Child of Destiny

…

The formation and the synergy of the Empyrean Talons were not the only things that they focused on in the training.

After experiencing the match with the Earners Mercenary Group, Shin wanted to focus on researching a couple of maps with special features, so that the team to familiarize themselves with these features and use them to their advantage.

They did not train on a lot of maps since it was useless to do such a rushed training with the time they had. After all, they would not know which map the opposing team would use against them.

The team only needed to choose a couple of maps from the whole variety of special and unique maps, turning them into their ‘home maps’. Such a task would not be that much of a problem for them.

It would not interfere with their other training as well, so it would not be much of a problem for them.

As for dealing with the possible maps that the opposing side, along with their special features, Shin found an interesting way to deal with such unexpected surprises.

The training method that Shin had thought of to prepare for such factors was to let the entire team play a certain game.

To make the team adjust to multiple unfamiliar environments, Shin put the team into a special game called the ‘survival’ game.

It was a special mode in the PvP features of the arena where the players would be sent to random maps and fight in a royal rumble format.

Each map they played on had a lot of special features and map catastrophes that would make each round challenging.

Adding that they had to constantly put their guards up during the entire round due to the random appearance of players and monsters on the field, the pressure that they had during each round was quite massive.

This was the perfect method to train the members of the team in all kinds of situations and individual skills.

The team training was already focusing on their teamwork and synergy during the team battles, so it was useless to put more training sessions for this area. This survival game focused more on their survival instincts and individual strength, as well as their adaptability.

Adding that the assigned hunters in this survival game, all the top gods in both groups, were included.

Just imagine that you were in a survival game and you were being hunted by Shin, Arthur, Leonard, Diablo, Alucard, Pantheon, Lawless, and Faker, aside from powerful AI-generated monsters with similar strength.

The thought alone was more than enough to scare anyone.

There was no need to tell how much of a torture the weaker members of the Empyrean Talons had to suffer during this training session.

To further add to the fun, both commanders of the teams had suggested that the members of the Slayers Adventurer Team join the game, adding to the ranks of the hunted.

Such a training session was a true horror for everyone-… except those who were assigned as the hunter.

These guys seemed to be enjoying themselves, torturing everyone with each of their pursuits.

…

While the Empyrean Talons and the God’s Paradise were busy with their respective preparations, the people from different online platforms were currently engaged in a heated debate, particularly those from the online forums.

The fans of each side were having an online war, which spread into a wildfire within the game.

The supporters of the respective teams were in constant war with one another whenever they encountered each other within the game.

The heated atmosphere ignited such a passionate war between the supporters, which became a headache for the top organizations and huge guilds within the game.

Due to the disturbance that these people created, some of the big operations that they had were constantly being jeopardized.

Even the war in the Dark Cloud Kingdom was put in a very strange situation due to the random fighting that broke out all of a sudden.

Even those who were supposed to be on the same faction were picking a fight with one another, arguing which team would be the champion in this season’s United Cup.

Such situations were not that new within the virtual world, as they regularly happened from time to time. But it was supposed to happen during the Guild Wars or any other large-scale tournament that concerned huge armies and top organizations.

It rarely happened during team-based and individual tournaments such as the United Cup and Hegemon Cup.

What made the situation even worse was the appearance of a certain group of lunatics, who did not care about anyone – the Cult of the Evil God.

After the showcase of power that Uno had shown during his most recent battle, this bunch of lunatics seemed to have become fully unleashed and started wreaking havoc everywhere.

They were supposed to be on the side of the Empyrean Talons because the Evil God was supposedly a member of the adventure team.

However, they would fight anyone whenever someone questioned the might of the Evil God.

In between the debates and arguments circulating online, this group of lunatics only had a single answer to shut everyone up.

“THE EVIL GOD!”

Everyone was unable to refute such a simple answer since they knew that it was irrefutable.

What Uno had done to Ashura in the previous battle was more than enough to prove their side of the argument.

They did not say anything else. Just that name alone was more than enough for everyone to accept such a ‘perfect’ counter-argument.

…

The situation at the Dark Cloud Kingdom had become even more chaotic due to this incident.

The chaos that the Cult of the Evil God had already become a huge headache for the top guilds and huge organizations operating in this place, due to their random attacks against both factions.

Now, adding the troubles that these random battles produced, the current state of the war was becoming even more complicated.

However, such a situation was supposed to be more favorable for the Evil Factions since the more chaos there was, the better it was for their overall situation.

But surprisingly enough, the opposite effect was happening.

The side of the Storm Empire and the Righteous Churches was slowly gaining the upper hand despite all the chaos that was happening.

This confused the higher-ups of all the organizations and guilds operating in the area.

They were not sure what was happening exactly, but they could sense that someone was pulling the strings from the shadows, controlling the tides of the war slowly but surely.

This became a new headache for the Demonic Churches and the Corrupted Cult. They were not sure what this mysterious hand was planning, but they could at least tell that they were the main target.

***

Shin, who had just finished being a hunter in the survival game, was currently resting when a sudden notification interrupted his thoughts.

“Eh!?” Looking at the message, he saw that it came from Harmony, the Chief Tailor of the Hand of Midas.

“She is contacting me now. Don’t tell me they have already done it?” he mumbled with a frown before opening the message.

Not long after, the expression on his face suddenly eased a little. He fell into silence after reading the entire contents of the message, seemingly thinking about something.

From his previous research, some clues about the upcoming update lead to different dimensions.

Since the gates for these dimensions were about to open, Shin suspected that they could also jump into those gates and explore the world on the other side it.

If that was the case, then it could also get on the other side of the demonic gate at the Dark Cloud Kingdom.

One of the fragments that he required for one of his most important quests – the Ancient God Book.

That fragment was supposed to be in Hell, where the Demons live, which was quite impossible to reach with his current strength.

But if he added the clues about the upcoming update and the leads he got from his quest, then it was possible to reach that place once he got promoted to Tier 4.

Of course, it was still quite far to meet all the requirements, but Shin wanted to prepare ahead of time since his instincts were telling him that something big was about to happen after this big update.

He could not make any moves personally to interfere with the situation in the Dark Cloud Kingdom since he was too busy with the ongoing United Cup.

He could only rely on the Hand of Midas and the Deicide to control the situation in that place.

They had to control the controlled territory of the Evil Faction as much as they could before the update came because the timeframe during the entire maintenance would greatly affect the situation within the game.

Since they had such a good opportunity, Shin took advantage of the chaos that was currently happening due to the supporters of the Empyrean Talons and the God’s Paradise, as well as the Cult of the Evil God, to control the situation in the Dark Cloud Kingdom.

Tapping his index finger on his thigh, Shin fell into deep thought.

For those who were familiar with him, they could tell that this devil was formulating another scheme inside his head.

……