Tang Shaoyang looked around, checking his surroundings while his Spirit Eyes checked further into the distance. They were surrounded by trees, tall and dense trees. The tree he never saw before. Its trunk was white while the leaves were black. Far up to a thousand meters are, everything was the same trees. He saw no beasts or people, just trees.

“We are safe for now….” He paused as he looked down the stairs. They were in the middle of a platform made of stone. He was standing above the same magic circle that was in the Demon King castle’s backyard. Down to the stars, the ground was covered in black leaves, “Or maybe we are not safe.”

Tang Shaoyang easily noticed with his Spirit Eyes that people hid below the black leaves. Using the leaves as the cover, waiting to ambush them. There were at least twenty of them, hiding to the side of the paved path. Each of the people had a short sword, holding the sword as these people noticed his arrival.

Rosalie came next to him, looking at the same ground as him. She failed to notice it at first, but she saw the thick mana below the leaves. It did not take long for her to realize there were people waiting for them.

Lu An seemed the first one to realize the ambush. The boy pretended not to notice the ambush, but his innocent eyes’ facade turned sharp the moment they arrived there. He sensed these people’s presence.

‘Five Epic Ranks and fifteen of level 850 on average,’ Tang Shaoyang had used the Detection on twenty people. These people were not a threat to them. Lu An alone should be enough to dispose of twenty of them by himself.

It was not hard to figure out these people’s purpose. It was the same with The Defiance. They want to use the players to get out of the tower or maybe they had deep hatred for the players and wanted to kill the players.

Lu An did not take any action, taking a glance at Tang Shaoyang. The young man was waiting for the order to execute.

Tang Shaoyang turned toward his little brother. His lips were moving but no voice came out, ‘Capture fives for questioning, kill the rest!’ That was what he said to Lu An.

The young man executed the order beautifully. He disappeared into the shadow and screams were heard not long after. There was one scream coming from below the piling up black leaves, but then the scream stopped. Five seconds after the scream, Lu An emerged from the black leaves with five people in black, dragging the unconscious five men in black.

Tang Shaoyang was about to approach Lu An, and yet he received a notification message. He got a message from Zhang Mengyao which said: “Call me if you are not busy.”

“Get information from them. That should not be hard for you, right?” He asked Lu An.

Lu An smiled, tapping his chest two times for assurance, “Don’t worry about it, Brother. I will make sure they will spill everything they know.” After saying that, the young man dragged the five unconscious people to the woods.

Tang Shaoyang called Zhang Mengyao through the Communication System. His call was immediately answered by Zhang Mengyao. The latter immediately told him what transpired back in the Starter City, the other factions that arrived in the starter city that might turn the war unfavorable for them. She asked him what they should do about the factions from Earth.

If it was a normal situation, Tang Shaoyang should be happy as the other factions might help the empire to face the other factions from the other worlds. However, his factions were so strong that the other factions from Earth wished for his empire’s fall. The other factions might work together with The Divine Church and the Federation of Allurion instead of supporting the empire that came from the same world.

Rosalie came up to him with several options. First, they could talk with the other factions to form an alliance to fight the federation and church. That was the best scenario. Second, treat the other factions that arrived on the eleventh floor as enemies, meaning they would fight them as well. That was something they wanted to avoid but necessary since those factions could become a threat. Third, retreat from the dimensional tower and focus on conquering Earth rather than splitting their forces into the Dimensional Tower. The fourth, continued as it was and reacted accordingly. Passively waiting for the situation which was also bad.

Tang Shaoyang’s order was quite simple: take the necessary measures. It did not matter even if they became a common enemy for the other factions on Earth. If there was a sign that those factions joined hands with the church and the federation, treat them as enemies and kill them all. It was a wait-and-see situation, there was nothing they could do about it. If it was too much, Tang Shaoyang asked them to retreat from the tower temporarily.

Tang Shaoyang and Zhang Mengyao talked it out for a while with Rosalie occasionally offering her opinion on the matter. He heard screaming from the woods, but he remained unbothered by the scream, “This is the worst scenario that I don’t expect. We are in a race against time now. If the Divine Church manages to infiltrate the Earth with the help of these factions, they might have a way to find the way to get into Earth.”

The Divine Church’s God Alliance, Nirvana, was interested in the world he came from. They hated the power he had, but they also sought out the same power for themselves. Without a doubt, they wanted what he had, and Earth was where his power came from. They were eager to find Earth, and that meant the war against the Divine Church was imminent. His time to reach, at least, Legend Rank was shortened. He needed to reach Legend Rank before the Divine Church could find Earth.

Legend Rank was the bare minimum for him to fight the God Rank, but it was better if he could reach Demi-God Rank in time as well. His chance to win against the God Rank would be higher if he could reach Demi-God.

“I wish I was decisive enough to make a decision to conquer the Earth before the Dimensional Tower,” Tang Shaoyang said in regret. His goal was to take his former country’s territory, and he was satisfied with it. But now the other factions that governed the other territories might be the cause of his empire’s fall.

“It’s pointless to regret that. We have to face what is in front of us right now,” Rosalie hugged him from behind, whispering to his ear, “We have to trust the empire to Zhang Mengyao right now. You just need to focus on your goal right now, reach Legend Rank or even Demi-God Rank before the church and the federation find their way to Earth.”

In the eyes of the Divine Church and the Federation of Allurion, the Earth that just started the Game was a world full of resources. They would be greedy for the Earth and would want to take the Earth for themselves.

Not long after he ended the call with Zhang Mengyao, Lu An returned. His face and outfit were covered in fresh blood, but the young guy was still smiling as he got the information from the five people. Shadow crept up to his bloody, from the bottom to the top. The blood disappeared from his body as the shadow scanned his full body.

“They are the natives with the same motive as The Defiance, Brother. These people wanted to capture us so they could get out of the tower,” Lu An’s information was to be expected. There was no surprise.

“Did you ask him about how to get to the fourteenth floor?”

“I did, but it seems they did not know anything about it. However, we might know the people who know that. Those people said their leaders might know about how to reach the fourteenth floor.”

“Then you should know where to find the leaders they talked about, right?”

“Of course,” Lu An nodded, “Follow me. They said their post is to….” He paused as Lu An did not know where the south was. He could not differentiate which was south or north.

“To?” Tang Shaoyang furrowed his brow.𝒩𝑶𝑽𝓛xt.𝗇𝓔t

“To the south, but I don’t know which is south,” Lu An was embarrassed. He was so confident earlier and yet, he did not know the basics. However, Tang Shaoyang was no better than Lu An. He could not tell which direction the south was.

Rosalie who realized the problem let out a chuckle. She looked up at the sky, at the sun for a moment, before pointing toward the paved path, “This way.”

Lu An grinned ear to ear, “We are lucky to have Sister Rosa,”

The three followed the paved path, under the shadow of Lu An. They moved discreetly to avoid being noticed. Not that they were of the natives, but Tang Shaoyang just wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Heading further down to the south, they finally found a settlement.

It was a human settlement, surrounded by a five meters wooden wall with a tower built behind the wall. The people with bows and arrows stayed on the tower to watch over, the gate was guarded by four people. It looked like a normal settlement on the outside. They had fields to the west, farmers tended the field, and the settlement had quite a few pens with creatures with a similar build to the pig.

It was just a similar settlement they could find on the eleventh floor. However, from the information, this was the place where the native trained the people to ambush the players. This was just one of many places for the natives. They had similar settlements on the other sides as well, many of them guarding the portal.

“I will leave it to you, Brother,” Tang Shaoyang tapped Lu An’s shoulders. There was no one better to sneak into the settlement without being noticed.