Child of Destiny

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Shin logged out of the game at the usual time.

His progress in finding the secret laboratory was still fruitless but the exploration of the Phantom Island bore some fruits. He was able to find more strange regions, although he did not encounter any Spiritual Beings any longer.

He thought that he might have been wrong with his suspicion, but he still could not shake off the strange feeling that he was into something. He had to continue investigating until the deadline that he had set up for himself.

If he still did not find anything later when he logged in back in the game, then he would give up on it altogether.

It was a new day and when to do his daily routine. Today was Thursday, so the schedule that he and the rest of the class had was to head over to their respective departments for the specialized training.

Since everyone seemed to be busy, Shin had to head to the school alone. Arthur and the rest seemed to have already left early in the morning. It seemed like their departments were doing another early exercise.

Anyway, they had agreed to meet in the afternoon for their rehearsal, so he would see them again in the music studio that Alice's agency had prepared.

Shin went straight to the Research Department since that was what Professor Henry had instructed. He would be training under Benedict's supervision, following the detailed plan that the professor had prepared.

When he arrived at his destination, he could not help but feel a little strange. He still could not believe that one of the strongest and most elite departments and clubs was staying in this rundown building.

But he was still surprised that this seemingly ruined and abandoned building was hiding such an advanced facility under it.

Upon entering, Shin went to one of the rooms still in good condition. He had to wait for Benedict since he was still not familiar with the place. It would be a total disaster if he wandered around and accidentally triggered one of the traps installed to catch any intruders. Based on what he had heard from Benedict, even a Void Manifestation Stage and Rulers Realm Experts would be trapped inside and unable to escape once they were caught.

While waiting, Shin felt a little bored which was why he thought of browsing online to see if there was anything worth looking for.

He opened the official forums of the game and logged in to his account before looking at the most recent topics that the gaming community was interested in.

Some of the top topics were about discovering high-level hidden and neutral regions. The big guilds were exploring these places and competing with one another for control.

Since such places were neutral grounds and did not have any NPC organizations to govern them, the powerhouses within the game were fighting over them. They were setting up multiple settlements that could be their temporary base while exploring the area.

Among the organizations that were trying to govern these lands, one of the leading powers was the Pandemonium Descendants. After their recent ambush on the three neutral regions, their people started being active and no longer hid their presence.

They quickly caught the attention of the public and started growing their influence.

When the public became aware of their presence, the players immediately labeled them as one of the emerging powers of the game. They also became one of the Powerhouse Organizations upon their emergence, shocking most of the players.

People even said that this new emerging power was already comparable to the existing organizations, especially when they saw the military prowess that the Pandemonium Descendants had showcased during their recent operations.

Shin could not help but shake his head when he saw the news about the Pandemonium Descendant. He could also tell that they seemed to be planning something big given the movements that they were making.

He did not know if it was due to the quests that the Demonic Churches had issued, but he could tell that the entire organization was plotting something.

On the other hand, the Corrupted Cult seemed to be laying low after their recent failure in the Saint Heaven Kingdom. However, Shin could feel that this might be just a calm before the storm. He did not believe that this organization would stop just like that, especially when he remembered how meticulous the series of plans that their mysterious strategist was.

During the entire event that shook the whole Saint Heaven Kingdom, Shin, and Shiella were almost caught in the traps that the opposing party had prepared.

Shin felt that they might be gathering their strengths and would explode later when the time was right.

The other news was about some famous groups that raided some powerful monsters or went to a dangerous region for explorations. Most of these did not pique Shin's interest, so he just skipped most of them.

He was about to get bored when he saw a certain topic was rapidly climbing the ranks. It kept on climbing higher in each passing second as its views and the players joining the discussion continued to rise.

Reading the title, Shin could not help but knit his brows deeply.

– "Something Big is happening in the Sacred Light Kingdom" –

Shin was creasing his brows as he found the name of the kingdom somewhat familiar. But he was not sure where he heard it, so he did not dwell much on the topic.

He then opened the discussion and quickly saw that the detailed events were listed at the very top. When he read through everything, he immediately felt that something was amiss.

The first topic that was discussed was a grinding map called 'Maze Forest'. It was a pretty large map that did not have many monsters to hunt but was filled with rare and unique resources instead.

It seemed like the map was being monopolized by the three biggest guilds during a certain period, preventing the regular and independent players from entering the map.

No one dared to fight these three guilds, often addressed as the 'Big Three', due to how powerful they were and how much influence they possessed within the kingdom. They were said to be the hegemons of the kingdom.

But this time, when the people of the Big Three were trying to push everyone away from the Maze Forest, there was a pair of experts who dared to challenge them and 'forced' their way in.

There was even a video where one of the mysterious experts slammed the squad leader from the Mythical Guild on the ground and humiliated the guy before finishing him with a single strike.

The rest of the opposing side could not even save their leader as the other expert stunned them by shooting arrows at them with very high precision and firing rate.

