Child of Destiny

...…

The jellyfish Grimrace was fighting was so huge that Shin felt it was still too near despite the great distance between them. It felt like a huge moving mountain could be seen from the coast of the Sky Deceiving Valley.

Shin watched the battle from the distance while the rest of his group were busy dealing with the sea monsters that were trying to climb the wall that Astaroth had built.

From what he could see, this jellyfish seemed to be a magic-type monster, especially when he saw the invisible collisions between Grimrace and the monster.

Based on his observations, Shin felt that this monster seemed to have the same type of power as the abomination spirit.

What intrigued Shin the most was the familiar aura that he was feeling from this jellyfish. It was an aura of an elemental being yet also different. Somewhat the same as what he was feeling from Grimrace, an abomination spirit.

Trying to confirm his suspicions, he asked the two most knowledgeable members of his group. Hanzo naturally was more experienced on this plane compared to Solus, so he was more suitable to answer his question.

The old spirit observed the giant jellyfish before answering. "If I am not mistaken, then it must be a type of Sea Spirit."

"Sea Spirits are born in the depths of the ocean and remain living there unless an unforeseen circumstance happens. They usually live on their own don't interact with other creatures and are somewhat harmless. They don't harm anyone unless they are provoked."

"But once they become enraged, they become a very aggressive monster that will slaughter anyone in its wake."

"They are known as a type of a Sea King when they go on rampage as they have powerful psychic abilities such as hallucination and telekinesis."

Hanzo then paused and frowned as he remembered something. "But from what I know, these Sea Spirits only appear in the depths of the Glacial Sea near the Awakened Continent, which is where the home of all fishermen and sea creatures is located, the Atlantis Kingdom."

"How come such a creature appears here?" he mumbled confusedly as he stared at the giant jellyfish.

It was at that moment when Solus suddenly injected. "It is corrupted."

Hearing those words, Hanzo realized something and nodded. "It is not originally from here. Someone or something seemed to have brought it here."

Shin frowned while watching the battle.

"Do you want us to lend that troublemaker a hand, my lord?" asked Blackie as she appeared beside Shin.

Shin thought for a moment before shaking his head. "There is no need. It seems like he wants to deal with it alone."

"Just continue with what you are doing while keeping an eye on everything. Report to me if you find anything suspicious," he instructed as he turned back to the battle in the distance.

He was not sure if this was a similar Elemental Spirit Quest that he had gotten from the rest but given that he did not get any notification from the system, he felt that it might not be the case.

However, he also felt that it could also be because Grimrace was not a regular elemental spirit, but an abomination – a monster that devoured other elemental spirits and rebirth places to grow stronger.

He felt that the condition for Grimrace's evolution was somewhat different compared to the others.

He suspected that one of the conditions might be for Grimrace to fight this creature alone given the strange actions that the abomination spirit had shown earlier.

He decided to wait.

***

In a certain part of the Aurora Continent, there was an archipelago that was quite far from the mainland. It was a high-level neutral map that a very limited number of players could access. Even among the elites, one of the best ones would dare to step on this land.

The islands of the archipelago were divided into five levels, where the type and ranks of the monsters varied.

The first two levels were meant for players who were below level 150 but no lower than level 145. Moreover, the players that needed to visit this place needed to be at least as skilled as Titled Rankers or Maverick Rankers to survive there.

The next two levels were for players that already cleared their Tier 3 Promotion Quest. If the player, who would try to set foot on these third- and fourth-level islands, did not meet this requirement, then they would die without knowing what killed them.

There were no players, who dared to come this these third- and fourth-level islands, due to how hard to explore them. Aside from the few very skilled experts such as Godlike Players, no one could survive here.

It wasn't until some of the top experts started clearing their promotion quests and reaching the third tier of their respective classes that more and more experts started visiting this area.

Of course, reaching the archipelago was not easy as the players needed to board a ship and fight powerful sea monsters before they could get there, which was very difficult and too time-consuming.

There were still very few players trying to explore this map, especially when it had quite harsh requirements just to get here.

But there was a certain group of players, who had been exploring this region for quite a while already, even before this new flood of experts came in.

They had been doing quests and venturing around the archipelago, hopping from one island to another, even before the game had reached its current stage.

This proved how strong they were and how skilled their group was.

After exploring the islands and clearing almost all the quests available there, this group was already reaching the final island of the fourth level of the archipelago.

