(Meanwhile in Terra Nova Online)
Over the past three months, while Leo scarcely logged into the game, significant developments unfolded in his absence.
During his time off, the animosity between the rebel and righteous players intensified dramatically, with each faction escalating their attacks and inflicting considerable damage on the other.
The righteous guilds especially began organizing targeted excursions into rebel-controlled territories, aiming to hunt down the most notorious rebels with the highest bounties on their head and haul them back to empire-controlled zones for substantial rewards.
Conversely, the rebels plotted raids on strongholds under righteous guild control, such as dungeons and resource mines, repeatedly attacking and looting these areas to disrupt their opponents.
While the success of these missions varied, hovering around a 50-50 chance for both sides, the operations that did succeed were boasted about on global forums, fueling the enmity on both sides as each new victory added to the conflict's intensity.
"I hate the rebels! They're all lowlifes, scum, the scourges of this world!"
"I despise the righteous players and their treacherous tactics. Today, they ambushed me in the wild, dragged me back to the righteous zone, and jailed me for 30 days, shattering my chances for promotion to Sector C at the next evaluation. The righteous path players have ruined my life."
Initially, the differences between righteous and rebel players were minor, even solvable. But as the hostilities escalated, resentment hardened on both sides.
Some rebels, imprisoned and with their hopes of promotions being dashed, cheered-on from the jail as their friends sought revenge on their behalf and destroyed a righteous-controlled resource mine for them.
This in turn crippled a righteous guild's income stream affecting the entire organization, which further fuelled the hatred and prompted them to retaliate.
Hence, with each retaliatory strike, both sides amassed grievances that could no longer be resolved, and the hatred between them deepened, spreading like wildfire.
It was an unfortunate race to the bottom, as the casual gaming environment observed within the game world during the first two years onboard the ship, died an absolute death.
Terra Nova Online had turned into an active war zone, with the players within the game becoming extremely selfish and polarized.
It was a toxic and dangerous game that mimicked real life, rather than a stress busting virtual world, which took a toll on the mental health of most players, except a chosen few.
However, if there was one man who thoroughly enjoyed this chaos, it was ChaosBringer, for whom this was the ideal world now.
In the past 3 months, while Leo was absent, he worked extremely hard to stabilize the position of the rebels within the Eastern and Southern Duchy areas that they controlled.
The rebels were under constant threat by the righteous guilds, who wanted to take a bite of the territory they controlled, however, despite their best efforts there was not a single inch of rebel land lost in the last 3 months.
ChaosBringer, strategizing at his ruthless best, ordered to increase the production of critical resources like weapons, potions and Armor within the rebel territory by enforcing a series of strict measures.
Every other industry except essential services like agriculture, clothing and housing was shut-down, and all the other manpower was diverted towards fulfilling the war machine.
New forges were constructed for production of weapons, forests were razed for firewood and fuel and NPC recruitment within the rebel army was bolstered.
Every able bodied man and woman that was not involved with the essential sectors of life and was pursuing some other passion was forced into either labor for the war effort or to join the army, as ChaosBringer turned the entire Eastern and Southern Duchy, into the modern equivalent of Soviet Russia.
Life was tough, night curfews were regular, and any anti-government sentiment was cracked down hard.
The only way to survive or thrive in the rebel territory for the NPC's was by joining the government and becoming one of the oppressors, which completely crushed any room for revolt.
Of-course this was not a long term solution and ChaosBringer knew it well, however, he just did not care for it.
Having the knowledge that he did not need to rule them forever, and just needed to use them long enough for the Uprising to take over the rest of the Empire, he decided to exploit them thoroughly, no matter what the long term consequences of his actions would become.
It was by all means a heartless way to rule, however, it turned out to become the biggest strength of the rebels, as with a near unlimited supply of arrows and long range weapons, the rebels fortified their boundaries unlike any other.
With a near unlimited supply, the rebels rained down arrows and spears towards any approaching army without restraint, forcing them to retreat or suffer major losses, in what was an extremely wasteful way to fight.
However, it was only because of this logistical superiority that the rebels managed to hold on to their territories like they did, as ChaosBringer's war machine became a big source of support for the Uprising's ambitions.
The righteous forces, no matter how hard they tried, could never match the sheer production scale of rebel forced labor as their free way of life absolutely forbade it.
With the people in the Empire pursuing professions such as art, craft and other trivial pursuits, their overall war productivity was nowhere close to the rebels, who worked towards a singular goal.
In the end, this only served to further degrade the impression of the rebels in the minds of the righteous groups, as the NPC's who managed to defect and escape to righteous zones, talked about a grim tale of oppression and hellish labor.
The righteous players protested against such practices on the global forums and called the rebels 'All that was evil on Earth', however, the rebels did not care as they knew that they were winning this war long term.
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/// A/N - Join the novel discord if you haven't already! I'll post the link in the comments section below. ///