Chapter 273: Claudia Part I

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

“So to recap, the enemy is sending an invasion force of two million soldiers and there’s a high possibility they can bring more. The enemy army is also led by this Claudia, who is considered to be the strongest Crootian deity, and has the ability to control time.”

“Time Controller…”

“How horrifying…”a few officers muttered as Victor went over again the intel the Gnosis Guild had gathered.

“We don’t know what her exact powers are, but we do know that she can wipe out millions on her own. She also has thirty other deities under her command. Seeing as she’s the strongest of Croot, there’s a good chance her soldiers are stronger than the soldiers Angel brought with him. In other words, they may arrive sooner than we expect and the coming battle may just be the deciding battle of the Continent,” Victor continued coolly, but his words hung heavily in the air.

“If they’ve brought out their strongest weapon already, then that means they’re feeling confident. They have to be, because they’re going all in. If they lose even after bringing out their strongest weapon, it’s the end for them.”

“…” A heavy silence enveloped the room after what I said.

There was another problem, however. Taniya spoke up next, as if she knew what I was thinking. “Don’t forget about the Cheng Long Guild, the Nayuta Guild, and the Windsor Guard that the red-eyed man had met. Thanks to the Gnosis Guild, it would seem that the Cheng Long Guild is staying out of this, but Nayuta and the Windsor Guard are suspiciously mobilizing their armies.”

“Tsk. So we’re surrounded.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to deal with the two traitor guilds before the enemy gets here?”

“I agree with that idea. It’s dangerous to leave enemies at our rear when powerful enemies are coming down on us.” A few officers suggested we deal with the traitor guilds, but only a few. The rest thought differently.

“We absolutely must not do that. It’s exactly what the enemy wants us to do.”

“She’s right. Say we do decide to deal with the traitors; Nayuta won’t be a problem, but the commander himself would have to step in to deal with the Windsor Guard. Commander Lee is now considered to be Earth’s hero; if he suddenly turns on two Earth guilds, it will confuse the other Earth guilds.”

“Furthermore, we’re the only ones who know about the red-eyed stranger’s existence. We risk sparking a civil war if we act without sufficient evidence.”

“Tsk. So does that mean we have to wait for Nayuta and Windsor to act first?”

“Yes, we have to. But only because we’re not blinded by what’s in front of us,” Taniya said. With that, we made the decision to not attack the traitors first, but to stay on guard, as dangerous as it was.

Once that was decided, everything else fell into place. We decided to abandon Section 6, 7, and 35 and focus on defending Section 3. While it was important to not needlessly stretch our forces thin over territories they wouldn’t be able to properly protect, we also wanted to show the enemy that we were not going to back down.

We did have to split our forces nine to one. The majority of our soldiers were chosen to fight against the coming Crootian army and the remainder were chosen to stay at Section 3 to defend against Nayuta and the Windsor Guard if they really did attack us from the rear.

Then, as we continued our preparations, we started to recruit from the rest of the Earth guilds, making it clear that we weren’t taking them over but proposing an equal alliance. We needed to bolster our ranks, even if meant they were mostly average Tom, Dick, and Harries.

Either way, I began to make my preparations too. I had to get stronger in every way possible if I didn’t want to lose to anyone.

—

Section 3’s Center B Store…

“Hmm…” I stood with my back to the general store and the accessory shop and thought to myself. I currently had 21 billion golden rings. They included the golden rings I had earned from my excursion to Section 81 and 82, and the golden rings I had received from the Empire’s guild masters. They also included five billion golden rings from my grandfather, who half threw them my way. I asked him what it was for, but he just said to use them on whatever I wanted and left. He had to have heard from the rumors that were spreading that the enemy this time was strong, and that we had traitors to look out for.

Either way, I had more golden rings than I knew what to do with, and I stood there for a while trying to decide if I should safely get more Stat points or risk another item upgrade. I wanted to do try upgrading my accessories again, but I was still traumatized after failing and losing 1.4 billion golden rings all at once.

-Alright. Let’s do that then.-

After rolling the ideas in my head for a little longer, I made my decision. I had more than enough golden rings to attempt it. I moved my feet towards my destination.

——

Section 133…

“Hmm… have they departed already?”

