"What is this?"
"How come we suddenly appeared here?"
The three other 3rd Ring powerhouses who had arrived were caught up in the Phantom Maze created by Arkhen.
The phantom maze was a forest with paths made from purple plants and trees.
In the real forest where Arkhen had used this power, a giant dark purple fog dome appeared, and whoever touched the fog would enter inside this illusion maze.
Arkhen was in the controller room of the maze and could observe everyone. The interesting thing was that his nine other clones were roaming the maze.
"It's time to hunt them."
Arkhen grinned as he snapped his finger and swapped places with a clone that was near Tharin.
After walking for a bit and making a turn, he saw Tharin and said, "Hey, here."
Tharin was looking around and sensing this maze, so he hadn't moved from his position.
"What is this power?"
Tharin asked in wonder before he continued, "This is a superpower, but a very high-leveled one."
"Yep. But it's not hard to break out. You just need to find the maze core of this Phantom maze," Arkhen said with a faint smile before he snapped his index finger, "Of course, I wouldn't let that happen."
"Now, follow this clone because it's time to hunt them."
…
*Boom!*
"What is going on?! Why can't we break this?" A bald man with cross tattoos on his head hissed in frustration.
There was another man beside him, a slim man wearing a wild leather outfit with a hat, gloves, and a pair of boots.
After arriving here, that man had closed his eyes and was trying to figure out this power used by Arkhen.
"Did you find anything?" The bald man asked his companion. "We also separated from Killa."
The slim man opened his eyes and said with narrowed eyes, "I sensed a complicated formation structure. All of your attacks were forcefully converted to wild energy and redirected somewhere else instead of damaging this maze.
"It's a brilliant ability," the man praised with a glint in his eyes.
"There's no time to be impressed! We have to do something, or the one controlling this maze will fuck us up badly," the bald man said with a snort.
…
Killa, the woman with grayish-black hair, also attacked a few times but then gave up and started roaming.
When she made a turn after five minutes, she saw Arkhen sitting on a rock with his right hand turned Sarangan Dragon Blade pointing in her direction.
There was a tiny dark red finger-sized knife floating before the blade's point.
When the woman saw the point, the danger alarm started going off in her mind, and even her soul trembled.
Arkhen had poured all of his into that attack because he wanted to kill someone with his strength, and doing so would progress his 2nd Ring stage by a lot or might even reach the peak because of the 2nd Ability of his Endowment Star.
At the moment, that tiny thumb-sized orb contained the enormous power of Arkhen's great combination.
As usual, he condensed a great amount of power on that slaughter Blade's knife.
A huge amount of fire energy and chaos energy condensed inside using Order of Extreme Condensation before getting buffed by Overlord Shrine and Genesis Flare.
Since his order and chaos affinity leveled up, he also unlocked an active power on his Ying Yang Spark physique.
—> Yin Yang Link: Activating this ability will convert all injuries you suffer to a target for five seconds. The target must be within your sight.
Of course, he didn't need to use this ability for now.
But his level 2 chaos and order affinities boosted his power by a significant margin!
Strong enough margin to one-shot a 3rd Ring powerhouse despite him being a 2nd ring powerhouse.
'Fuck!'
The woman indeed felt dangerous bells ringing in her mind and soul as she didn't waste any time and executed her most powerful defensive skill.
But Arkhen was also waiting for her and unleashed his tiny knife of destruction as it shot toward the woman before her defense could fully manifest!
The knife hit her forehead squarely before it burst into blood and gore. The destructive power of the knife entirely obliterated the woman's body in just half a second after the knife hit her head!
[1495 reality motes gained].
Arkhen suddenly felt an overwhelming amount of mysterious force entering him in his inner space before going towards his three rings.
Arkhen took a deep breath as he felt his three rings instantly reaching the bottleneck!
Now, he just needed to comprehend a single affinity to level 3 to trigger his breakthrough towards the 3rd Ring stage!
…
Arkhen didn't fight anymore afterward and simply guided Tharin and Kolak to kill the other two.
The fight was tough, and they were on the losing side, so he had to use ten cards from his Deck of Mystic Cards to weaken the opponents and win.
"Velshi, this Deck of Mystic is honestly the best item so far, haha," Arkhen said with a light laugh as he deactivated his Phantom Maze power.
