MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

"Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed participants, it's time we start the new chapter of this thrilling event," Zero said, his voice boomed with authority and contagious excitement, echoing through the virtual experience.

"In the third stage, the original teams will remain intact, with each team member assigned the roles of army generals, commanders, or captains of specific kingdoms."

"There will be two types of kingdom, light and dark, with their total number being just ten, and ten teams will be sent to each kingdom,"

"The teams sent to the light kingdoms will each be given certain tasks depending on their position, while the same is true for those sent to the dark kingdoms,"

"However, as it will be too simple to just give teams a mission to lead armies and wage war over each other, there will be a twist to keep things interesting and keep the teams motivated,"

"If a kingdom falls, all teams of the said kingdom will suffer from a 10 million event points penalty, and those who fail to pay it will be eliminated from the event,"

"But if they can save their kingdom, they will at least earn 5 million points and, depending on their work, could earn up to 20 million," Zero said, making every player suck in a breath of cold air.

It was impossible to make ten teams work toward a single goal even if they were promised a massive reward for success because half of the teams had no hope of winning and were just hired to help other teams with the singular goal of bringing other good teams down.

In the third stage, every team was forced to work together with the threat of a penalty, but the penalty was just a golden opportunity for the teams who were already bought and on a mission to bring others down with them.

There were many ways to earn a big sum of points, but there were more scenarios where the players would be forced to spend their hard-earned points to keep their place in the event.

"There will be many ways to earn event points, and one of the fastest ways will be by eliminating influential individuals of the opposing kingdom, with a captain being a 1★ individual giving around 10k points, while a high marshal being a 7★ individual giving 10 million points,"

"Killing the opposing king will give zero points, but if done so after acquiring a quest, then there will be a handsome reward, and the same is true for any other high star individual," Zero said, and after a short pause, continued.

"Each player will have a history with NPCs, with him being a part of a family, having served in the military, having great achievements, in turn making it so that there will be expectations from him, and so he will be given quests depending on that,"

"The players will also have close comrades who will die for him but could also be traitors working for another kingdom, and I said him because the team will be united in nature, but in reality, they will be in different positions working on their given goals,"

"Unlike the last stage, while there will be loot sites, to acquire their locations, players either need a quest, get lucky and find them, or buy their location from the event shop,"

"The 16 hours of light and 8 hours of night cycles will return, and so will the instant spawn feature and all other services previously available,"

"I wish every team good luck," Zero said, ending the conversation, and in the next instant, all players were engulfed in darkness as the third stage of the event began.

Alex woke in the well-lit room on a comfy chair, with a wooden table before him, a stash of papers placed on its left corner, and a large map covering most of its surface, with a fireplace located to his left and the exit to his right side.

There was a giant banner hanging on the front wall displaying the symbol of the sun rising through the darkness, and seeing it, Alex couldn't help but frown, knowing he was sent to one of the worst kingdoms.

Alex examined the map adorned with markings and notes, each attached to its surface, outlining some sort of issue or strategy, and his frown and disappointment only grew.

'Dawnvale kingdom, the weakest one among the five, and I am given the fortress at the edge of Grimmarsh kingdom with a suicide mission.'

'Not the worst place, but also not the best place to be in,' Alex thought as he looked at the system screen describing his position and informing him of the quest.

Alex was sent to a light kingdom, which was good as he would just need to worry about defending and not actively attacking and be part of massacring people.

But the bad thing was that he had a medium-sized fortress to defend, with no other players and just a small group of hundred and eight soldiers and two early Sixth Rank persons who were his personal attendants given by his family.

Alex's task was one of suicide, at least for his men, as he was given the order by his uncle, the patriarch of the family, to destroy the fortress teleportation array when the battle begins and do as much damage as possible to the enemy but not risk his life and when things are lost and leave using the teleportation scroll.

The fortress was located in the ice mountain range, one of the remote areas, and was not defending any resources or choke points, so it was considered a lost cause and was abandoned.

Alex wouldn't have any problem with the quest if it was not for Zero, as he was given a quest by him that defending the fortress meant granting him a million points and saving each soldier's life under him would give him 10k points, so basically another 1.1 million if he saves everyone.

It was a fairly decent quest and, if done right, could put Alex in a place of his choice, making it possible to save his kingdom or at least earn enough points to not be affected by the penalty.

Alex knew that seven of the ten kingdoms were doomed to be destroyed because there was an eleventh kingdom, Undead Dukedom, that Zero didn't tell them about.

So, thinking of saving his realm was never on his mind because he knew that with his performance, he would certainly be sent to one of the weaker kingdoms first in line to get annihilated.

'Let's see what position everyone else has found themselves in,' Alex thought as he opened the team chat and first updated his status.

'Not bad,' Alex thought as he read the details of everyone's status.

Andrei and Saahira were together in the capital city. Ravyn was part of a secret assassin group serving the king and was currently on a mission to fascinate a number of influential figures of the neighboring dark kingdom, while Venedikt was a captain in the military stationed in one of the most important fortresses.

Alex next checked the ten teams, unfortunate enough to be sent to this kingdom, and to his surprise, the Frozen Flower Guild and Heavenly Sirens were present, both groups ranking in the top fifteen.

Alex uttered good luck to his team and told them to keep updating on any major developments and then moved to look at the map to see how he could win against the military battalion coming for his fortress in a couple of hours.