Child of Destiny

”You just have to get rid of the dead weight that’s making the raid more difficult than it needs to be.”

Immediately after Shin uttered those words, the powerful factions that had been observing the battle for quite some time finally decided to make their moves.

The first to act was the Viper Kings Mercenary Company.

As one of the top mercenary companies in the Green Marbly Kingdom, its prestige was well established among the kingdom’s player base. In fact, its fame even surpassed that of other renowned mercenary groups, including the Jadeite Mage Corps.

Naturally, the moment its members began moving, the surrounding players noticed.

”Oh! The Viper Kings are finally making their move!”

Seeing the mercenary company’s frontline fighters advance, the players who had been struggling to keep up with the top god-level experts couldn’t help but feel overjoyed.

Many of them had died repeatedly in the ongoing battle, only to be revived by Priests and Shamans before returning to the fray. To these exhausted players, the Viper Kings were nothing short of reinforcements.

With such powerful fighters joining the raid, they believed the battle would finally become much easier.

Shing! Shing! Shing!

However, reality proved far crueler than their expectations.

The Viper Kings’ target wasn’t the Heavenly Dominator.

Instead, they turned their weapons toward the weaker players who had been making the already chaotic raid even more difficult to manage.

”Ah!”

”Argh!”

”Urgh!”

Cries of pain erupted across the battlefield as members of the Viper Kings began cutting down the players around them.

Puchi!

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Shing! Shing!

Blood splattered across the sand as a one-sided slaughter broke out, catching everyone completely off guard.

”What are they doing?!”

”What!? Why are they killing everyone?!”

”Have the Viper Kings gone crazy?!”

Shock quickly gave way to outrage.

The teammates and companions of the slain players immediately began questioning the mercenary company’s actions, hurling accusations and curses at its members.

Yet before their protests could go any further, a barrage of long-range Spells and Skills suddenly swept across the battlefield.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

”Argh!”

”Urgh!”

”Ahhh!”

The victims’ screams drowned out the angry voices that had filled the battlefield only moments earlier.

Once again, the surviving players were left stunned. They hurriedly turned toward the direction from which the attacks had come, only to find another group of powerful combatants joining the slaughter.

”Those guys... They’re the Outworld Adventurer Team!”

”Why are they killing the others, too?!”

”What’s wrong with these people?!”

Confusion spread throughout the battlefield.

With two prominent factions now targeting the weaker players, even those who had initially dismissed the Viper Kings’ actions as some kind of misunderstanding began to suspect that something else was happening.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Before the players could make sense of the situation, yet another renowned group joined the massacre.

”It’s the Helix Brothers Group this time!”

”What the hell is happening?! Why are they killing the players?!”

”Is it because they think the rest of us are too weak to be of any use?!”

The surviving players exchanged bewildered looks, desperately trying to figure out what these powerful factions were thinking.

Then, a voice from somewhere in the crowd broke through the confusion.

”They’re clearing the field.”

The words were simple, but their implications were immediate.

The surrounding players fell silent as the realization gradually sank in.

The powerful factions weren’t here to reinforce them. They were deliberately eliminating the weaker combatants who had been trying to participate in the raid.

They were clearing the field.

And once they understood that, the reason behind the slaughter became much easier to comprehend.

The more combatants crowded the battlefield, the more chaotic the raid became. Weaker players struggled to avoid the Heavenly Dominator’s devastating attacks, repeatedly dying and forcing their teammates to divert their attention toward healing and resurrection. Their presence was becoming a liability rather than an asset.

By eliminating them, the powerful factions were removing those distractions and leaving the fight to the experts capable of confronting the Semi-World Boss directly.

The number of combatants on the battlefield plummeted, but the quality of those who remained increased dramatically.

Almost everyone still standing was a top god-level expert, powerful enough to withstand the Heavenly Dominator’s increasingly ferocious assaults and survive its devastating elemental attacks.

And strangely enough, the battle began to turn in their favor.

