Child of Destiny

Swoosh!

Shin shot through the forest line, a streak of lightning. His figure weaved between the towering trees at astonishing speed.

He had no intention of wasting another second. Every second that passed would put everyone trapped within the city in an even more serious danger.

Despite his ability to fly, he deliberately kept both his feet on the ground. The air above had become unnaturally unstable ever since the massive gate appeared, its distorted mana currents twisting space itself. One careless attempt to take flight could throw him directly into the independent realm’s expanding projection.

He was not willing to take that risk.

At this moment, he was only relying on his foot techniques such as the Lightning Movement Techniques that he had created for the Jade Kirin Scripture, the Holy Azure Dragon Method of the Four Symbol Scripture, and the newly created ones from the Phantom Series.

He was shifting between these three sets of movement techniques while traversing the forest, leaving a series of afterimages made of lighting or shadowy phantoms.

Swoosh!

He had to reach his destination as fast as he could before it was already too late.

”Left!” Hanzo’s calm voice echoed within his mind.

Without hesitation, Shin shifted his footing, changing direction in a single fluid motion.

”Keep going.”

”Thirty degrees to your right.”

”Don’t slow down, My Liege.”

Solus and Hanzo alternated while giving instructions, each relying on their own perception to guide them through the rough terrain no ordinary player could navigate.

One of them focused on dodging the harmful mana in the air while the other focused on sensing the spreading independent realm projected by the existence beyond the colossal gate.

However, despite their powers and rich experience, neither of them sounded relaxed.

”The projection is expanding, My Liege!” Solus’ voice became noticeably more solemn.

Hanzo also added. ”Don’t touch it.”

Ahead of him, reality itself had begun to distort. The surrounding scenery twisted unnaturally as if an invisible force were folding space into itself.

The trees nearest the phenomenon no longer stood upright. Some of them leaned toward the center despite the absence of the wind.

The others appeared impossibly elongated while their shadows stretched into directions that defied the position of the sun.

Even the mana in the atmosphere had become chaotic.

It no longer flowed naturally. Instead, it spiraled inward and endlessly converged toward a single point.

Shin instinctively slowed for a brief moment. His instincts were screaming at him that something was terribly wrong with this place.

”Don’t look at it directly,” Hanzo’s voice warned immediately. ”That’s not an illusion. It is a special realm created by a powerful mental prowess and dense elemental mana.”

”Once you stare too much into it, your mind will slowly pull into that domain,” he added, seriously warning Shin.

The moment those words left the old spirit’s mouth, Shin could not help but immediately avert his gaze away from them.

He had been hearing of this so-called independent realm. The two were also repeatedly warning him not to touch it, or else something terrible would happen.

They kept on saying that it was a pocket dimension completely detached from the laws of the outside world.

He was not too sure about it, but apparently, it was supposed to be an extremely dangerous place. And it was much more dangerous when compared to the other realm, trapping everything within the Oath City.

Once he crossed that boundary, returning was no longer determined by distance. Only by the will of the realm’s owner would he be able to escape.

”It sounds like any other special realm within the game,” he mumbled, but still put a lot of seriousness on their warnings.

”That projection-…” Solus spoke quietly. ”…-is merely leaking from the true realm beyond the gate, My Liege. That existence is now using the power of that prison for itself.”

”If you step inside, you will become another prisoner,” she added.

Shin felt a chill down his spine after hearing that. Given the massive gate right before them, he could easily imagine how scary that prison was.

It was just a mere projection, but it already had an overwhelming influence on this side of the world.

”Then just how powerful that existence sealed within that gate?” he mumbled while casting another look at the gate.

He chose not to dwell too much on it since it was way beyond his current abilities.

Instead, he focused entirely on Hanzo’s direction.

”Seven steps forward.”

”Jump, now!”

Without questioning it, Shin launched himself into the air.

The instant his feet left the ground, a silent ripple spread beneath him. The earth he would have landed on suddenly vanished.

It did not explode, nor did it collapse. It just simply ceased to exist.

The space itself had quietly folded inward before disappearing into the distorted boundary of the independent realm.

Shin then landed safely several meters away.

Cold sweat formed on his back. One careless step and he would have been caught in that phenomenon as well.

”Keep moving!” Hanzo then barked after seeing Shin pause his tracks. ”The boundary is rapidly expanding faster now!”

Shin accelerated once more.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

His body blurred through the forest as the distorted landscape grew increasingly unstable around him.

The deeper he ventured, the denser the distorted mana became. It was no longer possible to describe it as rich. The mana had become tangible.

Every breath felt extremely heavy, and every movement carried an invisible resistance.

Even the air shimmered with faint ripples as countless strands of mana intertwined like flowing currents.

The mana density in this place was much richer even when compared to the Awakened Continent itself.

Then, the forest suddenly unfolded before him.

The trees had all been uprooted, leaving behind a barren expanse that seemed to be untouched by time itself.

At its center, the overwhelming concentration of mana churned like a violent storm. It was so dense that the surrounding space continuously cracked before repairing itself in the next instant.

The very fabric of reality struggled to withstand its presence.

Shin slowly narrowed his eyes. ”So-… this is the place.”

Whatever Solus had sensed, and whatever Hanzo had urged him to destroy, was here.

He was about to take another step when his instincts exploded with warning. He abruptly halted while the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as his gaze locked onto the path ahead.

The moving shadows blanketing the forest floor suddenly stopped behaving like shadows. Instead, they began flowing like thick pools of black liquid, crawled across the earth before converging toward the distorted patches of space scattered throughout the clearing.

The fabric of space itself rippled violently in response to their strange movements.

These two phenomena fused immediately after, which was followed by a deafening silence.

Then something reached out from the fused energies. It was something that resembled a hand, if it could even be called one.

It possessed far too many joints, each bending in directions no living creature’s anatomy should allow. Its fingers stretched impossibly long, splitting apart midway before dividing again, resembling the roots of an ancient dead tree clawing itself out of reality itself.

It slowly pressed against empty air.

Crack!

The surrounding space fractured like a fragile glass as the creature pulled itself free before standing nearly six meters tall, with a body that appeared humanoid only at first glance.

The closer Shin looked, the less human it became.

Its torso was unnaturally thin, as though every bone had been stretched beyond its limits while countless ribs protruded through flesh that resembled living shadows instead of skin.

It possessed endless darkness leaking from every crack in its body. The place where its face should have been had only a vertical fissure that slowly opened. It was not a mouth but a small gate leading into the abyss.

Within that endless darkness floated dozens of pale, expressionless eyes. Each blinked independently while staring in different directions.

Even though they were not looking directly at him, Shin was able to sense that their gazes were actually locked on him.

A pressure unlike anything he had ever experienced descended upon the forest. The surrounding trees withered while the grass beneath itself crumbled into gray ash.

Even the mana filling the air instinctively fled from its presence.

”What kind of abomination is this?” he mumbled while looking solemnly at the creature before him.

However, it was not the end.

There was another abomination creature pulling itself out of the fabric of space, which seemed to be a bit different from the previous one.

It was not a humanoid figure. Instead, it was a colossal beast forcing its way through the fractured space.

This monster made of shadow seemed to be a chimera beast created by the combination of the purest form of darkness and spatial energies.

The appearances of the two might be different, but they seemed to be fundamentally made from the same mold.

What was worse, there were not just two of them. There were dozens!

They seemed to be forming a blockade that blocked Shin’s path toward a certain object in the distance.

It was at this moment that Shin heard Solus’ voice one more time. ”You have to be careful, My Liege. Those creatures are no longer just Abomination Elemental Spirits. They were Elemental Anomalies.”

...…