Child of Destiny

Hearing the orders from their commander, the rest of the team swiftly made their moves.

Keir and Lia went behind Ashura. The former was chanting a series of dark mantras as if communicating with something from the darkness, while the latter was praying, seemingly trying to summon something.

At the same time, Susanoo and Kallavan swiftly charged ahead, planning to clash against the opposing side. They wanted to initiate another battle, wanting to buy some time for the rest to complete the summoning.

Ashura, on the other hand, swiftly raised his ruler sword and pointed it toward the sky, sending a beam of light that pierced through the dark clouds.

The side of Empyrean Talons was already expecting this and swiftly responded.

Leonard and Arthur swiftly engaged Kallavan and Susanoo, respectively, while Shin led his clones to launch an ambush on Ashura and the girls, who were focused on summoning their ‘guardian’.

The Phantom Apparition entered stealth while the Eclipse Clone entered the void gate near it before appearing behind the opposing side.

But before it could even reach its target, it was pounced on by a bunch of shadow creatures that were coming from every direction.

Shin slightly raised his brows, trying to control the Eclipse Clone remotely to fight against these shadow creatures.

At the same time, he launched an ambush along with the Phantom Apparition, which was already near Ashura and the others, attacking from a tricky angle.

But before he could even do anything, he noticed that the ground underneath the opposing group had a huge magic circle that was waiting to be activated.

Shin immediately realized that it must be a trap, particularly when his instincts were telling him to stay away from it.

It must be a magic circle that was set ahead of time, at least during the intense and chaotic battle earlier.

But he could not let the other side cast their combination skill in peace, so he had to think of a way to at least disrupt them or force them to expend more mana and burn more concentration.

Thinking about that, he released his control over the Phantom Apparition and let its Battle AI take over.

But he still issued a command for it to continue launching its ambush.

Right after being released, the Phantom Apparition swiftly unsheathed its version of [Yamato], releasing its twin sword form, before suddenly charging ahead.

At the same time, its body split into nine phantoms, activating one of the signature skills under the Phantom Swordsman Class.

‘Phantom Swordsman Skill: (Phantom Apparition Version) Phantom Dance’

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Not only did they spread in different directions right after being summoned, but they also took a specific route that was on a high tactical level.

Keir, who was keeping an extra eye on the situation in their surroundings, could not help but frown deeply after seeing the incoming phantoms.

He originally wanted to use this opportunity to at least catch the clones of Shin, forcing them to be unsummoned or destroyed during the process.

It would be even better if they could catch the other clone as well, or even Shin, in the process.

But they also knew that it was quite impossible to catch Shin with such a trap, especially when the battle senses and combat instincts of that guy were on another level.

At the same time, Keir could also sense an immense pressure coming from Phantom Apparition, along with the phantoms that it was leading. It was as if he were being hunted down by a terrifying predator the moment its gaze locked on him.

Trusting his instincts, he could only activate the trap formation underneath their feet ahead of time, hoping to stop this scary clone.

Bang!

However, right before he fully activated the magic formation, he suddenly witnessed something terrifying.

The Phantom Apparition and its phantoms executed a series of complex maneuvers that skillfully avoided the core traps of the magic formation.

They seemed to be having a stroll while avoiding these traps and continuing to move forward.

A little panicked, Keir expended more of his concentration, dividing his mind – one was focusing on the forbidden spell that would complement Lia and Ashura later, while the other was meant to deal with the Phantom Apparition and its phantoms.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Keir skillfully controlled the magic formation, attempting to catch all the phantoms and their real body.

Unfortunately, the Phantom Apparition was quite skilled on its now. It was not only dodging the traps quite easily, but it was also constantly swapping places with the other phantoms to avoid being trapped by the shadow cage that Keir was trying to build around it.

“What the heck!? Just how scary is that guy’s mentality and willpower to control this group to such a degree!?” shocked, Keir could not help but give Shin an astounded look.

In the meantime, the ‘culprit’ was quite shocked himself.

Shin felt that the Phantom Apparition had freed itself from some sort of restriction right after he released his control over it.

He also noticed that its Battle AI had improved quite tremendously right after it was realized. It was as if it had gotten upgraded the moment he realized his control over it.

Moreover, it was adapting the battle strategy and complex maneuvers that he was using when he was manually controlling it.

“Don’t tell me that it had absorbed all the experience that it had when I was controlling it earlier,” mumbled Shin, having suspected that this must be the reason for the sudden change.

“If that is the case, then this Phantom Swordsman Class is more mysterious and powerful than what I originally thought,” he said to himself, wearing a solemn expression.

He had also spent quite some time researching this secondary combat class of his during his free time, especially after seeing that the Phantom Apparition could use some other skills that were not in his arsenal.

But his attempts never bore fruit, making him give up on it for the time being.

It was even delayed further after realizing that the basic combat AI of his clones was incapable of matching the combat prowess of those top-notch experts, particularly those at the godly level.

However, when he saw the sudden ‘upgrade’ of the Phantom Apparition right after he realized his manual control over it, he felt that the secrets that his secondary combat class held were much greater than before.

“But this never happened before when I was sparring with the others during our last training session,” he frowned deeply while watching the Phantom Apparition showcasing another batch of Phantom Swordsman skills that he had never seen before.

He was confused, but he did not have the time to dwell on it, especially since the current result was much better than he wanted.

“I guess I also have to find Lord Kentas as well to understand this Phantom Swordsman Class better,” mumbled Shin before realizing the problem. “But finding that high-level NPC will be much harder.”

He just remembered that this NPC liked to disguise himself and roam anywhere without a purpose in mind.

That NPC would only reveal himself to anyone if he wanted to.

Setting aside this thought, Shin resumed to battle, continuing to harass the opposition.

Unfortunately, Keir was quite stubborn and continued to hold his ground despite burning quite a lot of mana and concentration.

This might be what Shin originally wanted, but he felt that the other party was planning to sacrifice himself in the first place.

Looking at the other side of the battle, he saw that Kallavan and Susanoo were holding their ground quite well, especially when Alice’s spells became less effective due to the destruction of the void gates in the air.

“You can swap with Diablo for now,” Shin sent a message to Alice, informing the latter that she had already done enough.

Alice pursed her lips a little when she saw that, but did not say anything else. She understood that her role was already done, so she could either continue guarding the summoning altar or swap with Diablo right now.

Putting everything into consideration, she knew that it was best to let Diablo take on the stage, especially when she could also recover her mana and willpower in the isolated dimension.

But before she could even turn around and enter the altar, a sudden pain in her chest disrupted her thoughts.

Cough!

Confused, she looked down and saw a dark spear sticking out of her chest, which was also rapidly consuming her remaining mana along with her still full health points.

She then heard a cold voice coming from behind.

“Tsk! Tsk! I guess we are forced to do Plan D in the end.”

She did not need to guess who it was since there was only a single person who could be coming out of the summoning altar at this moment.

What confused her was why Shin and the others did not inform her that they had taken down one of their opponents.

That-… or one of God’s Paradise took the initiative to commit suicide, catching them off guard.

This was the most obvious answer that she could come up with.

She wanted to fight back first, especially when she still hadn’t died yet. But she also realized that all her spells were suddenly greyed out, signifying that the opponent had put her in a silenced state.

At the same time, she also realized that even her Possession State had also been forcefully and unknowingly ended, giving her no chance to fight back.

She could only helplessly watch her health bar drop to zero before she was forced off the map.

……