Infinite Realm

"What did you say?!" Azure Dragon asked with a surprised tone.

"The kobolds, the kobolds look to be heading our way." Ore replied.

"...are you sure?" Azure Dragon asked hesitantly. He already knew the answer to his question but he couldn't resist asking it.

Ore replied him "At least, 70% sure captain."

Having received an answer to his question, Azure Dragon frowned in thought why wondering how things had ended up this way.

'Wait a minute..!'

Azure Dragon hurriedly asked, "Ore, are the monsters heading here on their own accord or are they being lead over here by someone else."

Ore turned his attention from the screen, looking elsewhere. He narrowed his eyes as he kept staring at that place till he suddenly spoke up.

"Yes! I think there's someone there."

Usually, the role of a lookout is taken on by [Rangers] due to their advantage in sight. But because Riley, who was the only [Ranger] present in the team, was sent to monitor Soran's team, Azure Dragon had to make do with what he had and appointed the Ore to take on the role.

In other to prevent himself from being caught in between the monsters, Ore had separated himself far away from the approaching horde. Because of the huge distance in between, Ore, who as an [Assassin] didn't have the 'godly' eyesight that [Rangers] possessed, couldn't see much even more so in this underground environment. Ore hadn't initially noticed Lu Zhen but with Azure Dragon questioning him, he was finally able to notice a fuzzy dark figure in front of the horde.

Azure Dragon's face chilled up as he a cold look was left displayed. His guess had been right. Someone was trying to use them as bait, just as he wanted to use Soran's team.

'For them to actually dare to do such...' Azure Dragon gritted his teeth. This action of Lu Zhen's had inevitably pricked a spot in Azure Dragon's pride. Not only that, because of the current progress of the mission, it looked like Emperor's Might would consequently lose out today.

At this point in time, Chesces and the rest of the team had already noticed something strange was going on with Azure Dragon. Because the video call was in private mode, apart from Azure Dragon, no one else knew who he was talking to or even the content of the conversation.

With Azure Dragon suddenly becoming angry, all the players present, who were undoubtedly Experts at the least, easily felt the change in temperature brought about by Azure Dragon's cold aura.

"Captain, is there a problem?" Chesces asked nicely. He knew that at this moment, Azure Dragon was angered. Normally, he would wait till he(Azure Dragon) had let off some steam. But because the mission was too important for the guild, he couldn't wait for that to happen.

*Sighs*

With a sigh, Azure Dragon regained his cool and retracted his aura. From this action of his, one would realise that even when frustrated like this, Azure Dragon was a man who could still think calmly. This was one of the reasons why he was valued by the guild's upper echelons.

"A problem has just occurred. The unknown player who might have had a hand in Tawaki's death is leading the kobolds towards us."

Azure Dragon's first set of words had stunned the group but before they could even react further, he continued with his words.

"If my guess is correct, it means that this player must have arrived here before us and hidden himself. He or she should have thought of the same plan as we did and decided to enact it on us."

"How?" Black Tempest was the first to react. "We had first-hand information and we also rushed up here as soon as possible. Ignoring that, they are very few teams that are capable of reaching this place faster than us and we are aware of all of them. Heck, we have even been monitoring their motions ever since we got the information. So how come?"

Back when Emperor's Might had paid a developer for this information, they had made sure to pay attention to the movements of everyone that they felt would be a threat to them; even Heaven's Angels wasn't left unguarded. The result of their surveillance was that none of these guilds had made any massive movements yet that pointed towards Black Grill's Cave. As for the other weaker guilds, they weren't set in their(EM) sight. To reach the 10th level of the Middle region, having a good and reliable map wasn't enough. One would also need a strong team to be able to face the monsters on the floors. Also, the gate guardians at the 9th floors were quite difficult for even super guilds as they too also lost a man. If they suffered such a loss even with a team of Experts, one could only imagine what a team of regular veterans from weaker guilds could achieve. In summary, it was 90% impossible for any guild below the 1st rank rating to make it this far before them.

"I would also like to know who they are and how they made it but sadly, we don't have the luxury of such information now do we?" Azure Dragon glanced plainly at Black Tempest.

The words in Black Tempest's mouth got stuck in his throat as he felt awkward being glanced at like that.

