Child of Destiny

Chapter 1739: Crazy Ideas

...…

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Shin was forced to disengage from the battle against the Ghostly Lindwurm due to the numbness of his arms.

He had to admit that he had underestimated this monster, which had exchanged a series of intense blows against him.

He first thought that it he would have an easier time dealing with this monster after wielding the fragment of the legendary sword [Balmung], which was he best choice when dealing against draconic species.

But to his surprise, he was only able to barely hold his ground against the monster due to his lack of understanding of this legendary sword. He was unable to fully wield it unlike his other legendary sword, the [Durendal].

He had to spend an extra effort control the powers of the broken [Balmung], which also consumed a decent amount of concentration during the process.

His thoughts of saving as much willpower and trump cards seemed to be coming to bite him instead.

”I guess I am quite impatient at clearing this dungeon when I can clear it for as long as I can since it does not have any time duration,” Shin admitted his mistake immediately after.

”A Chieftain Rank Monster with bloodline powers is still too strong for me to deal with without any help from my strongest trump cards,” he mumbled with a helpless sigh.

A monster of this level far surpassed those Emperor Rank Monsters at the Aurora Continent, so it was normal for it to be this powerful.

Shin had to admit that he somewhat became a little overconfident after getting his hands on powerful weapons and his recent improvements.

”Since this is the case, then I will take my time exploring this dungeon and hunting these guys with a steady pace,” he said before glancing at the skills attached to the broken [Balmung] in his left hand.

…

Blood Dragon Awakening (Active): Once activated, the wielder of this sword will enter a berserk state where their overall stats will be increased by five times and gain the power capable of slaying dragons in exchange for losing their mind.

Duration: 30 minutes

Cooldown: 3 Days (In-game Time)

Dragon Slaying (Passive): When fighting against creatures under the Draconic Species, all stats will be doubled while all forms of attacks will be twice as effective.

…

These skills were perfect with his current situation. But he debated internally for a couple of moments, deciding whether he wanted to use the ʼBlood Dragon Awakeningʼ or the ʼDecent of the Fallen Godʼ to deal with his current opponent.

After all, the three-day cooldown time was still too long. It consumed almost all his online time before he could use it again.

This would let him hunt at least one of the fragments a day (real-world time), which had a very low efficiency for his requirement.

Compared to the skills of [Durendal], this berserk skill was too overpowered despite its drawbacks. The only problem was its long cooldown.

He could guess that this cooldown time was most likely due to the broken state of the legendary sword, which could be lowered so long as he found the other two fragments.

Meanwhile, the [Durendal] was in a sealed state, which was why its broken skills were still unavailable for him. He wondered how powerful it was when compared to this core skill of the [Balmung].

Setting that thought aside, Shin calculated inside his head while continuing to fight the Ghostly Lindwurm with full intensity.

After considering it for a few moments, he decided to endure the struggle against this fragment of evil being with regular means, most of his trump cards. He would then save the ʼBlood Dragon Awakeningʼ for the latter, when he was hunting another fragment, while doing the same for the ʼDecent of the Fallen Godʼ for the third one.

This way, he would be able to increase the efficiency of his hunt up to three Evil Fragments for today, saving himself a lot of time for later.

Tomorrow, he would then hunt the other two fragments with the two overpowered berserk skills, earning him the minimum requirement for Altusʼ Trial.

After that, he would proceed in hunting the Evil Being the next day for additional rewards. At that time, he would have both trump cards available, giving him more confidence to defeat that final boss of the dungeon.

Finalizing the plan inside his head, Shin slightly nodded. ”Alright. This is good enough.”

***

Shin proceeded with his plan, which exhausted him quite seriously.

Forcing himself to fight the Ghostly Lindwurm through normal means required him a lot of time and energy, but he was still able to take it down in the end.

However, he spent an entire day (in-game time) during the entire process before forcing himself to rest immediately after.

During his idle time, he was watching the battles of their next opponents for the United Cup, which barely required any energy.

He then continued to hunt, following his plan.

When he first used the ʼBlood Dragon Awakeningʼ, he experienced how overpowered he could be in that state. He felt like a god for having all his stats increase by several folds, gaining himself a series of boosts for his movement and attack speed, powerful defense, and an enhanced strength for attacking.

The only drawback of this skill was the constant mental attacks that he was suffering during the activation of the skill.

