Child of Destiny

Swoosh!

When Shin returned to their team’s lounge, he swept his eyes over the room before turning toward the big screen projected before the group. He then became ‘surprised’ after seeing that the match had already ended.

“Oh!? It has already ended!?” he said while trying his best to sound as shocked as possible.

Hearing those words, a certain trio could not help but roll their eyes at him while cursing him inwardly. “Continue with the act!”

In the meantime, the rest of the team looked at him with solemn expressions, seemingly trying to organize their thoughts.

It was only after a while that Diablo suddenly asked. “Evil God-… What is your relationship with that guy, Vice Commander Sickarius? And where such a demon popped out from?”

From the team’s perspective, these monsters within their team were already powerful enough to overwhelm most of the godly experts within the game. They were a bunch of monstrous gods, even among the other gods of the game.

However, this mysterious Evil God was even more of an evildoer compared to these monstrous guys. It was not an exaggeration to call him a demon among these monstrous gods.

After seeing that final exchange between Ashura and Uno, Diablo and the rest of the team could not help but become even more curious about this so-called Evil God.

Particularly Diablo since he always felt that Shin’s group ‘knew’ this person quite ‘well’.

Unfortunately, Shin and the others just shrugged at his curiosity, seemingly saying that it was not that important.

To avoid getting deeper into this topic, Arthur took the initiative to change the topic. “Tsk! Tsk! This guy has become even more of a monster since our last match.”

“More like he now shows his true battle prowess,” corrected Leonard with a solemn expression. “Remember that final strike that he has used to take you down? Even that is just a mere glimpse of his true powers.”

There was an ugly look on Arthur’s face, but he did not refute those words since he was also fully aware that what Leonard had just said was true.

“That final strike just now-… I feel like it has touched a depth that we are barely able to reach,” added Leonard while wearing a solemn expression.

He had been training under Scar’s supervision, so he had realized quite a few things throughout the training sessions.

Adding the insights that he had gotten from the hereditary memories engraved into his bloodline along with the depths of inheritance of the Thunder Lord, Leonard was aware of the word ‘Origin’ even though he was still very far from touching it.

The two then turned to Shin, seemingly trying to seek answers from him.

The two were very familiar with Shin and knew his capabilities. Even if it was about the Martial Arts that was recently sealed.

But from what they could remember, Shin was far from reaching such a level of power even after the most recent breakthrough.

From what these two could see, Uno seemed to be living in a completely different dimension, where he could harness such a power.

Shin, on the other hand, could not help but smile bitterly since he knew that what Uno had just shown was a result of multiple factors.

If it were in the real world, then Uno would not be able to unleash such a world-defying attack despite how powerful and talented he was.

If not for the ‘weak’ restrictions within the game compared to the real world, then Uno would have a much harder time unleashing such a power.

From what he had suspected, the power that Uno had shown was not even in this plane of the game. Instead, it was supposed to be something that only those at the higher plane resided in, the Divine Realm.

Even if he was not in control of his avatar at that time, he could still feel what Uno was feeling at that time.

He could feel the ‘rejection’ of the lower plane when Uno had unleashed such a power earlier.

Seeing the two giving such an inquiring look, Shin just shrugged his shoulders before saying. “I don’t know that much either, but it indeed taps something that we are barely able to understand the surface.”

The group discussed the matches for quite a while before Shin dismissed everyone. “That’s all for now. We will watch the match between the Hand of Midas and God’s Paradise together the day after tomorrow before discussing our next plans.”

“But we will most likely be facing God’s Paradise at the Grand Finals anyway, so we will be making arrangements against them in the following week.”

“We will be having an entire week of preparations after the lower bracket finals anyway, so we have plenty of time to train.”

He then paused for a moment, thinking about something, before continuing. “I will try to arrange some teams to scrimmage with us in the upcoming week.”

“We never have a proper one since the kick-off of the playoff rounds. This is a good chance to have one,” he added before dismissing everyone.

…

Since the match had ended quite quickly, it was still very early, allowing everyone to play the game for the rest of the night.

The rest of the Empyrean Talons went to do their respective businesses once again. Some went to do some training, others continued with the progress of their quests, while the rest did some grinding.

As the guy who just came back, Arthur was the most unsatisfied after seeing that his Level lagged too far behind compared to the rest of the team. All his advantages over the other members disappeared, making him dead last in terms of level.

He swiftly went to the Forgotten Temple and headed to the Forgotten Sea to hunt monsters and grind some levels.

At the same time, he had also heard quite a lot of achievements that Shin had done during the time of his absence, particularly when it came to the number of additional titles that Shin had gotten.

He kept complaining why Shin always earned himself a title whenever he did something.

Leonard just laughed it off before dragging Arthur into hunting. Since he was also somewhat free, it was better to do something more productive and try to improve himself.

He was also following a certain clue that he had gotten from the library of the Divine Empire. It was the clue of another Elemental Beast that he could form a contract with.

Based on the records, the spiritual and elemental creature could be found in the regions around the Forgotten Sea, so he wanted to try looking for it.

He was also looking for the clues of the Leviathan Beast, which was the target of one of his most important quests in progress – the quest meant for the creation of his Divine Armor.

Arthur was also meant to follow some clues for his Divine Armor Quest. However, whenever he thought about himself being at the bottom of the team in terms of level, his ego did not let him continue with his quest and instead chose to grind levels.

Given the current stage of the game, it was more efficient to stay at the Forgotten Sea to hunt monsters since there were no competitors in this place.

Instead of going to the Divine Empire and dealing with those guys, who kept on annoying them from time to time, it was better to grind levels in such a peaceful environment.

Fortunately, one of his Elemental Dragons could showcase its power better in water, further increasing the efficiency of his hunt.

Cloe, on the other hand, continued to look for the perfect secondary combat class for her. She had found some clues at the archive of the Church of Light, making decent progress. Once she was successful, her strength would be further enhanced by a great margin.

The rest of the team went about their business as usual.

Shin, on the other hand, did not immediately go to hunt or do his quest right after logging in the game. Instead, he went straight to the Imperial Library of the Divine Empire as well as the archives of the Church of the Sun and Moon to gather intel.

He had some idea about the upcoming update, given the current state of the game and the clues that he had gotten from Benedict previously.

If his guess was right, then somewhere during the entirety of the patch update, there would be a huge expansion that would involve the Beta Testers who were ‘trapped’ in different dimensions.

Since the timeline would accelerate a little, there was a high chance that the army of the Bug Tribe would descend fully into the Dark Cloud Kingdom.

Alongside it, the portal toward the other realms would also open throughout the update.

What Shin wanted to do now was to do some research about these realms to get ahead of the other players.

Moreover, he also felt that he would get some clues about the other legendary swords if he followed these records, as well as some leads about the other creatures related to his Divine Armor Quest.

……