Risking It All

Point out any errors I made in the chapters, as I'm very lazy and sometimes can't be bothered to reread them. Also, give your opinions on something I should change or add.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With all the preparations finished, Black Flame contacted a few of Zero Wing's core members and had them meet up with him for the taming of the Thunder Wolf.

---

Meanwhile, a huge commotion tore through Zero Wing's Guild Residence.

After the Stable appeared within Zero Wing's Residence, news of it spread at the speed of light.

"Even Super Guilds have yet to construct a Stable, yet Zero Wing has theirs already! This is insane!"

"Zero Wing's members are so lucky. They can purchase a unique Mount as soon as they reach Level 40. On the other hand, we have to ride horses..."

"I've heard that Guild Mounts only cost 25 Gold. That's 15 Gold cheaper than Common Mounts!"

"This won't do! I need to join Zero Wing! I want to buy a Guild Mount, too!"

---

For a time, the official forums exploded with threads about Zero Wing's latest development. Many Guild players drooled over the image of Zero Wing's Stable.

In the past, why had various large Guilds desperately tried to raid large-scale Team Dungeons, going so far as to invest massive sums of money into gearing up their respective Guild's MTs and utilizing all items capable of assisting their raid of a large-scale Team Dungeon?

There was only one main reason.

Guild Mounts!

God's Domain's maps were extremely large. Once players began arriving at Level 30 and higher maps, they would have to spend a large chunk of their time traveling. The maps would also only grow larger the further one progressed into the game. Meanwhile, a powerful Mount would help players save a lot of time. However, the more important function of Guild Mounts was that they could attract more players to join a Guild.

The Common Mounts sold in cities not only required players to have a sufficient amount of Reputation, but they also required a significant sum of money to purchase, with a Common Mount costing a full 40 Gold.

Even after players reached Level 40, it would still be extremely difficult to procure that much money, unless, of course, one was willing to purchase Coins with Credits. In the end, however, they could still only purchase a Common Mount.

However, Guild Mounts were different. Although players were required to collect a certain amount of Guild Contribution Points before they could purchase a Guild Mount, which was more expensive than a Common Mount, unlike the Common Mounts, Guild Mounts could be nurtured and upgraded. Moreover, they possessed varying and much better-looking appearances. This was fatally tempting to many independent players and wealthy players.

Guilds could take this opportunity to develop and expand themselves, obtaining a large sum of funds. After all, Guild members were also required to spend money when purchasing Guild Mounts. Meanwhile, a portion of that money would flow into the Guild's coffers.

Due to this, the various large Guilds in the past had desperately attempted to raid 100-man Team Dungeons. It wasn't just because they had aimed for the weapons and equipment available inside the Dungeon, but more because they hoped to obtain the Stable Design as soon as possible.

Now, with the appearance of Zero Wing's Stable, even the superpowers couldn't help being envious, not to mention other, lower-ranking guilds' players.

Field battles in God's Domain were growing more difficult.

Not only had the monsters become far more of a challenge, but the burden these monsters placed on Durability also added a hefty expenditure to their daily budgets. If they could purchase a Guild Mount, not only would they save 15 Gold, but they could also obtain a growing Mount.

Once they managed to nurture their Mounts to Bronze rank, their Mounts could assist them in battle. Field Bosses would become easier to take down. The consumption of equipment Durability could also be decreased significantly.

At the same time, the various large Guilds throughout the Star-Moon Kingdom also felt an immense weight drop onto their shoulders.

To obtain the Stable Design and the necessary materials to construct the Stable, they had spared no effort. Yet, not only had they failed to obtain the Stable Design thus far, but they had also only collected a small stock of the materials. On the other hand, Zero Wing had already finished its own Stable.

Shortly after Zero Wing's Stable was complete, a system announcement reached every player in God's Domain.

System Announcement: God's Domain's new expansion pack, "Abyss Battlefield," has been activated. All players can now register at the War God's Temple in the various cities to participate in the war.

System Announcement: God's Domain's new expansion pack, "Abyss Battlefield," has been activated. All players can now register at the War God's Temple in the various cities to participate in the war.

System Announcement: God's Domain's new expansion pack, "Abyss Battlefield," has been activated. All players can now register at the War God's Temple in the various cities to participate in the war.

---

The system announcement repeated three times, echoing in everyone's minds.

Immediately, players began to search for information on the new expansion pack. They were shocked by what they found.

After they read about the new expansion pack, every player, ordinary and Guild players both, was ecstatic.

---

Meanwhile, Black Flame, who was collecting the items necessary for capturing the Thunder Wolf from the Candlelight Trading Firm, having already asked Melancholic to have all the tools prepared beforehand, didn't show any surprise at the appearance of the Abyss Battlefield this soon in the game; knowing that he had triggered it by constructing the Stable.

In the first timeline, the Abyss Battlefield expansion was released when mainstream players neared Level 40. At that time, Super Guilds had almost finished constructing their Stables.

Although the Abyss Battlefield was called an expansion pack, in reality, it was just the introduction to another way for players to experience the game.

Ordinary players had almost no opportunities to experience a true battlefield. Guilds also tried to avoid massive wars involving hundreds of thousands of players. Hence, to give ordinary players the experience of a true battlefield, the system had introduced the Abyss Battlefield.

Through the War God's Temple in the various cities, players had one chance to enter the Abyss Battlefield each day. If they died, they would be returned to their respective cities.

The Abyss Battlefield was a massive map. Players transferring in from different cities would appear in different towns within the Abyss Battlefield. Players were required to defend their respective towns, preventing the Abyssal races' invasion.

The system awarded players depending on their contributions. EXP and Honor Points were the usual rewards. These Honor Points could be exchanged for various rare potions and Magic Scrolls. Players could also trade the points for the Double EXP buff.

In the Abyss Battlefield, players received EXP from the monsters they killed. These monsters' drops were also relatively good. Moreover, even if players died in the Abyss Battlefield, they would not suffer the usual penalties. On the contrary, they would be rewarded depending on their performances. Hence, when the Abyss Battlefield had been introduced during Feng's previous lives, players had flooded the area.

Although constructing the Guild Stable had provided massive advantages, it had also hastened God's Domain's evolution.

Ignoring the hastened progress of the game, Black Flame continued with his preparations for capturing Zero Wing's Guild Mount.

Capturing wild beasts in God's Domain was not an easy task. It was also a major field of study.

In the past, there had even been a specialized class for this task.

The Tamer!

In the past, there had been players who specialized in researching methods to capture rare wild beasts. They would also sell the beasts they captured to various large Guilds, earning huge sums of money.

Meanwhile, the most important item required to capture wild beasts was a Cage. However, NPCs did not sell these Cages, requiring players to produce them. Hence, many players would learn forging to craft the Cages themselves.

Fortunately, the NPC-run Forging Associations sold the Forging Designs for Cages. Moreover, they were very cheap. However, Black Flame did not bother purchasing these Forging Designs as Candlelight had a method of producing a Cage of even higher quality.

Cages were sorted into ranks, with 1-star being the lowest and 10-star being the highest. Different ranks could capture beasts of a corresponding rank. In other words, a 1-star Cage could be used to capture a 1-star beast at maximum. It could not be used to capture a 2-star beast. One had to use a 2-star Cage in order to capture a 2-star beast.

The star-ranking of a Mount represented its Growth Potential.

A Guild Mount's rank could be upgraded when properly nurtured. Furthermore, with a higher star-rank, a Mount had a higher promotion success rate. The majority of the Guild Mounts throughout God's Domain were 1-star Mounts.

A 1-star Mount started out as a Common Mount. It was a general Mount, and most Guilds would not capture a 1-star Mount for a Guild Mount as there was only a 10% chance for it to become a Bronze Mount.

A 2-star Mount started out slightly stronger than a 1-star Mount, and there was a 20% chance that it could become a Bronze Mount. As long as Guild members were willing to pay the price, they could nurture their 2-star Mount into a Bronze Mount. It was much cheaper than just purchasing a Bronze Mount.

As for 3-star Mounts, they were rarely seen. Not only could the additional Movement Speed they provided initially reach 110%, but there was also a 30% chance that they could nurture them to become Bronze Mounts. However, few Guilds were capable of obtaining 3-star Mounts.

