Twin Towers Kingdom, Shadow Forest.
A six-person scout squad led by a Level 154 Fourth Class assassin made its way slowly through the densely wooded rainforest.
The entire forest was shrouded in dark clouds year-round. Even during the blazing heat of midsummer, the woods remained dim and gloomy. On top of that, a thin mist blanketed the forest, dampening players' perception. Even a Third Class expert familiar with these woods could easily lose their way if they weren't careful.
"Squad Leader, we've been out here investigating for more than half a day now and haven't spotted a single trace of the Outer World's main army. Should we head to another map and take a look?" a Level 142 Third Class assassin in blue robes asked, gazing at a gorge choked with trees.
With the kingdom war on the brink of eruption, every major faction in the Twin Towers Kingdom had dispatched scout squads to seize the initiative — and pinpointing the Outer World's main player army was the top priority.
Several Twin Towers factions had even posted extravagant bounties: whoever could gather reliable intelligence on the Outer World's main force would receive a Level 150 Epic weapon, plus a handsome reward of two hundred thousand Credit Points.
Thanks to those incentives, even though many top-tier players had already crossed over to the Black Dragon Empire and the Nightfall Empire, adventurer teams from other kingdoms and empires still kept pouring in to scout the area.
Their own team — the Fox Sand Adventure Corps — was one of them.
As a well-known adventurer team from the Nightfall Empire, their overall combat power was nothing spectacular by empire-wide standards. But when it came to tracking people, they were unquestionably a top-ten team in the Nightfall Empire.
The blue-robed assassin had barely finished speaking when a Level 136 young assassin in the squad halted abruptly, alighting silently on a branch. He stared intently at a patch of open ground in the distance, completely empty.
His sudden stop made everyone else freeze in place, not daring to move a muscle.
"Blade Heart, is something off about that spot?" the squad leader, Gray Fox, whispered.
The rest of the team turned to the young assassin, curiosity filling their eyes.
Blade Heart hadn't been playing Divine Realm for long, and his level was the lowest in the squad, but his skill and instincts were extraordinary. More than once, things that eluded even Gray Fox — a Fourth Class expert — had been picked up by Blade Heart without fail.
That was exactly why they had brought him along on this scouting mission.
Blade Heart studied the empty clearing in the distance and said, a hint of uncertainty in his voice, "I can't really put my finger on it. I just get the feeling there's something there."
"Something there?" Gray Fox frowned and scrutinized the forest clearing more carefully.
But no matter how hard he looked — even activating his Advanced Perception skill — he couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary. It was an utterly unremarkable stretch of open ground. Not a single player in sight, not even the faintest trace of a living creature.
But before they had been observing for even a few minutes, a twenty-person team appeared in the distance. This team was formidable — all twenty were Fourth Class, every one of them Level 155 or above, equipped with nothing below Level 150 Dark Gold gear. The person at the very front wore a full five pieces of Epic equipment.
"That has to be a vanguard team from the Outer World's army. But why would they come here instead of scouting the Twin Towers Kingdom?" the blue-robed Third Class assassin said in disbelief.
The Outer World's player army had already sent numerous expert squads to harass and investigate the Twin Towers Kingdom, and most of those squads were built around Fourth Class players.
This particular twenty-person team was elite by any standard.
The squad exchanged uneasy glances, confusion and apprehension written across their faces.
A team this powerful should have been deep inside the Twin Towers Kingdom by now, or even wreaking havoc behind its lines. With that kind of fighting strength, ordinary factions wouldn't stand a chance. At present, probably only the first-rate guilds could hope to bring down such a squad — the rest couldn't even serve as a warm-up.
Just as Gray Fox and the others were wondering why this team had shown up here, the squad came to a stop in front of that same empty clearing. None of them dismounted. They simply waited, perfectly still, as though expecting something.
After roughly ten seconds, the supposedly empty clearing began to shimmer, its edges growing hazy. Then the space itself split open, revealing a massive rift — and the sight left Gray Fox and his team absolutely stunned.
"A magical barrier?"
Almost every player in Divine Realm knew what a magical barrier was, but the scene before them still shook them to their core.
None of them had ever imagined a magical barrier could be used like this.
Through the rift in the barrier, Gray Fox and the others caught a glimpse of the space beyond — packed wall to wall with players. A rough estimate put the number at several hundred thousand, and a single glance revealed no shortage of Fourth Class powerhouses among them…
"How can there be so many Fourth Class experts?"
"It's over. The Twin Towers Kingdom is finished for sure. With this many Fourth Class players, forget combining the forces of Twin Towers and Star Moon — even pooling every Fourth Class expert from the Black Dragon Empire and the Nightfall Empire wouldn't come close…"
"The superpowers in the Black Dragon Empire and the Nightfall Empire completely miscalculated. The Eastern Continent is going to fall!"
Staring at the army of players beyond the spatial rift, the blue-robed assassin and the others felt their faces drain of color, despair settling deep in their chests.
Even now, with the rise of numerous Fourth Class players across Divine Realm, they remained exceedingly rare when measured against the population of any single kingdom or empire.