Child of Destiny

……

Atlas World, Saint Heaven Kingdom

In an independent space somewhere in the Atlas World, Shin was taking his Awakening Quest for quite some time already. And currently, he was already at the seventh round of this quest, which was the last and final round of this quest.

On this round, he was tasked to face a pair of lesser clones of the makers of his Legacy Skills; Mondi, the Samurai with thousand styles; and Regan, the Knight of Elemental Swordsmanship.

His job for this round sounded too simple as he only needed to survive from the assaults of his opponents for 3 hours. But that ‘simple job’ was much harder to do than how it sounds; surviving against a pair of Legendary Swordsmen of this world? Even if they were just some lesser clones, battling against them was still going to be a hellish experience.

Fortunately, Shin was only 30 minutes away from ending this suffering. But that was where the hardest part of this quest actually came in.

During his battle against these two, Shin discovered that their amount of strengths and number skills that they could use was actually increasing every time their battle progressed past the 30-minute mark. And since he was now at the final stages of his Awakening Quest, he needed to expect that this was not going to be an easy fight.

Boom!

A powerful explosion was created in the middle of the battle arena where Shin was currently fighting. And as usual, that explosion created a huge cloud of smoke engulfing the figure standing in the middle of the explosion.

That explosion was caused by a huge ball of fire that was sent to Shin by the Regan’s Clone, and the man standing in the middle of that explosion was obviously Shin, who blocked the attack with the use of a barrier created by his ‘Eclipse Pulse’ skill.

Due to the strong force hidden behind that ball of fire, Shin’s barrier was immediately shattered after protecting him from the explosion.

“D*mn! And now his attacks are enough to shatter my defense in blow,” muttered Shin while putting the [Yamato] back to its sheath. Then he took out the flying daggers from [Tomi’s Belt] and focused a bunch of mana on them before sending all of those daggers forward.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Meanwhile, the clones of Mondi and Regan were covering on the opposite sides of the cloud of smoke while waiting for Shin to come out of it. And since they were already in a good position to do a pincer attack, they immediately made their moves simultaneously.

Regan’s clone created a bunch of projectiles made of different elements before sending them towards Shin in quick succession.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

At the same time, Mondi’s clone transformed the sheath of his sword into a whip-sword that looked like a straightened spine of a human before thrusting it towards Shin’s direction.

Whoosh!

While those attacks were rushing towards the cloud of smoke, a bunch of flying daggers coated with blue mana flew out of it and charged towards incoming magic spells.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Naturally, the magic spells sent by Regan’s clone completely outnumbered Shin’s flying daggers, so it was pretty much impossible for them to block all of the incoming spells. But strangely enough, not a single spell broke through the flying daggers sent by Shin; and that was because those flying daggers create a mini-tornado as they spin around while chasing one another.

‘Elemental Skill (Shadow/Psychic): Telekinesis’

‘Epic Combat Technique: Hurricane Daggers’

Shin created this combat technique in a special dungeon. And he created this skill with the inspiration of his training practice that he was doing to improve his control over his Mental Energy.

That might sound a little crazy. But since Shin was someone that would use everything to improve himself in battle, something like this shouldn’t be surprising.

What’s more, he was already battling inside this independent space for quite some time after all, so it was natural for him to create some skills or combat techniques; especially that all of those battles were an intense one.

At the same time, the whip-sword sent by Mondi’s clone failed to get out of the cloud of smoke when he tried to pull it back. It was due to being entangled with the sheath of Shin’s sword.

During his battle against these two clones, it was natural for Shin to learn how to counter each of the forms the ‘Mondi’s Style’ and some elemental spells of ‘Regan’s Method. But they also taught him a lot of ways how to improve his utility of those skills and even how to do some combos with them.

Given all of these, Shin made his move for his counter attack.

First, he let go the sheathed sword that he was holding, making for it to be pulled by Mondi’s clone when he tried to retract his whip-sword entangled with the sheath of that sword.

But before that sheathed sword could even flew towards his opponent, Shin quickly extended his left hand forward and grabbed the hilt of the [Yamato] before pulling out the sword from its sheath.

Shing!

After that, he swiftly turned his body around and swung the sword powerfully in the air above him, sending forth a crescent sword wave in silver color and a cold and chilling aura.

‘Class Fighting Style: (Modified) Lunar Flash’

Swoosh!

Boom!

A knowingly, there was another batch of magic spells coming after him, which were raining down at him this time. Fortunately, Shin was fast enough to respond to it and throw his counter.

At the same time, Mondi’s clone finally retrieved the flexible blade of his whip-sword. He was about to throw a follow-up attack while Shin was still occupied with the new set of spells that Regan’s clone had sent, but before he could throw his whip-sword for another time, his attention was suddenly caught by the falling sword-sheath that flew at him together with the blade of his sword.

Then, on the very next instant, a figure suddenly appeared right in front of Mondi’s Clone while catching the falling sword-sheath at the same time.

Shin suddenly teleported himself at the location of his sword-sheath right after he threw the ‘Lunar Flash’ earlier!

‘Elemental Skill (Shadow): Shadow Mark: Teleportation’

After appearing in front of Mondi’s Clone, Shin quickly swung his sword forward without waiting for the samurai’s clone to respond to his surprise attack.