A 4-star Mount was a rare Mount. Not only could its initial Movement Speed reach 115%, but there was also a 50% chance for it to become a Bronze Mount. Impressively, there was a 15% chance for it to become a Mysterious-Iron Mount. This was a potential that 1-star to 3-star Mounts did not possess. Hence, 4-star Mounts and above were considered rare Mounts. Various large Guilds throughout God's Domain drooled over the idea of their own 4-star Mount.

Although there was only a difference of one rank between a Bronze Mount and a Mysterious-Iron Mount, the latter possessed storage capabilities. Moreover, unlike Bronze Mounts, Mysterious-Iron Mounts' combat capabilities allowed them to make a difference in a battle.

Five-star Mounts were even more powerful. The additional Movement Speed they provided initially could reach 120%; its speed was practically equivalent to an ordinary Bronze Mount. Only, it did not possess any combat capabilities. However, 5-star Mounts had a 70% chance to become Bronze Mounts. Not only could they be upgraded within a short amount of time, but they also had a 30% chance to become Mysterious-Iron Mounts and a 3% chance to become Secret-Silver Mounts.

Six-star Mounts were normally the highest rank one could find in an Elementary God's Domain like Feng's. Its rarity could even rival that of a Legendary item. There was a 90% that it could become a Bronze Mount, 50% chance for Mysterious-Iron rank, and 10% chance for Secret-Silver rank.

Just the thought of a Guild outfitting its members with Secret-Silver Mounts was frightening. After all, unlike Mysterious-Iron Mounts or below, Secret-Silver Mounts possessed Skills that could assist players in battle, increasing their combat power significantly. This was also why so many Guilds had been so desperate to collect rare Mounts in the past.

The most powerful Guild Mount that Feng had seen in the past was a 10-star Mount owned by a power in the Greater God's Domain called the Seven Luminaries Alliance, which was basically the Secret Pavilion of the Greater God's Domain.

A 10-star Guild Mount's rarity surpassed even that of a Divine Artifact.

Just in its basic form, it could already rival a Secret-Silver Mount, while there was a 100% that it could immediately become a Mysterious-Iron Mount, 100% chance for Secret-Silver rank with a bit of resources, 95% chance for Fine-Gold rank, 60% chance for Dark-Gold rank, 30% chance for Epic rank, 5% chance for Inferior Legendary rank, and a 0.1% chance for Legendary rank.

The wild beast Black Flame planned to capture was a 5-star beast. Hence, he required a 5-star Cage. Meanwhile, a 5-star Cage costs almost 2 Gold to craft. Moreover, there was no certainty he could capture a 5-star beast with a single try. This was also one of the reasons why capturing wild beasts was a costly endeavor.

But this much wasn't an issue for the current Candlelight Trading Firm with its restored members.

In fact, with Black Flame's current strength, if he were to call over some of Zero Wing's top experts like Fire, Aqua, Violet, Cola, and others, it would be possible for them to even potentially capture an 8-star beast.

However, they had still chosen to go with the Thunder Wolf, since finding such a powerful Mount in their God's Domain would be a pain, and they only knew of one 7-star beast in their Elementary God's Domain, with it and most other high-ranking beasts being too high level for them at the moment, while taming a beast above 5-star rank would be difficult for a mere Master Tamer, and there was no guarantee Owen would be capable of pacifying such a creature, not to mention if he were to bring over an 8-star beast. 

As for hiring another Tamer above Master rank from one of the Empires, that would be complicated since Zero Wing was primarily a Guild from the Star-Moon Kingdom, not to mention quite troublesome. 

Unlike Master Tamers, Grandmaster Tamers could strengthen the Wild Beasts they tamed, and they required far less time to complete the task. At the same time, they could help players upgrade their Guild Mounts much more easily.

If a Master Tamer had a 15% chance of upgrading a Guild's Common Mounts to Bronze rank, a Grandmaster Tamer's success rate was at least 30%.

This made them much more popular than Master Tamers, as well as being highly sought after by everyone. 

When it came to social status, even Kings had to treat Grandmaster Tamers with respect, and although they weren't as amazing in Empires, they still were still people of immense status. Empires also wouldn't easily allow their Grandmaster Tamers to go off to other countries and work for a foreign power's Guild. 

Even if Feng, who has the status of a Marquise, but wasn't an actual Marquise[1], were to attempt to recruit a Grandmaster Tamer, success wasn't guaranteed, and he'd have to go through a very bothersome process of convincing the Grandmaster Tamer to simply tame his beast, while he wasn't sure if it would be possible for them to become Zero Wing's tamer consultant. 

Instead of troubling himself with all that while he was currently preoccupied with other matters, it was much more convenient for Black Flame to recruit Master Owen now. 

But Feng also had a different goal in mind for having Owen join Zero Wing. 

What was even more important to him was Owen's potential, as although he was currently only a Master Tamer, in the previous timeline, upon successfully taming the Thunder Wolf, Owen had been promoted to a Grandmaster Tamer. 

With the opportunity to contract a future Grandmaster Tamer, it was much more beneficial to recruit Owen into Zero Wing now instead of chasing after the Empires' Grandmaster Tamers, since, as Black Flame had established a contract with Owen early on, the NPC would not leave Zero Wing due to his promotion. Only, Owen's monthly compensation will change drastically.

Hence, they had decided to simply employ Owen to tame the Thunder Wolf in this timeline as well, while they could always upgrade to a better Guild Mount later on. Though, it would greatly cost them to replace a current Guild Mount with another, with the price not necessarily being something even Super Guilds would be willing to cough up.

Moreover, they might not even need to replace the Thunder Wolf, since, being a wolf creature and a 5-star beast, the Thunder Beast would be fairly compatible with the Moon-Howling Silver Wolf Bloodline that Feng could grant it through the Lunar Packheart, while he could even attempt to fuse the Thunder Wolf's soul with the one he had obtained from the Moon-Howling Silver Wolf that was summoned by Anubis.

With such boosts, and Feng thickening the Moon-Howling Silver Wolf Bloodline within it using Primal Infusion, the Thunder Wolf might reach the level of an 8-star beast, or perhaps even further, so this arrangement would work out fairly nicely.

Black Flame soon met up with the other Zero Wing members, and all of them teleported to Starfall City, a city near Star-Moon Kingdom's border, with each person's transportation costing 80 Silver Coins.

Starfall City was the second largest city in Star-Moon Kingdom's northern region.

Although the city was near the kingdom's border, it was the most prosperous of all the cities in the northern region. Starfall City was of similar rank to White River City. Only, the city had a few more Tier 4 NPCs guarding it than White River City. There were a total of seven Tier 4 NPCs. The city's defensive power greatly surpassed White River City and was only weaker than Star-Moon City.

There were a lot of NPC guards patrolling the streets, at least twice that of White River City. Other than the NPC guards, there were also plenty of Merchants roaming about. One could also see many horse carriages carrying cargo coming and going.

Moreover, these Merchants were not limited to NPCs. There were also plenty of player Merchants. These player Merchants similarly rode horse carriages around the city. There were also plenty of player Merchants who had parked their carriages in one place and hawked and bought various items.

These player Merchants were frantically purchasing various materials and equipment from other players. There were even some who purchased common items from NPC Merchants. Moreover, these player Merchants purchased these common items in large quantities, costing up to dozens, or even more than a hundred, Gold. Such an amount would be enough to fund a small Guild for a relatively long time.

None of White River City's players would be so insane as to purchase so many common items from NPC Merchants.

What the Mercahnt players were doing was reselling goods and making a profit through the price differences.

Although the NPCs' prices are the same throughout the Star-Moon Kingdom, with only some unique items having the option to be resold for a profit, but there usually not being many of those items available for sale, while when the NPCs restock, large Guilds usually buy everything, keeping them for their own use, these Merchants didn't have the intention of selling the items to Star-Moon Kingdom's players.

Regardless of NPCs' common items in the Star-Moon Kingdom having uniform prices, the prices may be different in other Kingdoms and Empires. Some items sold in the Star-Moon Kingdom might be more expensive in the Black Dragon Empire, the Empire neighboring the Star-Moon Kingdom, while some items might be cheaper. Meanwhile, these people are trying to make a profit through the difference in prices.

However, even though it would be easier to just deliver their products using Teleportation Arrays, as the transportation fees would be too high that way, these players must use horse carriages.

Moreover, only the Capital City has an Array that enables teleportation between other Kingdoms and Empires, and each teleportation would cost more than 1 Gold. Their profit margin is not high. Moreover, a player can't carry enough items. They might even incur losses if they used Teleportation Arrays to conduct their trades.

