The Frog Prince

This was a dilapidated log cabin.

The log cabin was built of gray and black wooden boards, but the person who had built this house was probably a poor craftsman. As a result, these wooden boards looked more like patches made by sewing when put together. Erosion and sun exposure had also filled this wooden house with a decaying smell.

This dilapidated log cabin stood amid the houses of Asgarod City, looking a little out of place.

However, nobody would have expected that this was the house of the only remaining Great Prophet of the Orcs: Avalona!

Prophets were the most respected class among Orcs. They lost the light in their eyes in exchange for the guidance of the God of War, they warned about evil thoughts and allowed their clan to avoid disasters, and they foretold the future and guided clansmen on how to survive and reproduce. They were the strongest pillar of the Orcs. As long as they were on the battlefield, the Orc Warriors would be invincible under the guidance of the God of War, Kampas!

Such a Great Prophet should have been admired by the entire Dark Council. However, he could only stay in this dilapidated log cabin while struggling at death's door…

Since Fatty had never played the Dark Council Camp before, this was also his first time seeing the Great Prophet Avalona.

He had to come here because the camp quest of the Dark Council Camp would be started by the Great Prophet…

He didn't understand why such a Great Prophet would live a miserable life. However, when Fatty saw Avalona's legs, he immediately understood.

Avalona was sitting on a gray old wooden bed with his legs hanging down in front of the bed. On both his legs were strange black flames that were clearly burning without heat. Instead, there was bone-chilling cold. The blood and flesh on Avalona's legs were being burned and eroded by these flames. He was now a piece of burned, black skinny remains.

Maybe one day, this black flame would devour his legs completely. Then, even though Avalona was a Great Prophet, he might be unable to reverse the situation.

This was probably the reason that Avalona had chosen to be secluded in a place that was worse than the slums…

When he entered this log cabin, Fatty activated the storyline.

"You're here? Child of Grande!" A smile formed on Avalona's old face. His orc-specific green face was now gray, but he still smiled and said, "A long time ago, I foresaw your arrival. I finally see you now. Come here, I have something to say to you…"

"Perhaps you will feel strange about my legs. Yes, you've guessed it. This was the aftermath of the war against the Chaos Corps…" Avalona then added, "This is a flame of the endless abyss that cannot be dispelled or extinguished. Once it comes into contact with you, it will slowly erode every part of the flesh and blood of your body until you die and it will devour your soul before it eventually gets extinguished…"

"You came here because it's your mission. This is the future you must experience!" Avalona gently covered his legs with his Prophet robe before he said with a sigh, "Being born in the Dark Council might be your misfortune. The power of the Holy Order Assembly has occupied almost two-thirds of the Aegean Continent. For centuries, we have been suppressed and wiped away by them. Now, the Chaos Corps joined in again…"

"You ask what the Chaos Corps is? Well, this is a good question…" Avalona said with a smile, "If I tell you that the Chaos Corps is nothing, would you be surprised by this statement?"

"To be precise, our true worst enemy is not the Holy Order Assembly but the Chaos Corps!" Avalona frowned. "Why do I say that? Actually, the so-called Chaos Corps' name is just a general salutation. In this corps, you can see all the creatures of the entire world! Creatures from the abyss and hell, including creatures from all the races of the Aegean Continent!"

"Yes, they are controlled! They are controlled by an evil force or resistance and they instead slaughter our compatriots!" Avalona held his fists resentfully. "After studying for a long time, I discovered the existence of this power, but I still can't figure out where this evil and powerful force comes from. They are everywhere, they breed frantically, and then they bring about destruction!"

"Sometimes, I even wonder if the hatred caused by the year-long war between us and the Holy Order Assembly became the breeding ground…" Avalona sighed. "Hatred is the source of destruction. Funnily enough, I can't even prevent such hatred from breeding since it has been deeply entrenched. Therefore, neither the Dark Council nor the Holy Order Assembly can stop it."

"Trust me, both the Demon Clan and our Orcs, as well as any brave nation that is good at fighting, will get tired of such a war!" Avalona stared at Fatty and said, "When I was eroded by the endless fire of the abyss, I abandoned the honorable position of a Great Prophet and stayed here, refusing to contact anyone. I wanted to seek the guidance of the Gods to guide the Orcs and the Demon Clan's Apostles, and even those who had been forgotten, on how to escape from the quagmire of this war! Our three clans have suffered a lot from the trauma of this war, which has lasted for several eras. If this goes on, we will really self-destruct."

