(ChaosBringer's POV)
ChaosBringer had envisioned a whole future where the rebels worked with the demons to overturn the existing world order.
However, after Leo and Anos refused to cooperate, that vision of his crumbled rather spectacularly.
[What do you mean we won't be working with the demons?] He wrote in shock, once Leo informed him of the whole ordeal over chat.
However, his shock was only met with a cold response of [It is what it is] as Leo concluded the matter without offering any additional explanations.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck. Us not collaborating with the demons means that I need to figure out a method to capture the West all by myself now" ChaosBringer said, clutching his hair, as the rebels not cooperating with the demons, made his job as the guilds strategist that much more tough in the coming days.
While Leo simply enjoyed the luxury of walking into a meeting with Anos and walking out without any consequences.
All the hard work of organizing that meeting and the aftermath that followed fell on ChaosBringer's shoulders, who had to handle all the headaches associated with it.
In a way, his was a thankless job, as while he thoroughly enjoyed causing chaos, most days, it was his own life which remained in a constant state of crisis.
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(Meanwhile Leo)
Feeling enlightened due to his meeting with the demon king, Leo logged out of the game with a smile on his face, as although he did not achieve what he wanted from the meeting, he personally felt like he gained something even more important than what he initially wanted.
For him, the deadline for future events had not changed although his initial plan had failed.
Which meant that although the rebels were no longer going to collaborate with the demons, he still planned to go through with his assault on the royal palace in three months and also try and become the one true Emperor.
For him, the eventual goal of amassing enough MP to order a new Ben Faulkner clone in real life had not changed, as although he found out now that Ben wasn't actually dead, the trauma of once living without Ben was enough for him to work hard and ensure that he never had to experience that again.
Hence, Leo informed ChaosBringer to prepare the guild for war, as despite the failures of the meeting with the demons, Leo intended to go ahead with everything else as planned, as he delegated the burden of figuring out how to deal with the DarkSky guild on ChaosBringer, making it his problem now.
*********
(Meanwhile Dumpy)
Dumpy found a lot of his previous delusions busting once he met with the black dragon Drogo, as although he did not express his fears explicitly to Leo, internally, he felt beyond shook after the meeting.
He could feel the black dragons strength and aura when he sat that close to the beast and although he did not tremble in the dragons presence, he could see it in the beasts eyes that it could kill him with a blink of its eyes.
The power difference between them wasn't slight at all and this massive chasm in power made Dumpy realize just how weak it was in the grand scheme of things.
Not only was the black dragon massive in size and oozing with natural mana throughout its body, but it was also very calm and wise, making it a formidable opponent.
Compared to the massive beast, Dumpy wasn't even a fifth as big or a third as tall and this size difference put a massive psychological pressure on him, as Dumpy took pride in being larger than most beasts and especially larger than humans.
As a result, after the meeting Dumpy silently vowed to eat a lot more food and become as large as it could in the coming days, as having accepted the black dragon as its eventual foe, Dumpy vowed to train hard to beat him, no matter what it took.
As things stood, Dumpy was already supremely talented and naturally powerful, however, with the added motivation of having to catch up to a foe, he turned into an absolute unit in training in the days that followed their meeting with the Black Dragon.
Gone was the shit-talk, and the arrogance, and in-came the focus and the mad drive to improve, as Dumpy started to train from dawn till dusk, without so much so as taking a break to breathe in between.
Ben, who observed this remarkable shift in beast's attitude firsthand, could not understand the reason behind it, however, he was glad for it nonetheless, as Dumpy started to progress faster than usual in his training and at absolute limits of its capabilities.
Over the next month, Dumpy managed to master [Vanish], [Kill Strike] and [Silent Step] amongst the assassin pool of skills to [Intermediate] completion.
And also managed to learn [Full Counter] to (Advanced) grade, alongside (Sword Slash), (Mountain Slash) and (Heaven Slash) techniques to (Advanced) completion.
His progress with the sword in particular was so impressive that within just a month he reached a point where Ben had nothing left to critique in his technique anymore, as from that point forward Dumpy just began to transcend normal logic.
Arriving at the cusp of becoming a (master) Dumpy only needed to learn one more (Legendary) grade technique to become a true master grade beast, however, with him unable to grasp the concepts of [Mirror World], that final high level technique had to be found by himself.
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End Of Volume 5 Dominating The Game.
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/// A/N - Hey guys, that's it from my side for Volume 5, hope to see you all in volume 6, 'The Last Emperor', where the in-game action reaches its climax, with Leo taking on the establishment, and the rebels taking on the world alongside him.
I hope you enjoyed volume 5 as much as I did, but I'm sure volume 6 will be much more exciting and better, so do stay tuned!///