Meanwhile, a horse carriage can carry more than a dozen times that of players. Some good horse carriages can even carry up to twenty or thirty times. Although one may waste some time and encounter some dangers if they travel to the Black Dragon Empire via a horse carriage, in general, they can earn a lot of money with a single trip. These player Merchants earn even more money than First-rate Guilds' elite players.

Starfall City offered a natural advantage for cross-border trade. This was also why many Merchants throughout the Star-Moon Kingdom specifically traveled all the way to Starfall City to develop themselves.

As for why Black Flame and the others have come to Starfall City, it was because this City was the closest human establishment to the Great Forest of Soria.

Anyone who researched high-level maps knew that the Great Forest of Soria was a Level 50 map. To current players, it was a death trap.

Furthermore, the Great Forest of Soria was different from ordinary leveling maps; it was a forbidden land for the human race!

The Great Forest of Soria was a neutral area situated between the Black Dragon Empire and the Star-Moon Kingdom.

Current players were not nearly strong enough to survive the area.

Players also knew the Great Forest of Soria as the Forest of Death. It was a Level 50 to Level 70 leveling map, and it was three to four times larger than ordinary leveling maps of the same Level. However, the map's high level wasn't the greatest threat. The reason behind the 'Forest of Death' nickname was the utter lack of fortresses or safe gathering locations for humans. Instead, the map was a haven for Demonic Beasts and Half-orcs.

The Great Forest of Soria was a kingdom of Half-orcs, and it posed a great threat to players as the Half-orc race was highly prejudiced against outsiders. Players could encounter the Half-orc patrol squads at any time inside the Great Forest. Not only were these patrol squads extremely powerful, but they would also call for their other companions to ambush players. Hence, survival within the Great Forest was, to say the least, challenging.

But this wasn't a concern for Black Flame or Zero Wing's core members. The biggest hassle was getting to the forest.

There was a great distance between Starfall City and the Great Forest of Soria. If a player relied on their own two feet to travel, it would take over ten hours to reach the Great Forest.

If Black Flame were traveling alone, he could simply teleport to the Great Forest with the aid of the Seven Luminaries Ring, saving him a lot of time.

Unfortunately, none of his other party members possessed the Seven Luminaries Ring, and while some of them had teleportation tools, the distance they could travel was much shorter than the Epic ranked Seven Luminaries Ring's Space Movement, while the cooldowns are different as well.

Hence, in order to travel in sync, they would have no choice but to travel to the Great Forest on foot.

Meanwhile, if a Caravan were about to embark from Starfall City to the Black Dragon Empire, they would have to pass through the outermost region of the Great Forest of Soria.

If one traveled via horse carriage, the journey to the Great Forest would only take three or four hours. It was much faster than even Common Mounts.

However, the road to the Black Dragon Empire was not easy for a Caravan. A Caravan normally required an escort of guards. Meanwhile, powerful players would often accept such Escort Quests as they were extremely profitable. The money one could earn from these quests was several times higher than ordinary high-level quests. Only, one would have to invest a lot of time to complete the quest.

Thankfully, all of them had Land Mounts that Zero Wing's restored members had acquired while traveling across the areas of God's Domain currently available to them and obtaining all kinds of treasures, so they didn't need to bother with getting a caravan and could just use their own Mounts to get to the Great Forest of Soria.

With his group embarking on the journey using Mounts once they were away from the regular players' view, Black Flame and the others quickly made their way to the Great Forest, arriving in less than an hour.

Level 50 monsters roamed the Great Forest's outermost region. However, due to the Star-Moon Kingdom and the Black Dragon Empire armies often clearing the monsters around the highway, the Great Forest's monsters did not dare approach the highway casually. This allowed players to organize their own Caravans to travel between these two countries.

Moreover, with the current level of players, as long as they possessed some equipment that had the Ignore Levels Attribute and the Protection Skills unique to Caravans, even a player Caravan could pose a certain degree of threat to Level 50 monsters. As long as there were not too many monsters, a player Caravan could even kill off the Level 50 monsters.

Only, during transport, the players in a Caravan would not get any loot or EXP from the monsters they killed. Hence, players were unable to take advantage of the Caravan's strength to grind for EXP and items. Moreover, the Carriages could only travel on commercial roads; they could not travel to other locations. Otherwise, players would not need to purchase Mounts.

Black Flame's group did not encounter any trouble while passing through the Great Forest of Soria. In fact, when coming across the party consisting of Level 90-plus players who weren't hiding their auras, these Level 50 monsters didn't even dare to approach.

However, as they were nearing a stone bridge in the Great Forest of Soria's outer region, Black Flame suddenly sensed multiple Level 27 and higher players hiding in the surrounding forest.

At such a distance, ordinary players traveling the road could easily discover these players. However, they had used Isolation Scrolls. Although they were not invisible, the scrolls blurred their bodies, making it very difficult to notice them by sight alone while they hid in the forest.

Their presence reminded Black Flame of a certain matter, and now that he had noticed them, as the Guild Leader of Zero Wing which was the Star-Moon Kingdom's overlord, he couldn't just let these robbers live on.

Unsheathing the sword hanging from his waist, Black Flame slashed it in the direction of the encirclement of players, sending out a sea of lightning at them, and put the sword back in its sheath, the entire action being done in one fluid motion.

Thundering Flash devoured all of the players, instantly killing them, along with destroying the surrounding environment.

Paying no mind to any of this, the group continued quickly traveling to their destination, soon reaching a certain spot, and the party immediately advanced into the inner regions of the Great Forest.

Sometime later, Black Flame's party arrived at a small lake in the forest.

As they approached the lake, the sound of wings reached their ears.

Turning to the source of the sound, Black Flame and the others noticed a golden-winged lion that was over twenty meters long descending from the sky, landing beside the clear lake.

This massive figure which had just arrived was the Golden-winged Lion King, a Level 60 Great Lord.

[Golden-winged Lion King] (Demonic Beast, Great Lord)

Level 60

HP 30,000,000/30,000,000

This Golden-winged Lion King was this area's overlord. Hence, no other monsters dared to approach the area around the lake. However, nobody would have thought that not only was the Golden-winged Lion King a Field Boss, but it was also a Guardian Boss. It was a Boss specifically tasked with guarding a treasure.

When the Golden-winged Lion King spotted Black Flame and his group, it attempted to roar at them, but before it could, Black Flame's party members moved.

Either appearing next to the lion in an instant or sending out ranged attacks, all of them used their powerful skills to easily dispatch the Level 60 Great Lord in only a few seconds.

Leaving it to them, Black Flame hadn't even glanced at the giant winged creature, downing a deep blue potion, the Underwater Breathing Potion which allowed players to breathe underwater for two hours, and jumping into the lake, with his guildmates following after.

After swimming for about a dozen minutes or so, the party discovered the ruins of a shrine. However, the shrine's thick, stone doors were currently shut tight. With a light punch from Black Flame, the doors instantly swung open, allowing passage to him and his party.

Immediately, they swam further into the shrine.

The shrine was not large, being only three-stories tall. The first floor was completely flooded. There was nothing special about the second floor beyond the various idols that cluttered the space. However, upon reaching the third floor of the shrine, the party felt as if they had entered a different space entirely.

The third floor was actually a forest. Various wild beasts and Demonic Beasts lived here, and the monsters were all Level 50. However, the beasts living here would not actively attack players.

Meanwhile, slumbering in this forest's heart was a blue wolf that stood over three meters tall. Despite being asleep, blue arcs of electricity flashed around the wolf's body, preventing others from approaching it.

[Thunder Wolf] (Demonic Beast, Lord)

Level 50

HP 9,000,000/9,000,000

Black Flame then approached the Thunder Wolf.

The Thunder Wolf cracked open its eyes upon detecting Black Flame's party. It then emitted a low growl, warning the approaching humans.

But the leading Swordsman didn't heed its warning.

The first condition for capturing a wild beast or Demonic Beast was to lower the monster's HP to exactly 10%. If its HP were above or below 10%, one could not capture the monster. It was a stringent condition, and it was one of the reasons why killing a monster was much easier than capturing one.

The second is to capture the beast with a cage of an appropriate rank. Normally, timing would be very important for this process, as cages required time to activate. Fixing the Cage to a specific location required approximately two full seconds. During this period, the target must not escape the Cage's range. Otherwise, the capture will fail, rendering the Cage useless. However, the 5-star Cage's enclosure was not large.