But the clone was not simple either, the moment he saw Shin appearing right in front of him, he quickly understood what had happened and quickly took some rapid steps backwards while living a bunch of overlapping afterimages along his path. This was one of Shin’s Legacy Skills; the ‘Mondi’s Movements’.

But Shin seemed to be expecting that as his sword swing was actually for sending a powerful energy wave that flew in a straight line and devoured all of the afterimages blocking its path.

‘Slayer Skill: Eclipse Slash’

Swoosh!

After sending that energy wave, he immediately used the ‘Death Travel’ equipment skill and teleported himself behind Regan’s Clone who was currently in the middle of casting yet another batch of magic spells.

Right after appearing, Shin quickly thrusted the [Yamato] forward and planned to stab it at the back of his opponent.

Feeling the threat coming from his back, Regan’s Clone quickly disregarded the idea of casting another batch of magic spells and immediately leap to the side without further ado, trying to dodge Shin’s surprise attack.

But unfortunately for him, Shin was quick enough to follow his movements and changed the course of his attack with a simple twist of his wrist and arm.

Seeing that, Regan’s Clone did his best to do a few more steps backwards to distance himself away from the incoming sword. And his efforts seemed to pay off since the tip of the [Yamato] failed to catch him when Shin’s sword thrust reached its maximum range.

But before he could even take a sigh of relief, a ball of dark energy flew out from the tip of the [Yamato] and cleanly landed at the clone’s body.

‘Legacy Skill: Regan’s Method: Shadow Link’

Bang!

The damage dealt by this skill might be negligible, but the 20% minus armor and magic resist for three seconds was already huge on the current stage of the game. What’s more, the additional 1-second stun that this skill was more than enough for Shin to change the tide of a battle in crucial times, just like now.

And after successfully restring the movements of his opponent, Shin was now ready to do some work and execute some combos; especially that he did his best to set this situation up, where the two clones were quite far from each other.

First, he took advantage of the 1-second stun to land a powerful sword slash at Regan’s Clone, stunning him for an additional 3 seconds.

‘Extra Skill: Destructive Slash’

After that, he threw three consecutive strikes which were a diagonal slash, a horizontal cut, and a vertical slash respectively; with each strike of his sword being stronger than the other.

‘Self-Created Skill (Personalize): Triple Slash’

What followed it was another set of consecutive slashes with a stronger strike than the previous ones. And this time, the damage dealt by each strike of this skill was much stronger than the previous skill.

‘Grim Reaper Skill (Tier 2): Purgatory Slash: Penta Slash’

After completing those series of slashes, Shin quickly hopped to the side and positioned himself at the right side of his opponent before swinging the [Yamato] for another time, releasing an energy wave from his sword and sending his opponent flying towards the incoming samurai.

‘Grim Reaper Skill (Tier 2): Purgatory Slash: Energy Wave’

Boom! 𝐛𝐞𝐝𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝗺

Seeing that, Mondi’s clone had no choice but to dodge to the side, refusing to catch his incoming comrade. Because if he did, things would get messy since he could already see that Shin was already getting ready for his next attack.

But too bad for him, the choice that he made was still the wrong one. Because that was what Shin actually planning; forcing Mondi’s clone to become wary of what he was about to do. But the real attack was the flying daggers raining down at Regan’s clone lying in the ground.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Feeling the descending daggers, Mondi’s clone immediately transformed the sheath on his sword into a crystalline longsword before swinging it at the [Spiritual Executioners] together with his other swords.

But while he was doing that, he suddenly felt an immense threat coming from a certain direction. And when he took a look at the source of that threat, he saw Shin was already done accumulating the right amount of blood-colored mana from his surroundings. That was when he realized that he fell to yet another scheme.

And while his opponent was still busy at deflecting the descending daggers, Shin quickly swung both of his swords and sent crimson sword waves towards his opponent’s direction per swing.

‘Elemental Skill (Blood): Blood Rampage’

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Each strike of Shin’s sword wave was creating loud explosion sounds that were resonating in the whole battle arena. At the same time, a cloud of smoke was being created every time a sword wave landed on his opponent’s location, which also turned bigger and bigger each time another sword wave landed on it.

When Shin finally exhausted all of the accumulated mana from that skill, he immediately released the ‘Meteor Form’ of his ‘Mondi’s Style’ Legacy Skill and put the [Yamato] back to its sheath.

This movement didn’t mean that he was letting his guard down, in fact he was actually getting ready from the follow-up attack.

Right after sheathing his sword, Shin quickly took a sword drawing stance while gathering a bunch of powerful mana towards his sheathed sword.

He didn’t immediately attack as he was maintaining his battle stance while looking cautiously at the settling cloud of smoke. And when that cloud of smoke started to settle down, Shin could finally see two silhouettes standing in the middle of it.

A few moments later, the Shin was able to clearly see his opponents once again.

One was standing with his left hand high up in the air, creating a dome-like energy barrier above their heads. The other one was currently standing in front of the other while holding a greatsword in front of him in diagonal manner.

Seeing that, Shin suddenly clicked his tongue and muttered to himself. “You guys finally use another kind of spell and another type of sword. Given that, let’s see if I still can buy enough time to survive this quest.”

And with that, the final showdown to decide the result of this Awaken Quest was about to come.

……