Child of Destiny

Right after Arthur stepped into the 50-meter-range radius around the iron-skinned wild boar, he immediately attracted the attention of the monster.

“Eh!? Isn’t the aggro range of this monster a little too absurd?” he commented when he saw the angry boar facing his direction.

From the monsters that they had encountered earlier, the aggro range that they had seen up until now was averaging between 25 to 30 meters, depending on what kind of monster it was.

Those aggro ranges alone were already absurd enough given that the monsters from the Aurora Continent only had a range of 5 to 20 meters depending on what type of monsters they were. Even those monsters from the Overlord Rank and above only had a maximum of 35 meters.

They had only encountered the monsters raging from common up to elite rank, yet their aggro range was already this wide. Then what about those monsters with higher ranks?

Even though the terrains and topography of the maps could also affect the aggro range of the monsters like a forest where the trees could block the vision of the monsters or the grass plains where nothing could be hidden from the eyes of the monsters, the basic range of the monsters’ aggro was still a little too huge.

The weather conditions of the regions could also be another factor, but even that would also make it harder for the players to fight, especially when the monsters’ abilities could also be enhanced based on these conditions.

“It looks like this is going to be a bit trickier for the players to hunt in this continent once they start flooding here,” mumbled Arthur as he readied himself for the battle while shouting to the other. “Ready the buffs! I want to try facing this one head-on.”

Hearing those words, Shin knew that Arthur wanted to test the limits of his tanking abilities – he wanted to know which level or rank of a monster he could tank by himself on this continent.

Shin signaled to Samael to not hold back anything and to use every buff he could give aside from the special ones and the trump cards that they needed to save for emergencies and had quite a long cooldown.

Samael quickly raised his sword and pointed it in the sky while chanting out some prayers unique to the Church of the Sun and Moon.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Golden light quickly befell on Arthur, enveloping him with glowing specks of light that resembled the stars in the night sky.

There was also the moonlight glow that shone upon him from the sky, further enhancing the already high stats that Arthur possessed.

Aside from these, some additional buffs that came from the common paladins befell Arthur one after another, further strengthening him.

“Pretty decent,” complimented Arthur as he took the initiative to charge toward the wild boar.

These buffs might not be as broken as the ones that Cloe provided to the team, but they already surpassed the common standards of the players and somewhat reached the level of top Titled Rankers.

As Arthur was charging toward the wild boar, the monster seemed to have taken a battle stance as it suddenly widened its front hooves and firmly planted them on the ground.

It then started scraping one of its front hooves on the ground, kicking dirt in the air, while glaring at the incoming player.

Bang!

Swoosh!

Then, all of a sudden, the wild boar started charging at Arthur with an absurd speed along with an unstoppable force, which resembled a bullet train in the real world.

The pupils of Arthur’s eyes immediately contracted when he saw that, especially when he could sense the wind blast being produced by the monster during its charge.

“Sh*t!” he could not help but curse as he could see that this charge could give him a lot of damage if he did not take it seriously.

With that, he quickly enveloped his entire body with his unique mana manipulation technique, which quickly turned into the huge head of a golden dragon that opened its mouth wide while charging toward it.

It was one of his signature techniques!

‘True Nine Dragon Arts: Breaking through of the Golden Dragon’

Roar!

Boom!

The collision between the two sides resulted in a powerful shockwave upon the impact.

Swoosh!

Arthur was pushed back by the collision, skidding backward and leaving a pair of deep trails on the ground with his feet.

(-100,245)

A huge chunk of his Health Bar had also been taken out as the glaring red numbers of six digits flashed above his head.

Even if his health bar was currently in a couple of millions due to his top-class equipment along with a bunch of buffs cast upon him, such a number was still quite huge, especially when his defense should be quite high as well.

After recovering his footing, he quickly raised his head and looked at the wild boar opposite to him, which was currently taking a couple of steps back due to the previous impact.

Aside from a dozen of thousands of health that were taken out by the recent collision, the monster seemed to be relatively fine compared to him.

“Tsk! I guess this is going to be a little troublesome,” he commented after realizing that an Elite Monster of his continent was way different from what they had expected.

It was even slightly stronger than an Emperor Class Monster from the Auror Continent and somewhat bordering the level of a World Boss Monster from that place.

“But this is also quite good!” he added as his blood boiled in excitement due to the challenge.

It had been a while since he felt this feeling when hunting a monster. This reminded him of when he found his first monster when he just started playing a virtual-reality game as well as his previous experience when the «True Era» Online was first released before.

He stared at the wild boar with a burning gaze before shouting. “Let’s go!”

Bang!

He then kicked the ground and started charging at the monster, taking the initiative to attack once more.

Seeing the player was provoking it, the wild boar seemed to have become enraged and roared before charging at Arthur for another time.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The ground seemed to have shaken from each stomp of its hooves while charging toward the little creature rushing toward it.

BOOM!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Repeated explosions occurred as Arthur and the wild boar clashed against each other, producing overlapping shockwaves for every collision.

What was surprising about this scene was how the monster fought against Arthur. The wild boar was not just doing some regular charging attacks, unlike the other boar-type monsters that every player had encountered in any game.

Instead, this monster seemed to be using some sort of ‘combat technique’ while fighting as it was regularly using its hooves to stomp on the ground to produce strong ripples that interrupted Arthur’s footing and sent huge debris in the air as if it were shooting bullets.

At the same time, the wild boar was also using its tusk as some sort of weapon and it repeatedly swung them to clash against Arthur’s spear and shield.

Shin and the others, who were watching this scene from a certain distance could not help but become a little surprised as it was way different from their previous experiences when they were traveling toward this place.

The regular monsters that they had encountered earlier might be strong, rivaling the peak predators of the previous continent, but they were still somewhat following the common features of a monster based on their species.

Even their attack patterns were very similar but twice or three times stronger than the regular monsters of the same type.

But this particular boar in front of them was showing them a whole other level of combat prowess that indicated how high the level of the AI that they possessed.

The ceiling of this monster was absurdly high, especially when its battle instincts were put into consideration.

Now, Shin fully understood what Longinus, the Leader of the Mysterious Instructors, meant when he told him that the monsters from that special trial were nothing compared to the ones on this continent.

After Arthur fully secured the aggro of the monster, Shin finally gave the signal to the group to get ready to join the battle.

“Lorraine, take over the command for the support. Leo and I will be joining in,” he instructed before dashing toward the battle alongside Leonard.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

“Little Huahua, keep your pace. Just make sure to not let Arthur’s health fall below 50%. Samael, you also support her with your healing spells,” instructed Lorraine as she pulled out her sniper rifle.

After loading her specialized magazine filled with armor-piercing bullets, she took her aim while saying. “I will only be giving you a few instructions later when it is needed, but I will let you do your job on your own most of the time.”

“Since this journey is meant to test and train the two of you, I want to see to what extent your current abilities can reach – whether you are truly worthy of investment.”

“I want to see how you are going to respond under pressure and test your judgment during such an intense battle.”

She paused for a moment as she thought of something before adding. “The previous monsters that we encountered earlier are a little lacking in doing this, so this is your real test right now.”

She then turned her attention back to the battle as Shin and Leonard were about to join Arthur on the front lines.

…