When Whales Fight, Whales Break - 1

In the starting basin known as the Twilight Lands, the half-snakes reigned as the absolute apex predators. Until a traveler managed to cross the threshold into the Hellfire Desert, finding a monster more formidable than these serpentine abominations was practically impossible.

The geography of Planet Trinac was carved into four distinct realms: the beginner basin of the Twilight Lands, followed in succession by the Hellfire Desert, the Land of Heroes, and finally, the celestial Continent of the Sun.

Traversing between the outer continents came without artificial restrictions, yet the Twilight Lands possessed an absolute barrier. To leave this cradle, one had to undergo a trial colloquially ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠known as 'Proving One's Existence,' which demanded two non-negotiable milestones.

First, an adventurer had to reach Level 45. Second, they had to conquer the Giant's Cave located at the furthest edge of the Twilight Lands.

The difficulty of either feat was harrowing, to the point where arguing over which task was harder was utterly meaningless. Because the Twilight Lands was shaped like a colossal, impassable crater surrounded by sheer mountain walls, the Giant's Cave served as the sole bottleneck leading to the rest of the world. Clearing it safely demanded a cohesive party of at least five players who were Level 45 or higher. In the distant future, veteran rankers would run paid escort services known as 'Giant Busses' to ferry paying clients across the threshold, but that era lay far down the road. For now, players had no choice but to break through through sheer grit and blood.

In short, the entire player base was forced to remain within the Twilight Lands for the foreseeable future. Although the basin alone boasted a landmass larger than the combined world maps of competing virtual reality titles, the explosive surge of incoming users meant that friction and territorial bloodshed were inevitable.

"So you're telling me you just rolled over and took it?"

Dae-poong, Guildmaster of the Ghost Guild, scowled fiercely as he glared at his trusted lieutenant, Last Jun.

"Hyung, our hands were tied," Last Jun answered defensively. "Those bastards... they stormed in with twice our numbers."

"Even so, you should've dug your heels in! Given the terrain inside Snake Cave, a narrow bottleneck is more than enough to mount a defense. Besides, without an official Guild War declared, they couldn't just slaughter you without taking criminal penalties. How could you give up the site so easily?"

"We tried to hold the line! But... the bastards put villain users at the vanguard. Total strangers, but they were freakishly skilled. If we had stayed any longer, our entire vanguard would've been wiped out."

"Villain users? You mean Cheonmyeong openly recruited red-named killers into their ranks? That makes no sense..."

At this early stage of the game, red-named villain players were public enemy number one. Welcoming them into an organization invited catastrophic public backlash on the community forums, which was why every major guild explicitly barred its members from racking up criminal Karma.

"They didn't wear guild tags," Last Jun clarified. "Cheonmyeong must have hired them as mercenaries under the table."

"Ah... Those scumbags. So that's how they want to play it."

Bad blood had simmered between Ghost and Cheonmyeong for weeks, but Dae-poong hadn't expected them to pull such an underhanded stunt in broad daylight. Sitting on his hands was out of the question.

"Even if Cheonmyeong didn't dirty their own hands, EL's system recognizes proxy aggression. Nothing's stopping us from declaring a formal Guild War right now. Those bastards probably gambled on us swallowing our pride and backing down... but I don't swallow shit."

Dae-poong shook his head and snapped open the guild management interface. Sure enough, highlighted in crimson within the war registry, an alert blinked before his eyes: Cheonmyeong – Guild War Declaration Available.

"Hyung, are you serious about this? Cheonmyeong isn't some pushover crew."

"Listen to me. In a critical expansion phase like this, you know what happens the moment people smell weakness? You bleed out slowly in the dark, and nobody gives a damn. If we're going down, I'd rather go down swinging in a blaze of glory."

"Ugh... Fair point."

Last Jun offered a begrudging nod. Without a second thought, Dae-poong struck the interface and authorized the war decree.

"Rally every combatant we have," Dae-poong barked. "Snake Cave is our guild's future. We're taking it back, no matter the cost."

Snake Cave was currently the focal point of every high-tier guild's ambition. A week ago, Ghost had established a forward perimeter at Entrance S-4, carving deep into the cavern depths. Among the myriad hunting zones across the Twilight Lands, Snake Cave easily ranked within the top three for experience and lucrative loot. Securing a monopoly over one of its prime arteries was essential to staying ahead of the pack. Yet Cheonmyeong had brazenly swept in, and Dae-poong's volatile temper had finally ignited.

"I'll sound the emergency muster line immediately," Last Jun replied.

With war declared, every available sword had to be dragged to the frontline. The rules governing Guild Wars in Eternal Life were brutal and simple: hostilities persisted endlessly until both guildmasters mutually agreed to sign a peace treaty, or until one guild was wiped completely off the map.

Under the Free Combat State, territorial safe zones ceased to exist between the belligerents. Members could slaughter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠each other anytime, anywhere, without criminal penalties. Slaying an enemy yielded stolen Karma and dropped equipment; falling in battle meant surrendering the same. It was total, unmitigated warfare where everything was on the line.

Both Ghost and Cheonmyeong occupied prestigious spots within the server's Top 50 guilds. News of two titans trading formal war declarations spread through the player base like wildfire. While skirmishes between smaller outfits were common, an all-out clash between two Top 50 syndicates had never occurred before. The gaming public turned its collective gaze toward the conflict with ravenous anticipation.

