Later, the foot of Ninth Divine Mountain.
Sky and Maria are viewing a rather brief sketch of the map for the mountain that was drawn by Bob, Junior and Bob are with them.
"Bob, are you certain that this is the correct map?" Sky asked.
"Well, I can't guarantee hundred percent, but that's what I felt from the aura of the mountain." said Bob.
Sky nodded while continuing to observe the map, trying to find anything extraordinary from it.
"If I'm not mistaken, one of the missing participants went to this path, right?" said Sky, pointing at the map.
"Mmm, I remembered about that as well." said Junior.
"Hmm... Maybe we could go check out that path first." said Sky.
"Are you sure about it? It could be quite dangerous, countless of souls had lost in this mountain you know?" said Bob.
"Which is why you two will be guarding at here, in case we can't make it out, go get reinforcement from Ben." said Sky.
"But that will be just two of you, which will be even more dangerous." said Bob.
"Rest assured, we will be joining them as well." said Blair who suddenly walked towards them along with Gerrard and two men in Alliance's uniform with name/number tag of K-097 and C-760 respectively. Junior and Bob look at those men with a confused and surprised look.
"Well, I felt that they might be concerned about this mountain as well, so I invited them to come along." said Sky.
"Just like what Mr. Vlansky said. It's definitely not normal for a tournament organizer to let their participants getting lost in a deep forest without taking any further actions. The defense test just now makes it even more suspicious." said Blair.
"This is exactly why we need to investigate this mountain to see if we could at least found survivors or not." said K-097.
"Colonel K had informed our HQ about this matter, if anything does happen to us, Mr. Thomas will send reinforcement here immediately." said C-760.
"As considerate as always huh? K?" said Sky.
"I am just following the proper procedure. Let's go." said K-097.
And so they all headed to the selected path to the deep forest, leaving Junior and Bob guarding at the mountain foot.
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Meanwhile, Battle Arena's Infirmary. Ben and the other healer are still busy treating all the injured participants from the defense test, however, one of the wounded seems to be unsatisfied with Ben's service.
"Can't you be a bit faster? I had been waiting for so long out here!"
A man with dislocated left shoulder shouted, but Ben ignored him and continues to treat his current patient who is having a more serious injury.
"Don't you hear me? I said I had been waiting for a whole two hours! I still need to get ready for tomorrow's test with my team!" He shouted.
"If you don't get in the line now, I can guarantee you will be waiting for another hour." said Ben, rather calm.
The man is totally enraged by Ben's words, he approaches Ben and about to attack the patient Ben is treating, Ben stopped the man by grabbing him on his injured shoulder and push him away from the patients.
"Since you can still make all those ruckuses, I believe your injuries aren't that bad after all. Just for your information, you are not the only person who needs treatments. And I had been working non-stop for a whole five hours since we only have fifteen healers for all these casualties." said Ben, a bit angry.
"You... You can fight? Aren't you a healer?" The man asked, rather frustrated.
"Been a healer and been able to fight do not contradict with each other. By the way, your shoulder is fixed, get out of my sight." said Ben.
"Ah! I got it! You are one of those healers brought by other teams! Just you wait! My team will kick your team out in no time!" The man shouted before stormed out from the main door of the infirmary.
Then, Ben returned to his patients and continued with the treatment as if nothing had happened...
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Ninth Divine Mountain. Sky and the others are silently walking in the forest area, looking for any possible clues, none of them are talking to each other, which makes the lonely night forest even lonelier and creepier.
"Uhm... Don't any of you feel it's a bit too quiet here? You know, I can hear everyone's heartbeat." said Sky, trying to break the awkward silence.
"Ah... True. I totally did not realize that just now. So, maybe we could have some casual chat while searching up the area?" Blair suggested.
"Mhmm... So... I haven't checked the results for the defense test, but I believe that without my team, your team will be number one, right? If not it will be K's team." said Sky.
"Haha! That's really random. But, your prediction is incorrect, none of our team got the number one." said Blair.
"What?" Sky is surprised, he totally did not expect to hear that.
"Yes, just as what Mr. Blair said, another team had got the first place." said K.
"Which team is it? I can't think of any team that is capable to win any of you two." Sky asked.
"It's the Royal Guards." said K.
"Royal Guards?" Sky is a bit confused as he never paid attention to any other team. "Royal Guards? You mean that team with all the cute boys in fancy outfits?" Maria asked.
"Yes. If that's how you going to interpret them." said Blair.
"But why are they been called as Royal Guards?" Sky asked.
"What? You don't know them?" Gerrard exclaimed, rather hard to believe.
"Sheesh... Gerrard, stop been so rude to Mr. Vlansky... Those boys are actually full-grown men that use to serve the previous king of this land before it was taken by Alliance." said Blair.
"Eh? Hold on! You mean the land we are standing on right now belongs to Alliance? Since when?" said Sky, who obviously gets the wrong point of focus as he always did.
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*Something out of the story
Sky: "Dear readers."
Chris: "Hmm?"
Sky: "This chapter is meant to be released for webnovel.com."
Chris: "Oh! This matter. Yes, if you're reading this chapter on another platform than webnovel.com, know that it's an illegal copy diffused without the Writer's authorization."
Sky: "As what Chris said. Right now, this story is free on the authorized platform, so please read it from authorized platforms as mental support for the writer."
Chris: "Mhm... There are two authorized platforms. One is webnovel.com. And another one is that messy and half-dead Weebly site that she uses for draft and backup... But not recommended."
Sky: "Ah... Haha. Yes, as Chris said."
Chris: "But look out, those scums might change this note to their own website link. So, be cautious.
Sky : "By the way, if the cover page is the old cover page that shows two stickmen, stop reading it, it's cursed and might caused the writer to stop writing."
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I'm quite moody and depressed due to the cases of Covid-19 in my country, I hope things would would eventually get well...
Another issue is that, I'm unable to log in to the forum, am I getting banned or what?
As usual, if you like my story, please add it to your collection /library as a support for me, your support is my motivation to continue writing.
I'll release main chapters every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday, and some auxiliary chapters from time to time.