Chapter 149

Level Up Heretic Judge – Chapter 149 (149/227)

Chapter 149: The Tyrant of Justice (5)

“What brings the Church’s Executioner here? You’re not here to work as a mercenary for Blackburn, are you…?”

Duke of Hell Blood Blade, Guild Master of Blood Alliance.

Seated at the center of the negotiation table, he opened his mouth to speak to Ail.

At his side sat Ler, Vice-Guild Master of Blood Alliance and Lion Mage Bolton.

Though newcomers might find it strange, these nicknames had stuck with them for years.

Ail calmly explained the situation to these renowned Rankers from Lin Age.

Starting from the suspicious circumstances in this world event, through the next target, all the way to the necessity of working together to stop them…

He even laid out the mission order obtained from the bishop.

Of course, their reaction wasn’t particularly positive.

“I get what you’re saying… but how are we supposed to believe this?”

Duke placed the received mission order back on the table.

While it did contain information about an attack on all territories in the Extreme Cold Zone, Duke suspected it could be a forged document.

Without any special verification device, such documents were easy enough to fake.

This was something Ail had fully anticipated.

“I have no connection to Blackburn Guild. Why would I lie about this?”

“Probably to hinder your rival church.”

Duke smirked.

“Do you really think I can’t tell friend from foe? Even if I weren’t associated with the church, I know there’s competition between churches going on lately.”

Indeed, Duke knew that recent events suggested rivalry among churches.

Why else would someone suddenly appear in this area, likely aiming to disrupt Water Church’s operations?

It made sense they might try to deceive him to sabotage Bahamut’s world event success.

Actually, that explanation carried more weight.

If Blood Alliance could be tricked into helping, it would make stopping their actions much easier.

“As clearly stated in the message, their real target is Blackburn’s territory. Even if they eventually come after us, they’d be exhausted from dealing with Blackburn first, making them easy to repel. We’d even get the world event rewards.”

“Hmph…”

Ail sighed deeply inside.

Bahamut was counting on exactly this kind of thinking.

Even if the nine territories fell and they managed to repel the believers afterward, Bahamut would already have gained influence through the successful first world event.

And once that point was reached, gathering additional believers from other regions to overwhelm Blood Alliance would be child’s play.

Very few understood the intricacies of divine rank and influence, and Duke, who wasn’t even part of a church, certainly wouldn’t know.

“But I’ve heard you’ve been doing business with major guilds recently. Your reliability seems solid… Still, immediately withdrawing troops is the best we can do. Asking more than that is unreasonable. We can’t just roll up our sleeves for a competing guild based on some random outsider’s word.”

With that, Duke stood up, signaling the meeting was over.

As he said, Blackburn had been a rival guild Blood Alliance had fought multiple wars against.

There was no way they’d move their guild based solely on Ail’s word during this golden opportunity to weaken Blackburn.

Such sudden cooperation would cause massive backlash among guild members.

‘So, this approach doesn’t work either.’

From their perspective, refusing to trust him was understandable.

With target regions visible to all players, it naturally looked like he was trying to avoid a desperate situation.

Given the tangled interests involved, even Ail himself would have trouble trusting easily.

Trying to persuade someone who’s already made up their mind was futile.

Just before Duke exited the conference room, Ail abruptly stood up.

[‘Ail’ has challenged you to a duel! (Y/N)]

“What the…”

A single message appeared before Duke.

His eyebrows furrowed at this unexpected one-on-one duel request.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“Just standing around talking isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s settle this with a flag planting match.”

“You want to duel me?”

“Not exactly.”

What Ail proposed wasn’t an ordinary duel.

It was a player-versus-player showdown where the losing character faced permanent deletion.

“Let’s go full char-sac-bang.”

“W-what?! Are you serious?”

Bolton’s eyes widened in shock at hearing this term.

Typically, duels through the ‘Duel Request’ system only determined victory or defeat without causing death.

But char-sac-bang was a completely different story.

The loser of such a duel had to delete their entire character, erasing all progress made so far.

