Child of Destiny

...…

Earlier, before Immortal and his supposedly 'team' headed out toward the Frozen City, he separated from the group for a moment in order to prepare the plot that he was scheming.

When he had enough distance away from the rest and could not be spied on, he secretly summoned a clone that he could remotely control before turning himself into an insignificant skeleton warrior that looked like the one that he usually used when scouting the surrounding.

After that, he controlled the special clone of himself while his main body headed in another direction.

When the clone regrouped with the group. The others did not find anything strange in him since he was completely the same as the main body. But it was a little different for Rust, especially when the clone exchanged looked at her, seemingly giving her a secret signal.

She slightly nodded her head, indicating that she understood before making her preparations secretly.

Rust was one of the founding members of Silent Night and everyone knew about it. Even though she was overshadowed by the star members of their adventurer team, a lot of players still acknowledged her strength and abilities. This was why she was called the Shadow Queen.

At least that was what was on the surface. But it was actually far from the truth. Her real identity was 'Jinxes,' one of the notorious assassin archers of the gaming world. And she was one of the original apostles of Immortal widely known as the 'Catastrophe Assassin' from multiple virtual games, mainly «True Era» Online.

She was one of the most notorious Monster Class Players in the virtual world. She was feared alongside the other apostles of Immortal.

She was about to create her new account on «Destiny's Fate» when an interesting piece of information managed to reach her and the rest of the apostles. And when they learned about it, they started making a series of plans that would lead to conquering the game.

Immortal instructed his real group of apostles to change their identities and scatter in every corner of the Atlas world to spy on different organizations, especially the powerful guilds and adventurer teams. And if everything went according to their plan, they would be able to make a much bigger event than the tragedy of «True Era» Online.

They would rewrite the history of virtual games and create a much phenomenal legend of their own.

He was planning to use this card when the game was already reaching its latter stages, but given the current situation, it looked like he had to pull out one of his cards. Especially when the Silent Night was pretty much over.

If Silent Night managed to pull off something from this mission, then he might consider sparing them so that he could use them in the future. But after seeing the foolish choice that Justin had chosen, Immortal knew that the adventurer team was no longer useful, thus he needed to throw them now before they could implicate him.

The Catastrophe Assassin, Jinxes, now known as Shadow Queen Rust, finally made her move when the group finally fell into a predicament that they could not escape.

Immortal finally gave her the signal, so she had to execute it properly. And when she struck, it was already too late for Jugo, Elise, and the rest to react.

…

Going back to the present, Immortal, who was in his skeleton undead form, managed to sneak into the Frozen City from a different entrance.

He had already been traveling within the city in a sneaky manner, making sure that the scouting skeletons of the opposing side would not spot him. It might be slow, but it was more efficient and safer.

He headed straight to the center of the city since he knew that the vessel that he was looking for was currently there. He still didn't know Shin and the rest managed to hold both fronts, but he was sure that they had a trump card on their side, given the confidence that they had.

And when he finally reached the city plaza and saw what was currently happening there, he could not help but feel amazed. What he saw was three powerful beings engaged in an intense battle.

Two of them seemed to be a pair of NPCs, an armored wolf with a huge size while the other was a vampire who wielded a sword skillfully. They were working together to fight a humanoid creature that was overflowing with dense corrupted mana and curses.

Seeing the strange creature, Immortal instantly knew that it was his target.

He didn't care what method Shin and the others used to employ such a pair of powerful NPCs to help them, but he could not thank them enough for they made his job much easier.

He checked his surroundings to make sure that no one was around before gauging the distance between him and the three powerful beings. He had to make sure that he was not in the rage of their detection to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Given those beings' power, he knew he had to be far from them not to get discovered. He even used all of the special items that he prepared alongside the disk arrays that he bought from the Corrupted Cult, making sure that he would not be discovered by the vampire and the wolf.

He exhausted all of the reputations points that he collected from all of the missions that he got from the cult just to buy these items. It might cause him a limb or two but it would be worth it as long as he completed his special quest and got the second combat class.

