Child of Destiny

……

Bang! Bang!

The duo of Shin and Arthur were doing pretty well against the Lupus. Even if it was getting harder and harder every second.

Arthur was repeatedly pushed back due to the powerful strength that the Alpha Wolf had. But with Shin covering his back, he didn’t have to worry about getting killed, especially when Black Hand were giving them a perfectly timed heal whenever the situation called for it.

After a few moments, the time that they were waiting for finally arrived!

Cloe opened her eyes, indicating that she finished her prayers. She then faced her head towards the sky while shouting. “O Goddess of Light, please purify this land!”

Swoosh!

‘Divine Priestess Skill: (Special Tier 2) Holy Field’

Then a huge gold magic circle suddenly appeared on the ground, covering the entire area within the fifty-meter radius away from her.

The air was also filled with golden specks of lights that were raising from the ground as a transparent light appeared at the edges of the magic circle slowly grew and steadily built an isolation wall.

Based on the movements of that transparent light, it was clear that was trying to create a huge dome that would isolate the group and the Alpha Wolf away from the surrounding wolves.

Awoo~!

Seeing that, Lupus immediately howled, making its aura become much more powerful. There was also a strong gust of wind that pushed Shin and Arthur away from it.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Whoosh!

Then it started sprinting towards the direction where Cloe and others were. And while it was running, it sent a barrage of wind blades toward Arthur and Shin, seemingly planning to prevent them from catching up.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

“Hah!” Arthur couldn’t help but laugh when he saw the clever move that the wolf boss had executed. He then flipped his spear left and right, blocking and deflecting the wind blades with it.

Bang! Bang!

A thick cloud made of snow swallowed him because of the series of explosions created by the previous collisions.

Whoosh!

Arthur cleared the thick cloud of snow with a powerful swing before dragging his spear as he ran toward Lupus to block its path.

On the other hand, Shin skillfully dodged each of the wind blades that were sent toward his direction, not letting any of them from slowing him down. He even accelerated his speed while activating one of his skills that had been completely modified.

Swoosh!

He turned into a streak of light as he flew forward and held his sabers in front of him. The sabers were positioned one above the other. The contradicting auras that each of them had were intervening with each other, creating a spiraling flow of mana around them.

‘Extra Skill: (Enhanced and Modified) Eclipse Sword Rush: Thrusting Charge’

Boom!

Shin flew like a bullet as he continued moving towards Lupus. And when the Alpha Wolf immediately sensed the threat from that direction and quickly turned to Shin, growling.

Grr!

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Then a series of Ice Walls appeared in front of Shin one after another, completely blocking his path. Each of those ice walls was thick, making them have an appearance that was impossible to be broken.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Shin frowned deeply when he noticed that these ice walls were much tougher than what they were dealing with earlier. “This guy is clearly getting stronger.”

He quickly canceled the first charge of his skill and changed his course before quickly continuing the second charge almost instantly.

Swoosh!

This time, he had his arms crossed in front of his chest as the saber was continuously releasing a massive amount of mana.

‘Extra Skill: (Enhanced and Modified) Eclipse Sword Rush: Slashing Charge’

Seeing that Shin was persistently trying to stop Lupus, the Alpha Wolf fiercely turned in his direction, glowing.

Awoo~!

With another howl, Lupus gathered the Ice Elemental Mana from the surroundings towards its mouth, forming a glowing sphere.

Whoosh!

It only took the Alpha Wolf a brief moment to finish casting its spell and quickly sent it towards Shin’s direction.

Shin slightly raised his eyebrow when he saw the spinning sphere made of ice, especially when he noticed that the mana on its path was spiraling alongside its movements.

But despite seeing how strong it was, Shin continued to move forward, seemingly not thinking too much about it. He bravely accelerated his charge and confidently faced the incoming sphere head-on.

Shing!

But the expected explosion didn’t happen since he cleanly cut the spinning ice sphere into four symmetrical parts with two consecutive strikes. ．

Hu~!

He then slid forward to stop his momentum. He already achieved his goal, so the next turn was for the others.

Swoosh!

The first to arrive was Arthur, who leap forward and cleared the fog blocking his path. And immediately after that, he swung his burning spear down to Lupus’ head as if he was planning to smash it into smithereens.

Sensing the threat behind that attack, the Alpha Wolf jumped to the side, barely dodging the descending spear.

Bang!

Arthur’s spear hit the ground, shattering its surface. But despite failing to land his ambush, he was still grinning from ear to ear since he was also a distraction just like Shin.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Whoosh!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Boom! Boom!

While Lupus was still in the air after dodging Arthur’s attack, a barrage of spells and skills landed on its massive body, creating different kinds of lights that looked like fireworks. A series of damages also appeared on top of its head, signifying that it suffered a decent amount of damage.

“-449,220”, “-612,556”, “-300,223”, “-562,112”, …

Shin and Arthur already dealt significant damage to the Alpha Wolf earlier. But despite that being the case, the two of them were still not satisfied since more than half of their damage was recovered by the insane regenerative ability of Lupus in just a span of seconds.

