Child of Destiny

Chapter 1617: The Plagued Lands

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After taking turns when traveling between Divinity City and the Forgotten Temple, Shin had helped every member of the Empyrean Talons to clear the cursed marks cast on them by the expert of the Blood Carnival.

He managed to ask a powerful Priest from the Church of the Sun and Moon to help them, who also told them what kind of curse was placed on them.

It was called ʼMark of the Cursed Bloodʼ. It was a special ʼcurseʼ that was commonly used by the Blood Shamans of the Cursed Fox Tribe living somewhere deep in the Cursed Mountains, one of the hunting maps in the western direction of the Divinity City.

It was a powerful branch of the Foxkin of the Beastman Race, which was also quite notorious for its curses.

This tribe was one of the factions that could produce quite a lot of the Ascended and Enlightened Beings due to the inheritance left behind by their ancestor, which was a powerful Fox God of the Ancient Era.

But due to the tribe being too reliant on these powers and became corrupted in the process. They then started doing some evil deeds that made the Beast Union of the Bestial Mountains chase them away.

The Cursed Fox Tribe then joined the Evil Faction and became one of the factionʼs main forces.

The Churches of the Righteous Faction wanted to eradicate this force, especially when they built a base and settled in the neutral region between the Divine Empire and the Bestial Mountains. Even more so when they further provoke them by creating a branch near Divinity City.

But unfortunately, these foxes knew what they were doing. They were able to constantly escape from the encirclement of the Righteous Churches due to their unique escaping methods.

Then they patiently waited until they were strong enough to hold themselves.

Unless the big shots of these churches decided to make a move, it was impossible to eradicate them. After all, those old devils from the Evil Factions would most likely make theirs as well the moment it happened.

Then it would lead to another big war between the two factions, which the Righteous Churches were trying to avoid due to the hidden threats in the dark such as the Abyss Brink, Fallen Grotto, and Cursed Archipelago.

Those three forbidden lands were hiding a serious threat that could make them wary. Unless the Great Leaders and Legendary Heroes were able to uncover the mysteries that these places were hiding and solve the threats hidden within them, the Righteous Faction was unwilling to suffer any great losses from a huge war.

This was one of the reasons why there were some cursed lands in the regions slightly away from Divinity City, where the two factions constantly fought.

This piece of information gave Shin some idea of how well the forces of the Blood Carnival were doing in Divinity City.

”Tsk! This is going to be a little tricky,” Shin clicked his tongue after realizing that the dark forces from the Aurora Continent were starting to settle in the Awakened Continent quite well.

He also realized that the Blood Carnival seemed to have been used by the alliance to test their methods if they would be effective. On top of that, those cunning wolves and sly foxes seemed to have taken advantage of the situation to eliminate more of their rivals from the competition.

From the information that he had gotten from Shiella and Lorraine, the Blood Carnival seemed to have tricked those dark guilds and other organizations into this operation and became their test subjects.

He just found out that the Blood Carnival, who supposedly were the main force of the operation, did not send that many of their people. They had tricked the alliance under the pretext that they had already spent quite a lot of resources putting everything in motion.

Even if they did lose quite a lot after the failure, Shin could see that they still had earned something in the long run.

Just eliminating their rivals from the competition of being acknowledged by the Evil Factions hiding in the Divine Empire was more than enough for them to monopolize almost everything.

Aside from their biggest rivals such as the largest dark guilds like themselves or the Hydra Guild, who were slowly transitioning to covert their forces into the Evil Faction, they would be way ahead of the others after suffering such big losses from the last incident.

”Tsk! Now it looks like we have to help them instead,” Shin shook his head as he thought of this.

It was indeed a problem.

Fortunately, not everything was bad news. Owen seemed to have earned something from this ʼcursed markʼ.

The High Priest of the Church of the Sun and Moon had told them some of the special features of the Sacred Neanderthals, which was to absorb some powers from these kinds of special marks and convert them into unique tattoos.

Then they could slowly nurture these tattoos and turn them into Divine Tattoo like the one that Owen had used previously during their last dungeon raid.

They had acquired the special nurturing methods from the High Priest, but they could not help Owen awaken more Divine Tattoos.

However, they had gotten some clue where some Neanderthal Tribes lived, which Owen could follow to further his study about this Ascended Race.

This could help Owen greatly in strengthening himself. After all, these Divine Tattoos were comparable to Elemental Spirit Possession.

This also gave Shin the idea that the Ascedend Classes most likely had special methods that could match the cards of the Transcended Races.

But for the time being, he had to stay at the Forgotten Sea while he was trying to convert the cursed mark into a special tattoo to avoid being targeted by the Blood Carnival. After all, this cursed mark could still track him.

Training with the rest of the Empyrean Talons at the Forgotten Sea was the best choice for him at this moment.

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After leaving the Empyrean Talons in the Forgotten Temple, Shin went to the region, which was supposed to be the main battle for the upcoming event.

The event had yet to start, but a lot of people were already heading to that place.

The timer for the event was meant only for the registration and when the Righteous Churches would send their paladins to assist the players in clearing the plagued land and set up some barracks at its borders, which the players could use as the resting points.

These paladins would also strengthen the borders to prevent the mysterious plague from spreading further.

The seals that were previously set up were only a temporary measure, and they could also be broken after being exposed to much from the plague, while the ones that the paladins and clerics would set up were the reinforced version.

As for the players that the top guilds had sent to scout the area, they were their most skilled thieves and assassins, who would be able to escape for their lives if something unexpected happened.

They also had special talismans in their possessions to protect themselves from the plague.

Shin had a few goals in coming to this place ahead of time. Just like the top guilds, he also wanted to scout the place to understand what was happening and familiarize himself with the environment of the plagued lands.

Aside from that, he also wanted to target the scouts that the guilds from the alliance had sent, cutting off all their path survival after the recent incident.

After they plotted against the Empyrean Talons, how could Shin let them off that easily?

They had to pay the price for their actions!

Shin had already memorized all the guilds involved in the incident and even imprinted their guild emblems, so they would not be able to escape him.

Even if those guilds chose to lie low after Shin and the others had massacred their forces, he refused to believe that they would not send any people to join such a big event, especially when it was the first event that would be taking place at the Awakened Continent.

Shin also wanted to see if his old ʼacquaintancesʼ, such as the Pandemonium Troupe, would be present.

Even if these people were part of the Demonic Churches and had a different channel to reach the Awakened Continent, Shin knew that they would have some tricks under their sleeves to infiltrate the Divinity City based on his understanding of them.

But he really wanted to meet the expert of the Hydra Guild. After all, he had heard from Shiella that these guys had a deep connection with many underworld organizations in the real world, particularly the Black Serpent Mafia.

He also heard that the Black Serpent Mafia controlled the main echelons of the guild, which piqued his interest.

He wanted to see if he would be able to recognize some of their experts.

This also made him curious if that guy that he had met during the Shadowing Ranking Cup and fought at the finals was also part of the Hydra Guild. After all, that guy was also a graduate of a training camp and became an Executioner.

”Letʼs see what you have.”

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