Child of Destiny

…

Swoosh!

The group stared blankly at Shin as he continuously cut down all of the monsters that they encountered. He didn’t even bother to slow down his speed even if the monsters blocking their way were high-leveled ones.

“I know that he really became strong after the recent upgrade of his equipment, but I still don’t expect that he is this strong to treat these monsters as wild grasses,” commented Akailu from the rear of the group while chasing after Shin alongside the others.

Hearing that, Owen couldn’t help but shake his head bitterly while agreeing. “I thought that the gap between our strengths shortened a little after I switched my equipment with the previous items that the ‘Demon God’ had. But I guess I am still wrong.”

Contrary to what they were talking about, Chaotic Luck suddenly pursed his lips before saying. “But from what I can see, Big Brother’s equipment is just a small addition to his current strength.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the other two at the same time while turning their heads at the Solaris Lich.

Chaotic Luck knitted his eyebrows for a moment before explaining. “Isn’t he using both of his battle styles now? He may not be switching his equipment set and weapons just like what he did during his previous match, but he is at least using most of the skills from both of his identities.” 𝑏𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑜𝑟𝘨

“Now that you mention it,” muttered Owen before turning his eyes back to Shin and closely observing him.

From time to time, Shin was using his sword drawing skills before changing the form of his sword sheath and using a variety of skills related to each form. Sometimes, he was using stealth skills to avoid the monster’s detection before striking their cores.

At first glance, Shin seemed to be battling with a couple of simple skills given how easy he was able to execute them. But upon a closer inspection, it was pretty clear that the variety of moves that he was using in battle were a set of complex movements.

Now that Owen and Akailu noticed those tiny details from Shin, they could now clearly see the larger gap between them and this monster.

“Tsk! I try to test my strength again once I am done with my class conversion quest,” muttered Owen while wearing a determined look on his face.

In the meantime, Akailu sighed helplessly before commenting with a skeptical tone. “Yeah, right. Go test your strength against those monsters.”

Hearing that, Owen suddenly felt a chill on his spine as he tried to imagine himself battling against Shin and the other two gods in their team. After seeing himself getting beat up left and right, he immediately turned his head to Akailu and said. “Should I try to use you and Alucard as test subjects?”

“Trying to bully the weak while avoiding the strong? Such a practical way of thinking,” said Akailu with a skeptical tone before saying with a provocative tone. “Well, we still don’t know who will bully who when the time comes.”

Not long after, the group arrived in a particular ruin. And from the look of it, this place seemed to be pretty old especially with the mosses and vine wrapped around the fallen structures.

And right after their arrival, the group immediately received a system notification.

Ding!

System: You’ve discovered a mysterious ruin!

System: An ominous power seems to be engulfing this place, please proceed with caution!

Shin slightly knitted his eyebrows when he saw the notification before instructing the others. “Maintain the formation and keep your senses sharp at all times.”

After that, he started advancing forward while cutting the vines in front of them to clear a path. And after a few minutes of wandering in the ruins, they discovered that the place seemed to be a church or a temple previously.

“This is pretty much a temple wherever I look. Especially with the presence of these things,” commented Owen as he observed the statues around them.

Shin also removed some of the vines stacked on the collapsed walls to see the murals drawn on them. The paintings on those walls were already hard to recognize due to how blurry they were. But since Shin had some background in arts, he was able to roughly guess the image that they previously had.

From his perspective, he could vaguely see an image of a particular civilization that seemed to be worshiping its god. But since he was not exactly sure how to picture the image of that god inside his mind, he couldn’t properly guess the religion of that civilization.

But at the very least, this particular mural was already giving Shin a hint for what this place was. “A church in the middle of a forest? This is really strange. Unless-…”

Shin was in the middle of his thoughts when the corner of his eyes caught a glimpse of something. He followed his instincts and walked towards another wall that was on the verge of collapse.

He then carefully removed the vines wrapped around it and saw a familiar symbol drawn on it. “This-…”

It was the same symbol that they saw on the towering wall of ice at the border of the Sky Deceiving Valley and the very same emblem engraved on the token that S.Tigris had.

“Whether this place is a temple or a church, it is really strange for it to be in the middle of a secluded area such as this region. And it is even odder if this is a part of that mysterious civilization. After all, their main territory is supposedly on the other side of that stupid wall made of ice.”

These thoughts were running inside Shin’s head when he suddenly realized something. “Wait! If that civilization is on the other side of the wall and it was sealed by a messenger of God ages ago, then how come one of its temples is here?”

He then turned his head towards the symbol on the wall before muttering to himself. “Unless this symbol does not belong to that civilization.”

Then different thoughts started running inside Shin’s head alongside the events that they had experienced earlier. After that, he remembered particular information from the update of their main quest.

– “The outcome of the war remained unclear due to the God of Winter sending one of his messengers.” –

Remembering that information, Shin realized that their suspicion about this particular symbol was wrong – it didn’t belong to that mysterious civilization at all! Instead, it was more like the symbol that the races under the God of Winter used!

After that, Shin also remembered the details of this current quest. “Chief Choi said that they were sent by the Righteous Council to monitor the state of that towering wall of ice.”

“If my guess is right, then the church that proposed that task is the church that is serving the God of Winter! No wonder those knights suddenly disappeared one by one. They will probably become the target of the surviving members of the particular civilization!” he said with a twitching face before turning his gaze on his surroundings once again.

“This also explains why this place is ruined. Chief Choi is probably hiding something from us about something and it is most likely the truth about this place.”

Shin now had an assumption but still lacked the evidence. And that should be the next course of action that they needed to take. “The God of Winter and the mysterious Kingdom. Alongside the connection between these two, I also need to know how the survivors of that kingdom manage to appear outside that wall of ice.”

“Did they somehow escape from that side or are they on this side from the very start?” he was thinking about this when he suddenly heard a shout from the other members of the group.

“Hey, Akailu! What’s wrong!?”

Shin quickly turned around and looked behind him to see what happened. Then he saw Akailu kneeling on the ground while holding the back of his head.

Swoosh!

He quickly regrouped with them and asked. “What happened?”

Hearing his words, the others quickly shook their heads in unison as they also did not know what really happened.

On the ground, Akailu was still kneeling on one knee without removing his hand on the back of his head. There was blood flowing on it earlier which was why Cloe cast a heal on him to cure the wound and recover his HP.

At the same time, Cloe was also keeping an eye on the health bars of each member of the group as a form of habit. After all, one of the main jobs of the healer was to make sure that every member of the team was healthy.

What she saw earlier was the sudden drop of Akailu’s health bar and almost reaching zero. If not because of his passive awakening skill, ‘Soul Link’, then he most probably died already.

Thanks to that skill, any kind of fatal damage that could take his life would be transferred to one of his summoned monsters. But surprisingly, the damage that he received was so strong that it almost one-shotted him and his monster.

Naturally, the group immediately became vigilant while looking sharply at their surroundings. But despite them scanning their surroundings with all they got, they still couldn’t find the assailant.

“Tsk! That really hurts! Getting hit at the back of your head is really not a pleasant feeling,” said Akailu in a joking manner after recovering himself.

“Did you get hit by a player or a monster? Or perhaps by an NPC?” asked Shin with one breath while staying vigilant.

“Unfortunately, I am not sure either. I didn’t get any kind of notification that someone attacked me. All I know is I almost dropped to the ground after getting hit,” replied Akailu while wearing a bitter look on his face.

Hearing that, Shin couldn’t help but knit his brow quite deeply while imagining the possible scenario inside his head.

Unknown to the group, the culprit was actually right beside them. And it seemingly enjoyed the panicked look that they currently had.

…