Chapter 16 Badlands of the Gods

Blue opened the Thirian forums with a smirk, her eyes glinting with mischief. The board was already alive with the usual madness—guild drama, gear flexing, late-night strategy arguments, and, of course, trolls. Some posts read like conspiracy theories cooked up during a caffeine crash. Others were dead serious—tracked religiously by guild tacticians and analysts with spreadsheets longer than most novels.

And now, she was about to drop a grenade in the middle of it.

Her post was short. Clean. Surgical:

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Selling legitimate method for full team access to Falkenhide.

One-time deal. Only one buyer.

Starting bid: $10,000 USD.

Post bids via private message.

20-minute window. No extensions.

If I’m not satisfied with the outcome, I’ll release the info publicly.

Good luck.

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The moment she hit "post," the forums lit up like a bonfire soaked in oil.

Thread Title: 💰 [AUCTION] Verified Falkenhide Access Method – One Team Only

Posted By: UNKNOWN

Replies: 367 (in under 10 minutes)

* @CactusKing: this fake af lmao

* @TyrmGuildLeader: Confirm poster is the real deal—guild verified.

* @MetaMage42: if this is what I think it is, it’s worth 5x that.

* @SwampNinja: $10k to be spawn camped in a new zone, hell yeah, sign me up /s

* @Vulkran: mods watching this? It smells like insider dev info

* @RedFang_Official: Bid sent.

Private messages flooded in. Bids ticked up like a broken elevator. First 12k. Then 18k. Then 30.

One guild tried to stall, clearly trying to form a private cartel and cut a deal behind the scenes.

Too late.

Blue had set a 20-minute timer for a reason. She wanted them sweating—competing against each other, not coordinating.

At the nineteen-minute mark, Red Fang dropped a nuke:

$55,000. Final bid.

Winner: Red Fang Guild.

Blue smiled.

Karma had a sense of humor after all.

She drafted the contract in-game, submitting the digital binding agreement through Thirian’s player-run contract system. The AI processed it, verified the conditions were met, and executed the transaction cleanly.

$55,000. In her account. Just like that.

The instructions she sent were equally clean—and cryptic:

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⚠️ There’s a poison stack glitch. If all melee fighters equip the poison, it will stack and cause a dazed effect.

➡️ Keep spamming the poison and the effect duration prolongs.

✅ Stock up on stackable poisons—especially for melee and ranger classes.

✅ Keep max attacker per beast at 10 to circumvent stat scaling.

✅ One member only needs to register with the Falkenhide authorities.

✅ Once done, the organization (guild/adventure team/merc group) gains citizenship access for all verified members.

⚠️ Note: Those players need to survive the trip there to personally activate and confirm their affiliation. That means the guards will let you through—but whether you have the power to make it, that’s the question.

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It was elegant. Tactical. Effective.

And completely true.

Part one of Blue’s plan was complete.

The guilds had their breadcrumb.

And while the Robin Arrows rode through treacherous terrain, Blue stood at the junction where the starter village territory ended and where Falkenhide territory started. The reason she stood on the right side of these invisible lines was simple: there was no way in hell she was strong enough to take on the city knights if they caught wind of a rogue player impeding carriages heading into their city.

But by standing on the starter village line, the backup sent would be at most level 10. Against her own level 14 and advanced casting, they stood little chance—and this went for the people in said carriages as well.

Getting her money’s worth selling them information was only the first step of her plan. Since most of the other guilds and adventurers from other servers—that is, other kingdoms and empires—were all flooding into their respective first cities at this very moment, it wouldn’t have taken the guilds of her server, the denizens of the Veron Kingdom, long to join in on the fun.

Hence, she sold information that saved them effort and time… all to stand here, just before their glorious finish line.

Her goal: to kill them all and send a very powerful message.

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Fireblade gripped the reins like a lifeline, the world a blur of sand and jagged stone rushing past at breakneck speed. The speed scrolls were doing their job—amplifying the already impressive mounts to near 70 km/h—but it wasn’t enough to outpace the feeling clawing at her gut.

