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Chapter 37: Being Bullied Hurts
🕑 Added 2025-09-13 12:32:12 +0000 UTCAlex's recruitment call had struck a nerve. Within hours, the newly reformed Immortal Banner Guild hit its fifty-member cap, and everyone was genuinely excited to be back together. They knocked out the guild assessment tasks with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine, then headed to Guild Administration for official registration.
Starting as a basic-tier guild meant limitations, but Alex knew the progression path. Complete enough guild missions to earn contribution points, reach intermediate status, and they'd unlock guild housing plus a three-hundred-member capacity. It was just a matter of putting in the work.
"Reverse, take your team to Zerg Sector Nine and grab those Assam blood samples," Alex instructed, falling back into his natural leadership rhythm.
"Uncle Mike, hit the Wasteland objectives with whoever's available."
"Persimmon, Death Valley runs are yours."
"David, you're with me on the Kamra Institute mission."
Alex felt the familiar satisfaction of coordinating team operations. His guild members were skilled players who understood their roles and worked together seamlessly.
"You got it, boss!" David's enthusiasm was infectious. His level fifty-nine pure Martial Arts warrior looked like a walking tank—massive frame, bulging muscles, wearing high-tier combat gear reskinned with Holy Dragon Knight cosmetics from the Magic Dragon expansion. The aesthetic was completely over-the-top: blade-covered armor, dramatic black and gold cape, oversized sword that looked like it could cleave buildings in half.
David's character embodied everything Alex appreciated about committed players—functional optimization combined with personal style expression.
They made their way to the Kamra Institute ruins, a level thirty wilderness area that had been added during the second major content update. The location's backstory was appropriately grim: a secret research facility that had conducted illegal experiments combining Zerg and human genetics to create super-soldiers. The United Government had eventually shut it down with extreme prejudice, but the damage was done. Now the ruins housed Baltan, a level thirty-five hidden boss spawned from the facility's twisted research.
The approach to Kamra Institute felt like traveling through a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Nuclear contamination had turned the landscape into a wasteland of dead trees and radioactive dust. No sunlight penetrated the perpetual gloom, and the wind carried sounds that might have been natural... or might not. The environmental design was genuinely unsettling, exactly what Infinite Realms did best.
Alex had run this content multiple times on his previous character, so the creepy atmosphere didn't faze him anymore. He and David cleared the perimeter enemies efficiently—low-level mutants and failed experiments that posed no real threat to David's gear and level advantage.
The institute itself was a massive underground complex, five floors of labyrinthine corridors and abandoned laboratories. The interior design told a story of rapid evacuation and violent conflict: bloodstains on walls, blast damage from military weapons, emergency lighting casting eerie shadows through the darkness.
The real dangers were the roaming failed cyborgs—grotesque combinations of human and alien DNA that attacked without warning from concealed positions. They looked like something from Alex's previous life's horror movies, all twisted limbs and exposed machinery.
Under normal circumstances, this environment would be extremely dangerous for Alex's level fifteen character. Any enemy encounter could result in immediate death. But with David providing protection and Alex's knowledge of the area's layout, they made steady progress toward their objective.
The mission required reaching the fifth floor's core section and retrieving classified documents from a secured vault. Along the way, they'd need to eliminate various mini-bosses and possibly encounter Baltan himself, though that wasn't guaranteed.
For David's character, these challenges were trivial. Level fifty-nine gear and abilities made short work of level thirty content, so they reached the fifth floor without serious complications.
Alex was just beginning the vault access sequence when two level seventy characters materialized from stealth positions and instantly obliterated him.
At level fifteen, Alex had zero chance of survival against max-level players. David managed to fight for maybe ten seconds before the attackers overwhelmed him too.
"Fucking hell," Alex muttered, recognizing the Shadow Lord's guild tags on his killers.
The timing was too convenient to be coincidental. Shadow Guild had obviously discovered Immortal Banner's reformation and deployed players specifically to sabotage their advancement missions. Since guild progression tasks were standardized, finding and disrupting them wasn't particularly difficult.
Alex's communication channels immediately lit up with similar reports. Reverse, Uncle Mike, Persimmon—everyone was getting ganked by Shadow Guild players who'd been camping mission objectives.
"These Shadow bastards are completely out of line!"
"They're literally camping quest locations just to grief us! Where's their fucking dignity?"
"I'm calling in reinforcements. No way we're letting them get away with this shit!"
Within an hour, the guild's extended network had mobilized over two hundred players—mostly level sixty-plus veterans with several max-level characters among them. These were former Immortal Banner members who'd joined other guilds but still maintained loyalty to Alex and his core team.
The response was overwhelming and genuinely touching. Shadow Guild had crossed a line, and people were willing to log off their main activities to help settle the score.
"Split up and move fast," Alex coordinated. "Hit every objective simultaneously before they can reposition to counter us."
The execution was flawless. Teams formed organically with proper level distribution and class balance—five max-level characters minimum per group, optimized for whatever content they were tackling.
Seeing thirty-plus high-level characters simultaneously assault the Kamra Institute was unprecedented in Infinite Realms history. Even random players grinding in the area stopped to watch, clearly wondering what major event was unfolding.
Most objectives completed quickly and successfully, but the Wasteland mission proved more complicated. Shadow Guild managed to surround that team with hundreds of their own players, forcing Immortal Banner reinforcements to respond in kind.
What followed was essentially a small-scale guild war. Mechs traded fire with summoned creatures, melee fighters clashed with ranged specialists, aerial drones battled flying mounts. The combat was spectacular—hundreds of max-level characters unleashing their full arsenals in coordinated team fights.
Smaller players watching from safe distances called it "gods fighting"—an apt description for the level of destruction being unleashed.
But Shadow Guild held fundamental advantages. Five thousand total members with over ninety percent at level sixty or higher. They could field hundreds of max-level characters without straining their resources, while Immortal Banner was operating with volunteers and retired players.
The numerical imbalance became decisive quickly. Shadow forces overwhelmed Immortal Banner positions through sheer weight of numbers, forcing Alex's people into desperate holding actions while the Wasteland team rushed to complete their objectives.
Watching his friends get systematically destroyed while burning expensive consumables and equipment durability was torture. Alex felt completely helpless—his operational skills and strategic knowledge meant nothing when he couldn't contribute meaningful damage or survivability.
He found himself fantasizing about settling this conflict through physical confrontation instead of virtual combat. In real life, Alex's martial arts training and fighting experience would let him handle multiple opponents. But here in the game, level and equipment gaps made skill irrelevant.
Seeing his people get bullied while being powerless to help was genuinely painful. All his success in business couldn't change the fact that in Infinite Realms, he was currently just a low-level player getting crushed by superior force.
The frustration was almost overwhelming—knowing exactly what needed to be done but lacking the character progression to execute any meaningful response.