With fewer players cluttering the battlefield, the remaining experts could maneuver more freely, coordinate their attacks more effectively, and focus entirely on the boss. Their combined assaults steadily chipped away at the Heavenly Dominator’s enormous Health Bar.

Even as the colossal gorilla unleashed increasingly powerful barrages and devastating elemental Skills, the remaining experts managed to hold their ground.

The change was unmistakable.

The Heavenly Dominator, which had previously seemed almost unstoppable, was finally losing ground.

Before long, its Health Bar began dropping at a much steadier pace under the relentless attacks of the remaining powerhouses.

In the distance, Shin watched the entire sequence unfold with an unsurprised expression.

Then, he turned toward Khavin and gave him a knowing look. ”See?”

Watching the immediate results, Khavin finally understood what Shin had meant earlier when he said that the Heavenly Dominator was trickier to deal with than it appeared.

The weaker players had made an already difficult raid far more complicated than it needed to be.

Without them, the Heavenly Dominator could no longer recover its Health so easily by killing players who were simply out of their depth.

However, although Shin could tell what Khavin was thinking, he knew there was more to the situation than the latter had realized.

The Heavenly Dominator might have lost an easy source of Health recovery by eliminating weaker players from the battlefield, but that was only one of the functions it had demonstrated so far.

There was still something else they needed to watch out for.

Shin was certain that the other leaders present had reached the same conclusion. That was precisely why they had decided to clear the battlefield of liabilities—to eliminate at least one of the uncertainties surrounding the Semi-World Boss.

”Let’s see how they’re going to handle what happens next,” he mumbled, his gaze fixed on the Heavenly Dominator’s Health Bar as it steadily declined under the relentless barrage of attacks from the remaining top experts.

When its Health Bar approached the eighty-five-percent mark, Shin knew the Semi-World Boss was about to enter its next phase.

...

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Shin wasn’t the only one who had anticipated this development.

It was common knowledge that raid bosses would enter new phases whenever their Health Bars fell below certain thresholds. Naturally, the surviving experts were already preparing themselves, keeping a close eye on the Heavenly Dominator’s diminishing Health.

ROAR!

Just as everyone expected, the moment its Health Bar reached eighty-five percent, the Heavenly Dominator let out a thunderous roar and pounded its broad chest with its massive fists.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

At the same time, the desert floor began to tremble violently, putting every expert on the battlefield on high alert.

Whoosh!

The sand suddenly surged upward as though something beneath the desert was about to break through the surface.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

It wasn’t happening in just one place, either. One sand pillar after another erupted across the battlefield, towering over the surrounding combatants.

Before long, enormous silhouettes began emerging from the pillars, one after another.

The sight left many players staring in disbelief.

An entire army of stone monkeys had appeared before them. Each stood nearly three meters tall, its body formed from massive chunks of rock.

Looking at the seemingly endless horde, several players couldn’t help cursing under their breath.

”Are you kidding me?! Summoning Skills in the second phase?!”

”Isn’t this boss a little too broken?!”

”Damn it! This is going to be a disaster!”

The players had barely recovered from their initial shock when the stone monkeys suddenly scattered, charging toward the nearest combatants without hesitation.

”Hu-hu! Ha-ha!”

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

The experts immediately responded, engaging the stone monkeys that rushed toward them.

BANG! BANG!

Kross and Criss, the notorious Lunatic Brothers, made short work of the stone monkeys that charged at them. With their overwhelming strength, the two brothers crushed the creatures almost effortlessly.

”Ah~! Easy~!” Kross exclaimed, resting his war axe over his shoulder. ”These guys are only Lord-Rank Monsters! I can handle dozens of them even if they are a dozen levels above mine!”

He had barely finished speaking when the stone fragments scattered beneath his feet began to tremble.

The broken pieces shuddered, then slowly dragged themselves toward one another, as though an invisible force were pulling them together.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

”Eh?!” Criss was the first to notice what was happening. ”Elder Brother!”

