Child of Destiny

At the snow field at the edge of the forest, Immortal was currently having a dark expression on his face as he watched the battle between his Undying Army and the Legion of Chaotic Sun of his opponent.

This battle was already taking a while now but it still remained in a deadlock. He already expended quite a lot of Master Rank Potions in the process yet the opposing side seemed to be not showing any sign of exhaustion.

He knew that the Empyrean Talons were wealthy but that only applied to a couple of their members and not everyone.

But from what he could see this so-called ‘Herald of Chaos’, shouldn’t be one of those members.

Given that Immortal was forced to use multiple Master Rank Mana Potions, the opposing side should have exhausted the same amount as him. Even if he managed to win somehow, he couldn’t say that he really won since he already used more than half of the supplied potions that he brought.

But that was not the most frustrating about it. Instead, it was the fact that he couldn’t overpower his opponent since the start of the battle.

He, who should be the apex of the Necromancer Players, the Lich God Immortal, should have won this battle ages ago!

Everything was working in his favor. The strength of their army might be on a similar level but he was obviously superior in every other area.

He had a more solid foundation in terms of strategical thinking where he could use the available battle formations in the most efficient way possible. He was also better when adjusting their forces in the most unexpected moments.

Immortal was winning that battle most of the time, but for some unknown reason, his opponent always found a way to escape those predicaments.

At first, he thought it was luck since he summon undead monsters, the Perfect Ghoul in particular, who accidentally threw an attack on their forces.

Immortal didn’t think about it much since it happened all the time whenever he summoned the Perfect Ghoul on the field. That guy would always go on a rampage, not caring whether he was hitting his allies in the aftermath.

After all, they were undead monsters, to begin with, so it was not a big deal.

But Immortal found something odd when it happened repeatedly. Not only the attacks of the Perfect Ghoul, but they were always an ‘accident’ whenever he cornered the opposing side, making him pay the price instead.

The first one might be luck and the second one could be a coincidence, but it was definitely not the case if it happened more than twice, much less a repeated occurrence.

This made Immortal doubt if those ‘accidents’ were real or if his opponent was purposely leading the movements of his corrupted undead and using them against him.

Well, this problem could easily be solved as long as Immortal took down the summoner on the opposing side.

And sure, he did!

But unfortunately, he didn’t find his opponent even though the undead scouts that he sent searched every corner of the forest not far from them.

He should have found the opposing lich given the number of elite undead scouts that he sent in there. But none of them managed to find a clue on his opponent’s whereabouts much less caught a glimpse of that person.

Immortal could only think of two reasons why he couldn’t find his opponent. First, that opponent had a much wider range of control than him. This particular necromancer might have a special ability that could let him control his summoned monsters from a very far distance.

Such remote-controlling skills might be rare but they did exist. Immortal wanted to get his hands on such skills too, but he was not lucky enough to find them.

He might have enough money and influence, but it didn’t mean that he could easily get his hands on those skills. That was how rare those skills were – he couldn’t just buy them even if he had enough resources for them.

On the other hand, the other reason was pretty bold. The opponent might not be hiding in that forest at all. He might have a skill that could disguise himself as one of the undead monsters on the field and watch him the other the entire time.

This was the most logical answer that Immortal could come up with. After all, he also had such skills in his possession. It was just a little useless right now since his opponent was already aware of where he was.

It was pointless to hide if the opposing side already know where he was going to hide. He was not an assassin, so he couldn’t just disappear in thin air like them.

And if it was true that his opponent was closely observing him, then it was already too late to try to hide.

Immortal didn’t know if this was how it felt to have a taste of his own medicine. As a player who joined the Dark Faction, he had always been in the dark, manipulating everything while watching his opponents suffer.

But at this point in time, it looked like the roles had changed. He was now the one who was suffering against his opponents while not knowing where they were or what they were thinking.

He couldn’t help but curse silently due to his frustration. If the news got out and this battle became known to the public, then he would surely suffer greatly.

Not only his reputation would suffer a devastating blow but his standing within the Corrupted Cult was also going to be affected.

His position within the cult was already been shaky due to his previous failures. If this continued to happen, then his seat as the Messenger of the Cult would be stripped away from him. Especially now when a lot of people were eyeing his current position.

He might not want to admit it, but it looked like he needed to give up that title and make the necessary preparations before it was too late.

He was still unwilling to do it, but the signal to make finalized that decision suddenly arrived at this most critical moment.

Ding!

A message suddenly arrived, making him frown his brow quite deeply. And when he saw the contents of that message, the expression on his face became even darker.

“Tsk! Yet another defeat!” he muttered before glaring at the opposing forces ahead.

After hesitating, Immortal waved his bone staff in the air to open a dark portal. He looked at the ongoing battle one last time before raising the staff and unsummoning his entire army of undead.

“This is not the end! We will see each other again!” shouted Immortal before entering the dark portal.

That signified the result of this battle.

…

In the meantime, Chaotic Luck couldn’t believe what was happening.

He didn’t unsummon his Legion of Chaotic Sun nor remove his disguise when he saw Immortal retreat. He was afraid that the latter was playing tricks on him.

But after waiting for quite some time and confirming that Immortal indeed left, he finally had the time to think about what happened.

At first, he just wanted to buy enough time for Shin and the others to do their jobs as well as waiting for them to rescue him, but he didn’t expect the current result presented in front of him.

He indeed disguised himself as an average undead mage and hid in their ranks up until the end. He remembered what Shin had told him before.

The most dangerous weapon that a summoner had, necromancers, in particular, was their army – the inexhaustible army of undead. As well as the special monsters that had unique powerful abilities.

But no matter how strong their summoned monsters were, they were still useless weapons when their summoners died before they could showcase respective their strengths.

This implied that the summoner needed to have the strength to protect themselves from all kinds of threats or became extremely skilled at hiding themselves so that their opponents would not be able to find them.

Obviously, Chaotic Luck still didn’t believe that he could protect himself, so he chose the second option. And the tip that Shin gave him that time was hiding among his summoned army.

They were saying that the safest place to hide was the most dangerous place. This could imply different things depending on the situation.

But his current situation needed him to disguise himself as an undead mage and hide within his army.

He knew that it was dangerous to hide within the force since Immortal could just send a batch of monsters to look for him.

This was the reason why he disguised himself and followed along with the rest of his undead monsters the moment when he restarted the battle earlier.

Fortunately, his gamble paid off and Immortal failed to find him.

But still-…! ｂｌ.ｎｅｔ

He didn’t expect that he would be able to force Immortal, the Lich God himself, to retreat.

Of course, he was aware that it could be because the latter heard about what was happening on the other battlefield, but it didn’t change the fact that he was successful at making Immortal stay in this place until Shin and the rest won their battle.

He finally could feel some sense of achievement this time!

It was also that that moment he felt the accumulated fatigue of the battle. The adrenaline finally disappeared and the strength left his body, making him collapse on the ground. It was not a physical exhaustion but a mental one.

After all, keeping up with one of the strongest players that he knew was much more tiring than he could expect.

He was powerlessly lying on the ground but he didn’t mind it at all since he could at least be proud of himself from this day onward.

He raised one of his hands with full of difficulty, collecting the Spying Stones that were scattered in different directions.

When he collected them all, he quickly put them on his inventory with a huge smile on his face. “I can’t believe it, Big Brother! How can you see this far ahead?”

“I thought those are only words of encouragement, but I didn’t expect that it was really going to happen.”

…