Snake Cave was the tinderbox that sparked the blaze. In truth, Sirasoni, Guildmaster of Cheonmyeong, had assumed that Ghost—or more specifically, Dae-poong—would grumble and let the provocation slide. Ten distinct entrances to Snake Cave had been discovered thus far; if one entrance was seized, a guild could simply relocate its farming parties to another. Entrance S-4 was undeniably the most fertile access point discovered to date, yet Sirasoni never imagined his rival would wage an existential war over it.

It was a colossal miscalculation. Underestimating Dae-poong's fiery resolve proved to be his greatest blunder.

"Get in touch with Magun," Sirasoni ordered curtly.

The moment Ghost dropped the war declaration, Cheonmyeong had also activated its emergency networks to assemble its full combat contingent. Yet Sirasoni knew that head-on, the two guilds were virtually neck and neck. If he wanted a decisive triumph, he needed an underhanded edge.

"Hyung, the Magun bastards are poison," Taesaja warned, his expression dark with worry. As Sirasoni's younger brother and the vice guildmaster of Cheonmyeong, he despised dealing with criminal syndicates. "If we keep entangling ourselves with those maniacs, Ghost won't be our only problem. The other top guilds will use it as an excuse to purge us."

"Gyeong-min, this isn't the time to be picky about our methods," Sirasoni snapped, addressing his brother by his real name. "If we get pushed back here, we're finished. You think I want to rely on those psychos? But Ghost isn't some ragtag bunch of amateurs. Their guild is Level 3, just like ours, and they've maxed out their roster at the one-hundred-man cap, exactly like us. What about their average level? Identical to ours. We are looking in a mirror. What do you think happens when two mirror armies clash in a war of attrition?"

"Neither side will yield easily... and the war will drag out indefinitely."

"Exactly. And when a war drags out, how long do you think regular guild members will endure? Right now, everyone is shouting battle cries and riding high on adrenaline. But once they die three ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or four times, hemorrhaging precious Karma and losing their hard-earned gear, the morale breaks. They'll drop guild tags and run for the hills."

"...Ghost faces that exact same risk."

"Of course they do. Which means this war won't be decided by skill; it's a sick game of chicken to see whose foundation rots away first. Even if we outlast them and technically win, what's left? A hollow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shell of a bankrupt guild. A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all."

"Mm..." Taesaja fell silent. His brother's logic was uncomfortably sound. While the chaos of war could produce wild surprises, an agonizing stalemate was the most probable outcome.

"We borrow Magun's strength just one more time," Sirasoni said, his voice hardening with resolve. "Those PvP fiends live for slaughter. They can tip the scales and break Ghost's spine before they realize what hit them. Where is the frontline right now?"

"Skirmishes are breaking out all over, but the main body of our forces is clashing near the underground plaza in the deeper sectors of Snake Cave."

"Good. Dispatch the signal to Magun, and then we'll loop around to flank Ghost from behind. You have the cavern map, right?"

"I do, but the charting is incomplete..."

"Doesn't matter. The enemy's map is just as crude as ours. Move out."

"Understood. I'll reach out to Magun right away."

"Let's crush Ghost so thoroughly today that they'll never stand back up."

Sirasoni was determined to leverage Magun's brutal vanguard to trap and slaughter every Ghost member currently inside the cave. If he could stage a demoralizing massacre right out of the gate, the sheer psychological shock would shatter the enemy's will to fight, ending the war before it turned into a war of attrition.

This war belongs to us. We cannot lose!

Sirasoni steeled his heart, marching toward battle. Yet there was an unseen anomaly lingering in the gloom of Snake Cave—a lethal variable neither side had accounted for.

Deep within the subterranean labyrinth, a lone predator had been engaged in uninterrupted solitary cultivation for an entire month.

And now, the roaring clash between Ghost and Cheonmyeong was about to spill directly onto his doorstep.

For four straight weeks, Sanghyuk had done nothing but butcher half-snakes and giant snakes in the depths of Snake Cave. Aside from brief resupply runs back to Falcon City, he had spent nearly every waking moment enveloped in the subterranean darkness.

There was simply no reason to hunt anywhere else. Slaying half-snakes yielded immense amounts of Karma, while the giant snakes surrendered a steady haul of Steel Scales—a crafting material whose market value was poised to skyrocket in the very near future.

Under ordinary circumstances, hunting half-snakes required a synchronized party of at least three high-tier players. Yet Sanghyuk reaped them single-handedly with contemptuous ease. While many factors contributed to his peerless hunting efficiency, the supreme performance of his weapon, the Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Bone Whip, reigned above all else.

To put it in perspective, while other front-running players were swinging dull wooden practice swords, Sanghyuk was carving through the dark with a high-powered electric chainsaw. The disparity was so monstrous that words failed to capture it. The half-snakes could neither parry nor evade the golden bone whip; the moment they slithered into his aggro radius, they were instantly shredded into ribbons.

Eventually, knowledge regarding production-based Ancient Knowledge would circulate, and master craftsmen would begin forging high-grade equipment, steadily closing the gear gap between Sanghyuk and the general public. But for now, when the pinnacle of average player gear consisted of modest Magic-grade drops looted from sewer dungeons, no one could hold a candle to him.

Thanks to this overwhelming advantage, Sanghyuk maintained a solo camp deep within a zone other players dared not tread alone. A month of uninterrupted slaughter had pushed his level to dizzying heights, while his private warehouse groaned under mountains of stockpiled Steel Scales.

Everything had progressed without a single hitch. Day after day, Sanghyuk had caught himself thinking, Is it really permitted for things to go this smoothly? Without a single rival in sight, the entirety of Snake Cave had served as his private buffet. He had swallowed the cavern whole, digesting its boundless resources in absolute peace.

At least... that had been the case until a week ago.