Child of Destiny

...…

As the pairs of key figures of the opposing sides were already engaging in an intense battle, the rest of their groups were already in a battle of their own.

The Goddess of Poison Elise, who was supposedly working together with Jugo to disrupt the mages of the trio of Charlotte, Ember, and Ravier, was left alone to deal with the three.

But it was still fine since her main job was to only halt their actions for a moment so that the rest of their group would be able to regroup with the others.

Her main expertise might be poisoning, but it didn't mean that her speed was something that could be underestimated.

She only needed a few seconds to reach the three mages and threw a poison bomb in their direction and forced them to be separated from each other. If she was lucky then, she might even be able to take down them in the process.

Unfortunately, not everything could go according to plan. Right before she reached the ideal distance where he could throw her poison bomb, she was suddenly blocked by the most troublesome person on the opposing side.

Faker suddenly appeared in her path, preventing her from moving further ahead. Elise knew that it would impossible to execute her plan if she didn't get rid of this person in front of her.

Unfortunately, doing it was much harder than she could think. Not only Faker had godly control like the others, but he also had a variety of techniques on top of his unrivaled speed.

"What is Jugo doing?" she thought as she took a quick glance at where Jugo was located. Then he saw the latter use the powers of his Contracted Demon while facing Simba.

She was confused at first since that power could grant them a massive boost in their stats that make them comparable to an Overlord Monster Boss.

But to her surprise, not only was the War God able to hold himself against the Demonized Jugo, but that state of the battle seemed to be in a complete deadlock. This indicates that their battle prowess was currently on par with each other.

"How is that possible?" Elise couldn't believe what she saw as it was completely out of her in-game knowledge.

She knew that War God Simba was strong but he should be only as strong as them if they were in their first Demonic Transformation. Even if Simba used his buffs and berserk skills, his battle prowess should only reach that level.

The Demon's Contract, on the other hand, was on completely on a whole new level. It was supposedly a cheat skill in a sense since the powers of a real Demon that they were borrowing should exceed the current stage of the game, especially when its power was proportional to the strength of the contracted player and the demon that they made contact with.

Jugo was a Godlike Player and his contracted demon was a Demon Lord, so his battle prowess should surpass even the current players within the Godlike Ranking List. At least, that was how it was supposed to be.

But from what she was seeing, Simba was not only on equal footing as Jugo, but the War God seemed to also possessed a battle power comparable to his demonized opponent.

Faker, who was standing a few meters away from her, seemed to read what she was thinking and answered the question inside her head. "You don't have to be surprised. It's just some people in this world are too gifted to surpass our current understanding."

"And even if you manage to stumble upon a lucky encounter, it doesn't mean that the others are unable to have one as well."

"You just have to accept that everyone is not equal," he added with a calm tone.

He was not in a hurry to fight Elise as he also wanted to see if she could also display the same powers as Jugo. Their job was still to eliminate their opponents as soon as possible but it would not hurt to learn a thing or two from them.

A situation like this was hard to come by, so he completely understood what Arthur and Leonard were feeling. After all, he was also the same.

He was interested in the proposition that Arthur had offered them earlier, but it needed to wait until they were finished with their current Empire Quest.

And now that they had the perfect test subject to test their limits, why not take advantage of it and make them more familiar with the new strength they found just recently?

For them, their real challenge in this quest was the members of the Earners Mercenary Group while these people from the Silent Night could only be served as an appetizer.

Elise could feel that Faker was underestimating her a little too much. It was true that their current situation was outside their expectation, but it didn't mean that they could be treated as small fries.

"You will regret giving me that chance!" she said solemnly as she summoned her Demon's Contract.

She spread her arms as the spiritual avatar of her contracted demon appeared behind her before fusing with her body.

The demonification this time was not as drastic as the one that happened to Jugo. The size of Elise's body didn't change and remained as slender as it was.

But at the same time, her leather armor merged with her body and later turned into a set of scales similar to what Jugo had. A pair of slender horns also grew from her forehead. Her reptilian tail was also quite slender as it complimented her current appearance.

She didn't even wait for any as she swiftly made her move right after her demonification. She directly attacked Faker who was currently standing leisurely a distance in front of her.