None of this mattered to Black Flame though.

Taking a step forward, Black Flame appeared in front of the Thunder Wolf, his speed being so fast that the Lord couldn't even react.

As the Thunder Wolf attempted to stand up and distance itself from the human that had suddenly appeared in front of its face, a punch landed on top of its head, smashing it into the ground.

Lifting its head defiantly, the Thunder Wolf glared at Black Flame, but the only thing it received was another punch, and then another, followed by a fourth punch.

After getting hit four times on the head, the Thunder Wolf seemed to be dazed for a moment, probably seeing stars floating around it, so Black Flame turned to the restored members, saying as he stepped off the Thunder Wolf "Now it's your turn."

Nodding, the Zero Wing members moved in and began carefully draining the Thunder Wolf's HP.

The reason Black Flame had these guys come along with him was because he was suffering from success.

With his current strength, Black Flame couldn't properly reduce the Thunder Wolf's small HP to perfectly 10%, as even those four weak punches had taken away around 80% of the Demonic beast's HP.

Considering that getting it down to the right amount and keeping it there during the caging process would take too much time and effort due to his immense strength, Black Flame decided to have a few of the restored members come along and help him out by reducing the Thunder Wolf's HP to 10% without the risk of him accidentally killing it.

The party members then went on to carefully decrease the Thunder Wolf's HP, stopping once it reached 10%, at which point Black Flame started the casting of the 5-star Cage.

Sensing what was happening, the Thunder Wolf did its best to put up a struggle, but Black Flame's boot kept it down onto the ground and prevented it from moving at all.

The Cage's channeling time steadily decreased.

Two seconds...

One second...

Immediately, a massive steel cage fell from the sky, trapping the Thunder Wolf within.

The Thunder Wolf struggled desperately inside the Cage, repeatedly slamming its body against its steel bars. The 5-star prison even began showing signs of strain.

Seeing this scene, Black Flame chanted an incantation.

In the next moment, the magic runes carved into the Cage glowed. The Cage itself then proceeded to shrink, only stopping when it was squeezing the Thunder Wolf. At this point, the Thunder Wolf no longer had space to generate enough momentum for a powerful charge.

Following which, Black Flame stored the cage into his Spatial Bag, and all of them used Return Scrolls to teleport back to White River City.

---

White River City, Zero Wing's Guild Residence:

After getting back, Black Flame went to the Warehouse inside the Guild Residence by himself. He then placed the Thunder Wolf inside the Warehouse, as well as took out several Magic Crystals from his bag and put them inside the Thunder Wolf's Cage.

Demonic Beasts were different from wild beasts. Their primary source of food was Magic Crystals. Just a single crystal could sustain a Demonic Beast for a long time.

He then had Owen come to the Guild Residence.

Demonic Beasts were much more difficult to tame than wild beasts. Moreover, the higher the star-ranking of a creature, the longer the time required to gentle it. Complete taming of the Thunder Wolf would need at least 10 to 15 days. Hence, Black Flame wanted the Master Tamer to start as soon as possible.

"Heavens! Are my eyes playing a trick on me?!" Owen's face lit up when he saw the Thunder Wolf inside the massive Cage. "I never thought I would actually meet a 5-star beast in my lifetime!"

"Master Owen, may I know how long it will take for you to tame it?" Black Flame asked to confirm.

"This is my first time encountering a 5-star beast. However, based on my calculations, I will need roughly 25 days." Owen caressed his white beard before offering his answer.

"I'll leave the task to you, then," Black Flame said.

Even a Master Tamer required 25 days to tame the Thunder Beast. If he had hired a weaker tamer to do the job, even ordinary players would have their Mounts before the Thunder Beast was ready.

"Please leave it to me! I will nurture the Thunder Beast into the best Mount you've ever seen!" Owen said, his eyes glowing with excitement.

After Black Flame finished dealing with the Guild Mount issue, he returned to the Candlelight Trading Firm and went back to the grueling ordeal of forging Intermediate Mana Armor Kits.

---

Back on the Divine Staircase, Feng was currently running around at high speeds, avoiding various attacks that threatened to end his life.

A giant centaur with eight arms chased after the Swordsman and sent out continuous attacks at him in an attempt to eliminate the intruder which had barraged into its territory.

From a spectator's point of view, the situation was quite bad, as the giant centaur's nonstop attacks that could kill Feng in only a hit or two got infinitely close to landing very often, with Feng barely dodging by a hairs length and struggling to survive.

It was all perfectly calculated, though, and Feng was only exerting the minimal amount of effort to keep himself alive while allowing the centaur to get only inches from killing him every once in a while in order to keep it engaged in the fight without the monster taking any drastic measures so that it could actually have a chance at killing him.

The thing he was running away from was the 80th Divine Shrine's Guardian Boss, a Level 85 Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species monster possessing incredible Strength and abilities, named the Rampaging Centaur.

When he had first laid eyes on it, Feng had immediately known that the chances of him killing the Guardian Boss were practically nonexistent, and this was only further solidified after he attempted to fight it.

Even with Heavenly Dragon's Power activated, Feng's attributes were too inferior to the Superior Mythic Archaic Species creature's, not being able to put up any sort of fight against the eight-armed monster.

This didn't come as a surprise to Feng, as he already knew he couldn't compete with such a monster with his current strength, not to mention that it was nearly twenty levels higher than him.

After he ran out of both Heavenly Dragon's Power and Imperial Ascendance, Feng resorted to just running around and dodging the centaur's attacks while pondering if there was anything else he could try.

Previously, after waiting for his Weakened state and the cooldowns of his skills to end, Feng had restarted his climb from the 61st Divine Shrine, but didn't bother with fighting any of the Superior Mythic ranked Guardian Bosses, since it would take too much time and effort to finish them off while he wouldn't get any more Exploits from killing them, only Shrine Points.

Upon arriving at the 70th Divine Shrine, Feng made another Hail Mary and confronted the Guardian Boss, which had been a Level 80 Superior Mythic ranked monster possessing a special Bloodline.

While fighting it, Feng got a better understanding of his limits and strength, along with learning of the disparity between him and such beings.

Even while in a state of Twofold Berserk, Feng could only match the Superior Mythic monster, and only after throwing everything he had at it coupled with using various means such as suppression tools, attack Consumables, and multiple Magic Scrolls at both Tier 4 and Tier 5 rank, that Feng had recently acquired from Zeros Wing's grand Mythic Hunt, did he finally manage to finish off the Guardian Boss.

With its death, Feng earned himself another three Exploits and an extra 100,000 Shrine Points upon leaving the 70th Divine Shrine.

He had no other choice than to log out and rest afterwards due to being in a Weakened state, the chances of him being able to get past a Superior Mythic monster with a special Bloodline while having only 20% of his attributes being very small and not something Feng wanted to try out.

Once he logged back in at his peak state with all his skills available, Feng got back to ascending on the Divine Staircase, rushing past the various powerful Guardian Bosses without bothering to fight them.

However, due to the massive difference in strength between them, Feng had been forced to use Berserk Skills in order to survive against them for long enough to activate the Teleportation Array and leave, which had greatly delayed his climb.

Reaching the 80th Divine Shrine had taken plenty of effort on Feng's part, and when he faced off with the centaur that served as the boss monster guarding the Teleportation Array, Feng pondered for a bit whether to even try fighting it since he knew there was very little chance of him being capable of defeating it.

Although killing the centaur Guardian Boss would most likely grant him another three Exploits, the only way Feng could think of draining its massive HP is by using Threefold Berserk.

In the next moment, though, the Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species Guardian Boss, as well as the other centaurs in the surroundings, had started praying, and a Gold Legacy Tablet appeared.

Realizing that this was the final part of the Body Combat Technique whose two other fragments he had acquired from the 30th and 50th Divine Shrines, and seeing that the Guardian Boss was about to send it away through a Space-time Teleportation Magic Array, Feng abandoned his hesitation and attacked, stopping the Tablet Ritual.

A fierce battle then commenced between the hundreds of centaurs and Feng, with him using his AoE skills like Thundering Flash, Thunder Flame Explosion, Flame Domain, and others alike to get rid of the surrounding enemies, even the Mythic ranked Archaic Species centaurs quickly being dispatched by Feng, leaving only himself and the Guardian Boss remaining at the center.

