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  FLAAASH!

  BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!

  Explosions and bright fshes of light echoed through the Spirit Forest, the otion that Chris battled against the two-headed monster reverberated through the rest of the entire forest, causing a great otion.

  The people of the forest gathered together to iigate, watg from afar as their savior, the priestess, vanquished the guardian of the volo, which had bee a corrupted beast, not only defeating it but purifying it and not even killing it.

  “I-Incredible, she vanquished him!”

  “She left though?”

  “Where did she go?”

  “The young priestess… I nning on asking to marry her!”

  “Idiot, priestesses don’t marry; they’re solely devoted to their gods!”

  As Beetle Fairies and Moth Fairies discussed as usual and the Myid and Stone People remained mostly mute as they watched, the chief of the vilges called for their attention.

  “Silence young’un! We must iigate first!” the Myid Chief said.

  “Does someone know if the Samander Folk is alright?” asked the Moth Fairy Chief.

  “I had heard they were inflicted with a simir state than the guardian… did someohe priestess about it?” asked the Beetle Fairy Vilge Chief.

  “Ah, no, we fot about it…” the other chiefs muttered almost in unison.

  The Beetle Fairy Vilge Chief facepalmed, sighing.

  “I would’ve told her if I knew she was going there! She came in such a hurry and the… Anyways, let’s go.”

  The fairies and spirits of the forest gathered around the volo, iigating the area, although they feared the rivers of magma, so they didn’t get too close.

  And then…

  SPLASH!

  Out of nowhere, several Samanders popped out of the magma, greeting the other spirits and fairies that were there.

  “Oh, if it isn’t our fellow spirits!”

  “Were you the ohat saved us?”

  “We’ve beeing so far; our vilge is in ruins…”

  “But most of us are all alive! What happened?”

  “The st thing I remember was that that strange mold overtook my entire body…”

  The people gasped in disbelief; the Samander were no longer zombie-like beings but had been healed, and above all, they were alive!

  “Yes, yes, a lot happened…”

  “Let us expin.”

  “This’ll take a while.”

  The chiefs expihe things to the Samanders, whose chief had died due to the illness, failing to turn into a monstrous form like the rest due to his low vitality.

  “So that’s what happened… And this savior, where might she be?!” asked the Samander chief’s daughter. “We o find her and thank her wholeheartedly! We could even give her our treasure!”

  “We have no idea.”

  “She most likely left somewhere else…”

  “Someone said they saw her disappear into particles of light!”

  “Particleeeees of liiiiiight…”

  The chiefs were disappoihat the priestess disappeared, but that didn’t actually mean they would fet her good deeds either.

  “Even though she left, her legacy will remain.”

  “Let’s build a mo in her honor.”

  “She saved our little forest after all and eveed the mighty Guardian of the Volo…”

  “It’s theeeee leaaaaast weeeee coooooould doooooo…”

  “I agree!” The samander girl nodded. “Ah, the Guardian’s gooo? Did someo going somewhere?”

  “I saw it going baside the volo, and then they left afterwards…”

  “I don’t know where they moved, but they seemed… rather furious.”

  “If their mind had e back to them, then it means the Guardiao punish whoever did this to us!”

  “Y-You mean there was someone behind what happened?” The Moth Fairy Chief was left dumbfounded.

  “Yes…” the Samander chief daughter nodded. “We were foolish enough to allow them to ehe volo; they were three humans or elves.. wearing bck robes. We thought they wao mine some resources and leave, but they ended up impnting something on the Guardian of the Volaking the beast turn berserk on us… As he did, he spread a strange bck goo everywhere, a ied.”

  “S-So that’s what happened?!”

  “I ’t believe it!”

  “There’s a pn to eliminate us? But who would do such a thing? And why?”

  “Hmmm…”

  As the chiefs realized the truth behind the iion of miasmic mold around their little forest, the Volo Guardiahrough the skies, with wings made of fmes, as it was flightless otherwise.

  “Priestess… I will never fet your kindness,” he thought, his four eyes squinting as he gnced down. “Not only you saved my life but that of my people, the Samanders… And even now, I feel withihe trace of your powers.”

