Chapter 190: Guild’s Emergence

It had occurred a month and a half ago.

During the Demon Hunters Guild campaign of exterminating the first lesser demon nest outside of the Empire’s territory, the team led by Lancelot met Julian and his party members belonging to the Lewis Guild.

It was too coincidental that Julian would have thought that Lancelot didn’t notice their plan long ago.

Julian tried to persuade Lancelot to join their expedition team, but after learning of a strict rule that did not allow others to join unless they became their guild members, Lancelot rejected them.

He even offered them a guild member position.

However, Julian continued to persuade Lancelot and, finally recognizing that Julian and his party, including Jaden, were among the adventurers that Max strictly instructed him to kill if they were bothered by them, didn’t hesitate to order his men to kill them.

Only Jaden survived.

The rest suffered a character deletion, losing their stats and equipment.

They were also temporarily suspended from playing for two weeks after dying.

Enraged, Julian immediately framed the Demon Hunters Guild as someone not different from what they were hunting itself.

Julian also recorded what happened, and many players were convinced.

After all, Lancelot was the Executive Commander of the Demon Hunters Guild, and many players saw his appearance when they visited the Demon Hunters Guild headquarters to search for opportunities.

Julian deliberately only showed the scene where they were being massacred, but he truthfully mentioned in his post that he was negotiating to join their expedition team, which caused other players who hated the Lewis Guild to take advantage of it and mock Julian for forcing a quest trigger.

Opinions were varied, mostly defending Julian, but Aethernova took action by defending their ambassador.

Max didn’t hide from them anyway. His hatred of the Lewis Guild was irreversible, but as long as they were not crossing his boundaries, he would not actively attack them.

Aethernova blamed Julian’s attempt to trigger a quest and reminded players to be non-aggressive against NPCs when wanting a quest to be triggered.

The players were surprised that Aethernova was willing to defend their players and not force him to apologize, causing them to take advantage of the opportunity to hate Aethernova.

But what does hating do? They could not boycott Aethernova because they were the leading organization in producing high-quality gaming pods.

At the same time, their auction had been blooming ever since Max became their first customer.

Since then, Max’s auctioned items remained the top priority, generating a lot of money in the process.

Worse, Max still had a fan page established by his fan, which made it infuriating for the Lewis Guild members.

Despite being splashed with a cold bucket of reality that Max didn’t care about players, those fans continued to show their support and admire Max’s achievements inside the game.

Furthermore, Rhayne, who was the first to attack Max, was not defensive of Julian and even expressed her sentiments of disappointment with Julian and her party.

She was the only one who was against their decision to negotiate with the Demon Hunters Guild to join their expedition team.

She called it an "unreasonable" and "greedy" decision, which surprised many.

They even thought that Rhayne must have had a change of heart and admired Max, but they then learned that Rhayne, after having been kicked out by her own party, traveled to the north and decided to join the Monster Hunters Guild a week ago.

Enzo informed Max about it, and the latter only sneered, not saying anything, causing Enzo to sigh and accept Rhayne’s application to the Guild.

Rhayne had an A-Class Legacy, and she was definitely more than qualified to join his guild, albeit she could not secure a higher position unless she contributed a lot to the Guild.

At this moment, before the world event could commence, the Lewis Guild was already having a conflict with the other two recognized Guilds—the Demon Hunters Guild and the Monster Hunters Guild.

The Lewis Guild’s momentum had been slowing down after the two Guilds emerged. They also tried to expand their guilds to the west by taking advantage of the number of players joining them from the western province, but the recent emergence of the Vikings Guild hindered their progress.

Other Guilds were also rising from different provinces, causing the Lewis Guild to only focus on expanding into the Northwestern Province, where Spencer appeared.

The recent emergence of the Guilds was only possible after the Demon Hunters Guild was established.

Learning that Guilds, other than the Adventurers Guild, could have the potential to rival the Demon Hunters Guild, nobles who failed to obtain a sponsorship slot with the Demon Hunters Guild decided to invest in the Guilds in their province.

It was why the Vikings Guild’s momentum in the west was almost unstoppable.

There was also the Assassin’s Guild, which was established by the future S-rank Assassin in the Southern Province and focused on cleansing the corrupted nobles and illegal activities that escaped the Military’s eyes.

They were also another Guild that the Imperial Family supported in secret.

And another guild hailing from the Northeastern Province began to rise.

The Blue Wolf Guild, established by the future S-Rank Archer from Mongolia.

They were the recent Guilds that had been making names for themselves in their provinces, but they could not compare to the Demon Hunters Guild’s momentum.

Based on Max’s past life, after the Lewis Guild, there was another Guild that should be established today and attain the second ranking in the first world event.

It was the guild established by the S-rank Tactician from China.

Sun Tzu’s Hand.

They appeared in the eastern province.

The first year in Apocalypse Online would witness the rise of different Guilds competing with each other.

But Max barely cared for them.

He believed that his Demon Hunters Guild’s momentum was not only unstoppable, but it was inevitable.

As he promised to Julian.

Now, those who tried to take advantage of his guild because they consisted of NPCs to trigger a quest faced annihilation by Lancelot’s blade.

Max’s hate for the players was irreversible...

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