Orinik stood stunned. What had just happened? He didn't even remotely have a good explanation. The more he thought about it, the more baffled he was.
Was it some sort of special reward? But according to his calculations, Gold-Grade should be the highest level city currently. It had to be remembered that the supercontinents only spawned dungeons and challenges equivalent to the territories it was in. This meant that if one wanted a reward higher than the Heir-Grade at this point, according to Orinik's calculations anyway, one would have no choice but to enter the ocean. This was the only place that would spawn such challenges ahead of time.
Orinik didn't believe that a Gold-Grade reward could expel his city like it had just now, even cracking its city core. Such a thing would completely unbalance the situation. So did that mean that someone had been just lucky enough to clear an Heir-Grade dungeon with this sort of reward?
But even that didn't make any sense because that would have to mean that they were targeted in specific. They had been completely secretive and had definitely flown under the radar. Plus, who could even reach them currently? They only had such freedom so deep because of the Rain Beasts.
Orinik threw that idea out and assumed that it must be some sort of large area of effect ability, but just how large could it be? He didn't believe that anyone could sneak up on them, and they had already claimed a large region with their special territory, so if anything had appeared, they would have been alerted on their territory map the moment someone encroached.
In order for them not to notice, the range of such a thing would have had to be enormous, hundreds of kilometers at the very least, and that once again brought him back to his original deduction: it had to be an Heir-Grade reward. But… that was impossible!
Orinik took a breath and exhaled. Often, the simplest deduction was the right deduction.
'Someone formed an Heir-Grade territory. Not only that, but they succeeded in claiming the entire sea for themselves.'
As a group with a unique ocean territory, Orinik, of course, knew about claiming a sea, he was actually working as fast as possible to get to that level as soon as possible. But just when he felt like he was getting close, all of his hard work had been destroyed.
'No, it's not over yet.'
There were obviously two choices before him. The first was repairing the city through fusion while the second was attacking the person who had done this to them.
At that moment, Rychard and Montero flashed over from a distance. They landed in the midst of the ruined and cracked city, their expressions just as ugly as Orinik's.
"What the hell happened here?" Rychard asked.
"We've been targeted. I think someone used an Heir-Grade reward to expel us and claim the sea."
"How is that possible?!" Montero's brows jumped.
"It's unlikely, but it isn't impossible. We've run into upgrade rewards and territory rewards. It's likely that someone was lucky enough to stumble into all three that were needed. Potentially one of the Water Force families. We would have to face off against the Constellation Families eventually."
"You're saying someone managed to gather a unique water territory, which is already rare enough, on top of all of those things? Bullshit!"
"That's the simplest explanation. It's also best that we go forward with this explanation, because if we underestimate the enemy too much, we'll suffer instead."
Rychard gripped his fists. Why did it feel like every time he was close to succeeding, he would be crushed before he could even fully rise? His gaze burned with a furious light, causing the waters to become agitated.
"We'll crush them now before they can gain the full benefits of the Heir-Grade territory. They'll be in a lull right after passing such a big trial as well. In addition, although they won't know much about us, their territory map should have alerted them to the fact that they had just pushed a territory out. They won't ever guess that we'll attack them now when we've just suffered a huge blow."
Orinik frowned when he heard Rychard's words. He could tell that Rychard was already slowly losing his patience. However, when Rychard continued, his words still seemed to carry some reason.
"Think about it. Anyone who could find so many rewards in the ocean, albeit lucky, also took quite a bit of effort as well. They've likely taken the same strategy as us in dispersing many of their subordinates into groups to clear as many dungeons and challenges as possible.
"If they used an upgrade reward to reach the Heir-Grade, which makes the most sense, they wouldn't have needed to recall everyone and they're likely to even expand their radius even further. Now that they had a territory map that expands across an entire sea, there's even more dungeons and challenges to deal with.
"Before they consolidate and decide to attack other territories with the gains they've made, this is the best chance they'll have, without a doubt."
Orinik nodded slowly.
Although he had originally felt that Rychard was far too eager, after hearing his words, Orinik felt that they held no small bit of logic to them. The reasoning was sound and he couldn't find anything wrong with it immediately.
Even if they were wrong and someone had somehow amassed an army that could clear an Heir-Grade upgrade challenge the normal way already, not to mention the point total it cost as well, after fighting such a huge battle, this person would be in quite a sorry state currently. So even in the case he was wrong, there was no better time to attack than now.
Orinik nodded slowly. "Let's prepare. We can only take an hour at most."
Rychard and Montero looked toward another, clearly in agreement. It was clear that they had all agreed on this being the best step. If they retreated now, their chances of victory were next to nothing. Aside from revenge, the rewards of these Heir Wars were far too lucrative, they couldn't give them up.
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