However, Feng soon realized that his previous thoughts had been too naive within only half a minute of exchanging blows with the Superior Mythic Archaic Species monster.

There was no way he'd be able to kill it no matter which version of Berserk he used. Although it was true that Feng could match or potentially even suppress the 80th Divine Shrine's Guardian Boss if he used Threefold Berserk, it wouldn't be enough.

After all, even if his body could withstand the power he'll gain from having three extremely powerful Berserk skills active at once for much longer now after gaining better equipment and absorbing the Draconic-Voidling Bloodline, the duration would still be fairly short.

But even with the full duration of Blade Liberation, Feng would still be unable to drain all of the centaur's HP within that timeframe due to its size compared to his damage.

Hence, despite seeing that Imperial Ascendance was about to end, while he had already used up Heavenly Dragon's Power at the start, Feng didn't bother activating Blade Liberation or Soulharvest Synergy to go for a last-ditch attempt like he normally would.

With the Blood Emperor's Armor's Berserk skill gone, Feng was left helpless against the Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species monster, and could only run around while doing his best to hold on and desperately survive.

The only reason Feng was managing to survive in spite of the massive difference in attributes between him and the boss monster was his far superior combat standards. Thanks to that fact and his experience in fighting, Feng could just barely cope with the situation.

He wasn't too concerned with the possibility of dying at the Guardian Boss's hands, since Feng was still confident that he could activate the Teleportation Array and escape if things got dicey.

Instead, Feng was rapidly trying to come up with a strategy to slay the Guardian Boss attempting to murder him.

Although it would be nice to summon some help by using the Spectral Animacell to bring out Celestina, or more preferably the Level 90 Tier 4 Infant Silver Dragon which would be capable of easily decimating a mere Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species monster five levels lower than it when coupled with Feng's own efforts, all summoning tools were banned on the Divine Staircase by the Main God's System, so that was a no go.

After pondering over the possible moves he could make while continuing to avoid the centaur's attacks with no room for error, an idea came across Feng's mind.

The Destroyer of Immortality suddenly appeared in Feng's hand, and he chose to equip it while unequipping the Abyssal Blade. In the next moment, Feng narrowed his eyes at the rampaging Guardian Boss.

As if sensing something, the centaur paused mid-slash when it was about to send another powerful attack at Feng, quickly pulling back its arm to protect its throat from something.

Not a split second later, a bloody cut appeared on one of the Superior Mythic's thick arms that it was using for defense to guard its neck.

'It can sense them?' Slightly surprised as he pulled some distance between himself and the giant monster, Feng exclaimed in his mind.

He had used the Destroyer of Immortality's Slashing Domain active skill to send a swordlight towards the centaur's throat in an attempt to see how much damage it would be able to do and to distract it for a moment.

It was unexpectedly able to react in time to protect itself from the swordlight he had sent out, blocking the attack and making Feng's attempt to harm it essentially useless with him just hitting its arm.

Though, considering that it was a Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species level monster, its achievement wasn't all that shocking.

Previously, Feng had only used Slashing Domain on creatures much weaker than himself that didn't have the speed to react to the nearly invisible and untraceable slashes that come out of thin air, so he hadn't known what amount of strength would be necessary to keep up with his speed and block Slashing Domain.

Now that he had tried to use the skill on a Superior Mythic monster while the Destroyer of Immortality was still at only Tier 1, it would have been more shocking if it had completely succeeded and the centaur was unable to react in time to block his attack.

However, Feng did learn something interesting from the attack.

Gazing at the bloody wound of the Guardian Boss's arm, Feng realized that, although the damage he had managed to do on the Superior Mythic's HP was inconsequential, not even reaching triple digits, the swordlight from Slashing Domain had managed to slightly injure the centaur.

No matter how miniscule, with the cut being less than a centimeter deep which was nothing compared to the thickness of the giant monster's enormous arm, it was still damage. This could potentially provide Feng with an opportunity.

Focusing his gaze on the Superior Mythic monster, Feng attacked once again.

Slashing Domain! X5

This skill of the Blade Saint Legacy's Legacy Weapon was one that allowed Feng to fire off a swordlight at anything from any direction within a 30-yard radius by consuming some of the wielder's Concentration, with the swordlight's power and damage scaling according to the amount of Concentration consumed, but unable to exceed Feng's full Attack Power.

It also had no cooldown, meaning it could be used repeatedly without pause as long as the wielder had sufficient Concentration.

But that didn't mean it could be used multiple times in a single instance. Instead, how many swordlights one could create at once depended on the speed of their thought process, chanting the skill in their mind and choosing what to attack along from which direction and position it should come from.

Thus, when using Slashing Domain, how efficiently one could utilize the skill would completely depend on their Concentration, not only for powering the slashes, but for quickly attacking using the skill as well.

For Feng whose Concentration was at the Tier 4 Advanced standard, sending out five slashes at once was a simple matter that required only a small amount of effort.

When the five swordlights appeared out of thin air and flew towards the giant centaur, it instantly noticed them, moving its weapons and arms to block the incoming attacks.

At the speed they were going at, coupled with their sudden and unexpected appearance to the Guardian Boss who was still trying to figure out how the previous one had shown up out of nowhere, though, it was unable to properly react to counter them, and could only raise its eight arms to defend its vital spots.

Such a reaction was what Feng hoping for, however, and he had expertly aimed the slashes so that two of them would hit the exact same spot as where the first one had landed.

His plan indeed worked marvelously, the two swordlights perfectly flying into the cut and making the wound slightly deeper.

Seeing this, a smile crept up on Feng's face.

The Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species Guardian Boss growled in pain and anger when more cuts appeared on its body while the previous one got worse. The boss monster turned towards Feng, wanting to release its anger onto the intruder, when it suddenly noticed he wasn't in the same place as before.

Being a Realm Lord, the Rampaging Centaur instantly sensed Feng's location, and looked up. Floating above it in the air, the Guardian Boss saw the human gazing down at it with a small smile.

For some reason, when the Superior Mythic monster saw the smile on Feng's face, a chill went down its spine as a faint feeling of fear welled up in the monstrous creature's heart.

"I see. Then, if that's the case, let's experiment a bit and see-" The smile on Feng's face widened, the look in his eyes as he floated in the air using Gale Domain and gazed down at the Guardian Boss monster below him being one of seeing a lamb for slaughter, and his body poised for battle "-what holds out longer; your Endurance and Physique, or my Concentration."

Thought Acceleration!

Slashing Domain! X1,000

---

Wails of pain boomed throughout the 80th Divine Shrine for over an hour after an intruder had been detected to have entered the Shrine, the screams of terror and desperation causing the monsters and patrol squads everywhere to tremble, as they easily recognized that the source of the screams was their Rampaging Centaur boss.

They couldn't help but wonder what could possibly cause a powerful being like a Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species Realm Lord boss monster to be in such a miserable state that it released those haunting screams.

However, none of them were brave enough to go there and find out for themselves, so the monsters just pretended that they didn't hear anything as they went about their patrolling jobs like they had been instructed to do by the Rampaging Centaur and told not to go to its place of residence or bother it.

When the screams finally stopped after a long period of time, the creatures living in the Divine Shrine collectively breathed out a sigh of relief.

At the center of the 80th Divine Shrine, Feng stood on top of a large, black surface that, despite its tough and resilient look, was riddled with scars all across it. Currently, Feng's face was a bit pale and the Swordsman seemed out of energy as he calmly stood there unmoving while resting his eyes.

After a few seconds passed, Feng opened his eyes and slashed downwards with the Pandemonium Lashblade at a dark hole near the center of the black surface.

A sea of lightning fired out of the Demon Sword's tip, flying into the hole and causing its Dark inside to light up, revealing an object as large as Feng himself deep inside as it seemed to occasionally pulse.

As the tens of thousands of thunderbolts coursed through the dark cave and struck everything within it, the dark surface seeming to twitch and wiggle when they poured inside of it, some of the lightning bolts shot out from ten different spots.

One large amount of thunder in front of Feng, four smaller ones on his left and right each, and one massive one much larger than the others behind him.

Upon the effects of Thundering Flash finally dissipating, the black surface returned to its former calm state.

Looking down at the black surface, Feng didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the situation.

This was all that remained of the Rampaging Centaur.

After slicing and cutting at the Guardian Boss for over an hour, Feng ended up severing all of its limbs, completely dismembering it, and leaving the centaur with only its torso remaining.

