Is this really a Game?!

They soon arrived near the hidden chamber they had previously stumbled upon. They glanced around, alert of their surroundings and not willing to be noticed by anybody before heading inside the chamber upon opening it.

Upon getting inside, they all glanced at one another before Laura started drawing the runes in the air in front of her. A couple of seconds later, the runes on the wall glowed as the hidden passageway appeared in front of them once more.

The formation or array that was placed in the chamber activated once again, making them feel the same way they had felt the previous time they were here, but they knew that nothing would happen and ventured forward.

The mercenaries were shocked upon entering the large chamber. Their reaction was not unexpected as Reign and the others had a similar one when they entered the chamber the first time.

The mechanisms present in the large chamber, the rumbling that soon started, and the shifting of the doors, tunnels, and the walls around them, all shocked the mercenary leaders immensely.

They hadn\'t expected to come across such a sight at all, they had never seen anything like this before.

"The tunnel leading to the enemy base will soon show itself, we need to get into position after entering it, we need to be in the right part of the tunnel so that we can just stand still and wait till it gets into position, otherwise the ride to the base will not be a nice one at all," Reign told the mercenary leaders who had already heard of the tunnel and how it moved around.

They were still not fully aware of what it looked like, but they knew the gist of it at least.

As the rumbling lessened and the gears that were moving the entirety of the chamber slowed down, the large tunnel showed itself, and they all entered.

Reign and the others were looking for the same sign that was previously there when the hooded man had stopped. They had made sure to look around when they were leaving the tunnel and following the hooded man to make sure the same sign was present on the other side of the tunnel, and it was.

They knew it was not too far, and they soon found it and stopped upon getting into position.

"Alright, we just need to wait here, let the tunnel move by itself, and have it bring us to where the main base of the enemy is located." Reign said as they all nodded their heads in agreement.

But, no plan was foolproof, not even their own plan.

As they waited for the tunnel to start moving, they heard footsteps approach them, as well as voices that were coming from the other end of the tunnel.

Reign and the others froze and moved to the side, going right to where the wall was located and standing as close as they could to the wall while waiting for whoever was walking toward them to appear.

And soon, they did appear.

It was a group of 5 people, one of them being a true Tier VI combatant and the other 4 fake Tier VI combatants, which was not supposed to be possible.

Only the higher-ups of the faction, the ones that had reached Tier VI and had been in the faction for long, were supposed to be able to go outside the base like this, not the fakes.

At least that was what they had found out from the soul of the fake Tier VI previously, which meant that either he was quite low in the rankings and wasn\'t even aware of some things, or the enemy had decided to change some things.

"To think all of this was so close to the base, incredible." One of the fakes said as he stared around the tunnel while Reign and the others monitored them while still hidden by the barrier.

"Yeah, to think we were never on the surface, I would have never expected the base to be located in such a place." Another one said as he stared at the tunnel while the one leading them, a true Tier VI combatant, simply scoffed at them.

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"Stop acting like this, this is a one-time thing that is happening, after we go back, your memory of this will be sealed, in case any enemy tries to look through your memories, and you will have no recollection of it."

"We are all aware of that, sir." A third person said with a stoic expression while glancing around.

"But you have to excuse us for a bit, after all, this truly is incredible, none of us expected the place where the base was located to not only be underground but for such advanced machinery to be present."

"I thought the system didn\'t allow for such technology?" The man asked as the leader shook his head.

"This machinery, the mechanisms, and gears function with the help of mana, it is not like how it was on Earth before the system appeared, so it is allowed."

The group nodded their heads in understanding as they passed near the place where Reign and the others were standing.

"I guess it is fine for you to take it all in, we will go up to the surface, our main task for today is to feint an attack and check how strong the people who have set up camp near us are, so far, there have only been reports of Tier V combatants being present, there should be at least 2 Tier VI combatants present, but we have to confirm their numbers ourselves."

"What if they are weaker than expected, do we kill them all?" One of the fakes asked as the leader shook his head.

"The leader has only told us to confirm their numbers and strength, that is all that we are doing today, of course, in order to draw them out, we will need to attack and kill some of them, but we are not allowed to take too much time, nor are we to go overboard in this moment."

"That group can be quite useful for us in multiple ways, we just need to make sure of their strength, so no indulging in slaughter, am I understood?"

"Yes sir!"

Upon hearing them speak, the mercenary leaders all stared at the backs of the enemy combatants in shock and anger. Reign and the others were not faring any better, they were indeed shocked at what was going on and angered by how the enemy had decided to do this at the worst possible moment.

Only minutes separated them from going into the base and attacking the enemy, but they couldn\'t just ignore these 5 people.

It wasn\'t only because those 5 were going to attack the mercenary camp, and they knew that the leaders wouldn\'t stand for that, but also because those 5 would return the moment they attacked their main base.

They would definitely be alerted of the attack, and to have an enemy come from behind was not something any of them wished to happen.

In fact, that was one of the worst things that could happen during a battle, which meant that Reign and the others couldn\'t go and attack the base right now, they had to first deal with these 5, and only then would they be able to attack the main base without fearing an attack from the back.

They could also use this opportunity to attack the base and leave a couple of people behind to deal with these 5 once they return, which would eliminate the possibility of them taking them by surprise, but time was ticking away, they had to hurry up and make their decision.

"Either we follow them out and then attack them, or we attack the base while leaving 3 men behind to deal with these guys when they hurry back to help their guys out, what do we do?" Reign asked the mercenary leaders, as well as his party members, and they all stared with heavy expressions.

"Both plans have pros and cons, if we attack them outside, we will be able to take them by surprise and quickly eliminate them with our superior strength and numbers, but the enemy will notice that and could potentially get ready for an attack, they might even close the portals, which will eliminate our \'gift\'," Wolf said while staring at the backs of the 5 people.

"If we do attack the base right away and leave some men behind to deal with them, we will be making the initial charge a bit weaker, but we will still have the element of surprise on our side, of course, there is no saying how powerful those 5 are, they might end up being much more troublesome to deal with than we initially expected."