They might have sacrificed quite a lot during their exploration, particularly at the Empire Quests that they had recently acquired, but they were able to hold out until the end.

Their progress was quite slow just recently, but when most of their members started clearing their Tier 3 Class Promotion Quest one after another, their speed became much faster. They almost cleared the last three islands within a single day due to the recent improvements of their group.

Right now, they were at the final island of the fourth level, which was supposedly the current limit that they had.

From their estimate, the fifth-level islands, which were the final three islands of the archipelago, would need to at least master their newly improved powers and reach a decent ranking within their respective NPC factions.

"Shall we call it a day? We have been clearing everything in a rash these last few days. I think it is time to relax a little," said a swordsman, who was wearing a set of armor similar to a samurai of the past. "It will be better to condition ourselves since this is the final island of this level."

The group's leader was a person who seemed to have a warrior-related class given the set of armor that he was wearing a huge ruler-like sword hanging on his back.

To the top gods within the game, this guy was known as the Martial God and the leader of the current number one Adventurer Team, the God's Paradice.

Ashura stood in front of a forest, seemingly trying to extend his sense forward and scouting ahead.

A few moments later, he turned around and looked at the group. "Susanoo is right. We should condition ourselves before clearing this island."

"We are way ahead of the others already, so there is no need to be rash," he added as he reassured them.

Hearing his words, the rest of the group started organizing their inventories and preparing to log out. They took a seat on the nearby borders or on the sand itself.

This time, a muscular guy with a pair of gauntlets walked over to Ashura before asking. "Leader, what about that sea monster that we are tasked to hunt? Are we not going to look for it?"

Ashura turned to that person before shaking his head. "We can't do anything about it. Based on the information, the monster seemed to have fled away from the Sea of Death. I don't think we will be able to find it after such a long time has passed."

"We don't have to worry about it, Kallavan," he added, patting the shoulder of the person.

Kallavan touched his chin and pursed his lips. "But the Martial Alliance left that searching device to us. Don't you think we can try looking for it after we are done with our quest here?"

"We don't have that much work to do anyway. I think it is better to try hunting it while waiting for the others to clear their promotion quest. It is not that hard anyway," he added, trying to convince his leader.

At this moment, Susanoo suddenly walked over and chimed in. "He is right, Leader. I think we should look for something that can help us kill some time."

Ashura turned to Susanoo and shook his head. "The Supreme Temple and Martial Alliance are trying to look for it due to something that it has on its body. It is something important to both factions. Do you think it will be easy to get it back?"

"They will not be issuing the mission to all their members if it is not important. But both factions hold back a few important points in the mission description, which made it quite suspicious."

"That monster may be injured, but it is not mentioned how strong or weak it is. They also asked us to find it, but not hunt the monster, which means that it is more likely to be a powerful monster than our current strength can handle."

"The Martial Alliance gave us two devices just to locate it. One for tracking it down while the other is to send the signal to the headquarters."

"Do you know what it means? It means they are not expecting us to kill the monster, much less retrieve whatever it has in its body. They want us to use the second device to summon their experts as soon as we find the monster."

"And if we somehow become a little luckier, and that monster becomes weaker instead of recovering from its injuries, tracking it down will still take a lot of time."

Hearing those words, Susanoo and Kallavan became even more convinced that they wanted to track the monster. – "Isn't it more reason why we have to accept this quest?" –

Ashura shook his head as he knew that these two only wanted to have that 'thrill' of hunting something powerful and disregard the rest.

"It is not that I am against it. But the problem is it conflicts with our current mission. We have an Empire Quest to clear, then report it to the higher-ups. That is when we will get the recommendation letter to enter the Royal City, we will be one step ahead of the others at that time."

"Do you guys think we have enough time to hunt whatever creature it is? Traveling to the branch of Martial Alliance is not easy," he explained.

The two sighed in disappointment as they knew they would not be able to convince their leader unless they cleared all the tasks they currently had.

"It is a pity. I am quite curious what kind of monster it is," mumbled Susanoo.

"I am sure that it is some sort of fish," said Kallavan.

Ashura shook his head as he saw their expression and added. "Moreover, we have spent quite a lot of time here. That quest has been issued for quite a long time already, so I doubt that the others still haven't accepted it given the rewards that have been offered."

"There are also those people from the Supreme Temple. I don't think we still have the chance to catch up to them given the time that we have already wasted."

His two friends became even more disappointed when they realized this fact.

...…

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