  He g his own giant cw; silver and golden sparkles of moonlight remained within him, turning him even strohan before.

  A faint thread reseween his soul and the priestess, but it was too weak and phantasmal to eveiced too well.

  “You’re someohat bonds with powerful beings… I see you didn’t leave pletely,” he smiled with his two heads. “I will find you one day, and we shall plete our tract. It’s the least I could do for everything…”

  Meanwhile, deep within the forest, three tall, humanoid figures wearing bck robes gnced into the distah their sharp eyes, holding straifacts.

  “What happened just now?”

  “Explosions of light right where the volo was…”

  “Hey! Check if the Miasmic Soul Stone signal is intact!”

  “Ah…!”

  The third of them g an artifact; the signal this stone released was pletely gohere was nothing he could see.

  “I-It’s gohe signal is pletely gone… I don’t know what happened!”

  “Are you kidding me?!”

  “So someo only defeated that two-headed dragon but also broke the stone and purified the Green Spring Forest?”

  The suspien seemed frustrated; this was the small task their anization had given them after they were transported to this realm: to cover this area of the vast forest with miasma to weaken the life of the great forest of Fantasia, and therefore, over time, weakehe King of Fairies whose power was based on the health and life of all.

  Each squadron was doing this right now, spreading these cursed artifacts, stones, and jewels to tinuously corrupt the forest and sap away at its life, like parasites. It was a grand pn that would take several days, weeks, or months to plete.

  But right now, they failed!

  “Is there no other stone we could use again?”

  “Are you crazy? Only one was given per squad!”

  “Then what do we do? We ’t go ba our own!”

  The trio were panig, but their leader slowly calmed down, his crimson eyes growing sharper.

  “We ot go back to Lord Shamir empty-handed; he’ll only punish us severely…” he said, uhing his knife, which wasn’t actually just a on, but a powerful artifact boo his soul. “We’ll simply have to destroy the forest on our own. We’ll kill the fairies and spirits, then burn the forest; it should have the same effect either way.”

  “What? But... aren’t the fairies and spirits strong within the forest?”

  “Yeah! And they use powerful Spirit and Nature Magic, they aren’t foes we handle head-on.”

  “I know, so we’ll go sneakily, night after night; we’ll take them down; we are trained assassins for a reason, you fools,” sighed the leader. “Now, let’s approach the vilge, iheir routine, and wait.”

  “U-Uood!”

  As the three moved, suddenly, they realized the sunlight above the skies had disappeared, as a huge shadow loomed over their heads.

  “Eh?”

  “Huh?”

  “T-That’s…!”

  Their eyes widened in horror and shock as a massive two-headed dragon emerged from the skies, his four bzing eyes gring at them with utter fury!

  “You! It was you who did it! Prepare yourselves! I shall not be merciful!”

  “The Volo Guardian?!”

  “Shit, he’s already recovered pletely?!”

  “No, that aura…! He evolved?! He has been blessed by a god…! Moonlight? Where did that inate from? Wait, Obscuritas?!”

  “RAAAHHHH!”

  As the assassins couldn’t even prehend what was happening, the Volo Guardian desded, attag them with his massive cws and unleashing a double fiery breath.

  The trio of assassins evaded as they could, unleashing magic, skills, abilities, and their artifacts, aiming to escape and not engage directly.

  However, that by itself was a terrible strategy!

  “Where do you think yoing?!”

  “You ’t escape me!”

  While one head tinuously focused on following their movements, the other already finished ting a powerful spell.

  FLUOSH!

  A mighty magical domain enpassed all assassins, trapping them within another space created by the incredibly strong two-headed guardian.

  The domain was like a volidscape itself, with magma everywhere and fallieors from the sky.

  “{Divi Guardian Domain: Volic Hellscape}”

  “Fuck…”

  “We’re screwed!”

  “No…! Wait, we egotiate things! We …!”

  “IATIONS. PERISH!”

