World Online

"Shadow King! You might want to see this!" Phoenix called out again.

Jake shook his head and sighed.

"Fine. What is it?" He said as he started walking toward Phoenix, whose silhouette he could still see.

As he stepped forward, her figure became clearer and clearer, until he could see her as clear as day, and what she was looking at.

"A good scenery, no doubt. We are actually on some high ground. Who would have thought?" Jake nodded.

"Not that, you idiot."

But Phoenix didn\'t have to tell him.

Jake could hear the thump that suddenly arose.

His eyes darted down, toward where the sound was coming from. The rhythmic thump that came as his heart beat.

All the blood drained from Jake\'s face as he looked at the scene that was laid out in front of me.

He could a ravine that was laid out in front of him. It was large enough to host maybe the army that he brought with him.

But what this ravine didn\'t have, were any humans. Jake needed to explanation to what was going on here.

"Looks like we are going to have quite the time preparing for the first checkpoint. To think that we will have to take care of this thing." Jake shook his head.

The reason?

Because he recognized every single one of the monsters that were walking through this ravine, in single file, like a disciplined army.

Just one of these was enough to cause a headache for Jake. Sure, he was able to take care of it, but to do that, he needed to use one of his better skills.

They all had cooldowns, so how could he actually hope to use it to defeat the numbers that he saw before him?

"How the hell is this happening? Just one of these took a little time to defeat. And they want us to deal with an army worth of them?" Phoenix whispered.

"Yeah, you should start talking a little slower now. If you are loud enough, they might be able to hear us, and if they do, we can give up on surviving." Jake chuckled.

"Well then, we know what we have to prepare for. This is going to be at least one of the challenges in this checkpoint. I didn\'t think that the enemy would be this tough though. I mean, the other two types of monsters we dealt with were so weak." Jake said.

"And we have another problem. These monsters are not responsible for the pink mist." He suddenly remembered.

"What do you mean? What else could be responsible for the pink mist?" Phoenix asked.

"The other monster that you saw. The female one. It is a different type of monster, clearly. And when I killed one of that, it showed a difference in the pink mist. But when I dealt with this monster, nothing happened." Jake said.

"So even if we manage to deal with the soldiers over there, we won\'t be able to deal with the pink mist?" Phoenix raised her eyebrows.

"Trust me, those guys are the problem. If we can\'t see anything, then those monsters will be able to ambush us at any point. We might survive. But can we say the same thing about the others? The normal guild members will collapse." Jake said.

"I know. I am also a guild member, and I have also been in a few raids. I understand how a guild should work." Phoenix growled.

She looked back at the army that was moving slowly and steadily.

"The problem is, I can\'t even recognize who the leader of the whole thing is. Everyone looks the same." She said.

"For the leader, you have to look at the front." Jake pointed to the very front of the ravine, where the start of the army could still be seen.

There was a singular monster leading the way. One that looked exactly like every other monster that was marching down this ravine to a destination that Jake had no idea about.

Who knew where that led to?

But one thing was certain, when Jake locked his gaze on that monster, he felt a chill through his body.

"That one. That one is powerful. We might have a problem dealing with it." He whispered out.

"Oh. That\'s interesting." Phoenix suddenly mused.

"What is?" Jake looked at where Phoenix was looking.

She was looking to the right. They were surrounded by trees, but on the same line that they were standing on, there were a few dots.

"People. There are others from the guilds who saw this. They will be able to notify everyone of the danger that this possesses." Phoenix sighed.

"Not exactly." Jake shook his head as he tried to peer closer. He could see that there were two dots to the far right, but he couldn\'t make out what they were trying to do.

"They might be calling out to us. They could be separated from the rest of the troupe." Jake suggested.

"And what do you want to do? Break course to meet with two people, when we lost track of thousands more? Your priorities as a guild master really surprise me." Phoenix shook her head.

"Ah! No wonder no one in your guild likes you. You really are a witch. To not care about anyone. I mean, if someone like you is their guild master, I can totally understand why many people would think about switching to my guild, where I actually care about my members." Jake shook his head.

"Who told you that?" Phoenix snapped.

"Calm down. I never said it was someone from your guild." Jake chuckled.

"Let us walk toward them. We might meet more in the way. But more importantly, we know that we have to take care of the monsters on this side, Did you not notice? The land on the other side of the Ravine didn\'t have any pink mist. So the monsters responsible for the pink mist are all here."

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