While the first hours of their journey had gone off with no major trouble, Fire knew the real trouble would come now. And just as she pondered over this, a notification rang:

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⚠️ WARNING: You have left the Falkenhide region and entered a neutral zone.

Penalty for death in this region: Full level loss + random item drop.

🔻 ALERT: Hostile Environment Detected

🩸 Poison Resistance too low

🧠 Ambient Fear Aura Detected

⚔️ Level Disparity: Defense & Attack Power Sharply Reduced

🎖️ Achievement Unlocked: Traveler

+10% Environmental Resistance

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They were deep into no-man’s-land now. And it was about to get worse.

The notifications bombarded her HUD like ice water.

“Shit.”

She yanked the comm rune open with a thought and barked into the party channel.

“Drink your damn resistance potions now. Both of them. Aura-dampener and anti-toxin. If anyone falls—do not stop. We do not fight. We do not rescue. You keep going. That’s an order.”

Murmurs of acknowledgment flickered down the line, but her eyes snapped to one face.

Happy Riddler.

“That includes you. Am I clear?”

The blond archer hesitated—just for a breath. Then nodded once, tight-lipped.

He hated orders like this. Leaving someone behind? It tore at him. But even he knew: this wasn’t a battlefield. It was a slaughterhouse.

They pressed on.

Their forms shimmered with potion-induced transparency, like phantoms riding across cursed earth. The sun above blazed sickly yellow, filtered through ash-colored clouds. The land around them pulsed—yes, pulsed—with ambient malice. The soil cracked with each hoofbeat. Hills bled black mist. Rocks growled low and deep, like things waiting to awaken.

Then—it came.

A scream.

A skreeeeeee, so piercing it felt like glass in the brain.

“INCOMING!” Fireblade yelled.

The shadows shifted—a winged shape diving from the fractured sky. Its wingspan was colossal, its feathers like shredded metal, its eyes pits of obsidian fire.

They didn’t get a chance to react.

“DISPERSE!”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Too late.

The creature hit like a meteor—talons the size of spears piercing the first mount in the formation. RedMist, startled when the beast’s huge form appeared in his line of sight, blocking out the sun, stared in fright. He didn’t even scream—until he did. Agonized, ragged. His steed vanished in a burst of red pixels.

But RedMist didn’t die clean.

No.

The creature tore him off the saddle and devoured him alive in midair, his shrieks echoing across the canyons as blood sprayed across the cracked desert floor.

Nobody stopped.

They couldn’t. The Arrows were scattering, shoving reins, skimming cliffsides as more shadows appeared overhead.

One rider down.

Two.

Four in the span of a minute.

And the worst part?

They could hear each other die.

“HELP ME—!”

“MY MOUNT’S DOWN!”

“NO—NO—NO—”

Then silence. Only wind. And bones.

Happy Riddler surged ahead, eyes sharp, scanning with Eagle Sight. His HUD lit up with threats they couldn’t dodge. Some enemies waited until you were almost past, then lunged from beneath the sand or dropped from the rocks like ambush predators.

And no one could help.

If you stopped—you joined the dead.

Gronk’s voice cracked through the comms, ragged.

“Eight down. Two wounded. The pass is a blood trap—rerouting west.”

Fireblade shook her head, though no one could see.

“Denied. Follow Riddler. Stay low. Grit it out and try to survive.”

Wry Finch’s voice—panicked, raw—burst in.

“What is this place?! At the rate of deaths we might not survive the trip at all!”

“You’re next if you don’t shut up and focus,” Poison Ivy replied flatly.

The air thickened. Their mounts were flagging. Buffs were wearing off. And the silence between attacks was somehow worse than the chaos.

The survivors rode like hunted animals—wide-eyed, panting, hands trembling as they clenched reins slick with sweat.

They weren’t on a mission anymore.

They were in the badlands of the gods, and they weren’t supposed to survive.

Red Fang Encampment | Frentire’s Town Borderlands

Commander Oz stared at the dazed boar, losing health points at a dizzying speed, even with only ten men in the group. When it finally collapsed, he let out a long sigh. These past few days, he and his squad had struggled with these very beasts.

