The Hunt Begins

After Fran killed an Proxy, she watched as the mangled, blood-soaked body began to fade into the distance, and she knew that an Proxy had truly left the stage here.

She rubbed her baseball bat, which was now glowing red—a sign of the Sunflame Arts she had used.

"These Proxy have some really strong abilities. Why did I only get healing..." Fran complained about the Proxy abilities she had received.

"I almost killed him in one hit. Who knows what would have happened after he became invisible? Luckily, I thought of the Light Prayer."

"We also need to make more use of the Sunflame Arts to try and kill the opponent in one strike, otherwise those Proxy always have strange abilities."

Fran learned a lesson from the battle: use powerful Arts to try and kill your opponent in one go; once the opponent is dead, you won't need to use any more abilities.

In the battle just now, if she had used Sunflame, [Forced Fusion], or elemental magic, she might have been able to instantly kill her opponent. But she just couldn't resist the urge to test the power of this baseball bat.

"Just be more careful next time." She concluded the debriefing of the battle.

She didn't dwell on the illusory corpse, but instead looked up at the sky, where the paths had previously guided her to different areas.

But after receiving Zali's help, she saw small yellow spheres and large bright red spheres scattered across the sky.

These two terms refer to the positions of the Proxy and the positions of the three smaller Trial. The latter three are also distinguished by color, with the brightest red being the third Trial and the darkest red being the first Trial.

The directions indicated by these spheres all point to the goals Fran needs to achieve in this Trial; she cannot overlook any of them.

Fran let her baseball bat hang down naturally and began to observe the direction indicated by the spheres in the sky. After blinking, she saw that several of the yellow spheres had changed position.

"I just killed one, and there are still twelve yellow spheres above, which means there are twelve more Proxy left."

She then looked at the faintest red sphere, which was the area of the first Trial.

Zali also told her the details of the first Trial, and that once she arrived there, she estimated that she could pass it in just a few seconds thanks to the Sunflame Arts she had improved using the Panel.

So the first Trial, for Fran, was one that she could Trial simply by walking there and clicking on it.

Along Fran's path to the first Trial, two small yellow spheres were slowly moving.

"Go here first, eliminate these two Proxy on the way, then head to the first Trial, and finally, those three Proxy in the area above the first Trial..."

Fran had planned her route and, without wasting a moment, sped towards the nearest yellow sphere.

"This feeling is like clearing question marks when playing a single-player RPG game back in the day," Fran couldn't help but complain as they traveled.

"Why are you trying to kill me? Isn't this Trial in the Spirit Realm? Everyone just needs to pass the Trial to advance..."

Before the voice could finish speaking, it was interrupted by a Water Arrow that fell from the sky. The Water Arrow was three meters long and passed right through the body of the Trial participant.

"Sorry, you can only blame your bad luck. Why did you get Trial Key that corresponds to this Trial?"

Heather stood at a distance, watching the Spirit Realm Traveler's body become ethereal. With a flick of her right hand, the Water Arrow vanished into thin air.

After dealing with the person she had finally encountered, Heather looked around at the desolate landscape and couldn't help but sigh.

"How much longer are we going to search? I've been searching for ages and only found this one person. Didn't I remember the Divine Oracle said there were at least a hundred Trial participants? How long will this take?"

Heather gazed at the pitch-black sky and couldn't help but sigh. Just as she was about to continue walking, a heavy footstep grew louder.

"Who is it?" Heather immediately turned her body towards the direction from which the footsteps came and saw a familiar figure.

The person was dressed in a leather outfit, which was too large. Their hands looked even smaller inside the wide sleeves, and their pants were clearly ill-fitting. Apart from their face and neck, no skin was exposed.

Heather looked at the other person's grayish-yellow hair, pursed her lips, and then said:

"Oh, it's you? Rachel, that explains why your footsteps were so loud, but I didn't see anything huge."

Rachel smiled, placed her hands on her abdomen, crossed her arms, and then said:

"Heather, what a coincidence, I never expected to run into you."

