Ian was almost convinced that the egg of the unknown monster which he had handed over to Gripper in the past was indeed the Behemoth’s egg.

However, once he held the egg, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

‘The egg that I handed over to Gripper was definitely reddish in color.’

He was 100% certain that the ‘ Unknown egg’ was indeed reddish.

But now, the Behemoth’s egg which was in the hands of Ian had blue light around it.

The two eggs weren’t the same.

“What was it…?”

Canoel who was next to Ian asked with a strange expression in response to what he said.

“What’s wrong hyung? What’s the problem?”

Ian shook his head and answered.

“Ah, nothing. I was just thinking about something.”

And as a result, the identity of the ‘Unknown Egg’ which he had thought to be the egg of the Behemoth became Unknown once again.

Ian’s instincts were telling him that the egg he handed over to Gripper was a much better monster than the Behemoth.

‘Uh… Uh… How am I supposed to retrieve that egg?’

Ian was wondering what the egg would be like, but for the time being, he decided to not be anxious anymore.

The most important thing for them now was to complete the quest.

‘Once the quest is done, I need to go to the dimensional ancient tower. I need to get on good terms with Gripper and get the egg back…!’

Ian, who was imagining things for himself, made a fist and turned his head towards Hoonie and Canoel.

“Hey! Hoonie, Noel. If you’re done with your maintenance then shall we go?”

“I was done a while back. I was just waiting for hyung.”

“Okay, let’s move then.”

Behind the place where the eggs of Behemoth were, a blue colored gate was open.

If they went in there, then they were bound to get the Orb of Darkness.

Ian finally checked the status of his familiars, and no new enemy made an appearance. The situation was looking good for them.

Swoosh- swoosh-

Ian, who frowned looking at the dungeon entered the gate without any hesitation.

The gate swallowed all of them with a screeching sound and its trace was nowhere to be found.

* * *

[The ‘Orb of Darkness’ has been obtained.]

[The ruling monarch who had been sleeping for a thousand years in the tower has awakened.]

[‘Power of Commander’ is activated.]

Woong woooong-!

The place where Ian and the party had entered was a mysterious place which looked like the top of the tower.

A skeleton-shaped altar that rose to an endless height and a smooth orb was floating in front of them.

When all of them approached, a purple light began to glow over the altar.

The Orb that absorbed the light moved towards the direction of Ian and his party members. Hoonie then took the Orb.

At the same time, a system message came up.

Tring-

[The power of the ‘Orb of Darkness’ will last for only three days. Before that time, all the needed materials should be taken to Daedmon’s temple.]

[Remaining Time – 71: 59: 58]

Checking the message, Ian couldn’t help but frown.

Because of this message, all the plans Ian had made became worthless.

“Oh, What a dirty quest!!”

A 3-day time limit was something that he hadn’t even thought of.

If they had known it beforehand, then the tower would’ve been the last place they would’ve visited.

‘We should’ve come after taking the Balrog’s heart at least.’

But what was done was done.

Hoonie who grasped the situation a little late spoke.

“3 days… it’s a bit too tight of a schedule. What should we do hyung? Shouldn’t we at least sleep for 10 hours and then continue?”

Although there was an unexpected time limit in the quest, after hunting down the Behemoth there wasn’t a single ounce of strength left in them.

No matter how urgent it was, it was virtually impossible for them to continue with the quest.

Even for Ian, the icon of Emergency was making him want to take a break as well.

And they also didn’t have a plan either.

“Can’t help it. let’s sleep for 8 hours and for the remaining 63 hours, we’ll go straight to doing this quest again with no breaks.”

“…”

Hoonie sighed, and Canoel’s expression was completely down.

They wanted to go off immediately, and if they didn’t come right on time, they didn’t know that Ian was willing to call them 500 times to make sure that they wouldn’t be late.

“So we’ll log out for now?”

Ian who was about to nod at Hoonie’s question realized that something was off.

“Hey, by the way, in the message that came up earlier, there was something about a Monarch, right?”

“Ah, so what if there was? I’m dying for sleep now. I want to sleep even if it’s just a minute.”

Hoonie tried to log out as soon as he could because he felt annoyed.

But at that time, a system message came up in front of Hoonie’s eyes, a message that he wouldn’t even think of.

[Events that won’t allow Logout are in progress.]

“Uh? What is this?”

Another system message came up as if someone was listening to Hoonie’s question.

[The ‘Commander Monarch’s seal has been released.]

Syahhh-!

A gruesome noise rang through the whole dungeon.

They were all so shocked that they were not sleepy anymore, and in front of them, a quest window came up.

Tring-

[A Sudden quest will be created.]

– – –

– Escape from the Tower (Hidden, Sudden Quest) (Time Attack) –

You have received the trust of Daedmon, and defeated the Behemoth and have been successful in obtaining the Orb of Darkness.

However, this Orb was originally a seal for the ‘Commander Monarch’ Chalian, and so the seal for the Ricci King Chalian had been released.

As soon as the seal on the soul of Chalian was released, he would go crazy and destroy everything.

