Child of Destiny

Phantom Series, this was what Shin had decided to name the techniques that he had created for this combat style.

There were only four techniques in it currently. Three of them were derived from his other techniques in his arsenal, while the final one was the only one he had truly created.

The two of them were movement techniques, which were the ‘Ghost Evanescent’ and ‘Spectral Waltz’.

These two movement techniques were also from the martial maneuvers that he learned from the real world, along with a few skills within the game, which were modified to complement the features of the Phantom Swordsman.

These two movement techniques were polar opposites.

The’ Ghost Evanescent’ was meant to create multiple afterimages that were extremely lifelike and scattered in different directions to confuse his enemies, while the ‘Spectral Waltz’ was meant to create a series of overlapping images of his body, making his movements hard to read.

Both had their respective features, but had the same goal of confusing and tricking their enemies.

Meanwhile, the third technique under this series was the move that he just used earlier, the ‘Phantasm Flush’.

It was a finishing move that had been derived from one of his signature techniques, the ‘World Splitter’.

It was a sword technique that utilized the Ghost Evanescent movement as well. However, it was a sword technique that majored in splitting the space and possessed spatial properties.

On the other hand, the ‘Phantasm Flush’ relied more on extreme speed and teleportation. Moreover, the shadow element fitted this technique more due to the unique features that the Phantoms had.

Of course, the two sword techniques shared a few qualities, which was why Shin was able to create the ‘Phantasm Flush’. However, the sword principles that he used when executing them were different, which would perfectly fit certain situations during the battle.

The ‘World Splitter’ was more of a simultaneous attack, while the ‘Phantasm Flush’ was a constant and continuous series of attacks.

All three of these techniques had already reached full mastery. After all, Shin had just derived them from his already existing techniques.

However, the fourth movement that he had created for the ‘Phantom Series’ had yet to take its full form, not reaching the ideal state where he could fully use them in battle.

It was still in embryonic form, which had yet to mature.

However, among all four techniques, this was the only technique that he had created from scratch.

…

After defeating the first stronger target, Shin went to look for another, avoiding the humanoid ones and focusing more on the beast-type monsters scattered throughout the place.

He was planning to save those humanoid creatures for the latter, which would most likely give him more trouble compared to the others.

After all, he could sense a stronger martial prowess coming from these humanoid creatures, which indicated that they would most likely be similar to the Sand General from the first floor.

The real test would most likely come from them.

In comparison, the beast monsters would be much simpler to deal with, even though they had strong powers and raw strength.

Shin continued to hone his ‘Phantom Series’ by taking them down one by one.

It did not take that long before he finally mastered these techniques, particularly when apply most of his theories in actual battle.

Given his current pace, Shin estimated that he would be able to clear this floor much faster than the time he had spent on the first floor.

The first step was always the hardest in everything; it was only natural for him to have some trouble when dealing with the trials of the first floor.

However, once he had learned what needed to be done, the rest became much easier to deal with.

If he continued with this pace, then he would most likely clear this floor before he logged out later or at least when logged back in the game tomorrow at the latest.

Shin spent his remaining time hunting the monstrous beasts on this floor, using them to further hone his skills and techniques.

Not only had his martial prowess reached a whole new level, but his assassination techniques had also improved by a large margin.

Given his current level, he felt that he would not lose to some of the Master Assassins from the real world.

However, he was still quite behind when compared to reaching Faker’s and Diablo’s level when it came to assassination and stealth techniques.

However, what he had right now was more than enough for his current level, especially when this was just a secondary art to complement and supplement his main style of swordsmanship.

He felt that his strength would greatly increase once he combined the ‘Phantom Series’ along with the movement and auxiliary techniques from the ‘Jade Kirin Scripture’ and’ Four Symbol Scripture’.

During his constant hunt, the fourth movement of the ‘Phantom Series’ had also started to take the ideal form that he envisioned.

This technique was neither a movement technique nor an offensive movement. Instead, it was an auxiliary technique that supplemented the other abilities of his Phantom Swordsman Class.

It utilized the special features of the class, which majored in conjuring phantoms. It was a technique that utilized the phantoms to erase his presence by fusing with his body.

Shin had just discovered this special feature of the phantoms when he was experimenting with his skills and transforming the Specter Steps into the ‘Spectral Waltz’.

He realized that once these phantoms fused with his body and stacked together, his presence would be suddenly erased. His life signals would suddenly disappear due to the overlapping presence of the phantoms. They would distort the energies around him and meld with the surrounding environment.

Adding their unique features, Shin could also tell that he could trick even the ‘nature’ itself that he was a part of it.

It was similar to the state of being an integral part of nature in the real world, which the Martial Artist at the Ascension Realm practiced.

Along with this technique, Shin’s stealth abilities had reached another level, almost turning him into a real assassin.

Due to the nature of this technique, Shin had called it the ‘Speter Haunt’.

With the help of this stealth technique, Shin was able to sneak into the territories of his targets and assassinate them much more easily than before.

After clearing all the monstrous beasts, he quickly proceeded to hunt the humanoid creatures.

There were seven of them in total, so he still had a lot of work to do before he could clear this floor’s trial, especially when he could feel that those ‘targets’ were much more troublesome to deal with.

Moreover, each of them felt much stronger than the other, so dealing with them needed to be done in a certain order.

He had to target the weakest ones first before steadily proceeding to the stronger ones, saving the strongest last and treating it as some sort of floor boss or something.

Fortunately, Shin was able to perfect his fourth technique before he proceeded to assassinate these humanoid creatures.

With this ultimate stealth technique, along with his other three techniques of the ‘Phantom Series’ and the surrounding environment, Shin was able to take down three of them with ease.

They had fallen under these factors, especially when he only struck when the right opportunity presented itself.

Unlike when he was dealing with the monstrous beasts earlier, where he directly engaged with them in battle, Shin was stalking his prey for as long as he could and only moved once the perfect opening was revealed.

Through this, he was able to take down three of the humanoid creatures without encountering much of a problem.

Unfortunately, this only worked against those three targets.

When he went to assassinate the fourth target, which also ranked fourth in terms of strength among all seven humanoid creatures, Shin encountered a bit of a problem.

Ambushes did not work against this particular target due to its extremely strong senses.

Moreover, the territory that it had was not within the forest, where there was a lot of vegetation that Shin could use for his assassination attempt.

Instead, it was staying in an open field, where not even grass could grow. It was a strange, barren land in the middle of a forest.

“Tsk! Tsk! This is a bit tricky now,” mumbled Shin as he observed this target from a distance.

Through his enhanced vision, he was able to see that it was not something that could be dealt with by assassination alone.

“Based on its basic features, it looks like a lizardman or something,” mumbled Shin while trying his best to see the features of his current target.

It indeed looked like a humanoid reptilian creature, with a huge, muscular build. Its outer features made it resemble the lizardmen that Shin had seen before, especially after seeing how it acted.

Its height seemed to be around two to three meters tall with an extremely buffed build. It was also wearing a set of plate armor while wielding a huge sword and shield in each of its hands.

There was no doubt that it was a warrior-type monster, which relied on its extreme physical traits to deal with its enemies.

“These types of monsters are the ones that assassins and thieves hate to deal with because they are extremely tanky,” mumbled Shin before sighing. “I guess I don’t have a choice but to face it head-on.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t use most of my abilities in this tower,” he added, along with yet another helpless sigh.

…