  The Guardian no longer had mercy; giaeors fell from the sky, explosions of fmes burhem, and ultimately, despite all their struggle, they were burorn to shreds, and spttered into the ground like roasted, minced meat…

  As they g the corpses, without even wanting to eat them as they felt utter disgust, they noticed strange insignias showg some sort of bight with a bck , holding a sword downwards.

  “There’s an anization aiming at the forest as a whole!”

  “We have to quickly inform this to the Fairy King and the uardians, let’s go! No time to waste!”

  The two-headed dragon broke down his domain as he flew into the skies, not without making sure his foes and whatever they carried were reduced to ashes.

  .

  .

  .

  Ding!

  [gratutions! You have successfully pleted all the avaible Trial Quests, and the time has run out! You’ve successfully pleted the Trial with a high score!]

  [You will nain trol over your avatar, where you will be giverial’s results.]

  FLASH!

  Chris was teleported back where he was, or well, his mind was, as his real body was never in the forest to begin with, but something close to an astral proje.

  When he was finally ba his body, Chris gasped, pletely exhausted; his heart was rag; the amount of mental stimution was much more than he imagined.

  “Chris! Are you alright?”

  Vd had been waiting for thirty minutes already, and when he finally saw Chris open his eyes and gasp for air, he panicked, rushing to his aid.

  He imagihe worst case possible and already thought some Evil God had toyed with him or something.

  “I-I’m fine…!” Chris blushed a bit as Vd was hugging him and about to use a potion on him. “S-Stop panig like an idiot; I’m ok- Agh!”

  Chris stopped Paul from putting a potion in his mouth.

  “I said I’m ok!”

  And then he karate chopped his head, which hurt quite a bit due to the Vampire Prince’s decreased stats, which were still lower than Chris when sidering that.

  “Ouch… Sorry, I panicked a bit.”

  “Is Chris alright?”

  Little Camil walked towards Chris, tilting her head as she saw Chris slowly stand back up and stretch.

  “I’m ok! The trial ended being… Uh, lohan I thought. How long was I in here? The trial itself was five hours for me somehow.” Chris said.

  “F-Five hours? Yeah, you were here for thirty minutes, but not that much though,” said Vd.

  “Thirty minutes… Okay, that’s fair, I guess,” nodded Chris. “Anyways, the trial was insane! I think mine was crazier than yours!”

  “R-Really? What was it? Tell me!” Vd was a bit excited to learn about other trials.

  “Well…”

  Chris went on for ten minutes about what he saw and how everything happened. Vd was left shocked by all the things Chris got to do, and while he was given su arduous trial, Chris had a whole little adventure in another realm!

  “T-This is so unfair…”

  He dropped to the floor, menting how unfortunate he was; it was as if the game hated him and even made the trials, which were supposed to be fun, pure suffering for him.

  “Hahaha… Calm down; I mean, the st battle was super hard… I almost lost pletely back then.” Chris giggled a bit, feeling bad. “I’m ok now though. So let’s check what I got! Apparently there’s this score point system thing and… ah, there!”

  Ding!

  [gratutions, you have pleted the Css Rank Up Trial!]

  [You have earned a total of 430.000 Trial Score Points.]

  [You use these points to Rank Up your Css and Subcss by choosing {Spirit Blessings} from those you’ve helped.]

  [By buying these {Spirit Blessings} and infusing them into your Css and Subcss, they will automatically Rank Up.]

  [Showg {Spirit Blessings}…]

  

  {Spirit Blessing of Patience (Moth Fairies)} [Cost]: [100.000 Trial Score Points]

  {Spirit Blessing of Bravery (Beetle Fairies)} [Cost]: [110.000 Trial Score Points]

  {Spirit Blessing of Enduraone Spirits)} [Cost]: [120.000 Trial Score Points]

  {Spirit Blessing of Wisdom (Myid)} [Cost]: [130.000 Trial Score Points]

  {Spirit Blessing of Ce (Samander)} [Cost]: [150.000 Trial Score Points]

  “Oh wow! It’s also pretty unique pared to yours…” Chris cpped happily.

  “What?!” Paul gasped. “You get to choose Spirit Blessings? Damn…”

  Paul was beginning to think some Game Developer was Chris’ fan or something.

  -----

  Pach