All their funds had gone into gear—especially for tanks and melee players—and into bulk orders of health potions. No one had thought to bring poison… not until now.

The new strategy was simple but brutal: apply poison in stacks and kite the enemy. The results were shocking.

PyroVex sidled up beside him, eyes alert.

“Sir, just like the information said. With this poison strategy, surviving the beast hordes during the carriage ride won’t be half as bad. But…” He hesitated. “At the rate our enemies are leveling, some guilds could brute-force their way through with a few level ten squads. If that happens, what we bought becomes worthless.”

Oz chuckled and shook his head.

“Team Leader Pyro, even our guild branch is barely a day ahead. It’ll take a miracle for any of them to hit the city by today. Two, maybe three days—minimum. But that’s where our advantage lies. If we’re first, we’ll gain traction. Experts will flock to us. Fame… influence… It snowballs.”

“But sir,” Pyro pressed, “even some of our allies are trying to undercut us. If spies figure out we’re using poison, they’ll bulk-buy it and catch up. Some are tailing our squads already.”

Oz’s expression darkened.

“Then I’ll contact the superior branch in the Didra Emperor Server. The poison will be bought from their end, off the radar. Supply it directly to our team leaders. Make sure no one leaks a word.”

“Yes, sir.”

While the Red Fang upper echelons planned their exit out of the starter towns, elsewhere, ally and rival guilds fumed and plotted ways to not fall behind…

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Veron Kingdom – Eastern Outskirts – Frentire’s Town | Midday

The war table flickered with projections—holographic maps, player markers, strategic overlays blinking in warning orange. Commander Nuckelbasher stared down at the latest report, his frown deepening as lines of enemy movement filled the screen.

“Damn those Red Fang bastards,” he muttered, voice like gravel ground under steel boots. His meaty hand slammed down on the table. “They moved fast. Too fast. Who the hell even verified that auction? If we knew it was legit, we would have dared bid seriously,” he growled, lamenting the fact that he didn’t greenlight the accountant team to bid over 20k.

No one answered. The room was tense—half-lit by glowing HUD screens and war map projections, shadows clinging to the corners like smoke after a siege. Each top officer present stood stiff, fingers twitching on swords or armor plates as they waited for orders.

Finally, a man stepped forward—lean, sharp-eyed, with his cloak half-shadowing his face.

Lucas, codename HiddenSoul, bowed.

“Commander. I have my entire shadow wing deployed. We’re tailing their main parties, disrupting their quests, noting down all their actions. They won’t move unnoticed again.”

Nuckelbasher grunted.

“Good. I want every squad on them. They breathe, I want a timestamp. They sneeze, I want tissue samples.”

An awkward cough followed that line, but no one dared laugh.

As if Blue had lit a fire under the starter towns, all day the forums ran hot with gossip, brags, and memes…

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Global Guild Comms – Veron Server Alliance Forum

🔥 [RedFangForum]

— kidVex: We made it, boys! Falkenhide, baby!! Soon!! I knew joining Red Fang was the move

— SheWhoSmacks: Tell the statue guards I said hi 😘

— Iron_Joe: Eat that, Black Panthers. Your guild sucks!

— NovaVayne: Y’all have a way through? No way, those hordes are crazy hard!

— kidVex: It’s guild secrets, I won’t blab. But yeah. We got a way to handle shit!

— SkyWatcher: GLORY TO RED FANG

— upperNote: Remember, no guild secrets shared in the open, brothers. If you want to vent, keep it in the Fang forums. Stay stealthy.

🛡️ [VeronTopGuildsBoard]

— StormRider (WhiteClan): Red Fangs, you dirty snakes, share the info with us like good brothers!!

— BloodHelm (Earth Splitters): No more waiting. Kill on sight.

— HiddenSoul (Black Panthers): Been tailing them fuckers all day. It’s lame. Let’s just slice their necks.

— IceKarma: Heard they’re hiring mercs.

— StormRider: Bribe them. Outbid them. Break them.

— TideCaller: Fuck it. Call the Wraith Guild. Bring in the nukes.