“Yes sir. Claudia left with her twenty-nine deities and a force of about 2.3 million soldiers not too long ago.”

The three-meter tall overly muscular man frowned at his subordinate’s report. “So it was true.”

“Yes, sir. It would seem Claudia had finished synchronizing her time with the flow of time of the Continent.”

Adora, also known as the Monster of Croot, closed his eyes to think. After several minutes, he spoke with his eyes still closed. “Hmm… I did think about killing her before she finished her synch. Then again, I knew there was only a 30% or less chance I could.”

“…” Navana, the subordinate who made the report, and also Adora’s right hand man, stayed silent. He already knew that Adora was thinking about it.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do now since she’s done. But the heavens really are cruel for putting me on the same world as her. I can never escape her shadow.” Adora knew for a fact that if it weren’t for Claudia, he would be the one ruling over Croot. How? Because he did rule Croot the entire time Claudia was still synchronizing with Croot’s flow of time.

He didn’t stand a chance against her. Time was on her side, after all. He no longer had the time to attack, defend, or even run away from her. Adora hated that he had lost all of his influence and authority so quickly. Claudia’s powers weren’t fair, to be put simply. It just didn’t matter how strong or great his abilities were; Claudia had rendered him weak in an instant.

“It really isn’t fair, you know? Her powers are so unbalanced; no amount of hard work could ever let me catch up to her.”

“But there is a chance this Lee Jiwon person could defeat her, isn’t there?” Navana said carefully.

“Lee Jiwon? Sure, he’s powerful. To be honest, I still can’t believe a deva like him was able to become that strong.”

“He does know the Unrivaled skill, which is a deity’s greatest weakness.”

“Pft. Unrivaled skill? Who cares about that? You and I both know that it’s only appealing from the outside. Only the devas still think that it’s a good skill.”

“But…”

“I know, I know,” Adora said, waving his hand to cut Navana off. “Lee Jiwon broke Skyla’s authority to pieces, and killed many of our deities and countless devas. Angel fell to his hands as well. But Claudia’s different. Lee Jiwon won’t be able to do anything against her. You know what happened back on Croot.”

“…” Navana didn’t say anything. He was there when Claudia had taken over Croot from Adora. He knew full well just how badly they had lost to Claudia’s overpowered abilities.

“We just need to wait and see. Our chance will come soon.”

“Yes, sir.”

Adora raised his head and stared into the air in front of him, imagining how strong Claudia would become after this battle. At the same time, he did wiant Lee Jiwon to kill Claudia, as impossible as it seemed.

——

Section 3’s Center B general store…

In the end, I decided to go to the general store. I had so many golden rings that I could easily afford to bump up my base STR, AGI, and VIT by ten thousand points each. I honestly just wasn’t ready to trust in my Luck Boost again and reattempt an accessory upgrade. I wanted to be safe for now.

“Welcome to Section 3’s Center B general store.”

“Show me your wares.”

“Right away, sir.”

The store menu appeared before me, and I scrolled all the way down to Stat Points. I bought 5,395 for now since I had 2,605 points from destroying Sections 81 and 82. With that, I had 8,000 Stat points to use, and I invested them all into AGI first. I quickly received the 2,000 AGI points for being the first to get AGI to 50k, and another 1,000 Stat points for getting both STR and AGI to 50k. I then bought another 7,000 points and invested all of my Stat points into VIT.

==[You will be awarded a bonus for surpassing 50,000 points in VIT before anyone else.

VIT will be increased by 2,000 points.

This bonus is awarded to the first person to accomplish this achievement.]==

==[You have obtained a Grand Achievement.]

You have reached 50,000 points in three Stats (STR, VIT, AGI) before anyone else.

You will be awarded a bonus of 2,000 extra Stat points.

This bonus is awarded to the first person to accomplish this achievement.]==

I bought 6,000 more Stat points and invested all of my unassigned into STR this time, bringing my base STR to 80k. After receiving the extra 2,000 STR points, I checked how many golden rings I had just spent. After spending 18.4 billion golden rings, I had about 2.6 billion left. I had enough for one more attempt.

“Open Stats Menu.” I opened my Stats Menu first, since I had just raised my STR, VIT, and AGI by 10,000 points in a matter of a minutes.

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