Rachel's heavy footsteps were due to the Elephant of Mountains, the Deity the other person worshipped.

According to Heather, Rachel, as the Proxy of the Elephant of Mountains, is said to weigh more than a mountain when the other party fully activates the Proxy's power.

This ability is exceptional even among the Proxy, especially at the First Order. It is said that Rachel relied on this ability to almost never lose when facing Proxy of other Deity.

Although Heather didn't want to admit it, the truth was that she really couldn't defeat her opponent; the power granted by the Deity was simply too strong.

After exchanging pleasantries, Heather suddenly said:

"By the way, Rachel, how many of those Trial participants did you encounter? I searched for ages before I finally found one."

"Not a single one was found."

"Ah?!"

Heather scratched her head, then spread her hands and said:

"How long are we going to search? It's so boring here, I want to get back as soon as possible."

Heather was met with a slow, hesitant reply from Rachel.

"Why the rush... As long as that final Trial beam doesn't appear in our sky, we can go wherever we want from here."

The beam of light that Rachel was pointing to would light up after the third Trial began, to remind everyone present that someone was defending the arena.

Rachel showed no sign of haste or anxiety. She looked around with great interest at the reddish-brown earth that stretched as far as the eye could see, as if it were some kind of beautiful scenery.

Heather knew that this was just the other person's nature. Followers of the Elephant of Mountains were like that; they did everything slowly and had a different aesthetic sense than others. For example, they liked to appreciate things that Heather herself didn't find beautiful at all.

She knew that if she asked now what was so interesting about this land, the other person would launch into a long, detailed account of the grandeur of these earthen continents...

So Heather wisely didn't bring up that, and instead asked Rachel about something else.

"By the way, Rachel, was this how it was when you came to this Trial last time?"

After receiving this mission, Heather even spoke with Rachel and was told that she had participated in a similar Trial before.

As is well known, the followers of the Elephant of Mountains have a slow pace, and this is also true for advancement. This is one of the reasons why Rachel has not been promoted for several years. Of course, the main reason is that when she participated in the Trial, she had just been promoted to Formal Rank, so naturally she could not continue to advance so quickly.

"It wasn't like this last time, was it?" Rachel said slowly, her eyes fixed on a small mound in the distance, her gaze sweeping from her feet.

"I remember last time I was surrounded by ten Trial participants as soon as I arrived, and it took me a while to deal with them."

"I soon encountered other Proxy, who also said they were surrounded by many Trial participants, until finally several Proxy from a distance arrived."

"I think we're one of those Proxy 've been thrown far away. There aren't many people around us, but the other Proxy are probably surrounded by crowds."

Heather's eyes lit up after hearing this, and then she said...

"Do you know where the other Proxy are? Or where you were besieged last time? We can go there..."

"I have no idea."

"Didn't you come here before? You should know the way."

"It's all reddish-brown mud here, and there aren't even any road signs. How am I supposed to know where I am?"

Rachel's words left Heather speechless; she opened her mouth wide, but managed to utter only two sentences.

"Let's go together and go find them."

"Good."

Fran arrived in front of a palace built of blue stone bricks; this was the location of the first Trial.

Her baseball bat still glowed slightly red, a lingering warmth from her recent use of the Sunflame Arts.

She has already killed two more Proxy, and now she only has ten Proxy left to kill.

On her way here, she casually killed two Proxy without even knowing what their abilities were, simply by stabbing them to death with Sunflame.

To be honest, if every Proxy she encountered afterward ended up alone like this, then passing this Trial would have been a breeze for her. But...

"Why are there several yellow dots touching each other?" Fran looked up at the sky and frowned.

At this moment, Fran could see two groups of two yellow dots gathered together and moving slowly in the sky. Although the other yellow dots had not yet gathered together, several of them were already very close.

This is not good news for Fran. Perhaps she will no longer be able to continue hunting down and delaying the Proxy, and will have to face multiple Proxy gathered together.

"Two together are fine; I can kill one first and then fight the other. But if three team up, that would be troublesome."

"By then, I might have to infiltrate as Proxy," Fran began planning her next move.