Kross immediately understood the warning. Without wasting a moment, he swung his war axe and smashed the reassembling stones apart before they could fully merge.

BANG!

However, before he could even celebrate, the scattered fragments began moving again, once more attempting to fuse into their original forms.

”Hu-hu! Ha-ha!”

Before Kross could strike a second time, another group of stone monkeys suddenly pounced on him from several directions.

”Tsk! Annoying pests!”

Clicking his tongue, Kross spun around and swung his war axe in a wide arc, activating his Whirlwind Skill.

Swoosh!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Kross had deliberately scattered the fragments across a wide area, hoping to determine whether the stone monkeys could still sense one another when the pieces of their shattered bodies were separated by a considerable distance.

Unfortunately, his experiment yielded an unexpected result.

Rather than remaining scattered, the broken pieces began attracting nearby fragments, seemingly drawing them toward themselves so that they could merge once again.

”Are these guys unkillable?” Kross frowned deeply as he watched the fragments begin to reassemble.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Kross and Criss weren’t the only ones who discovered this troublesome mechanic. The other top experts fighting across the battlefield soon reached the same conclusion after destroying the stone monkeys that swarmed toward them.

No matter how thoroughly they smashed the creatures apart, their scattered fragments would eventually begin gathering together and reconstructing their bodies.

The summoned army was far more troublesome than it initially appeared.

And while everyone remained occupied with the seemingly endless horde of stone monkeys, the Heavenly Dominator resumed its assault.

”Shit!”

The experts could only curse when they saw the colossal gorilla raise its massive fists and swing them down toward the battlefield, targeting the area where the greatest number of combatants had gathered.

If those enormous fists landed, countless players would be crushed beneath them.

Worse still, if the Heavenly Dominator could restore its Health by killing players, all the progress they had made would be rendered meaningless once again.

SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!

However, before the colossal fists could reach their targets, countless black chains suddenly materialized around the Heavenly Dominator.

The chains coiled around its massive limbs and torso, wrapping themselves tightly around its rocky body.

CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!

With a tremendous pull, they tightened simultaneously, forcibly arresting the gorilla’s downward swing and preventing its colossal frame from advancing any farther.

The experts immediately looked toward the source of the spell.

Floating in the distance was a mage who held a black scepter in one hand, its tip pointed directly at the Heavenly Dominator. The dark magical energy radiating from his body made it clear that he was the one controlling the chains.

”It’s Divine Soul! The Guild Leader of Mirage Soul!”

Someone immediately recognized the mage, whose reputation throughout the Green Marbly Kingdom was second to none among the kingdom’s most formidable magic specialists.

Yet before the surrounding players could fully appreciate Divine Soul’s timely intervention, a series of sharp snapping sounds suddenly rang out.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

The black chains began breaking one after another.

Despite their tremendous binding force, they were still insufficient to restrain the Heavenly Dominator’s overwhelming strength.

SWOOSH!

Just as the final chains began to give way, a streak of light shot into the air, hurtling straight toward the colossal gorilla.

The sudden movement was so swift that most of the observers couldn’t even identify the attacker before a brilliant flash illuminated the battlefield.

In the midst of that dazzling light, the player unsheathed their weapon and unleashed a devastating strike.

SHING!

A terrifying crescent-shaped wave of energy swept through the air, tearing toward the Heavenly Dominator with enough force to make the surrounding experts instinctively turn their attention toward it.

BOOOOOOM!

The attack struck the colossal gorilla’s body, unleashing a tremendous explosion that shook the surrounding battlefield.

A moment later, an enormous damage number appeared above the Heavenly Dominator’s head.

(-2,982,732)

The staggering figure left the surrounding players dumbfounded.

Nearly three million damage!

It was an astounding amount, far surpassing the damage dealt by any of the attacks they had witnessed since the raid began.

As the light faded, everyone turned toward the player who was now descending from the air.

It took only a moment for the surrounding experts to recognize the figure.

”Emperor Dream! The Guild Leader of Illusion Dream!”

......