Reign and the others quickly glanced back at the portal before sending Greenie through it to tell people that this portal will not be working till further notice. After all, the fog would soon engulf the portal, and they didn't want to see anybody making a mistake and walking through it, thus coming in contact with a Tier IV monster and dying.
·?θm There was also the chance that the fog could somehow corrupt the portal, or that the monsters would be able to walk through it immediately and wreak havoc in Doncaster, thus they disabled it, but they didn't move it as they didn't have time to do so.
M'azgara's elites were with them before, but now, only 3 of them were left to help them out while everybody else went back to Doncaster and the other territories. Even though most of the barriers had been lifted for quite some time now, it was still rare for powerful monsters to go to the weaker areas, but after the notification, it was as if a switch had been flipped.
All the monsters suddenly turned crazy, running from area to area and fighting for hegemony. Tens of monsters were dying each second in one area, and those that had been outside and were hunting were in for a nasty surprise as they were forced to partake in the slaughter.
Luckily, the monsters didn't differentiate between humans and other monsters. It was a giant free-for-all as everybody fought amongst themselves. Only the monsters that had previously been in groups still fought in groups, but there were some cases where they started fighting against each other as well.
Smaller territories, like the one that had allied itself with Reign and the others first, were panicking as they were in lower leveled areas and most of them didn't fight, thus they had a shortage of higher leveled fighters that could go up against the more powerful monsters that would surely make their way to them.
It was complete mayhem across the entire world, smaller territories would be overrun by monsters and there would be millions of people dying each day because of the third phase.
Those that had worked hard from the very beginning and never slacked off, never fully relying on the safe zones the system had placed, sighed in relief as they were powerful enough to withstand the attacks of the monsters that were making their way over, while those that had in fact become lazy and were merely killing nearby monsters for food were in despair.
Many had turned their territories into their own personal kingdoms, bullying the people inside and not allowing a single person to go out and hunt because they feared that someone would become more powerful than them and would take over the territory.
Each and every single person like that was now in despair, they stared at the territory that was now not only left without a safe zone but was completely open for powerful monsters to attack. After all, not all safe zones had been deactivated right away, and some had no idea that something like this would happen as they didn't care to even learn what the system was planning on doing in the future.
Reign and the others were speeding through the mountain range, every time they came across a monster, they would wound it before allowing M'azgara's monsters to kill them, thus not getting any exp.
M'azgara would get a small portion of the exp that her monsters received, but it would be tiny and she needed many of them to fight so that she would level up as well. She was a peak Tier IV combatant right now, just like Reign and the rest, and so were her elites.
None of her monsters could surpass her level, however, and even if they were the same level as she was and would continue killing monsters, the exp would be wasted as she wouldn't be getting any more in that way, but the exp be stored so that the elites could immediately level up later.
Of course, the maximum exp that could be stored would be enough for them to level up twice, no more.
Reign and the others were moving through the depths with incredible speed. The fog was now moving fast and they knew that whatever was happening was bad, so they needed to quickly get to the center, otherwise, the repercussions could be grave.
"Dammit, this damned system, it couldn't have waited one more day?!" Shadow cursed out loud as Reign and the others clicked their tongues in frustration as they had the same thoughts. They had gathered up so many people and were right about to go in, and the third phase just had to start.
Still, they preferred this than for the third phase to have started while they were in the depths, as that would make everybody panic, leading to the Tier IVs going back in haste and some even potentially dying as the monsters would continue attacking them.
"There's no use crying over spilled milk, these are the cards we have been dealt with, we should be powerful enough to deal with whatever waits for us at the center, even if it's a Tier V monster or 2 of them, with Reign's transformation and all of us going all out, we should be able to defeat them, I just hope nothing more waits for us inside," Wolf said with a sigh before slashing with his sword and cutting off a leg of a monster that had been charging at them.
Licon, the first humanoid elite that M'azgara had created, as well as the one that continued being the most powerful, smashed the head of the monsters in a single blow before following Reign and the others.
"The monsters are now more numerous," Licon said as Reign and the others nodded.
"The fog is spreading, which means the area in which the monsters can be active is increasing, which allows them to spread out more, no longer will their numbers be so dense in the center, in a way, that is also beneficial to us," Wolf said as he looked ahead.
The party continued running toward the center, not wasting any time and inspecting the area slowly as they had passed through numerous times, not to mention that they were much more powerful than before and only the most powerful amongst the monsters here could threaten them.
Chaos had ensued in the mountain range as well as the demon tribes sensed the big change in the world, and the monsters had started rioting as well. Even though the mountain range was one large area, it was in a way divided into many smaller areas and the monsters had been spread out neatly to allow one to know where to go to fight weaker monsters, and where to go to fight the stronger ones.
That was no longer the case as the monsters started moving around the entire mountain range, no longer being content with staying in one place. It seemed like the only monsters that showed no change were the ones in the desert next to the mountain range, of course, they slept during the day, so Reign and the others would have to see what happens during the night.
From how they acted, the monsters in the desert really liked the desert, so they were hopeful that they wouldn't make their way over to the mountain range nor the other areas since they were the absolute strongest monsters around, and not even Reign and the others could go against them at this point.
As they moved deeper and deeper inside, the number of monsters increased, but not like before. Now, instead of all the monsters being densely packed inside, it seemed that they had started running all over the place thanks to the fog expanding. It had even started expanding to the area next to it, going across the mountains and allowing the monsters to go to other areas now.
"It's just like you said, the density of the monsters is no longer the same as before, we should be able to go to the center without much trouble now!" Reign said as he appeared above a monster that attacked him and stabbed it through one of its two heads before kicking it away.
"Yeah, I think we don't need to worry about exp so much now, I don't think we'll reach the maximum level even if we slaughter most of the monsters that attack us," Shadow said as he used his daggers to decapitate a monster before kicking its head away and hitting another monster on the head, causing the severed one to explode and spill brain matter and some blood around the area.
"Still, try to limit your kills, you never know how many we might face in the center." Reign calmly told Shadow who sighed before nodding his head with slight regret. Laura had it the easiest as she would blast monsters from afar and weaken them before allowing M'azgara's elites to kill them.
As time passed, they got deeper and deeper inside, until some 5 hours later, they were finally near the center and were now deeper than ever before.
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