Shin only needed a single glance at the two to realize who they were. He instantly recognized the two just by seeing their movements. He became even more confident about it when he saw the bow that Ithilien was using.

"Tsk! Tsk! I heard from Owen that he will accompany Ithilien back to their home kingdom to clear some quests, yet they are already creating trouble before they can even start," Shin commented, reprimanding Owen.

Shin continued reading through the article and discovered that the situation on their side was getting more serious.

First, the three big guilds started making arrangements to close all the exits of the Maze Forest while also forming elite squads that would hunt the two.

Then Shin learned that there was some history between the pair and these three big guilds. He also realized that the Big Three seemed to have realized the real identity of the two after skimming through the movements of their forces.

Shin was able to quickly figure out the intention of the three big guilds from the arrangements and movements that they were making. He was sure that the leaders of those guilds were able to figure out Owen and Ithilien.

Shin started to become worried as he continued to read.

It was at this moment that he realized the gravity of the situation. A third party seemed to have gotten involved and they had dealt serious damage to the allied forces of the Big Three.

After entering the Maze Forest, the forces of the three big guilds seemed to have encountered something, making them suffer greatly.

The information seemed to have been tightly controlled, keeping the outsiders from what exactly happened. But some of the information still leaked and the players learned that the elite squads of that the Big Three had sent were all annihilated.

People thought that it was because of the two mysterious experts first, but they later learned that it was not the case. There were some witnesses, who saw what exactly happened before dying.

In the video that was uploaded, they saw that one of the elite squads was trapped in the middle of a swarm of Zombie Elves. There were some, who were able to break through the swarm and survive. But they still died in the arrows and blades of the Drows lurking in the shadows.

The poor player, who witnessed this sight, died in horror as what he had seen was something that could only be seen in horror and thriller movies. They even died in the blades of a Drow that stabbed them from behind.

In their dying breath, they saw the crimson eyes of the Drow that killed them, striking fear deep into their souls.

The players, who saw the video until the end, also felt horror after seeing the cold eyes of the Drow staring straight at them. It felt that the video was real.

With the elite squads of the Big Three being annihilated in this incident, they had suffered a serious blow that they could not ignore.

And given the current update of the game where the player that died was banned from entering the game for the whole 24 hours, this damage was much more serious than anyone could think of.

As if waiting for this to happen, a regional announcement was issued by the system. Its contents said that the entirety of the Sacred Light Kingdom was in a state of emergency.

In this announcement, a regional event was triggered. The name of the event was 'The Withering'.

From the description that was shared with everyone in the official forums, it seemed like a strange phenomenon was happening in different parts of the kingdom.

This phenomenon was affecting the forests in the whole kingdom, making the trees and all sorts of vegetation dry at an insane rate. At the center of these withering regions were even in a state of being completely dried up and turned into a ghost forest.

After reading through these pieces of information, Shin quickly realized that it must be the Corrupted Cult acting again.

But compared to what happened to the Saint Heaven Kingdom, this attack in the Sacred Light Kingdom seemed to be moving at a much faster rate.

From what he could see, it must be because of the nature of the kingdom itself. The entirety of the Sacred Light Kingdom was like a huge forest land. It had more vegetation and mountain areas compared to the other kingdoms.

Shin felt that this was natural since this kingdom was governed by the Elven Race despite being a neutral kingdom.

But from the look of it, it seemed like this fact was taken advantage of by the Corrupted Cult. They seemed to have created some sort of trick that could spread the corruption at a much faster rate.

It was like an epidemic was spreading wildly in the entirety of the kingdom and slowly consuming everything in its wake.

From the information, it seemed to be affecting all the living beings in the area where the 'Withering' was occurring. The monsters were getting agitated and throwing them in a constant berserk state while the corpses of some dead monsters turned into undead.

Adding to the experiences that Shin and the others had during the invasion of the Sacred Light Kingdom, he could tell that the Corrupted Cult seemed to have come fully prepared this time.

They even set up a trap that caught the three Powerhouse Guilds reigning supreme in the Sacred Light Kingdom, dealing damage that almost crippled their forces.

Owen and Ithilien seemed to have helped the Corrupted Cult accidentally with their coincidental appearance.

Shin became even more worried about the two as he saw all these pieces of information. The series of events seemed to be spiraling at an uncontrollable rate, snowballing in the favor of the corrupt cult.

He was not familiar with the power structure of the Sacred Light Kingdom, but he felt this was only the start of the upcoming disaster.

His gut feeling was telling him that something big was about to come.

Shin was about to close the discussion after reading through everything when a sudden notification came. It was a notification updating the main topic of this discussion.

When Shin scrolled back up to read what was updated, his eyes suddenly turned wide as read through everything.

He could not believe it at first since this affected the state of the game greatly. Or to be more specific, this news would affect the future of the Sacred Light Kingdom.

– "The King of the Sacred Light Kingdom was dead!" –

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