— WhiteClan: Writ of Blood Issued – Red Fang War State DECLARED across Veron Kingdom. All WhiteClans are to slaughter the Red Fangs on sight. Rewards will come to those that reap the most lives! And double payout if you find out the intel the guild has…

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As the forums grew heated, posturing didn’t cut it anymore. Red Fang’s enemies grew bolder, happy to waste their own time stopping the guild’s progress in open war. Droves of rival guilds, independent players, and adventurer teams joined battles—everyone looking to mess with Red Fang, demanding they share their intel or stay in the godforsaken starter towns with the rest.

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Lucton Mine Town – West Gate | Dusk

The first carriage broke the ridge at full gallop. Red Fang banners flared red in the setting sun—low-grade armor clanking as escort riders drew swords.

The moment they crossed the outer path to the city, a volley of fire spells erupted from the hillside. Not skilled, not clean—but numerous. A flood of Tier-0 and Tier-1 projectiles—Fire Sparks, Wind Blades, weak Bolts—rained like an amateur pyrotechnics show gone rogue.

The ground exploded in dust and flame. Two mounts dropped instantly. Screams tore the sky.

From the rear of the caravan, a Red Fang lieutenant cursed.

“Ambush! Take the left flank—circle cut!”

But it was chaos.

The attackers weren’t coordinated—they were desperate. Adventurer parties. Mercenaries. Mid-rank guild kids looking to earn clout. They came with basic gear and panic-cast spells, burning mana like water.

And it worked.

Not because of power—but volume. The sheer mass of projectiles overwhelmed the defense, and within minutes, the streets of Lucton were a blood-slicked brawl.

But try as they might, the Red Fang guild—as one of the top guilds on the server—had the power to push out several city-bound carriages, and through the sacrifice of many, a few made it past the battlefields. Their only opponent now: the hordes of monsters.

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Global Forum – 13:04 a.m.

💬 [BlueBlooded]: Two Red Fang carts just breached Frentire and Rosewilder’s town lines. That’s three out of five. Who else thinks they cracked a chain quest?

💬 [@SaltedWound]: I’m telling you, it’s that manor crest—they bribed the nobles.

💬 [@N0tArcane]: Bribed? Dude, they’re hiring mercs. I saw them contract 30+ unaffiliateds in market chat.

💬 [@Shad0wOpz]: Bet they get nuked before reaching Falkenhide. Place your bets!

💬 [@S tittyslave]: I’m joining the guild, fuck it. I hate politics but I hate sucking ass in this town even more 😭

💬 [@noblesword]: Your name is fucked. You think a reputable guild will accept a noob called tittyslave? Hahaha, lol, fuck out of here

💬 [@S tittyslave]: Wait, people care about usernames? Chat, am I cooked?

💬 [@S tittyslave]: Hello, anyone want to team up and slay monsters…?

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As the chaos continued to brew in both forums and the now battle-scarred fields of the five starter towns, inside one of the first carriages to break through, the members of Red Fang sat—grinning as they read the flood of messages.

“We fucking did it, boys! We’re bound for Falken, and with the poison buff, no one’s stopping us!”

At the head of the carriage, PyroVex leaned against the window, armor scorched, eyes wild but proud.

“They thought they could trap us in the starter zone,” he growled, tapping a still-glowing rune on his wristband. “They underestimated what desperation buys you.”

The man beside him chuckled darkly, nursing a torn cloak and a frostbitten hand.

“Desperation… and fifty grand in USD.”

Their journey was going well. Just like the tip they bought, the poison debuff rendered all the beasts nothing but small fry ripe for the killing.

But halfway through their journey, they saw a figure ahead.

The player marker: black.

The assassins and rangers on lookout all failed to identify the person’s level—a fact that startled the elite Red Fang scouts. Their guild was known for housing top-ranked experts, with elite squads close to level 10—just like the NPC guards and mercenaries from the towns.

So how was there a player so high that their stats and all information returned ?? Even their avatar’s face was blurred, making it hard to determine gender or appearance.

PyroVex growled.

“Kill that person.”

The Red Fangs jumped off the wagon and ran—weapons and staves raised.