With the little fox adorably curled up in his lap, Liam continued waiting in the shop's corner for quite a while.
Perhaps there might have been another waiting room if he had arrived here with a bigger group like the entirety of Crimson Abyss guild, but for now, no one said anything to him, so he silently continued waiting right here.
It was almost noon, and the war was yet to begin.
A couple of other people wandered into the shop, and they clearly seemed to recognize Liam, but no one had the guts to step forward and strike up a conversation with him. They simply looked at him from a distance, whispered something to each other and silently left the area.
After three past noon, finally, the store manager Tilia fluttered her wings and appeared in front of him. She nodded at Liam with a smile. "It's time."
"Okay." Liam calmly replied and stood up. The fox on his lap had a similar deadpan expression as she opened her little mouth and let out a yawn.
It was finally time to see who had actually challenged him to an all-out war. Was this an actual challenge, or were they trying to probe his strength? Either way, some heads were going to roll, and there was going to be a price to pay.
"How does this work? Do I go somewhere, or do I do something?" Liam cracked his knuckles and stretched his arms, grinning at the fairy.
"Nothing, Mr Liam." She shook her head. "A notification will appear in front of you. You simply have to accept that."
The fairy had only barely finished speaking when a blue screen flashed in front of Liam.
"So you are giving me a way out one more time? How generous..." Liam smiled. However, he raised his hand and still selected the same option as before.
The next second, bright runes started flashing around him and Luna haphazardly. Tilia smiled and took a step back.
"Good luck. I hope you can come back alive."
The fairy wished him with a tinge of mocking sarcasm in her voice as her lips curved into a sneer, but before her words could reach Liam, both the man and the fox disappeared from the shop.
The next second, Liam found himself in a huge and barren land with absolutely nothing on it, no buildings, no trees, no vegetation or even hills. Nothing at all.
There were only acres and acres of dry land.
The mana in the air also did not seem to be all that different. It felt the same as back on earth. So this battleground was somewhere on earth itself? Liam pondered.
A couple of miles in front of him, several figures materialized, one after the other, almost at the same time as him.
Liam silently observed the situation, trying to gauge the total number of opponents.
Just from a single glance, he could see that this number was definitely above a thousand, probably even five thousand or more.
However, this wasn't really a surprise.
The first limit for the number of guild members was ten thousand, so he had already expected whoever challenged him to arrive fully equipped with all of the ten thousand or probably even more.
The real question was… who was it that challenged him?
Liam's gaze hurriedly shifted from one face to another as he tried to answer this question. To his surprise, these were all oriental faces and, more specifically, of Chinese origin.
This meant that whoever had challenged him was actually from China?
He immediately had a bad feeling, and when he slowed down and paid more attention to their individual features, he could see the faint crimson glow in their eyes and the small curved horns on top of their heads.
Was every single person gathered in front of him a vampire?
Liam grinned. "This is not too bad."
At least now he would have a chance to discover who is actually responsible for these events and behind the whole vampire mess. Perhaps he could even take care of this problem at the budding stage itself.
He continued looking through the faces to see if he could recognise any of them, but it was of no use. Their features had already morphed a little, and the only thing he could gather was that these people were definitely from China.
"Come on. There has to be a leader somewhere." Liam's eyes searched the crowd when suddenly, right in front of him, the sea of vampires started parting right down the middle as all of them stepped aside in utter obedience.
One person emerged from within, and, surprisingly, neither his features had changed nor was he Chinese. In fact, Liam recognised this man very well.
He was a blonde American blood relative of three of his closest confidants.
"Your God is here." He smirked.
"What? You look shocked. Did you not expect me?"
The man laughed arrogantly as his voice boomed through the otherwise silent battlefield.
Liam looked blank for a moment.
This guy called himself God, and the guild was Messengers of God. So this was the idiot who had challenged him? Was this really the person who had sent him the notice?
He couldn't believe his eyes. For some reason, he felt very cheated.
Here he was, expecting one of the big shots to turn up, perhaps the 'big brother' or even Crawford. However, it was this small fry.
He couldn't help but feel disappointed, and this was plastered all over his face.
Why the hell did he name his guild 'Messengers of God'? For a second, Liam had even expected this event to be somehow connected to the divine temple.
However, in the end, it was none of them.
Mass Release Chapter 2~
Please thank Exzistential for sponsoring this chapter!