Her movements might come a little too sudden, but unfortunately, her opponent was slightly ahead of her.

Faker instantly entered the Reality Manifestation and made his move.

He left an afterimage behind him before appearing in front of Elise, greeting her with his daggers that were making their way toward her face.

Clang!

Fortunately, she was fast enough to react in time and save herself from that predicament.

It was also at that moment when Elise discovered that there was something strange with her opponent. She could feel that Faker was moving in an unrestrained manner compared to most of the skilled players of the game.

She couldn't pinpoint what it was but he was sure that he found a way to free himself from the restraints of the system.

Unlike them who relied on the powers of the Demons, Faker seemed to have summoned his real body inside the game.

********

In the meantime, the rest of the Silent Night finally recovered themselves and started making their moves against their opponents.

They knew that it was quite impossible to regroup with the others given their current predicament. Moreover, their opponents were doing a great job of isolating them.

Given that, they decided to make their moves and choose to fight in isolated battles instead of being overwhelmed by the other side.

One of them was the Demonic Berserker that Owen was fighting earlier. He was one of the Titled Rankers of the Silent Night, and even if he was not as famous as the key figures of their group, he was still one of the most skilled members of this adventurer team.

He was planning to quickly free himself away from Owen but he later discovered that he totally underestimated this Knight in front of him.

But what was more frustrating about it was the fact that this person was currently wearing the equipment and using the shield that their Commander previously had.

In terms of skills and techniques, Owen and this Demonic Berserker were pretty much on par with each other. The problem was that the former had higher stats due to his superior equipment and weapons.

Given that, the Demonic Berserker was forced to his Demonification much earlier than he had expected. He didn't have a contracted demon unlike the Godlike Players of their group since he didn't have enough strength to a host of such strong demonic powers.

But at the very least, his Demonification was much higher compared to most of the Demonic Church Believers, giving him the ability to neutralize the advantages that Owen initially had.

...

Aside from the rest of the Silent Nights who were fighting their respective battles, there were also the two Apostles that Immortal had brought alongside him, Larc and Demien.

The two received an order from Immortal to assist the rest of the Silent Nights, so they quickly made their moves right after their joined the battle.

Larc locked his gaze on Alucard who was skillfully snipping from the distance.

As a vampire, Alucard also had a pretty strong physique that surpassed the majority of the players. But on the other hand, Larc was a corrupted player who had a series of enhanced abilities to match those advantages.

Larc was originally planning to overwhelm Alucard with his insane speed but he later discovered that his opponent was much more skilled than he originally thought.

Alucard's snipping ability was already giving him a lot of trouble but the real problem only came after that. The kitting ability of this particular vampire player was also top-notched.

And what gave Larc a lot of headaches was when he reached the thirty to twenty-meter mark away from Alucard. That distance was like hell as Alucard would put away his sniper rifle and take out a pair of magic pistols that could suppress Larc with a barrage of magic bullets.

On top of that, Alucard also showed his proficiency in close-distance battles. In that situation, he would put away one of his pistols and use his rapier to fight.

This kind of fighting style was the real problem that Larc was facing when fighting Alucard.

…

On another place was where Demien was fighting. He was fighting S.Tigris and Ara all by himself.

Like Larc, Demien was also planning to take down the marksmen of the opposing side to relieve some of the burdens from the members of Silent Night.

And since Ara was a little weaker compared to Alucard, Demien was able to immediately suppress her.

Unfortunately, before he could even finish his job, S.Tigris suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started assisting the elven archer.

But despite being in a one-against-two situation, Demien was able to prove why he was one of the Apostles of Immortal. He was able to hold his ground properly and even managed to sneak a couple of attacks that almost took out S.Tigris in the process.

This didn't mean that Larc was weaker than Demien. He was just a little unlucky for picking an oddity such as Alucard as his opponent.

…

The battle continued and started to take shape as the respective members of the opposing sides started to find their matchups.

But amidst this chaotic battle, Justin could feel something odd was going on. Some of the members of their opponents were currently missing, especially Shin who he wanted to kill the most.

And as the battle progressed, the uneasiness that he was feeling was slowly growing stronger, making him more uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, he couldn't find the source of that feeling and could only wait for it to reveal itself.

...