Child of Destiny

…

Maximo and Thirio were currently wearing a solemn look on their faces as they glared at Shin sharply, especially for the latter who seemed to want to kill Shin with his glare.

On the other hand, Shin was currently waiting for his opponents to make their moves. He was itching to have a rematch with Thirio and destroy him.

In their last encounter, Thirio managed to survive due to the help of the elder from the Corrupted Cult. But this time, he was going to make sure that it was not going to happen again.

Maximo looked at the three clones surrounding them before whispering to his partner. “I hate to admit this, but it looks like this is not going to be easy.”

He could sense a dangerous threat coming from each of the clones. Even for someone like him who was Maverick God, the threat level that he was getting from them was not a laughing matter.

Thirio slightly nodded his head as he agreed with what Maximo had said. He also didn’t want to admit it, but it looked like Shin was really much stronger than him right.

‘It hasn’t been that long since our last encounter, yet he is already this strong. I am right, this guy is really dangerous. He is a monster that we can’t afford to grow stronger,’ thought Thirio inside his head.

‘We really can’t let him become stronger more than this. We have to halt his progress somehow,’ he added his thoughts.

The idea was clear but executing it was another matter. The current Shin was not someone that they could kill easily anymore as he was already on par with the top gods of the game. Moreover, there was the Empyrean Talons to support him from behind.

‘D*mn it!’ cursed Thirio silently as he realized the current situation.

In the meantime, Shin finally got tired of waiting and decided to make a move first. “If you are not coming at him, then let me take the initiative.”

He then snapped with his fingers, ordering his clones to attack. He was not planning to manually control them since he wanted to focus on his rematch against Thirio.

Moreover, controlling those clones alongside their respective flying daggers were going to be taxing even for him, so it was better to let the AI control them.

Aside from that, he was pretty confident that the three of them were more than enough to handle Maximo. After all, the AI of his clones was very high and their battle style was derived from his style.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Responding to Shin’s order, the clones controlled their respective flying daggers to fly towards Thirio and Maximo.

Seeing that, the two quickly responded and defended themselves.

Maximo raised his shield to block them while Thirio swung his war axe like a fan to redirect the course of flying daggers with a powerful gust of wind.

“Tsk!”

Then Thirio couldn’t help but clicked his tongue as they were suddenly surrounded by the three clones and trapped within their formation.

The clones were already swinging their swords at them at that very moment, so the two quickly responded without a hint of hesitation.

Maximo blocked one of the clones with his shield while Thirio blocked their weapons with his war axe in quick succession.

Clang!

Ding! Cling!

But despite successfully repelling the attacks from clones. Both Maximo and Thirio were still knitting their eyebrows because Shin was not idle either. He coordinated with his clones and perfect timed an ambush while the two of them were still occupied with his clones.

Shing!

A metallic sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath could be heard as Shin turned into a streak of light and flew straight to his opponents.

Maximo and Thirio didn’t have time to block him since they just defended themselves against the coordinated attacks of clones. And due to that, they had no choice but to jumped away from their current positions so that they could dodge.

Shin missed his mark, but since the two jumped in opposite directions, he was able to achieve his real objective. And that was to separate the two from each other.

To prevent his opponents from regrouping with each other, Shin quickly ordered his clones to chase after Maximo.

“Sh*t!” Maximo couldn’t help but curse out loud when he saw the three clones chasing after him. And to make the matter worse for him, the clones didn’t just chase after him, they also sent their flying daggers and controlled them to move with a tricky trajectory so that he would have a hard time reading them.

“How high is the AI of these clones? How come they can execute such a complicated move?” Maximo’s eyes turned wide when he saw how the clones controlled the flying daggers.

And since he couldn’t find any flaw in their movements, he had no choice but to quickly activate one of his protective skills to block the incoming daggers.

A sphere of light suddenly surrounded his body and warded off the flying daggers that were trying to reach him.

Cling! Cling! Cling!

But despite successfully blocking them, the expression on Maximo’s face remained dark because he found himself trapped in the middle of the three clones.

“F*ck! I don’t know that these guys are clones, then I will think that they are experts who polished their teamwork to the fullest,” he commented after discovering that even the coordination of the clones was way beyond most of the players of the game.

Cling! Cling!

Bang!

He then defected the swords of the two clones with his own weapon before blocking the attack of the remaining one.

The coordinated attacks of the three clones might be flawless, but Maximo was not an ordinary player either. He was a Maverick God and one of the candidates who would become a Messenger of the Corrupted Cult.

And given his reputation with the cult, his skills shouldn’t be that shabby.

He then pushed the clone in front of him with his shield, before stomping on the ground and activating a buff that boosted his defensive capabilities.

The Sun and Moon Clones, who have pushed away earlier, wanted to prevent Maximo from activating his buff. But they couldn’t move forward when their target stomped his foot on the ground because it produced a powerful shockwave outward.

Bang!

A seemingly evaporating aura was being emitted by Maximo’s body as he shifted his gaze between the three clones before inviting them to attack. “Come! Dealing with you guys shouldn’t be that hard.”

……

In the meantime, Shin forced Thirio to retreat further away to make sure that the two would not be able to regroup with each other.

Even though he was confident with his skills, he still couldn’t afford to waste more time in this place since he had a bet with Arthur, Zero, and Leonard. 𝑏𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑜𝑟𝘨

They were currently in the middle of a competition where the one who could kill the greatest number of enemies was going to be the winner.

“I know that it has been a while since our last battle, but I must apologize since I need to make this quick,” said Shin as a form of provocation, trying to see if his opponent would lose his composure.

Unfortunately, Thirio was able to hold his rage as he continued to glare at Shin while protecting himself from the attacks of the latter.

He already suffered a lot due to him losing his composure previously. And since his position within the cult was currently at risk, he made sure to keep his emotion in check, so that he would not repeat the same mistake that he did before.

But it didn’t mean that Thirio would let Shin run his mouth as he pleased. As a response to the latter’s words, he swung his war axe horizontally in a very strong matter.

Shin gave the incoming war axe a sidelong glance before continuing his charge as if he didn’t say it in the first place.

Seeing those actions, Thirio couldn’t help but frown his eyebrows. But despite his confusion, he didn’t dare to let his guard down as he continued to swing his war axe.

Whoosh!

Then, all of a sudden, his eyes turned wide as his war axe went through Shin as if he hit nothing but air. “An afterimage!?”

Out of instincts, Thirio quickly turned around as he borrowed the momentum of his previous actions to continue swinging his war axe and spin alongside it.

But his eyes turned even wider when he discovered that Shin didn’t appear behind him.

It was a usual pattern for any players with quick movements to always appear behind their opponents right after using misdirection or leaving an afterimage in front of their enemy. Especially when they had the skill or ability to instantly cover a distance.

It was because of this why Thirio did his actions. And he was right about that. But unfortunately, Shin’s movements were a little too fast for him to follow.

Shin indeed teleported himself behind Thirio earlier using the ‘Phantom Step’ Skill. But right after he saw the latter respond with his move accordingly, he quickly used ‘Void Step’ to quickly appeared behind his opponent once again.

He executed his skill consecutively in a very fast matter which was why Thirio couldn’t follow despite his sharp senses.

But his experiences in battle quickly hinted him what to do next which was why he continued spinning around like a whirlwind.

Swoosh!

But despite his quick response, his war axe still missed its mark since Shin swiftly ducked forward, letting the axe brush past over his head. And with such an ideal position, he was able to take his sword-drawing stance comfortably.

Seeing his opponent in that stance below him, Thirio instantly understood how much Shin had improved in such a short period of time since their last battle.

……