Child of Destiny

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Clang!

Bang! Bang!

Shin and Lucy, the Fallen, had exchanged multiple blows already. The exchanges that they had up until now could not be compared to the previous battles that Shin had gone through.

It could be said that not only was this battle was most intense one, but also the hardest that he had fought.

It was natural, especially given that this opponent he had could be said the strongest of them all. Moreover, he was fighting solo this time. Even though the opponents that they had fought during the Empire Quest in the Frozen Kingdom were also very strong, Shin went through them along with his friends.

During this battle, Shin fought Lucy both in the sky and on the ground. In those exchanges, he could not help but feel that his strength was gradually getting stronger while his fighting style had greatly matured.

Not only had had become accustomed to this style, but he could also perform without being interrupted between the transitions of the sword styles in the heat of the battle.

During the battle, he was shifting between the sword-drawing style and the sword-swapping style. And whenever he was transitioning between them, he no longer had that awkward pause where he needed to prepare for the next swordplay.

The switching of swords when he was using the 'Mondi's Style' had already become second nature to him. Whenever he needed a sword to fit a situation, it would always appear on his left hand through the forms of the 'Mondi's Style.'

Of course, this was still limited to the three swords – longsword, greatsword, and rapier – for now since those forms were the only ones that fitted his current fighting style and the sword techniques from his Mentalism Method. But Shin could already see the future of this style, which perfectly fitted him.

He even wondered how he would achieve such an ever-changing style in the real world. He had gotten a rough idea, but it had to wait until he reached the Rulers Realm since he could use the weapon materialization in that realm.

Unless he found a way to achieve such a feat in his current realm, then bringing this style into the real world would be impossible.

Bringing multiple swords on him could work too. But he found it rather inconvenient.

The style itself might not be possible, but the principle behind the style was not. He could still apply some of it in the real world even though he was using the pair of katana that he had.

Those thoughts flashed through his mind for a moment before he focused on fighting this opponent.

During the entire battle, Shin discovered that this opponent not only controlled those floating swords behind through mind control.

From his observation, they seemed to have a certain level of consciousness. They would always act and save their owner whenever they faced a difficult predicament and ward off any advance that Shin had attempted.

When doing a melee exchange, Shin felt like he was fighting multiple swordsmen at once while in the middle of them.

Moreover, the swords seemed to have their respective swordsmanship, which baffled Shin completely when he realized it.

He felt a torturous experience fighting against them. But during the entire battle, he still benefited from them as he constantly observed three of the floating swords and their style. They were naturally the longsword, greatsword, and the rapier.

He had adapted their styles and copied their swordsmanship before making it his own.

He might not be as good as Arthur when it came to this kind of thing, but after exchanging multiple times against these swords, he had already observed everything from them and thoroughly studied their styles.

On top of that, he was also using similar styles already, so copying them did not require much effort. All he needed to do was observe them closely and understand the meaning of each of their movements before applying it to his own swordsmanship.

Through this, he was able to build a systematic style that would perfectly suit each form from the 'Mondi's Style' legacy skill.

With everything that he had learned, he was able to further polish his current battle style and reach another level.

But this did not mean that he would be able to defeat Lucy that easily. Instead, he even understood that he would require more effort, wit, and perseverance to do that.

One of the major problems that he encountered during this battle was the 'second phase' of this 'final' boss.

After engaging in an intense melee battle with each other but without gaining any major advantage, Lucy seemed to have taken another approach.

He had shown Shin what were the other abilities of the swords behind him.

Each sword did not only have different forms and wielded their respective swordsmanship, but they also possessed magical abilities that made Shin completely speechless.

Each sword controlled different kinds of magics and elemental powers that could rival the powerful mages that Shin could think of.

They might not be as strong as the powerful NPCs that he had encountered within the game, but they were at least much more powerful than any player mages that he had seen.

If Shin put it in simpler terms, each sword was equivalent to a top Godlike Player within the game!

At least that was what he was thinking.

But despite that being the case, Shin did not lose hope altogether. Instead, he had become more excited during the battle.

It was because aside from the swordsmanship of each sword, he could also learn some of their magical capabilities. He would be able to learn from their magic swordsmanship and apply it to his own.

He had thought about it when he had seen the greatsword and longsword use magical spells infused with earth and fire elements respectively.

He had also seen the rapier and the whip sword along their group had used the elemental of water, which he could use as a reference for the future.

As for the metal element, all swords were using it and applying it to their respective swordsmanship, so this unknowingly became the most proficient element that Shin had after observing them during the battle.

His proficiency when it came to metal elements had surpassed his control over the fire element without him knowing.

After fighting Lucy long enough, Shin realized one thing – he was still far from defeating such a powerful opponent.

