...
Immortal and the rest of his group were currently surveying the area as they familiarized themselves with the current environment of the Frozen Kingdom.
After roaming around for a few minutes, Flouree, the current leader of the Earners Mercenary Group, turned to Immortal and spoke. "This should be enough. We are going on our separate ways for now."
Immortal raised his eyebrows and asked. "Are you sure that you will be fine by yourselves? We are not talking about an ordinary group of players this time."
"I know that your Mercenary Group is strong, but your current opponents this time are not weak either. They are much stronger than you may think," he added, trying to discourage Flouree.
He personally experienced how strong Shin and the others were, which was also the reason why he invited this group of players to join him. The rest of the Empyrean Talons were not that simple either, each of them had a unique fighting style which was quite troublesome to deal with.
Moreover, Zero and his right-hand man were also currently with Shin and the others. This fact alone was more than enough to make people like Immortal take caution.
After his consecutive failures, he couldn't help but reevaluate himself, both in a negative and positive way.
He might be confident about his current strength, but that didn't make him arrogant. He might be foolish during the previous battles with the Empyrean Talons, but he was not a fool who would fight them without proper preparation.
Especially when the opponents had the God Slayer and Death God on their side. Those two might be away from virtual games for a little more than two years but they were steadily regaining their previous forms, so it would be a grave mistake to underestimate them.
Flouree couldn't help but smirk when he saw the infamous Immortal was acting this way. This was a player who was feared by most of the players. Those who knew about his previous achievements would tremble with fear just by hearing his name.
But at this point, this fearless expert, who would fight anyone, seemed to be afraid of fighting his current opponents. It was something that many players would not believe and could not think of.
"Hoh~! What is this? What happened to the infamous Lick God Immortal? Why are you acting out of character right now?" said Flouree with a provoking tone.
"Are your previous defeats give you trauma?" she added while squinting her eyes. She wanted to know how Immortal was going to respond.
Immortal could see through her intentions. He could tell that she wanted to know if he became weaker. That was understandable given that he was really acting very differently compared to how he used to be.
But contrary to her expectations, he just became more rational about things. He might be much stronger than his previous self, given the lessons that he learned from his recent failures.
He shook his head and let her do want she wanted. "Fine, do whatever you want. After all, your contract is to make those guys fail their quest at all costs. Just do your job and do not make any mistakes."
Flouree was quite disappointed with the reply and decided not to pursue it anymore. She just turned around and lead her group in a random direction. "Then we will be going ahead."
Immortal watched them walked away before turning to Justin and the rest of the Silent Night. "How about you? Do you guys also want to go on your way?"
Justin scoffed at the lich after hearing those words. "Do try to provoke me too, Immortal. You know our objective at joining now. We don't care about anything else as long as I achieve what I want."
Immortal shook his head and answered. "You want to regain your prestige, right? Then I will let you have that opportunity first. I also don't care what you want to do, but just make sure to do your job properly."
"Let's go, we need to make our preparation first before we face those guys," he didn't wait for Justin to reply to him as he quickly turned around and walked in a certain direction.
Flouree might separate from them, but that didn't affect his plans for his next face-off against the members of Empyrean Talons. The strength of Silent Night was more than enough for him it accomplished his goal.
Justin didn't say anything either and just led the rest of his group, following right behind Immortal.
...
A few moments after separating ways with Immortal and the Silent Night, Flouree led her group to go deeper into the Frozen Kingdom.
Along the way, they encountered quite a lot of powerful monsters. The level and rank of those monsters were quite high which surprised the entire group. But at the same time, they also became overjoyed as they saw those monsters as some sort of resource.
"This place has an abundant resource, it is a perfect training ground for high-leveled players like us," said a player carrying a huge hammer. He just finished smashing the head of an Ice Troll with it.
A few meters from him was a player with twin sabers chopping the libs of another Ice Troll, killing it in the process. He turned to Flouree and the rest of the group before asking. "What do you think of staying in this place after we are done with our job?"
"We can think about it when we are down with our current commission," said another mage of the group as she burned another Ice Troll with a barrage of fire spells.
Flouree neither agree nor reject their idea as she simply nodded her head in response.
She continued to sweep her gaze at the surroundings. She looked in a certain direction before giving out an order. "Mirage, survey the area around that place. It seems like we are being watched by an unknown individual from that direction."
"Got it, Capt'n," said an Elven Archer as he skillfully climbed a tree with a single jump and a couple of climbing maneuvers before jumping from one tree to another, heading towards the direction that Flouree had indicated.
At the same time, the mage who just talked earlier turned to their team captain and asked curiously. "I still can't understand why you accept this commission, Sister Ree."
Flouree gave the mage a sidelong glance before saying. "How many times do I have to tell you that you have to address me as 'Captain when we are on the official job, Jia?"
Despite the stern look that Flouree had, the mage named Jia continued to call her captain with a nickname in a teasing tone. "Sister Ree, you know that it is impossible. I will call you Sister Ree because you are Sister Ree."
Flouree just shook her head in a helpless manner when she heard that before turning to the other two previously commented earlier. "Basion, Sabec, stop fooling around and get back in your positions. Let the thieves harvest the bodies of those monsters. You two are wasting too much of those precious products."
Basion, the Warrior King with a huge hammer, and Sabec, the Wolfkin Berserker with twin sabers, clicked their tongues before stopping what they were doing and heading back to their positions.
In the meantime, two of the thieves of their group continued to harvest the blood of the Ice Trolls in a skillful manner.
On the other hand, Jia hadn't forgotten the topic that she was most interested in before coming all the way here. "Hey! Don't change the topic, Siter Ree! Answer me first! Why did you accept this commission out of all the good offers that we have?"
The rest of the group who were doing their respective jobs couldn't help but pricked their ears as they were also curious about what their Captain was going to say.
"The pay is good, and we are going to face a powerful group of people, isn't enough reason for us to accept it? After all, you guys are so eager to face the top Adventurer Teams for quite some time now," said Flouree in a nonchalant manner.
The group couldn't help but roll their eyes as they knew that there was something more to it. They could still remember her reaction when Immortal mentioned the Empyrean Talons during the meeting. It was such a rare sight to see since she normally not acting that way.
They were really curious why she acted that way but seeing that she was not willing to tell them the reason, then they had no choice but to forget about it.
At least until Jia managed to trick Flouree somehow.
A few moments later, Mirage, the Elven Archer, finally came back and reported his discovery. "We are indeed being observed from afar. I've disposed of them but there are still a few skilled ones who managed to get away."
"Hoh~!? And who are they may be?" asked Flouree out of curiosity. She already had an idea who those guys were, but it would not hurt to confirm it.
Mirage put the long bow behind him before replying. "Based on their fighting styles and habits, they must be Sweepers of the Pandemonium Descendants."
"Hoh~! Are those guys want to get in our way?" muttered Flouree with a slight frown.
But a moment after that, she quickly wore an amused look on her face before continuing. "We are going to hit them for a little warning, let's see how they are going to respond after that."
"We will deal with them after they give us their answer," she added as a cruel smile curved with her alluring lips.
Seeing that smile, the rest of her group couldn't help but feel a shiver that ran through their spines as they knew the meaning behind it.
The Pandemonium Descendants would suffer greatly if she did not like their response.
...
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