"We won, but I am injured badly-cough cough…."
Tharin coughed intensely as he spat out black blood with a deep frown.
Kolak was also badly injured.
"I'll fix you two," Arkhen said with a grin as he told Velshi to heal Tharin and Kolak to their full health.
[8210 reality motes deducted].
Tharin suddenly felt a mysterious force wiping out all foreign energy and deep injuries in his body!
"T-This…how?" Tharin was dumbfounded as he became perfectly healthy.
"Magic."
Arkhen said with a laugh before he took out a comm crystal. It was their enemy's comm crystal.
"Let's see if we get a call later," Arkhen put the comm crystal in his pocket instead of inventory.
Afterward, he gave all resources he got from those five people's storage rings to Tharin.
"Wait, what? Why?" Tharin asked in confusion.
"Don't be mistaken. I have a different task for you," Arkhen said before he threw the ring toward Tharin.
'Task?' Tharin caught the ring before asking, "What task?"
"I want you to go to 2nd layer and sell these resources and everything else in the storage ring," Arkhen said with a smile as a plant formed in his head.
"After selling them, arrange for a good place to live in the Sandia Kingdom."
"Sandra Kingdom?!" Tharin was dumbfounded. That was the same kingdom whose prince Arkhen killed!
"Yep. That's my first target. Moreover, the heads I have to hunt are in the 2nd and 3rd layer," Arkhen said with a cold smile.
For his current side quest, he had to conquer a kingdom. He got five options, and Sandia Kingdom was one of them.
He knew that system wouldn't give him a side quest without any purpose. This was even more so now that the system leveled up and unlocked something that was not there before, according to Velshi.
…
After Tharin left to do Arkhen's task, Arkhen asked Velshi, "How long till everyone returns from Dream Fragment."
[it will still take a while because this time's Dream fragment is strongest so far, and they want to kill all dream beasts to progress.]
[Ah yes, Gerald, Yosin, Sherly, and Tiffani already progressed halfway towards 2nd Ring power in the Dream Fragment.]
"Oh? That's nice. Then tell me a rough estimation of their return."
[Approximately ten more hours.]
"Alright. Ten hours should be enough to finish my unfinished business," Arkhen crackled his knuckle before he called James using his comm crystal.
A white-ish silver portal appeared before James came out.
"What's up?"
"Were you observing me?" Arkhen asked in surprise.
James wryly smiled and nodded before saying, "That's my current task now. Specifically assigned by a big shot. Of course, I don't observe you constantly since I also have a life. Hmmm, let's say that I take a look at your situation every three or four hours."
"Well, then. Open me a portal to Heaven of this 2nd realm," Arkhen said with a smile. "I have to settle some scores."
[My lord. Going to the Heaven of this realm with your current strength is basically courting death.]
'I know. I just called James to check something and also have him help me.'
James was startled before he remembered something. "That old man who cursed you with misfortune?"
"Exactly," Arkhen fisted on his palm with a cold glint in his eyes. "I haven't forgotten the troubles and close calls I had because of that curse."
"Must you go after him?" James asked with a rueful smile.
"Of course. I said I would kill him, so I must do that. I don't like to go back on my words without a good reason, and I don't have any good reason to spare him."
Arkhen snorted.
"Well, if you go to Heaven of this realm with your current state, you will die without a doubt," James said with a smile. "You should be aware of that."
"Yeah. That's why I called you," Arkhen grinned. "I know you can observe everything within this 2nd realm and find out anything if you want to. So how about you bring that old fogey to a place where I can kill him."
James closed his eyes as some pulsing of power oozed out from his body for a couple of seconds before he opened his eyes.
"He is not in Heaven at the moment. Since that old fogey ascended to this realm two months ago, he is enjoying his life on 1st layer of Trisora Sphere."
James shook his head, "Because of his unique power of cursing others of misfortune, he got a backing of an Archangel from the 4th realm, Uriel. You might have heard of her name since she rose from your planet Earth."
"So I can't kill him or what?" Arkhen frowned.
"You can, of course. But you will be targeted by Uriel later."
Arkhen laughed while shaking his head as if he heard some joke, "Why would I care about being targeted by someone in the 4th realm when there's much larger trouble targeting me? Come on, open a portal to that old fogey.
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