.”


    Currently there were a total of seven domains that the Lotus Guild owned.


    The Lotus Domain and the Ollibus Domain in the northern continent, and including the Pyro Domain, they had an additional five domains.


    Of course, as the rest of the domains in the central continent excluding Pyro had the risk of being taken whenever, they didn’t ce a high importance on them, but either way, the profit they could earn from the creation of the seven total domains was tremendous.


    If considering the fact that the Titan Guild and the DarkRuna Guild, who were quarreling over first and second ce in the overall guild rankings, didn’t quite have 15 domains that they possessed, it could be considered a surprising level.


    Thanks to that, the Lotus Guild had met almost all of the requirements in order to be the very first ‘Dukedom’ in Kan if Ian just obtained the ‘Archduke’ title.


    It wouldn’t be the Lotus Guild but would be the ‘Lotus Dukedom’.


    However, Ian’s reaction wasn’t that positive.


    “If I went all-in for about a month to gather Fame, it should be more than enough for me to get to archduke. However, I have no intentions of doing that yet.”


    At Ian’s words, Fin widened her eyes as she asked back.


    “Why’s that? The fact that we be a dukedom, it means that we will be a nation. We can obtain a power that’s iparable to before.”


    Firstly, once they be a nation, quality of the people and the military power that they could train itself changed.


    It would be possible to build a facility that could foster knights that were the same as the public knight academy, and the various contents of magic towers or special defensive towers would open up.


    Fin was talking about that.


    However, Ian shook his head.


    “The moment we dere ourselves a dukedom, the arrows of Kaimon that are aimed at the unification of the continent will return to us again. You even know the reason why I’m not expanding the number of bases in the central continent right now.”


    A total of seven domains. And currently, the Lotus Guild was ranked at 11thce in the guild rankings.


    To be honest, this figure was a figure that Ian cleverly made.


    He wasn’t increasing any indexes that could be appeared on the outside.


    It would be urate to see it as consideration to reduce the awareness towards the Lotus Guild from the top-ranking guilds of Kaimon.


    Since the Lotus Guild that was being seen on the outside was not enough to be of threat towards the Titan or DarkRuna Guild yet.


    Herz nodded his head as he opened his mouth.


    “Hmm… But then again. If we suddenly dere dukedom, they’ll probablye to nip the bud. Then, Jinsung, what is your thought?”


    Ian slowly opened his mouth.


    “Now is the time to increase the internal strength. Until the Kaimon Empire Army is right in front of Myuran, let’s continuously grow our strength and wait for the chance.”


    This time Fin asked.


    “And then what about afterwards?”


    Ian’s gaze turned towards Fin.


    “We will lead all of the troops that we have gathered up until then and return to the Lotus Domain.”


    “…?”


    The Lotus Domain he was talking about was the base in the northern continent that the Lotus Guild first obtained.


    At Ian’s unexpected statement, the two people’s gazes gathered at his mouth at the same time.


    Ian’s words continued.


    “We will return to the Lotus Domain and swallow up all of the domains of the guilds affiliated with the Luspel Empire that have grown weak nearby, and we will proim dukedom then.”


    This was the first time that Ian was exining his giant picture that he had continuously thought of for the past two months.


    “And the users of the Luspel Empire that would soon fall, we will take in all of them. Since above everything else, we have ‘justification’.”


    Herz slowly nodded his head with a dazed expression.


    “That’s right, we’re the only guild that endured until the end against the Kaimon Allied Forces in the middle of the central continent.”


    “Yeah. We just need to maintain that image until then. And we’ll bring up a new nation in the northern continent.”


    At Ian’s words that poured out without rest, Fin felt chills all over her body.


    “Wow… I didn’t know that you were thinking that far ahead. Up until now, I thought the reason we were gathering strength was to back-stab the Kaimon Allied Forces.”


    Herz agreed with Fin still wearing a dazed expression.


    “Me, me, too…”


    Fin opened her mouth again.


    “That’s why I thought that we were dering ‘dukedom’ at an unexpected time and plot so that the tables turn with the troops we gathered until then…”


    Ian smirked.


    Since at the beginning, he had the same thought as Fin as well.


    ‘However, if that’s the case, then even if we be a dukedom, we’ll just be a subject country affiliated with arge empire known as Luspel.’


    It was a golden opportunity to escape the fence of the empire and independently raise a nation.


    Ian thought that this opportunity was a chance given by the gods.


    On top of that, there was another reason.


    ‘If we back-stab the Kaimon Empire Army with the strength we’ve gathered together up until now, we’ll just be helping those shrewd guys, Splendor and Oan, so we can’t be doing that, no?’


    If the empire fails, then it would be no different than them, the first establishing guilds, failing as well.


    Of course, amongst them, he was nning on taking the same route as the Valiant Guild.


    Ian opened his mouth towards the two people.


    “Either way, we must continue to increase our fighting power, but we must hide that. You could see it as our goal is to suffer devaluation as much as possible from outsiders.”


    Herz and Fin nodded their heads at the same time.


    “Okay, I understand what you mean. It looks like we’ll have to keep everybody quiet inside of the guild as well.”


    “No kidding, if it’s as Ian’s n is, it looks like it will be quite a long-term n.”


    And Ian added on.


    “Oh, there’s also something else I remembered.”


    “What is it?”


    The corners of Ian’s mouth slightly curved upwards.


    “Samuel Jin will most likely request for assistance soon.”


    Herz was startled as he spoke.


    “Huh? With what sense of honour will that crazy dude request for assistance?”


    Ian smirked.


    “Since we haven’t taken any stand up until now. He might think that we don’t know the exact situation, or he might even try to make a deal with us.”


    With an expression full of anger, Fin asked Ian.


    “Then how do you n on responding?”


    “We must say that it’s difficult enough for us to just protect the Pyro Domain. What will they do from that side when we say that we don’t have energy to spare?”


    However, even at Ian’s response, Fin wasn’t wearing a satisfied expression.


    “That’s it?”


    At her question, Ian grinned as he replied.


    “No way. We must take as much revenge as we suffered.”