But they could now feel less pressure since the others could now help them deal more damage.

Lupus slid on the ground and left a long trail on the snow after landing. It glared at the group in the distance, full of resentment.

It then turned its attention to the transparent dome-shaped barrier that was about to be formed. Its intelligent eyes instantly understood that it was already too late to escape from this place, it was now fully cornered.

But despite having its back against the wall, Lupus still refused to surrender. A blazing flare within its heart told it that this fight was still not over yet.

Then a series of scenes flashed through its eyes, seemingly reminding it of something.

A majestic army marched towards a certain battlefield to purge the evil forces. The army was extremely large as it had an approximate size of hundreds of thousands of troops.

They fought a fierce battle against the powerful and almost undying forces of a certain demon. They suffered significant losses on their side but the opposing side had much larger damage compared to them.

At the final battle, the Great General under the heaven rode a majestic creature of huge size and fly towards the sky. He bravely led his army to battle.

But instead of fighting against the ‘evil forces’, the army fought against an army of unknown beings that came from a massive fracture in the sky. The majestic and ‘evil’ army joined together and fought side by side against the unknown army.

This scene confused Lupus. But what confused it, even more, was he saw himself fighting alongside the Great General at the most heated part of the battlefield.

A moment later, the scene changed and showed their defeat. Despite how powerful their combined forces were, the two armies suffered a devastating defeat.

Lupus saw himself surrounded by winged beings while golden changes restricted his movements. These chains carried the Holy Powers of sacred beings.

The dome-shaped barrier was giving Lupus a similar feeling as those chains. And this situation was reminding it of that particular scene.

“I finally remembered.”

His words were extremely soft, almost as if he was whispering to himself. But given that the others had sharp senses, they were able to hear them clearly, especially Shin and Arthur who were already charging at the Alpha Wolf once again.

Those words made the two halt their steps unconsciously. But was because they could clearly sense the deep feelings behind the words. Sorrow, grief, and regret were the emotions that the duo felt after hearing those words.

While Shin and the others were momentarily distracted by its words, Lupus suddenly regained something that it thought would be lost forever, its sanity.

Boom!

But before Lupus could even get a hold of it, a massive pale hand suddenly appeared deep within its consciousness and completely crushed its final hope.

“Ahh!”

This time, the group heard a human’s scream instead of a wolf’s howl, confusing them even further. They also saw Lupus holding his head tightly as if he was under an unbearable headache.

Swoosh!

Then Shin felt a strong suction power coming from the Alpha Wolf. “Not good! We need to stop it!”

The others also woke up from their daze when they heard his shout. They then resumed attacking Lupus.

Unfortunately, it was already too late.

Boom!

A powerful gust of wind pushed Shin and Arthur away, preventing them from getting near the Alpha Wolf. The spells, arrows, and magic bullets also failed to reach Lupus since they already exhausted their powers before they could even get near the Alpha Wolf.

Awoo~!

“Sh*t!” cursed Shin as he could do nothing but watch Lupus undergo a metamorphosis.

The massive body of the Alpha Wolf shrunk rapidly as if its muscles were being compressed slowly. Shin was very familiar with the form that Lupus was trying to achieve, it was the form that he used frequently when was using the identity of ‘Emperor of the Night’, a werewolf form.

Shin swept his eyes at the surroundings and saw that aside from the four wolf generals, the wolves outside the transparent barrier were starting to die one after another. Then their energies were being sucked towards Lupus’ shrinking body.

The group couldn’t anything to stop it since anything that tried to get near the Alpha Wolf would surely be shredded into pieces due to the violent wind circling around it.

“Hey! Don’t tell me everything that we did so far is going to be for naught,” asked Arthur with a bitter tone.

Shin was also not willing to accept it since they were already this far. He didn’t know if this was intended by the system or if they accidentally triggered something without their knowledge. But they had no choice but to the empowered version of Lupus if they wanted to clear this Empire Quest.

Fortunately, based on the life rating that he was sensing, this King Class Monster Boss was not trying to promote itself into the next rank.

If this Alpha Wolf was to be promoted into an Emperor Rank Boss. They would definitely be in deep trouble. They might even say goodbye to all of their progress in the game and their virtual avatars.

“Hey, Arthur. Get ready to use ‘that’, we are going all-out as soon as it finishes its transformation,” whispered Shin while tightening his grip over his sabers.

‘If there is something that needs to be considered, then everyone is at their weakest when they just finish this kind of transformation. That window might be very brief, but we need to seize to deal a massive blow to it before everything else,’ thought Shin as he conveyed his plans to the other members of the group.

In the meantime, Arthur couldn’t help but smile widely when he heard those words. “Really? Finally! I am already tired of waiting.”

“After experiencing that state, I couldn’t help but feel a little unsatisfied with everything,” he added before wetting his lips with his tongue and grinning excitedly.

……