It felt like he would lose himself in rage if he stayed in that state for too long.

Fortunately, the blessings that his other legendary sword, the [Durendal], possessed focused more on mind and spirit.

This made him stayed in the state of ʼBlood Dragon Awakeningʼ for an extended period of time without losing himself.

He was able to deal with the second evil fragment, Undead Salamander, with all these advantages.

He had encountered some issues during the battle, but it was still at a manageable level. This gave him enough time to recover himself before proceeding to hunt the third fragment, which was a giant Deathworm.

He had some trouble dealing with its since it was constantly diving into the ground, which quite annoyed him during the battle.

Even with the ʼDecent of the Fallen Godʼ being fully active, Shin was still having a hard time taking down the annoying worm.

In this battle, he had gained a huge breakthrough with his connection with the Powers of the Brilliant Sun, which strengthened his understanding of the Brilliant Flame.

This increased his control over the Eternal Flame and enhanced its powers.

He then borrowed the Brilliant Flames in the surrounding before plunging the [Durendal] into the ground and channeling his powers at the same time.

This forced the deathworm to come out of the ground, which gave Shin an opportunity to fight it properly.

After another series of struggle, he managed to kill the Deathworm, earning himself another special core upon its death and destroying the third fragment of the evil being.

…

Shin did not linger in that place for that long as he quickly logged out to rest.

He then continued studying the videos of the Hien Workshop to prepare for the next round of the United Cup.

If they manage to win a clean victory in this match, at least earning themselves an 8-2 or 7-3 score, then they would be able to secure the top spot in the upper bracket of the top eight matches.

Given the current standings, the Empyrean Talons were somewhat ahead of everyone else. But they could not relax yet as the other rivals were closely behind them.

The Pandemonium Troupe had an 18-2 score alongside the Godʼs Paradise. These two teams also had a dominant performance in their previous matches, convincing everyone that they were the top powerhouse in the tournament.

The two scores that they had lost were from the Single Matches, where their representatives encountered powerful Godlike Powerhouses. However, those matches were very close, where both sides only had a sliver of health during the final exchanges.

Then them were the Slayers Adventurer Team, Earners Mercenary Group, and Hand of Midas following closely behind with 16-4 standings.

The other top teams such as Hydra Guild, Dragon Pavilion, Central Order, and Assassin Unions had encountered some slips during the Group Battles, which left them with 14-6 scores.

But from the eyes of the experts, most of these teams with slightly lower scores had purposely dropped a round or two to avoid facing stronger opponents for the next matchups.

With all these powerful teams closely behind, Shin and the rest of the Empyrean Talons had to prepare for as much as they could, especially when the real competition was only starting.

…

Later this day, the members of the Empyrean Talons were currently gathered for a strategic meeting.

Everyone was silent as they stared at Shin with a weird gaze after listening to the strategy that he just presented to them.

It took some time for someone to finally voice out their concern.

”We understand the arrangement for the Single Matches and Team Competition. Going strong with our strongest lineup,” started Owen before suddenly asking. ”But for the Group Battle-… are you sure you want to do this?”

Shin just gave everyone a reassuring smile as he nodded. ”How can I be careless when I also know that the Group Battle is very important for us if we want to secure the first seed of the standings before proceeding to the top eight matches.”

He then paused as he pointed at the virtual screen project before everyone, specifically pointing at the names he arranged for the Group Battle. ”Trust me. This composition is the best to deal with those guys from the Hien Workshop.”

”They will surely go with the standard composition, expecting us to do something similar to our previous match.”

Alucard frowned quite deeply as he considered Shinʼs words. He then sighed as he asked. ”But isnʼt this a little too risky?”

Shin chuckled as he heard that before assuring them once again. ”It may be risky on the surface, but it has a lot of advantages if you look at it from a different angle.”

He then looked at the three people, who he assigned for the group battle, and said. ”Follow me at the training room for a moment. We will do a simple training to let you adjust to this strategy.”

Seeing the devious smile that Shin was wearing, Lorraine, who joined the meeting for fun once again, could not help but shake her head. ”This guy is evil. He will not stop until he embarrasses his opponents enough.”

Cloe nodded her head in agreement while Leonard just chuckled. ”But the arrangement for the group battle is indeed interesting. This will make everyone go crazy after learning about it.”

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