First, it were the arms as the Superior Mythic monster attempted to defend itself against Feng's barrage of unending attacks, or tried to attack him using its eight appendages upon realizing the swordlights weren't going to stop coming until it killed Feng.

One by one, Feng withheld down at the thick and muscular arms by sending swordlights that repeatedly landed in the same spot and deepened the injuries sustained by the Rampaging Centaur.

Soon he cut all the way through its skin, muscles, and bones in several places, causing the centaur to lose its ability to properly control them, until Feng eventually severed them.

The task became easier over time as more of the Rampaging Centaur's arms got removed and Feng faced less and less resistance even with the Superior Mythic monster using its various skills to desperately combat Feng's attacks, ultimately failing.

With all eight of the Guardian Boss's arms gone, the turn came for its legs, and Feng managed to slice one off soon enough, crippling the Rampaging Centaur and preventing it from running around and making life more difficult for Feng.

After the first fell, the other three quickly followed, before Feng completely cut the Rampaging Centaur in half at its waist where the monster's lower half, from which its legs had extended out.

Then only the head remained.

At that point, the only thing the Rampaging Centaur had been able to do was glare at Feng with fury and hatred as it screamed out in pain due to the slow process of decapitating its massive noggin, removing the Superior Mythic's head from its shoulders being incredibly difficult with just the swordlights of a Tier 1 Slashing Domain.

It wasn't like the fight was completely done, though, and the Rampaging Centaur had attempted a last-ditch effort to kill Feng when its head was finally about to be severed, only for it to fail with Feng getting away unscathed.

Moreover, the weirdest and most troublesome part then came, which was draining the Rampaging Centaur's huge HP.

Despite the grievous injuries which Feng had inflicted upon the Guardian Boss monster, the attacks from Slashing Domain could still only be as strong as Feng's own attacks, and were most of the time weaker due to not being an actual strike.

With Feng's current attributes in his normal state, the damage he was capable of doing with just regular attacks without any skills or Combat Techniques used along with them was minuscule compared to the Level 85 Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species monster's enormous HP.

Hence, even with thousands of such attacks constantly landing, Feng had been unable to reduce the Rampaging Centaur's HP by much, most of the time struggling to keep up with its natural recovery.

By the time he had completely dismembered the boss monster, it still possessed over 90% of its HP remaining.

However, as it now lay helpless, without any arms, legs, lower half, or head, the Rampaging Centaur not only posed zero threat to Feng, but couldn't even resist his attacks, so Feng had taken his time cutting through the Superior Mythic monster's huge torso until he reached its heart; all the while keeping the Guardian Boss's body parts from regenerating.

Exposing the centaur's heart out for clear view made Feng's job of slaying the beast many times easier, since hitting its main vital spot did damage increased by several folds, while also preventing the Rampaging Centaur from recovering after he destroys its heart and places the Guardian Boss in an even worse state than it already is.

Feng then began attacking its exposed heart, sending Thundering Flashes nearing the Tier 5 standard directly into the Superior Mythic's body, which, as one could imagine, did far more damage than normal.

Once Feng judged that he had done sufficient damage to weaken the Rampaging Centaur's defense and built up a few stacks of the Damage Amplification effect, Feng launched a chain of powerful attacks at the Guardian Boss's messed up heart, intending to end the fight right here and now.

Flame Burst!

Thunder Flame Explosion!

Flame God's Fury!

Dragon Breath!

Moonchaser!

Tier 4 Draconic Spell, Drago Buster!

The attacks pummeling it would have done decent damage to the Rampaging Centaur even in its peak form, so receiving them now, in a Heavily Weakened state with its defense already reduced and the attacks landing inside of the monster's mangled body on top of its injured heart while under the Damage Amplification effect, was devastating to the Guardian Boss.

Drago Buster finished the job, removing the last of the Superior Mythic monster's HP as the one hundred or so blue shooting stars fell inside its body and annihilated the Rampaging Centaur's scarred torso from the inside out, instantly killing it.

From his bird's-eye view after flying up with Gale Domain so that he doesn't get caught up in the Draconic Spell's blast radius, Feng saw a thick black mist scatter from inside the dust, and immediately knew that the Guardian Boss had indeed been slain.

Before the cloud of dust could even settle to reveal the aftermath left behind by Feng's slaughtering of the Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species monster, a golden light suddenly descended on Feng.

All of the stress on his body was instantly relieved, while Feng's Stamina and most of his expended Concentration recovered completely.

System: Congratulations! You have exceeded your own limits and achieved a feat acknowledged by the Gods. Rewarding three Exploits.

The paleness on Feng's face receded after receiving the Exploits, feeling much better as the strain his mind and Concentration had undertaken disappeared and no longer affected him.

Although he had managed to defeat the Rampaging Centaur, it didn't come without a price.

Due to how tough its body was and how weak the swordlights created by Slashing Domain were in comparison, it had taken a long time and a lot of usages of Slashing Domain to achieve the feat he had managed to do.

A lot of Slashing Domain.

A LOT of swordlights continuously slashing at the Rampaging Centaur.

Too many to count, in fact, with the number of times Feng had chanted 'Slashing Domain' in his mind probably surpassing a million.

Naturally, the Concentration it had taken for that was astronomically immense.

If not for Feng having recently obtained the Draconic-Voidling Bloodline, which improved his overall being, making his mental capacity and mental power far more powerful while greatly increasing his Concentration with just the initial improvement, not to mention the boost Feng received each time he leveled up, along with his high Fortitude making the Concentration Feng consumed be significantly reduced, he would have probably passed out by trying to execute so many attacks with Slashing Domain on the Rampaging Centaur.

Even if he could support the continuous usage of the skill, it would have only been for a short time, not enough for the hour or so Feng had needed to spend in order to render the Guardian Boss defenseless.

Thanks to the vast improvements brought about by the Apex Bloodline, Feng was able to finish the job and eliminate the 80th Divine Shrine's Guardian Boss, earning himself three more Exploits, which directly helped Feng in immediately recovering his Concentration to a very sufficient extent.

Flying back down, Feng looted the battlefield of all the items dropped by the Rampaging Centaur, getting a bunch of incredible treasures from the drops of such a powerful monster and greatly increasing his haul, the items he acquired being comparable in value to everything Feng had acquired from the last 79 Divine Shrines.

Feng then approached the Gold Secret Technique Tablet quietly laying on the altar of the 80th Divine Shrine's center, picking up and inspecting its information with the Eyes of Truth without hesitation.

[Secret Body Technique]

The pattern engraved on this tablet is too vague and incomplete, and no information can be deciphered. However, some kind of divine power hides within this pattern. If one gathers all of the stone tablets, this vague and incomplete pattern can be restored.

Current tablet count (3/3)

Upon the Gold Legacy Tablet's reveal as a part of the full Secret Body Technique, and the last one Feng needed to complete the whole thing after obtaining the two other tablets from the 30th and 50th Divine Shrines, a system notification sounded in Feng's ears.

System: You have collected all Legacy Tablets for Devil's Parade. Do you wish to synthesize the complete version of it? Synthesizing the complete version will require 1,000 Mana Stones.

Seeing the system notification, Feng became glad that he had put in the effort to kill off the Rampanging Cenatur and steal the Secret Technique Tablet.

Since all three tablets had been parts of the same Secret Body Technique, Feng now had the option to fuse them together and complete the full Legacy Tablet for the Gold Body Combat Technique, Devil's Parade.

Feng wasn't unfamiliar with Devil's Parade, either.

It was a powerful Body Combat Technique that he and some of Zero Wing's experts had learned about from the Gold Legacy Tablet that Feng had managed to obtain from the 30th Divine Shrine in his previous life, benefiting the guild greatly as it helped them significantly improve their combat standards even if most of them had not mastered the full Gold Body Combat Technique.

Moreover, Devil's Parade was a pretty famous Combat Technique due to the person who had invented and used it in the past. The Demon Empress Celestina.

Although not one of Celestina's most powerful Combat Techniques, Devil's Parade was definitely up there in power and how much she used it, definitely being above average when compared to all other Gold Body Combat Techniques across the Universal God's Domain even in its basic base form.

If a person is able to fully master Devil's Parade and bring forth its true potential like how the Demon Empress had, the power displayed by the Devil's Parade wouldn't be any less than that of an Advanced Gold Body Combat Technique.