When he was done with everything, he licked his lips before taking out a black stone tablet emitting dense corrupted mana. He placed it in front of him and closed his eyes before chanting a series of incomprehensible words while channeling his mana on the table.

There were also the mana stones and crystals piled beside him, making sure that he would be able to replenish the energy that he needed to activate the black stone tablet.

…

In the meantime, Lycan Steel noticed the strange chance in the air while fighting the Demon of Slaughter. His bestial instincts were telling him that something was happening.

It was the same for Duke Bellion. He was residing in this city for as long as he could remember, so he was familiar with it more than anyone else. He instantly noticed the sudden change of air – he could feel immense danger from it.

The two quickly swept their gazes in the surrounding, trying to find the cause of the change. They even used different means to scan the whole place with their senses but they couldn't find it source of their unease no matter what they did.

Adding the fact that the overwhelming amount of corrupted mana coming from the Demon of Slaughter was messing up with their senses, they could not properly scan the whole area.

The two exchanged glances with each other and see that both of them were thinking the same thing. They had to finish this as soon as possible before the ominous premonition they had come true.

Unfortunately, it would be much harder than they could imagine since the Demon of Slaughter was constantly growing stronger the more they fought. And right now, it reached the level that even the two of them combined would not be enough to finish it off.

Fully understanding the gravity of their current situation, the two quickly used everything they had, hoping to defeat the Demon.

The Demon of Slaughter could feel their anxiousness, so it became much bolder in its attacks to make the two wary when trying to advance.

Lycan and Duke Bellion remained vigilant about their surroundings as the eerie feeling that they were getting from the air was getting more and more dangerous as time passed. But there was still something that confused the two. They felt that they were not the target of whatever hiding from their sense. Instead, it was the Demon of Slaughter they were fighting.

Thinking deeply into it, the two thought that it might be an ally. But that thought didn't last long as they quickly rejected the idea. The most logical thing that they could think of right now was someone wanted to capture the Demon of Slaughter, and it was something that they would not like to happen.

They could not let whatever or whoever was plotting with the Demon of Slaughter. If such a dangerous creature became loose, then the disaster that it could cause would be very hard to imagine.

The two wanted to actively look for the source of the chance of mana in the air, especially when it became even more obvious the more time passed. But what bothered them, even more, was the fact that the chance was starting to resonate with the corrupted mana that the Demon of Slaughter was emitting, masking their surroundings with it.

And before they could even do anything, the whole place was suddenly enclosed by a huge dome made of corrupted mana.

Sensing the dangers coming from it, Lycan and Duke Bellion quickly escaped with the help of their respective skills.

Within an instant, they appeared tens of meters away from their previous locations and stared solemnly at the black dome in the distance.

Before they could even have a closer look and inspect that mysterious dome, it suddenly started spinning rapidly before shrinking at an imaginable rate. The two didn't even have the chance before the originally large dome turned into a small marble floating in the air.

Pop!

Then, like a bubble that suddenly popped, the black marble suddenly disappeared as if it was never been there in the first place. And alongside its disappearance, the Demon of Slaughter was nowhere to be found.

…

In the distance, Immortal crushed a 'Linked Teleportation Scroll' to escape. He didn't dare to linger even for a moment in that place, afraid that the two powerful existences would discover him.

He already achieved his initial goal, so there was no longer a point to take a risk of staying there. He immediately ran away and appeared where Rust was. She already arrived here before Immortal could even finish his goal.

She quickly kneeled on a knee when she saw Immortal appearing on top of the formation circle and greeted him. "Master!"

His appearance clearly indicated that he was thoroughly exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot while his already pale skin before even paler. The Mana in his body was also continuously leaking out, indicating that it was currently in a chaotic state.

But despite that being the case, he was very satisfied with their harvest. Everything was now going back on the right track. Gripping the black tablet in his hands, he grinned widely before standing up.

He then gave Rust a slight nod before instructing. "Prepare the materials that I asked you for. We are proceeding to the next part of the plan."

...…