The Nine Lords Of Order - Chapter 28
A few months had gone by ever since Mars returned from the Lightning Valley. Currently Mars was only worried about increasing his strength. So he spent most of his time training. Since he had plenty of merit points he thought working for more would be a waste of time, at least for now. After all, the efficiency of farming merit points at lower ranks was horribly slow.
Currently Mars was living with Ena in a small residence were the worldly energy concentration was considerably high. Although this residence was small it had cost them more than 50 thousand merit points and they had to pay another thousand merit points each month or they would be kicked out from this place. Mars thought it was too expensive but all the cheaper residences were already taken.
A month after they returned to the city they started seeing posters of themselves within the city. The poster were offering a reward of several thousand merit points in exchange for information regarding him and Ena. Mars just shook his as he already knew something like this would happen.
Soon after they returned to the city, Eanred had managed to contact them through Louis. After he heard Mars’ description from the encounter against the group they had offended, he told them that it was very likely that this group belonged to one of the top five factions within the city. It was the Ascending Devil faction. Their current leader was an old man who had lost the opportunity to ascend to the islands but decided to remain in this place. The old man was several hundred years old already. And rumors said that he was getting desperate to make a breakthrough. After all, the higher your rank is, the longer you can live.
The old man had been stuck at peak rank 4 for hundreds of years already and if he didn’t make a breakthrough soon, he might die of old age.
The Ascending Devil faction used to be just a regular faction several tens of years ago. However ever since the old man started to panic about not being able to make a breakthrough, he started to become tyrannical and ambitious. Eventually he and his faction became infamous.
However hard work rewards everyone. His faction rapidly increased strength. More experts joined them and they were able to procure more and more resources.
In the end they had become one of the top five factions within the city.
Now they were being targeted by them.
What surprised them the most was that after a couple of weeks, the Ascending Devil faction also started spreading posters with Louis face on them!
Louis had a connection with Mars and Ena. So if Louis was caught, then they might be caught next. However, how did they found about that connection?
It didn’t take long for Mars to make a guess of what was going on. “It must be that shady guy, Beck!”
“I don’t think his name was Beck Beck is a girls name” Ena murmured.
“He probably saw the posters and sold us out! How ruthless… we came from the same place as him and he is plotting against us! No sense of comradery!”
Mars had no doubts that it was him.
What was more troublesome was that Louis was considerably active within the city. He would often go out and collect information and there were many people who knew about him. He did not possess a good disguise either, so he could only hide within the shadows. Mars and Ena’s masks were very valuable and it would be hard for even rank 6 experts to get their hands in masks of such high quality.
Although fighting and killing was forbidden within the city, there were many ways which would allow a big faction like the Ascending Devils to deal with solitary figures. Not only would it be difficult to join another faction now, it would be hard to earn merit points as well. In fact, if a big faction targeted someone from a weaker faction, the weaker faction might kick out the targeted member in order to avoid trouble.
Now that the Ascending Devil faction had their eyes on Louis they would probably capture him and kill him the moment he decided to go outside the city. Although Louis had enough merit points to stay within the city for several years He would eventually need to seek enlightenment to progress in power and rank. To accomplish that he would need to go outside the city. He couldn’t get stronger by just sitting around could he?
Going to the arena to earn merit points would be a terrible idea as well. As soon as the Ascending Devil faction learnt about this, they would send many of their members to participate in battles, eventually they will be matched against Louis. He might lose his life if he is not careful…
Luckily Eanred possessed considerable influence as well and helped Louis hide for a while but this was not a long term solution.
In the end Mars came up with an evil plan He thought that only because he had caused the death of one guy, the whole Ascending Devil faction suddenly went crazy on hunting him and Ena down and placed so much effort in getting back at them
‘They are protective of their own people, and will praise that about them however that is something I can totally exploit!’
Several days later Mars was stealthily hiding among tree branches. He was wearing black clothes and the clean crystal mask he used when he fought on the battle arena in the Bluewaves kingdom.
Soon Mar heard the sound of footsteps approaching. He unsheathed his sword and waited.
Several members from the Ascending Devil faction had gone outside the city to complete a quest. These sort of situations were very normal and every faction with several tens of members would work on completing quests all the time. Mars had found out that this group only consisted of rank 3 experts so he had decided to follow them.
“Hey why did the leader suddenly reduced the share we get from each quest? Less people will join the faction this way”
“Sigh, it’s because more rank 4 experts are being recruited. We rank 3 combatants must offer a share from our work to the faction in order to remain within the faction, however rank 4 experts are the complete opposite. They will not just join any faction unless they are offered some benefits. Strong factions offer benefits in the form of resources or salaries the moment they decide to join a faction, basically they get paid for joining a faction. Where do you think their pay comes from? Trees?”
“Oh… that sucks for us I guess… at least we get the chance to participate in bigger quests and expeditions from time to time”
“That’s right, just think about it. If we had joined a weaker faction and gone to the Lightning Valley, we would had probably been exterminated by demon beasts. It’s only with a strong faction that we can afford to participate safely in those kind of expeditions.”
“Yeah, you’re right”
Mars who was within the trees watching hesitated for a bit. Although he was angry at the Ascending Devils faction, that did not mean everyone within that faction was his enemy Well, maybe they were all his enemies but that did not mean he had to kill all his enemies. He felt killing these people might be overboard but showing them mercy was not a great idea either
In the end he steeled himself. ‘They can only blame themselves for joining a faction full of assholes I Mars am not someone who just sits around and gets bullied alright? I’ve been observing them for a while so I know there is someone with a power level of 3000. That person must be a peak 3-star rank 3 expert I am far weaker. But that’s not a problem!’
Time to test out my new trump card!
Suddenly Mars jumped out from his hiding spot and headed straight towards the most powerful member within the group.
‘Overcharge!’
As soon as he yelled those words within his mind, the black bandages which were covering his right arm suddenly burst into pieces and Mars felt his body being overflowed with energy. Red lightning streaked through his body and his power level started to increase at a very fast pace!
1600!
1800!
2100!
2500!
2800! Boom! From the initial 1400 his power level doubled in an instant! Fortunately Mars had been tempering his body for a long time so he could withstand the sudden overflow of energy.
His target heard the loud boom of thunder and was immediately alerted. He pulled out a shield from his space bag an blocked the incoming attack.
However after a breath of time he did not feel the fierce clash he expected. Before he could tell what was going on he felt something had suddenly smashed against his temple and he fainted.
Fa-thud!
His body swiftly fell to the floor. Behind him, a Mars’ figure appeared standing with his sword in hand. In the end he had decided to not kill them, and knocked this guy out with the hilt from his sword.
Now that the strongest member was gone, the others lost morale and were quickly beaten by Mars in a matter of seconds. Nobody was his match, and he was too fast in his attacks.
(Rank 1: 150 years / Rank 2: 200 years / Rank 3: 250 years / Rank 4: 500 years / Rank 5: 750 years / Rank 6: 1000 years )