"Fortunately, the moment before you arrived, I finally had a premonition!" Avalona said sincerely. "Kampas told me that we need to find someone! This person is the bloodline left by the ancestor of the Demon Clan, Grande, and the last heir to the Imperial Court of Doom, Gadrio!"

"I'm already old. A Prophet can predict many things, but he can't predict his life. The only exception is me. Even without using the power of a Prophet, I know that my death is coming!" Avalona looked at Fatty and said, "Child of Grande, since fate has guided you to me, please take on this quest and find the heir to the Imperial Court of Doom, who was lost on the battlefield. Perhaps, under the guidance of the Gods, he can lead all the races of the Dark Council out of the huge vortex of war… "

After he finished saying that, Avalona looked at Fatty with a face full of expectations, seemingly waiting for his answer.

This deep, solemn description of the plot should have made people listen respectfully, but Fatty had been picking his nose all this time…

Well, this said a lot about Fatty himself, not his character. In fact, after playing for four years, he had already gotten quite familiar with the content of the story, so this long monologue did not keep his attention. However, the plot description couldn't be skipped, so Fatty could only listen to it. His small action stemmed from boredom…

After hearing that Avalona had finally finished speaking, Fatty couldn't help whispering, "Why are the two NPCs in both camps so chatty?"

Nevertheless, Fatty confirmed that he accepted the quest.

Gadrio, who was a character that had been mentioned by the system NPC more than once, was actually the main character of the story of the game. When he had been playing the Berserker in the Holy Order Assembly Camp, he had also received a similar quest.

Thirty years ago, a large-scale war had broken out between the two camps and both sides had suffered heavy casualties. At the time, the leader of the Dark Camp had been the Imperial Court of Doom led by the Apostle Race. In order to let the Dark Council win, Lord Sarophis of the Imperial Court of Doom, who was Gadrio's father, had decided to command the war personally.

However, the development of the situation had exceeded everyone's expectations. When the war had been the most intense, the Chaos Corps had suddenly appeared and wiped away the powers of the Holy Order Assembly and the Dark Council. Sarophis, the Lord of the Imperial Court of Doom, had died tragically in the war. Three-year-old Gadrio, whom he had brought with him, had also disappeared amid the chaos of war.

That battle had been officially announced by the Chaos Corps. Not only had the Dark Council lost its leaders, but even the Pope of the Holy Order Assembly had been seriously injured. Since then, people on the mainland had said that after the Chaos Corps, nothing had changed. The place where the two camps had been fighting at the time was now a purgatory for the Chaos Corps to wreak havoc. The two camps that had been hit hard had been forced to retreat to protect themselves. Thus, this three-legged situation had come up.

After losing their king, the Apostles had almost collapsed. In order to find the missing Prince Gadrio, Runtzel, who was the last prince of the Imperial Court of Doom, had been looking for him for thirty years. So far, there had been no news of him.

However, only Fatty, who knew the plot, knew that Gadrio had actually been taken away by a human soldier who had escaped from the battlefield. After returning to the territory of the Holy Order Assembly, he had raised Gadrio as a human.

The Apostles had the same appearance as humans before they were fully grown. Only after adulthood would the demonic power buried in their bloodline be liberated. Then, they would have purple-red eyes.

When Gadrio had been carried back by the human soldier, he had been so young that no one had been able to tell the difference between him and a human. As Gadrio had grown up in the territory of the Holy Order Assembly, he'd naturally developed feelings for this camp and finally joined the Holy Knights.

It was conceivable that after he reached adulthood, there would be consequences when the power of his bloodline erupted. The year-long education of the Holy Order Assembly had already made him hate the Dark Council Camp to the core. Eventually, he would find out that he was really a part of the race that he hated the most, while the Holy Order Assembly, which had originally raised him, had tried to kill him instead!

As if fate was playing with him, the ending of this somewhat melodramatic plot would see Gadrio giving up his faith in himself in endless despair and being controlled by the evil resistance and power of the Chaos Corps before eventually becoming the final Boss of the Chaotic Era: The Chaos Knight!

Upon thinking of the entire background story, Fatty couldn't help but sigh. The story of the Frog Prince was so great…