So, let’s move out of his grip and escape the Tower of the Commander.

Quest Difficulty: SSS

Quest Condition: Obtain the Orb of Darkness

Timeout: 15 minutes

Reward: Magical Ability 1000, Magic attack rate 0.1%

– – – – – –

The three of them quickly read the contents of the quest and were all speechless for a second.

“What are all these quests!”

“What kind of Triple S grade quest reward is this!?”

Apart from their ongoing complaints, the quest didn’t wait for them.

[The Monarch started to run wild.]

KukuKung-

As the dungeon collapsed, an enormous roar began to vibrate in all directions.

Ian turned his head in the direction of the source of the vibration.

And there it was, a bizarre shadow with dark smoke around it.

[Monarch Commander Chalian – Lv 500]

The level of the monster that just appeared was 500, which was equivalent to the Chief of the God’s army who was summoned in the dimensional war.

A boss monster with this level would stand strong even if it was attacked.

“Oh, shit…!”

Ian turned his gaze towards the gate they used to come here.

However, the gate that brought them to this place was not there anymore.

‘What… what? What to do?’

But right then, Canoel called Ian.

“Hyung, there!”

At the direction that Canoel had pointed to, a new gate had opened. After seeing this, Ian and the party began to run towards it.

If they died there, they would lose 24 hours of their 3 day time-limited quest.

So they ran desperately.

* * *

Since the dimensional war, Ian’s name had become a common name among the users.

In the Kailan server of Korea, the strongest player Irahan got officially defeated by Ian. He was the one who had gathered the best points in two of the human camps, so maybe it was bound to happen.

There was the situation that most people didn’t know, that Irahan had actually been defeated by Ian way before the war, and these were some unknown facts not known to many. As of the moment, it was known that Ian was one of the strongest users in Kailan.

And just because Ian was a member of it, the Lotus Guild too became very well known.

Not like the previous years, where the Lotus Guild was considered as a lost ship.

Now they were doing an Empire war with a total of 12 guilds in the Central continent, and the guild they had challenged were all well-proclaimed guilds in the top ranking of the Luspel Empire.

The Lotus Guild was continuing its winning streak.

So far, they had 5 consecutive matches and won them all.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that all the attention of the users was now on the Lotus Guild.

Of course, they had to exclude Ian and his party who were in a quest.

The greatest manor in the Western part of the Central Continent—the Pauline Manor.

It was the place where the Titan Guild’s flags were flourishing, and two people were having a serious conversation there as of the moment.

The identity of the two people were the ones who came there because of Shakran, who was leading the power of the Titan Guild.

‘Ceilron’, the Knight’s ranker and sub-guild master, and ‘Emily’ the closet keeper of Titan guild whose reputation was still unknown.

Emily was originally just a member of the Ceilron party. After Shakran acknowledged her for her abilities, she was made into the current unofficial closet keeper in the Titan guild.

The two of them were in front of a small round table, talking to one another.

There was a crystal ball on top of the table, and it had the images of the war in it.

Ceilron slowly opened his lips.

“Emily. Is this something you expected?”

Emily responded with a firm expression in response to Ceilron’s question.

“That’s a little ambiguous.”

“What is?”

“When I saw the scale of the Pyro Manor, I thought that they had started to produce the Wyvern knights.”

“And so?”

“The problem is, even if we consider the number of Wyvern dragons in the war, we won’t be able to make much difference with the troops. Even I didn’t think that they would be able to do such things in such a short time.”

Emily sighed and continued with what she was saying.

“Do you think that we should move quickly too…?”

“Moving?”

“What is the goal of Lotus now?”

Ceilron thought for a moment and then responded.

“That’s obvious… they want to take down all of Luspel’s guild, right?”

Emily shook her head and spoke.

“No, the next one.”

“After that… attack the west?”

Even in the same Central Continent, the manor in the western and the other respective side had different places.

The western side wasn’t under the Luspel Empire. It was under the Kaimon Empire.

Emily shook her head once again.

“No, not that. Of course, they could do that anytime, but if I was in the Lotus Guild I would add something before that.”

“Add something?”

“Hmm.”

Emily stood up and spoke.

“Maybe to proclaim kingdom. If you see the size of the Lotus Guild, you can see that they have already met the conditions to be declared as a Kingdom.”

“…!”

After hearing this, Ceilron began to scratch his head and explained what the plans would be.

“And after that, I would take over the Luspel empire and… declare it as the Empire.”

Emily nodded with a serious expression.

“And if that is so. Then after that… an imperial war against Kaimon?”

Once the Lotus Guild grows to that extent, then they would start with the Titan guild.

However, there was no way they could attack the Lotus Guild in advance.

Officially, there was a peace treaty between the Empires of Luspel and Kaimon.

So there was no way for the Titan guild to go and attack the Lotus Guild because of the truce.

Ceilron muttered something with his seriousness still intact.

“Ha… where did the master go in such situations?”

“Well. He should be back by now…”

The door of the meeting room which was behind them opened.

“Well, I am back, and it seems I’m right on time.”