With him now having the complete Legacy Tablet for the Gold Combat Technique, mastering Devil's Parade would become much easier and Zero Wing could get another powerful trump card if more of its top combatants could master such a powerful Combat Technique.

Though, since Feng currently didn't have 1,000 Mana Stones on him, he stored the third Secret Technique Tablet for now, deciding to fuse all the parts once he returned to the God's Domain continent and had access to his Warehouse, before giving Zero Wing's core members a chance to study the complete Legacy Tablet.

Finished with inspecting his gains, Feng activated the Teleportation Array and left the 80th Divine Shrine. As he appeared on the path leading higher up on the Divine Staircase, the sound of the Main God's System informing him of his rewards reached Feng.

System: Congratulations! You have passed the Divine Shrine. Rewarding 60,000 Shrine Points.

System: Congratulations! You have passed the Divine Shrine within the time limit. Rewarding 60,000 Shrine Points.

System: Congratulations! You have killed the Guardian Boss within the time limit. Rewarding 300,000 Shrine Points.

Having cleared the 80th Divine Shrine and killed the Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species Guardian Boss, Feng obtained another 420,000 Shrine Points, bringing his total amount of points to 2,259,720; while his Exploit count had reached twelve.

Fend didn't pay much mind to this, though, and, after waiting a bit for the cooldowns of Imperial Ascendence and Heavenly Dragon's Power to end, immediately continued on by entering the 81st Divine Shrine.

Since he hadn't used Twofold Berserk this time around to eliminate the Guardian Boss, Feng wasn't in a Weakened state and didn't have to rest or wait to recover his Stamina, Concentration, and skills with long cooldowns which he had used up in the battle, as receiving the Exploits for killing the Guardian Boss had replenished the two Hidden Attributes, while Feng wasn't planning on fighting the monsters in the following Divine Shrines and didn't have a need for his skills except the Berserk ones.

Steadily, Feng pushed forth, going higher and higher up the Divine Staircase.

Upon reaching the 90th Divine Shrine, his Guardian Boss opponents were no longer just simple Superior Mythic ranked Archaic Species monsters, but Level 90 and above monsters with strength and abilities comparable to World Bosses of the same rank.

There was zero chance of Feng soloing such a creature at the moment, as the Tier 1 Destroyer of Immortality's Slashing Domain wasn't even capable of tickling the Guardian Boss, let alone injuring it in any sort of way.

Feng was even forced to use Twofold Berserk in order to survive and get past it, barely escaping the 90th Divine Shrine.

From there on, the monsters only continued to grow stronger, while it took Feng a longer time to pass through a Divine Shrine with each consecutive one. 

Along with having to wait two hours for his Heavily Weakened state to end each time that he was left with no other choice but to activate Twofold Berserk, Feng's ascent slowed to a crawl. 

While waiting in boredom, Feng would sometimes log out and either get to business with his women or go to restore some of the recently recruited members. 

When neither of the two options were available, the girls being logged into God's Domain and his mental strength too drained for the restoration process, Feng would bring out Celestina, bothering the Demon Empress in order to quench his boredom as well as to build up their relationship. 

His pestering annoyed Celestina to no end, and the Primordial Demon Goddess became even more pissed off upon realizing that she was getting hornier the longer she spent time around this bastard human. 

Such an increase in her sexual attraction towards Feng both greatly bothered and concerned the Demon Empress, being incredibly uncomfortable by the fact she was desiring sex more and more for some unknown reason. 

As for Feng, he was quite satisfied with the development, the effects of his Seducer Subclass proving to be even greater than he initially expected. 

Feng continued this pattern, returning Celestina to the Spectral Animacell's confinement whenever he recovers from the weakened state and resuming his climb. 

While in the 99th Divine Shrine, Feng truly struggled, having to spend a lot of time and effort just to get to the center of the Divine Shrine, not to mention activating the Teleportation Array and exiting.

If not for him possessing a powerful Invulnerability Skill like Absolute Domain, there wouldn't have been any way for Feng to survive the full onslaught of the Guardian Boss which had stood in his way.

Encountering such a difficult endeavor, Feng was close to calling it quits and just choosing to teleport off the Divine Staircase after barely managing to leave the 99th Divine Shrine, but decided to keep going and see what was waiting for him up ahead.

So, after waiting for his Heavily Weakened state to end and his skills to come off cooldown, Feng entered the 100th Divine Shrine.

And he nearly instantly regretted his decision.

As Feng appeared in the 100th Divine Shrine, the environment around him presented itself as an incredibly dark cave with thick and giant webs everywhere.

While inspecting his surroundings, Feng spotted a group of monstrous black and purple spiders scurrying out of one of the tunnels connecting to the space he was standing in. Upon using the Eyes of Truth on the group of spiders, Feng couldn't help but become slightly shocked by their strength.

Any random monster in the 100th Divine Shrine was a Level 100 Mythic ranked creature, and the patrol squads all consisted of over a dozen Mythic monsters that were led by a Level 100 Mythic ranked Archaic Species.

Feng was once again forced to sneak around and avoid the patrolling monsters like a sewer rat upon facing such creatures.

Even though Feng was fully capable of taking on a patrol squad consisting of a dozen Mythic monsters, or even one with a Mythic Archaic Species monster or two mixed in, he had no chance if the opposing enemies were Level 100.

Having to fight over a dozen monsters three tiers higher than him that had crossed God's Domain's second major threshold would be impossible, even for Feng, especially when he was also around thirty levels below the monsters.

After spending quite some time, Feng finally reached the center of the Divine Shrine.

Throughout the journey, Feng had spent the entire time sneaking past the patrol squads, which grew much stronger the deeper into the Shrine one gets with even Superior Mythic ranked monsters appearing in their midst, and all the other dangers, the traps in the 100th Divine Shrine being so powerful that Feng's only two options were to either take the long way around and completely avoid them, or to tank the traps with Absolute Domain.

Though, as not all of the traps were pure one-time or short-duration physical damage, doing his best to trigger the least number of them as possible was the smarter option for Feng.

All the while he had to watch each of his steps for the sticky spiderwebs spread around everywhere in the pitch-black cave, as getting stuck in any of them would instantly alert all of the nearby spiders, placing Feng in a dire situation as he got swarmed from all sides by Level 100 Mythic monsters.

Overall, traveling across the 100th Shrine's map had been an arduous process for Feng with his life being at risk at every turn.

But nothing could compare to the sight Feng came across at the center of the 100th Divine Shrine where the Teleportation Array was.

Among the gigantic web of carefully and masterfully woven spider strings, hundreds of spiders ranging from Mythic ranked to Superior Mythic Archaic Species ones, as well as many large spider eggs, an enormous, purple spider with blood-red hairs covering its entire grotesque body and dozens of legs, stood.

Although it wasn't much larger than the Superior Mythic ranked spiders around it, the aura this purple spider gave off was truly terrifying and caused even Feng to be on guard and grow serious.

[Hellish Broodmother (Realm Lord)] (Legendary)

Level 100

HP 5,000,000,000/5,000,000,000

The moment Feng saw the Hellish Broomother and her stats, he shook his head and immediately gave up on the thought of attempting to leave the Divine Shrine through the Teleportation Array.

A Level 100 Superior Mythic ranked monster would have already been pushing it for Feng to give it a shot, but trying to get past a Level 100 Legendary monster, not to mention a Realm Lord one at that, was simply suicide considering his current strength and abilities.

With the Hellish Broodmother's strength, it was doubtful whether Feng would be capable of even dodging the monstrous spider's attacks, let alone somehow staying alive for long enough to activate the Teleportation Array and escape.

Even using his tactic of having the Abyssal Blade's doppelganger start up the Teleportation Array while he distracts the Guardian Boss by surviving its onslaught with Absolute Domain would be impossible due to a Legendary creature's intelligence and hundreds of other powerful spiders, while having the Invulnerability Skill that could tank power at the Tier 6 standard protecting him didn't mean Feng could do whatever he wanted, and he'd only end up getting bounced around by the Hellish Broodmother's attacks until Absolute Domain's duration ended.

Coupled with all the other factors, it was simply not plausible for Feng to safely get past the 100th Divine Shrine's Guardian Boss.

Making any sort of attempt at even putting up some kind of resistance would be futile against an opponent of this caliber, the risks of most likely dying in his try were far from worth it since the most he'd get from clearing the Divine Shrine was just a large sum of Shrine Points, possibly an Exploit or two for managing to achieve such a feat in front of a Level 100 Legendary monster while only being a Tier 1 player.

