"What's your status? How many are still with you? How many were corpse-camped, and were they all together?"

Ryan's questions rattled out like a machine gun, sharp and unrelenting as he interrogated his guild members.

"Right now, at least three or four hundred people are stuck here in the Cleansing Grove," Moonlight Beauty reported, her tone grim. "They've been boxed in and can't get out. Most of our guildmates who were in the Dreadful Mire ended up here. Some even had to corpse-drag several times just to make it back to the safe zone."

She went on quickly, painting the picture in full: "Winter Lily and a few others got corpse-camped. Five of them against six attackers. We tried to break through the encirclement, but we couldn't."

Her voice tightened. "And it's not just us. Quite a few Dark Horde players are trapped here too. Whoever's behind this clearly wants to wipe out both the Alliance of Light and the Dark Horde."

Ryan's unease deepened. At first, when he'd heard Mia had been corpse-camped, he thought it might just be a handful of Dark Horde guilds taking revenge on him. Flowing Light was his creation, after all, and if they couldn't strike at him directly, targeting his people wasn't unthinkable.

But when he realized the scale of the assault—that it wasn't just his guild but many others—he suspected a coordinated strike by several Dark Horde guilds, meant to suppress the Alliance's rising power.

Then came the revelation that even Dark Horde players were being locked down in the Grove. That changed everything.

"By the way, Guild Leader, something else feels strange," Nightwalker said, his tone heavy. "I haven't seen any of our major guild members in Dreadful Mire. Same for the Dark Horde's top guilds. None of them are on this map."

Ryan narrowed his eyes. "If they're absent, they must know something. They're not talking."

"Maybe it's not that they won't speak," he said after a pause, his voice dropping into a murmur, "but that they can't." A name surfaced in his mind, and his lips curved into a tight, knowing smirk. "Alright. I think I understand what's going on. We were just unlucky enough to run into it this time. I'll figure out a way to get Winter Lily and the others out. For now, spread out. Head to lower-level maps and focus on your professions, or grind dungeons if you have to, even if it's slower than questing."

There were only a handful of forces capable of pressing down on both factions with such ruthlessness, and only one with the audacity to do it. Ryan was powerful in the game, and even in the real world he had no shortage of protectors, but against this particular entity he didn't stand a chance.

In truth, the protection he enjoyed outside the game might have been extended precisely because of them.

The Crimson Wake. The military faction. They had stepped into the game's progression, and the sheer weight of their presence sent a shiver through Ryan's chest.

What could he do now? The military's decisions were far beyond his reach. All he had were questions, and one above all: why would the military act this way?

In his previous life, nothing like this had ever happened. Back then, Crimson Wake had entered the game much later, not right after launch as they had this time.

Unless, he thought, it was their very early arrival that had triggered this operation.

---

Ryan didn't rush to rescue Mia. Instead, he returned to the nearby First Light Inn, removed his virtual headset, and prepared to speak with his sister. A face-to-face conversation was always better than chat messages or video calls.

Just as he reached for his door, it swung open from the inside. Molly stepped in, eyes gleaming mischievously.

"Brother, when I came back from grocery shopping yesterday, someone asked me to give you this letter. I completely forgot until now."

She pulled a folded envelope from her pocket, stuck out her tongue in mock guilt, and skipped out of the room before he could say a word.

"That little rascal," Ryan muttered with a smile, shaking his head.

He weighed the letter for a moment before tearing it open. His expression shifted as he read, settling from solemn into something like relief. Just like the last time, he destroyed the letter as soon as he finished.

It had been meant for him yesterday. Inside, the details were laid bare: today's events had been orchestrated by the military. They couldn't stand being relegated to the sidelines in the game. In their eyes, all glory belonged to them.

Because they had entered late, many high-ranking officers were forced to buy existing accounts. Even though they had leveled diligently since, they remained far behind the top-tier players.

And so, some military representatives had pushed for this operation. Their goal was simple: freeze the progress of all high-level players long enough for military personnel to catch up.

They didn't demand much—just two days. Two days to close the gap, to fight on more equal footing, and to seize honor under conditions they could accept.

Ryan, however, was given special treatment. If he revealed his ID, no one from the military would dare touch him. But his guild members weren't spared. Flowing Light was strictly banned from Dreadful Mire, the best leveling ground available.

The military didn't care about the alternatives. Dungeons were slow and inefficient, offering barely a third of Mire's experience. Even if players burned through all their stamina there in a day, the gains would be meager.

But there was something the military seemed to have overlooked: the Corrupted Forest. So long as one avoided its boss, it was a superb leveling spot. Most people ignored it because the monsters didn't have to be cleared and experience was split among a full party. For the average player, it wasn't worth it.

For Ryan, though, it was different. He could solo the entire place, reaping all the rewards. There was only one Featherlight.

Still, pacing his bedroom, Ryan couldn't think of any real countermeasure. In the end, he could only abide by their rules. Their request was short, and the risk of defying them wasn't worth it. Even with the advantage of his rebirth, there were forces he couldn't hope to oppose.

He let out a long breath. The leaders of the other major guilds were surely feeling the same frustration now, struggling to explain to their members why leveling had to stop. The thought brought a wry smile to his face.

But he pushed it aside, put his headset back on, and logged into the game.

Whatever else was happening, Mia still needed him.

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