As the friends advanced, the tremors became increasingly intense. Finally, they spotted something in the distance. There was what looked like a large crater, as if a meteorite had crashed into the mountain. The path led right to its edge, where it was suddenly cut off.
On top of the crater was a magical barrier. It was a large, transparent dome. Green roots full of vitality grew over it, forming a dense network.
Suddenly the dome shook heavily. A boom reached the party's ears and the ground below their feet trembled.
"Seems like we found our target!"
"Yes! And the compass is still pointing in that direction."
Knowing that they were close the friends quickly sped up. Soon they reached the dome, curiously looking into the crater below. Their eyes immediately landed on a certain beast. It was a graceful white and green deer, with impressive antlers.
The beautiful antlers spread far in two directions with many small branches. The air around them seemed to sparkle with a green light. Simply looking at them made one feel refreshed.
However, the deer didn't seem to be in a great condition. Its legs were a little thin and it panted laboriously. But worst of it all were the streaks of violet tainting its perfect fur.
Surrounding the deer were a few people in green robes, hoods covering their heads. From what the friends could tell these people were all mages. Although no sound came through the barrier it looked like the mages tried to calm the deer down. But the beast didn't listen, running around and slamming its gorgeous antlers against the barrier.
Watching the scene, multiple hearts melted. Fortune kept recording while expressing her pity for the cute-looking deer.
Suddenly the friends felt something. The roots in front of them began to move, blocking their view.
"Who are you people?!"
Suddenly a voice came from behind the friends' backs, startling them. They turned around, realizing that a person had silently appeared behind them at some point. It was a female elf wearing the same green robe as the people below. From up close it became obvious how fine the robes were, with some golden embroidery as decoration and the image of a white deer on its chest.
"Answer! Or I will have to forcefully dispose of you!"
"Wait, lady! We are adventurers on a mission!"
Silver Blade hastily stopped the green-robed elven woman, explaining everything about the void compass.
"So, you are on a mission to fight the void? Hmm. Perhaps you can help us…"
"If I may ask… who is us?"
"The Alliance of the Deer of Life!"
[Silent Acacia: From her look, she expects us to recognize the name?]
[Silver Blade: Of course! Even without having heard of them you should be able to draw conclusions from the name.]
[Silent Acacia: Should I?]
[Bloody Edge: Should we?]
[Silver Blade: Guys, where did Cyclone get her class from?]
[Silent Acacia: From the Lightning Hawk Alliance…]
[Silent Acacia: Ok, I get it. So, this is also an organisation of magi worshipping a certain beast? In their case the Deer of Life?]
[Silver Blade: Exactly.]
While clearing her friends' doubts, Silver Blade didn't forget to answer the elven woman:
"Oh, it is our honour to become acquainted with your distinguished alliance!"
"You have a way with words, adventurer. So, I take it you are willing to help us?"
"Naturally!"
"Good. As you have seen, the gorgeous, celestial Deer of Life has appeared here in the mountains. A juvenile at that. We don't know how she got separated from her parents.
Anyways, when we learned about the Deer of Life's appearance, us brothers and sister immediately came to worship her. But we had to witness with horror that the sacred beast has been corrupted by the void!
We had no choice but to temporarily trap the Deer of Life here. Can you imagine the grief we felt being forced to cage such a noble creature? But this is to the security of everyone and of herself. Now, we are working together to cleanse the void energy. But even with all our efforts and the unmatched vitality of the Deer of Life herself, we are only able to prevent the void from spreading further. We can't cleanse it!"
Silver Blade nodded, recalling the image of the poor white deer. She quickly asked the elf to continue.
"We need a way to completely cleanse the void energy. In this regard, the church of life should have a lot of knowledge. We need their help. Adventurers, we can't leave here to prevent the void energy from spreading. Please, go to the Great Cathedral of Hevriolae. See if they are willing to help!"
"You can count on us. We will be back swiftly."
"Thank you!"
At that point the elven woman stopped talking. She stepped towards the dome with a worried expression, placing her hands on the roots, seemingly strengthening the magic as the tremors calmed down slightly.
