MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

"…Damn it."

Listening to the reports his members had given on the labyrinth's overall situation, Darklight could not help but curse as the gears in his mind began to turn.

"Those fuckers…" murmured the man to himself, his expression seething with anger. "Rather than continue the alliance they had with us to earn as many rewards from the labyrinth as possible, they instead decided to ally themselves with Ataraxia's guild instead?"

"I swear I'll make those guys from Kumquat regret that they changed their minds."

As this thought more or less took up the majority of the space in Darklight's mind, the man briefly thought back to the past half month that had passed since the labyrinth had moved onto its second phase.

Unsurprisingly, with Alpha telling them outright that conquest was the only way for their groups to gain even greater advantages from the labyrinth, the eight groups decided to stay put for the first couple of days.

Of course, these groups only remained at a standstill when it came to their territory. In terms of how they used the points they earned, almost all of the eight groups knew what purchases the other groups were doing around an hour at the latest.

However, there was one exception to this rule.

And that exception was none other than the Azure Coalition.

Unlike the other groups, where all their purchases were laid bare before one another, the purchases made by Valyr's group seemed to be veiled under a couple of layers, taking a bit of time to solve before figuring out.

Yet, even when that layer of obfuscation had been removed, the information the other groups would obtain on the Azure Coalition's purchases was only around half of their actual purchases, causing the other groups to start becoming suspicious.

After all, why were their purchases easily accessible to the other groups yet the purchases Azure Coalition made needed to go through a few hoops first before getting a smidgen of an idea of what they were buying?

Because of that, the seven other groups believed for quite some time that Valyr's group had formed a deal of some sort with Alpha, considering how the puppet was the only one who had the ability to overpower the eight of them combined.

However, the truth was eventually revealed a couple more days after that, with the group named Two Wolves forming an alliance with Valyr's Blue Team just mere minutes after the announcement of the labyrinth's second phase.

Hearing this, almost all of the doubts they had towards the cryptic nature of Azure Coalition's information was more or less solved.

After all, everything Two Wolves needed to do was just work with Valyr and his group to make information gathering more difficult through various means.

Of course, this revelation also made them ask themselves why Two Wolves decided to forge an alliance with Blue Team later on.

But then again, the answer to that was pretty simple, with the leaders of the other groups easily coming to its conclusion.

Valyr's group was able to generate far more Labyrinth Points with their territory.

And thus, with the alliance between the two groups being made official by Alpha, the territory Blue Team occupied immediately expanded by more than 30 rooms, significantly increasing the rate at which they earned Labyrinth Points.

Naturally, this also caused the other groups to start forming alliances of their own.

Some of the groups were doing it out of the pressure they felt from the first alliance, while others were doing it just because the interests they had for their respective guilds effectively aligned.

Nevertheless, these haphazardly made alliances did not last for long, with almost half of those alliances immediately disbanding in favor of joining the alliance Two Wolves and Blue Team had instead.

In the end, by the time the eight groups had reached the half-month mark while in the labyrinth, two major alliances had formed.

The first one was the alliance spearheaded by Valyr's group, which was made up of five groups and encompassed a total of over 350 rooms.

As for the second one, it was spearheaded by none other than Darklight's group, making up three of the remaining groups as their territory encompassed the remainder.

Well… two of the remaining groups as one of the three just defected to Valyr's alliance.

Taking in a deep breath to regain his lost composure, Darklight eventually let out a low sigh as he pondered over the current state of the labyrinth.

"At this point, if we want things to improve for the alliance we have with Blood Petal, there really isn't any other choice than to take initiative and unleash an offensive."

"It's a shame both of our guilds are greatly suppressed with the labyrinth's setting," murmured Darklight to himself, shaking his head as he inwardly lamented their current situation.

"If not for the fact that the labyrinth is based on who owns more territory than the other, both of our guilds would have probably thrived from the chaos."

"To think the infamous Crimson Tears and Lightless Blades would be reduced to such a state."

Letting out yet another sigh as he pondered over it for a bit more, Darklight eventually reached out to the leader of Blood Petal, hoping to discuss the last-ditch effort he planned to turn at least a bit of the tides back to their favor.

However, rather than respond to his invite at the earliest possibility, the leader of Blood Petal instead showed no response whatsoever, forcing Darklight to send invite after invite in the hopes of at least getting their attention.

Thankfully, that action was more than enough for Blood Petal's leader to change their mind, approaching Darklight with an expression that contained both guilt and pity towards the man.

"…Is something the matter?" asked Darklight, getting the feeling that something bad might have happened to their group's only ally. "Did Ataraxia's alliance try to claim your territory?"

"Not at all…" The leader of Blood Petal shook his head, feeling further guilt as their conversation continued.

"Then, what's got you looking that way?"

Hearing Darklight's question, the man looked at him for a bit before eventually letting out a deep sigh.

"I'm sorry, Darklight," said Blood Petal's leader as he walked away, his words continuing to linger in Darklight's mind long after he had said it.

"I've… defected to Ataraxia's alliance."

"You're on your own now."