"So what do we do now?" Chesces asked with a serious expression.

The team couldn't just simply turn around and go back. Ignoring the fact that they couldn't do so till they found the Exit gate -as even their [Teleportation runes] stopped working-, even if they could find the gate, they wouldn't dare to retreat. The guild had invested a lot for this first-hand information. Ignoring that, they had also spent a lot to afford the gears that this team currently wore together with the consumables and support items they bought. If it were to be rounded up, at least 1-2 gold coins were spent buffing them up to peak form. Having such a large amount of money spent on this team only for them to retreat without any achievements, it would be a lie to say that the upper echelons would easily forgive them or wouldn't blame them.

"We just change position. It's quite possible that the player might just be leading the horde to our position and doesn't know of our existence of location so let's just go elsewhere." Azure Dragon said.

Since the time Ore had reported till now, not up to 2 minutes had gone by. They still had enough time to extricate themselves from this problem by easily changing locations.

Without further ado, the team moved in another direction, perpendicular to that of the approaching horde [1]. They chose the left direction because in this way, they would still be quite close to Soran and his teammates.

After 5 minutes passed with the Emperor's Might team having gone more than 300 metres away from their initial position while running at full speed, Azure Dragon received another call from Ore when they had just taken a stop.

"What's up?" Azure Dragon asked with a bit of confusion and a slight frown. Looking at Ore's expression, he felt a slight sense of trepidation.

"Captain, they're still chasing after us." Ore said with a bitter look on his face.

"Damn it!" Azure Dragon cursed. The worst assumption he had guessed turned out to be true.

Azure Dragon didn't bother to reply to Ore as he said to everyone in the team through the party chat.

"Listen up, change direction and move over to the God's Retaliation battalion's side."

"What?!" Black Tempest exclaimed in surprise. Not just him; everyone else was also surprised. Even Chesces raised his eyebrows in surprise at the statement.

"What's the problem?" Chesces and Black Tempest simultaneously asked.

Azure Dragon grimaced his face before saying "If I'm correct, we are being monitored."

"?!??!" Black Tempest was shocked.

"How come?" Chesces asked. He was a bit surprised but with the movements and reactions Azure Dragon had made, he had somewhat expected this.

"Just when we changed direction, the kobolds also changed direction, under the lead of that player. If I'm correct, then it's highly possible that it isn't a single player that made it up here but a party. It's also highly possible, at least 80% chance, that we are currently being monitored by one of them." Azure Dragon replied. With the actions he had made and the reactions from the kobolds under Lu Zhen's lead, Azure Dragon had easily reached a somewhat flawless conclusion.

"But still, why do we have to team up with those guys?" Black Tempest couldn't resist complaining. Can't we just look for the spy or something?"

Azure Dragon didn't bother to answer him but the same couldn't be said about Chesces.

"Hehe. Are you dumb or what?" Chesces mocked him with a derisive grin on his lips. "They have been monitoring us for God knows how long yet we didn't discover them. You suddenly think that at the last moment, they would suddenly make a mistake and expose themselves to us? As for looking for them, who knows how long that will take. The kobolds are already closing in on us and we can't keep running forever. We can't escape either or even bother facing off against the kobolds on our own. The best option would be to team up Heaven's Angels and try to pull it off."

"But still..." Black Tempest was unwilling to just give up like that.

"Enough." Azure Dragon cut him off.

"We aren't surrendering or begging them for help. I'm correct then we are pretty much in the same boat with them. If those guys discovered us, who can say that they didn't discover Soran's team too. What I'm really afraid of is that out plans have already been predicted by them." Azure Dragon sighed.

"Is that even possible?" Chesces widened his eyes.

"You ask me. You do the same to others so you should be able to guess so." Azure Dragon said to him. "I feel like ever since we stepped into this floor, all our actions were not only monitored by the but predicted by them too."

'If that is the case, then their leader should be a really scary figure in the gaming industry. Too bad we wouldn't be able to find out who he is.' Chesces shook his head as he lamented inwardly.

From the directions that he had tried to plot things out, Chesces discovered that their chances of survival were less than 20%.. In other words, if Azure Dragon's words were right, they were doomed to die the very second they stepped into this floor.