Hence, Feng gave up on passing through it without hesitation and turned around, planning to return to the place where he had entered the Shrine from.

Under normal circumstances, after choosing to enter a Divine Shrine, the only two ways to get out of it would be by leaving through the Teleportation Array at the Shrine's center, or by dying and respawning outside.

However, what most players who attempt to scale the Divine Staircase don't know is that there is a third method. Another way to escape from a Divine Shrine aside from the two common methods would be to use the hidden Magic Array at the start of the Divine Shrine where the player came in from.

Only, activating that Teleportation Array would require one to be at least an Advanced Master Magician with plenty of knowledge and experience pertaining in Teleportation Arrays, and after using it, the player would come out of the 100th Divine Shrine from where they came from, going back on the path between the 99th and 100th Shrines.

The existence of this method was the reason Feng had dared to head into the 100th Divine Shrine in spite of having a fairly good idea of what kind of challenge would await him inside, knowing that he could always just sneak back to where he had entered the Shrine from if the situation seemed unfavorable and he didn't believe it to be possible for him to leave through the normal exit.

His situation being unfavorable was an understatement, though, and it was completely unsalvageable when Feng, a Tier 1 player below Level 100, was faced with a Level 100 Legendary ranked monster.

So, Feng immediately turned around and prepared to leave.

However, in the next moment, just as Feng was about to make his way back, a hissing sound that resembled that of an incantation being chanted sounded out and echoed throughout the dark cave.

The runes carved on the stone altar at the center then lit up with a dark-blue glow. The space above the Hellish Broodmother also collapsed, forming a tunnel of sorts into the dark void.

Immediately after, a tablet slowly descended from this shattered space.

The moment this tablet appeared, the Mana inside the entire cavern stirred. The tablet itself also released a powerful Divine Might that put immense pressure on the living creatures around it, forcing even the Superior Mythic ranked spiders to lower their bodies to the ground as if the pressure released from the tablet was about to crush them.

When Feng caught sight of the descending tablet, unexpectedly and completely beyond his expectations, the tablet wasn't golden like the previous three that had appeared in the Tablet Rituals.

Instead, it possessed a metallic, transparent shine that attracted the attention of all creatures who gazed upon it.

For a moment Feng doubted his eyes.

"A P-platinum Legacy Tablet!" Total and utter shock colored Feng's expression the moment he identified the floating tablet, exhibiting a very rarely seen reaction from the man who had reincarnated two times and seen many things throughout his career in God's Domain.

For the first time since he had reincarnated, and even since a long time before his second reincarnation, Feng truly and completely lost his composure over an item.

What had presented itself before him was so dumbfounding and unfeasible that Feng's mind stagnated for a moment, trying to comprehend how and why this priceless treasure could possibly appear in this place.

A moment later, though, a wave of serenity washed over Feng, clarity instantly returning to his eyes as Feng entered a battle stance.

After seeing the Platinum Secret Technique Tablet, the question was no longer if Feng would attempt to face the Hellish Broodmother, but how he'd do it.

With the possibility of obtaining a Platinum Legacy Tablet, Feng would gladly risk his life even if there was only a 1% chance of getting his hands on the tablet.

As he watched the Hellish Broodmother extend one of its legs towards the platinum tablet to receive it, Feng made his move.

Thought Acceleration!

Heavenly Dragon's Power!

Blade Liberation!

Soulharvest Synergy!

Mysticsteel Body!

Void Shield!

Absolute Domain!

Windwalk!

Wind Blade!

Instantly entering a state of Threefold Berserk, Feng's aura skyrocketed as he dashed forward.

However, the instant he revealed any signs of his presence, all of the Hellish Broodmother's tens of eyes turned towards Feng.

Moving too fast for Feng to keep track of, the gigantic Legendary ranked spider appeared in front of Feng, while its afterimage on the altar hadn't even dissipated yet, one of the purple spider's many legs stabbed towards him.

'As expected, the gap is simply too massive.' Feng smiled bitterly in his mind when he noticed the Hellish Broodmother's piercing appendage right in front of his face, about to end his life instantaneously after he had rushed towards the altar.

Despite his great strength and attributes, he was still far from being able to even come close to a Legendary creature that wasn't messing around like Serena had.

If not for Feng carrying the slightly repaired Yog-Sothoth with him, which increased all his speed stats by stealing attributes from the monsters around him, slowed down the attacks of all creatures who attempted to approach him, and gave him Thought Acceleration that greatly increased his Reaction Speed, Feng would most likely only be able to sense the danger and attack coming at him before dying.

Still, even if he was able to see the Legendary monster's attack, Feng had no chance of dodging it.

But that fact was fully within Feng's expectations.

Tier 2 Taboo Skill, Instant Strike!

Appearing behind the Hellish Broodmother, Feng immediately swung the Pandemonium Lashblade at the spider's behind at his fastest speed while utilizing a Silver Combat Technique that specialized in Attack Speed called Swordmaster Blitzstrike. 

His movements were far too slow, though, and the Legendary ranked spider had turned and stabbed towards where Feng was currently standing before he had even appeared there, its claw nearly reaching him in an instant.

Feng barely had enough time to react and readjust the Demon Sword's trajectory in time to intercept the attack.

Not like it would do him any good.

With the insurmountable gap in strength between them, such an action could only be attributed to facing death head-on instead of embracing it.

But it had never been Feng's intention to contend with the Hellish Broodmother in a contest of strength.

After all, he knew full well that it would be futile.

The plan he had in mind was completely different.

Just as the sword and monstrous, hairy leg were about to collide, Feng's pitch-black eyes turned sky-blue. Simultaneously, unbeknownst to the Hellish Broodmother and the hundreds of spiders in the dark cave, a blue aura that only Feng could see coated the Pandemonium Lashblade.

The attacks collided in the very next fraction of a second.

There was no grand boom or aftershock that rocked the earth, though.

Instead, Feng merely got sent flying backwards like a cannonball as the Void Shield around him shattered, while the Hellish Broodmother stood in its place.

Even after a moment passed, the Legendary ranked spider did not move, seemingly dazed with all of its dozens of eyes glossed over.

Meanwhile, Feng, who got embedded into the cave's wall, felt his consciousness blur.

At the same time, a feeling of impending death assaulted his senses.

During the exchange of blows, what Feng attempted to do had been a risky gamble with his very life on the line. The power of his Immortal Soul, even with Soulharvest Synergy activated and his current Concentration standard, was insufficient to do anything against a Tier 5 being.

Therefore, Feng's only choice was to channel the power of his real soul through his consciousness and use it to exhibit the full power of his Soul Manipulation ability that he could muster at the moment.

However, it proved to have devastating side effects.

At the moment, despite his situation, the monsters around him weren't strong enough to give him such a feeling of doom like the one he was feeling right now. Not even the Hellish Broodmother.

His body and Immortal Soul, in contrast to what one would expect after receiving a strike from a Tier 5 Legendary monster, were completely fine thanks to Absolute Domain.

The only explanation Feng could think of for the danger he was sensing right now was that his real life and soul in the real world were in danger; in which case what he had just done would be a very stupid move.

But his consciousness was faltering, and he was unable to move his body or log out and check on his condition.

As he fell from the wall at which the force of the Hellish Broodmother's strike had launched him, and Feng felt that he was about to lose consciousness without the strength to stay awake, the only thing Feng could do was give out one last command.

'Switch'

---

White River City, Candlelight Trading Firm

Inside one of the Special Workshops of the 4-star Shop, a middle-aged man with a cold expression was busing himself with making Armor Kits.

'Switch'

Black Flame, who was in the midst of forging an Intermediate Mana Armor Kit, suddenly seized all movements, the hammer in his hand that he was swinging down freezing in mid-air.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

1. About this, Feng isn't an actual Marquise, but simply someone with the status of one. In RSSG, whenever someone gains the status equivalent to some rank of a Noble, they'd be treated similarly, but would be called per that thing's name. 

For instance, while possessing the Demon Hunter, City Protector, or Bronze Legatee Title, SF would get called per the Title he has equipped, not the level of status it gives him. This should have been the case for Feng in my fanfic as well, but I thought it would be weird to employ a similar system considering he got the status from the Creation Goddess's Blessing, and settled for everyone to just call him Marquise instead. 

Just wanted to clarify this. Feng might have the status equivalent to a Marquise, but he isn't actually one.