Despite him having a polished fighting style that perfectly suited him and top-notched swordsmanship, and possessing powerful sword techniques under his arsenal, he was still far from being enough to defeat this Monster NPC called the Fallen.

He had even named his current swordsmanship. He had called it the 'Myriad Transformation Swordsmanship' after seeing what he could do with it. But despite everything that he had, he was still not enough to take down Lucy.

He was still short of something. He was still lacking a single piece from achieving the final goal that he wanted to reach.

It was at this point that he felt the fatigue kicked in.

He had unknowingly fought Lucy for such a long time already and the burden of using the 'Reality Manifestation' and keeping the 'Nephilim's Wings' active for an extended period of time was already exhausting his mind.

If he forced himself and let this continue, then he would be defeated sooner or later. His mind was already showing some signs of extreme exhaustion, which would affect his concentration and decision-making if he forced himself to continue.

Continuing this battle would no longer be beneficial to him, so it would be better to stop here for now and take a rest before continuing later.

Fortunately, this Promotion Quest would save his current progress so long as he reached a certain checkpoint.

Now that he had already completed the first part of the quest, he would be directly sent to face the Fallen when he logged back again later.

"I guess that's it for today," he mumbled and prepared to leave.

As if understanding his intentions, Lucy suddenly stopped his tracks and hovered in the air while looking at Shin.

He still had that arrogant and haughty look while staring at Shin, seemingly trying to provoke him, or even mocking him right now.

He seemed to be saying that Shin was still too weak to challenge him at his current level.

Seeing those actions, Shin could not help but shake his head and smile bitterly. Despite him being provoked by an AI, he seemed to be completely unbothered by it and planned to let it go.

These actions of Lucy alone had already given Shin enough understanding of this unreasonably difficult promotion quest.

The main purpose of this quest was still to make the players stronger. Its main target was to make the players understand their strengths and realize their full potential through intense battle.

With a battle of this level, the players would be forced to show their real talents and break through their true mental and physical limits.

It was like the game was squeezing them dry of their potential.

If the players were able to break through this hurdle, then they would reach a height that they could never imagine and become a new version of themselves.

It would also open a new path for them and realize the things that they were looking for throughout their journey to becoming stronger.

But if they failed to break through this wall, then they would be stuck in their current level forever and would never be able to reach a height that they could only imagine.

Shin did not know how difficult the promotion quest of the other players was, but comparing what he had read from the forums, which explained their experiences, to what he had and the rest of the top players, he could at least tell that there were still some differences between their levels.

What Shin could guess, there were still some gaps between the regular players and the rest of the Godlike Players.

There was still a dividing line that separated the ranks of the players.

This line would determine the difficulty of their promotion quest when they tried it. The stronger and more talented a player was, the harder the trials that they needed to face.

This would maintain the balance between the regular players and the rest who were leading the pack.

But all promotion quest would still determine their talents and test their determination to break through the invisible wall in front of them.

"Phew-…" sighing deeply, Shin relaxed his mind and planned to log out and take a rest.

But before he could even extend his finger and press the logout button, he suddenly heard a familiar voice inside his head, completely mocking him.

"Disgusting!"

Shin's fingers suddenly trembled and paused. He then frowned deeply and answered back through his head. "What do you mean by that?"

Uno, who was the one who talked to him, replied. "I said-… YOU. ARE. DISGUSTING."

He emphasized each and every word so that Shin could clearly hear him. He did not even wait for the latter to respond when he continued. "You can't even defeat such a loser and let him mock you that way? D*mn! You are disgusting!"

"You have gone through all the trouble just to polish that lousy swordsmanship of yours, yet you still can't finish this loser off? That makes me want to puke!"

"Then you are letting him get away with that haughty look and mock you? You are such a loser too!"

"And as if that is not enough, you want to leave and run away? You are still as cowardly as before!"

"You have never changed! You are still a loser and a coward! You are disgusting!"

Shin could not help but frown slightly when he heard all those words from Uno. He could not understand why this guy, who wanted to quietly stay inside his consciousness, would suddenly explode like this.

"What do you want? I thought you were too busy doing your own thing, so why are you bothering me now?"

Uno did not immediately reply and went silent. But when Shin was about to continue logging off, he suddenly answered. "Because you frustrate me! Your progress is so slow that it frustrates me!"

Shin frowned even deeper and asked. "What do you me by that?"

Uno seemed to have a lot of pent-up frustrations inside his head and exploded. "I am saying that you are so slow! Slow as a turtle that wants me to kick your *ss more and more!"

"But what greatly frustrates me is you let such a loser mock us! Goddammit! I will never accept such an imaginary creature to humiliate me like this!"

Shin found it a little amusing before asking out of curiosity. "So, what do you want me to do!"

Uno paused for a moment before sighing. "Lend me this body and I will show you how it is done."

"I will show you the missing piece that you are lacking and make you understand how weak you have become!"

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