Unlike regular death penalties, this meant permanently removing your character from the game.

Such stakes weren’t something to be thrown around lightly.

These duels usually only happened when someone was confident of winning or had deep grudges.

“Are you joking?”

Duke chuckled without showing any signs of discomfort.

Even though Ail had been gaining fame recently, compared to top-tier players, his level was still lacking.

Especially Duke, known as one of the strongest users in Lin Age, who was already in the high 240s – quasi-ranker territory.

Closing that level gap was simply impossible under any circumstances.

The outcome was obvious.

Unless insane, there was no reason for Duke to suggest this.

But Ail didn’t back down.

“This isn’t a joke.”

Ail had planned to go all-in from the moment he arrived.

Technically, char-sac-bang was just an agreement between players.

Since there was no official system enforcement, there was always the issue of trust.

If the loser refused to delete their character and fled instead, there was nothing the system could do.

While fleeing would damage their reputation, many considered keeping their character more important, so such incidents weren’t uncommon.

This time, however, things were different.

Duke was the master of a rising large guild, while Ail represented Light Church as a named player.

Backing out now would cause severe image damage worse than deleting their character, making breaking the promise practically impossible.

Both were responsible for leading groups beyond just themselves.

“But… why should I accept such a bet in this situation? If you’re planning to interfere, I could just crush you right here.”

Duke subtly shifted his gaze.

They were at Blood Alliance’s headquarters.

Moreover, it was filled with guild members gathered for war against rival guilds.

A mere gesture from Duke would instantly end Ail’s life without resistance.

Despite this, Ail boldly taunted.

“Can’t even understand proper speech, huh? Guess you lack confidence in dueling. Makes sense coming from a guild leader who just slathers on items.”

This sarcastic provocation froze both Duke and Bolton’s expressions.

Blood Alliance members were known for their economic power, constantly investing heavily, earning criticism from others as “gear freaks.”

Of course, Ail knew Duke was a skilled player.

In Warode, relying solely on wealth or gear for strength was impossible.

Gear merely enhanced abilities and aided combat; ultimately, personal skill mattered most.

However, Ail also knew that such rumors had long bothered them.

Why not exploit their latent inferiority complex?

“Why you little…!”

Looking at their guild leader, Bolton lost control and slammed the table, stepping forward.

“Bolton, what are you doing?”

“There’s no need for the guild master to deal with someone like him. Come out! I’ll teach you the true strength of Blood Alliance!”

Furious, Bolton stormed out of the meeting room.

Whenever young upstarts tried to provoke him with meaningless words, he mercilessly crushed them to prevent future Blood Alliance members from being disrespected by such baseless prejudices.

This case was no different.

“So you fell for such a simple provocation…”

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Duke clicked his tongue watching Bolton rush out.

Then he spoke to Ail.

“You set him up from the start, didn’t you?”

“Hmm…”

Smirking, Ail picked up his weapon.

As expected, everything was within his calculations – including having Bolton step up instead of Duke.

Understanding the tendencies of key figures in major guilds was quite straightforward, and predicting Bolton’s reaction was easy.

“Coming here for negotiations and suddenly challenging to a duel… I don’t know what your plan is, but provoking Bolton was a foolish move.”

True, Bolton was far inferior to Duke, his original target.

Had Duke accepted the duel, Ail would have had no chance of winning.

But that didn’t mean Bolton was weak.

A powerful mage user surpassing level 200, he possessed sufficient duel skills.

Generally, mages requiring casting time were extremely disadvantaged in one-on-one battles.

However, with proper skill tree setups focused on small-scale combat and duels, the story changes.

Instant-casting and low-cost magic spells to improve responsiveness and counter melee classes.

Bolton was precisely such a mage, optimized for these situations, and as a counter to close-range classes.

He was also a high-rated arena fighter, so his skills were beyond question.

Yet Ail showed no hesitation against such an opponent.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

What they overlooked was that a player’s arsenal wasn’t limited to stats and skill alone.