The players found a new quest in their journals. It asked them to go to the Great Cathedral of Hevriolae, leaving them somewhat confused. Only Silver Blade, who likes to explore Crunaboul in her free time, had been there before.
Luckily the cathedral was not difficult to reach. It was located in the City of Life, an independent city at the west of the Central Plains, built by worshippers of Hevriolae, the goddess of life. And as a major city the City of Life could be directly reached through teleportation.
Silver Blade explained these things to her friends while they went back the way they came from. Arriving at the original path, they went down the mountain. Soon, they reached a part with dense foliage.
Suddenly Liam frowned, his instincts tingling. He scanned his surroundings carefully.
[Bleary Mirage: Slow down for a moment, guys.]
[Cyclone: Why? Is there a treasure here?]
[Silent Acacia: I fear we are being ambushed…]
Immediately the atmosphere became solemn. The friends came to a stop, staring ahead. A few seconds passed silently before about two dozen people wearing shadow cloaks suddenly came from behind the trees.
"Hmpf. Quite perceptive. Indeed worthy of the legendary Hotpot."
Cyclone instantly stared at the speaker, shouting angrily:
"Who are you? Trying to ambush us here?"
"Haha, do you think I would answer you, Cyclone?"
"Tsk. Cowards. Suits you guys from Galaxy!"
Cyclone was simply letting out a guess, fishing for a reaction. However, the cloaked players only laughed.
"No, they aren't from Galaxy. They are chaos faction players."
As Liam said this, the players suddenly fell silent. Liam's friends realized that he must have hit the mark.
[Cyclone: How did you know that, expert?!]
[Bleary Mirage: It's simple. They are not wearing shadow cloaks, but instead robes of darkness.]
[Balm: What are robes of darkness?]
[Bleary Mirage: The chaos faction's version of shadow cloaks.]
[Quickstep: But where is the difference? Looks pretty identical to me…]
[Bleary Mirage: Look at their feet. Robes of darkness have a clean ending while shadow cloaks have a few loose threads hanging out.]
[Radiant Shield: Should I be worried that I'm not surprised at all?]
[Bloody Edge: Nope. Business as usual.]
While the friends were chatting, the opposing players seemed to do the same. Suddenly all of them took their robes of darkness off. Their identities were directly revealed. In the vision of Liam and his friends their names were all written in a deep, bloody red.
The leader of the chaos faction players, a warrior going by the name of D3Ath took a step forward and declared righteously:
"We only needed to hide our identities to infiltrate the order faction! We don't fear you, Hotpot! The strongest party? Well then, proof it!"
"Yes, we don't believe you can win against us with double the numbers!"
"Come at us!"
[Cyclone: What should we do? We are pressed for time!]
Cyclone immediately got her answer. Liam didn't waste any words. He activated [Holy Tempest] and his mount skill. Reen let out a low shout as he jumped high up, doing a dive attack towards the enemy warrior. His claws were coated in holy and dark magic and slammed into the warrior's chest before the man could react.
[-1470!]
[-1435!]
Liam did some quick calculations. Subtracting the damage coming from the four-level difference, his attack dealt less damage than expected.
Two possibilities came to his mind. Either the warrior had strong resistances against dark and holy magic, or he was a tier two character. Mulling over this name, D3ath, Liam thought it sounded familiar. If he wasn't mistaken the man was a core member of Graveyard of Heroes, the strongest chaos faction guild. Thus, both possibilities wouldn't be that surprising.
Only now did movement come into the scene. D3ath angrily shouted at Liam:
"A sneak attack?! Are we the bad guys, or are you?!"
Liam didn't answer. Sitting on his mount he quickly unleashed a combo of attacks. D3ath hurriedly dodged the first sword. However, with this simple move Liam already forced the enemy to follow his own rhythm. D3ath didn't manage to dodge any of the subsequent attacks. Luckily, he received a shield from a teammate.
After Liam's attack was done, D3ath had lost more than 6.000 HP, directly requiring a heal.