Franca.
The royal palace.
"Yes, Your Highness Rosalind..."
The guard lowered her head and replied, "But the king we encountered was rather different."
"Different?"
Rosalind rubbed her brow and asked, "In what way, exactly?"
The guard answered quickly, "According to the reports the Third Legion sent back before its annihilation, the legion encountered an intelligent, agile humanoid monster. It possessed terrifying attack power and concealment abilities, but the king in the Nine Provinces was reportedly a mountain of flesh.
"A mountain of flesh forcibly molded together from countless masses of writhing flesh, wrecked steel warships, and whale skeletons. It also produced countless scions whose tangible bodies were made from the corpses of frontline monsters and whose intangible bodies were made of shadows. They possessed the ability to inflict mental contamination over a wide area."
"...A mountain of flesh? Scions?"
Rosalind's breath caught. "Then how are they doing? No... since they could warn us, that proves their situation is completely under control, or even resolved... so they resolved it?"
"We don't know the specifics."
The guard shook her head. "The Nine Provinces' Foreign Affairs Department only provided this basic information, but according to reports from our intelligence personnel... not long ago, in Sea City in the Nine Provinces, countless players witnessed Lu Xiu leading an elite squad into the monster Assimilation Zone. They were also wearing complete sets of equipment from the Monster Hunter instance. Shortly after they entered the Assimilation Zone, anomalies began appearing there one after another. An instance Lu Xiu had previously constructed seemed to appear in Sea City-a towering ancient royal city, accompanied by a setting sun. Finally, there was even an eclipse...
"The players of the Nine Provinces were clearly very familiar with the instance that appeared in reality. Apparently, it was the team battle stage