Is this really a Game?!

"Phantoms can really do all of that?" Reign asked Aethion who nodded his head.

"Yes, phantoms can be quite versatile, of course, one has to study and experiment with them in order to bring them to such a level."

"Is that why you never mentioned phantoms to me?" Reign asked as Aethion once again, nodded his head.

"Your way of utilizing soul power is different, you mostly use it in a brute-force kind of method, breaking through any barriers an opponent has placed and intruding upon their consciousness, utilizing the many souls you have taken to bombard an enemy with them, akin to how a necromancer of summoner would battle, or you do your best to draw their soul to yourself and then pummel them with our help when inside your consciousness."

Aethion stopped talking for a moment in order to take a breath before continuing his speech.

"You still have plenty to learn about utilizing soul power and improving your current fighting style when using it, learning new ways of utilizing soul power would not be good, it would increase your arsenal, making the soul-based attacks and techniques more varied, but what good is that if all of them are amateurish?"

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks, huh?" Shadow asked with a smirk as Reign and most of the others chuckled as well.

"Hmmm, I am not familiar with that phrase," Aethion said as Gabriel nodded his head.

"It's a quote, one that a famous martial artist once said, he said that he doesn't fear the man that has practiced 10 000 kicks, but the one that has practiced one kick 10 000 times." Reign said with a smile as Aethion nodded his head.

"It is exactly like that, you would do well to follow those words, a man who has done his utmost to hone one skill to its maximum will always be much more dangerous than a person who has just learned many," Aethion said in a serious tone as Reign nodded his head.

"I know, I know, but let's get back to the topic at hand, Gabriel is certain he has sensed the phantom before, and it was probably shrouding a human, how do we figure out who it was and when that was?" Reign asked as Aethion sighed and shook his head.

"There is no way to figure that out, that memory has already been interfered with, the phantom had done its job and made it so Gabriel cannot remember exactly who it was or when that was, which makes it impossible for him to ever remember."

"Of course, there is a chance to get into his psyche and try to get his memories back, but I would strongly advise against it as even Transcendents that are proficient with soul power would think twice before doing so."

"One mistake, one wrong move, and you could remove some memories by mistake, change some others, even damage the consciousness of the person."

Reign and the others all sighed as they realized that they were back at square one.

There was no way to figure out where the enemy was coming from, or who they were.

"So, what do we do next?" Shadow asked in a low tone as Reign and the others all stood quiet.

Reign took a moment to gather his thoughts, contemplating their next move. The enemy's ability to create soul phantoms and shield their operatives made them a formidable adversary, but Reign was determined to find a way to counter their tactics.

Maybe if he was fast enough to attack a phantom and get rid of it, he could preserve the mind of the spies sent by the opponent.

Aethion was not completely sure of it, as it did depend on how proficient the enemy was with the phantoms, as well as how powerful they were, but it should be doable.

As for finding the enemy out, learning who they were and where they were, well … that would be much more difficult.

"We continue with our mission to eradicate the corruption in the jungle," Reign said finally. "We need to gather more information and find clues that could lead us to the source of the corruption, we don't really have any other choice but to simply continue as we have."

"The people have been alerted and they will be alert as well, which means that we only need to focus on the jungle for now."

"Gabriel, if you do sense anything similar to the phantom in the future, tell us immediately, it is very important." Reign said as Gabriel nodded at him.

"Of course," Gabriel said with a nod of his head before disappearing, leaving Reign and the others alone in the underground area.

"How dangerous do you think the enemy is?" Reign suddenly asked Aethion who shook his head.

"It's difficult to determine that, after all, the enemy has only been using external power, the corruption, to do anything."

"If we are going to base it off the spy who had incredible stealth capabilities and the one that had made the phantoms, then we can say that the enemy definitely has a couple of dangerous individuals."

"The spy was probably just a pawn, not an important member of the enemy faction, otherwise they wouldn't have just sent him to spy on you from such a short distance, without even trying to first learn more about you and how dangerous you are."

"Of course, there is a chance that the guy was simply overconfident, that he believed too much in his stealth skills, and thus he paid the price, he got caught."

"Do you think the enemy did it on purpose so that we can be tricked into believing that … Malacai guy, was that what he said?" Tank asked as Reign nodded.

"That is possible, the enemy might have wanted us to capture the spy, to interrogate him, and to get all the wrong answers from him."

"We won't get anywhere by making all of these assumptions," Wolf said as he got up from his chair and stretched his arm a bit.

"The only thing we can do is continue, so let's do that, we continue hunting in the jungle, we continue becoming stronger and stronger, and then, even if the enemy has planned something, in the face of overwhelming power, all plans and tricks will simply be useless."

"He is true, the most important thing is for you to continue growing stronger," Aethion said before smiling at them all.

"Good luck to you."

With those words, Aethion disappeared as well, leaving them alone.

And just like that, a couple of days passed.

Nothing happened.

Absolutely nothing happened.

There were no more corrupted areas that appeared in the jungle, there were no sightings of any corrupted areas appearing anywhere else either, and nothing out of place happened at all.

It was … normal, regular, just as always, minus the disappearance of the corrupted zones that had not spread at all.

Reign and the others knew that something was up, that the enemy was planning something, but they had no idea what.

Whatever it was, it was definitely not going to be good.

Ever since they had taken down the Spawn of Corruption and captured the spy, the enemy was simply too quiet. They might know just how powerful Reign and the others were, thus they knew that if they continued as before, they would gain nothing, they would only be making Reign and the others more powerful since they would be getting exp for taking down the corrupted areas.

The group had also gained some new items, although they only managed to get 3 Rank SSS items from the Obsidian Chests, and of course, as expected, Beast got one from the chest.

He managed to pull out a cape, a Rank SSS cape, one that can be attached to any armor and gives more defense, more mana to the user, and the main function of the cape, the ability to fly around slowly.

With Beast's wind manipulation, the ability to fly was actually boosted, instead of being able to fly around slowly, Beast was capable of easily flying around at high speed, which made him a menace to fight against.

One other Rank SSS item was drawn by Wolf actually, and he managed to draw a sword. The sword was quite good and was given to Mia as Reign wanted nothing to do with it. His swords were fine as they were, and he already had a Rank Z sword that he would use in the future.

Not to mention that he wanted Mia to have a stronger weapon so that she could more easily defend herself during battle.

The final Rank SSS item was drawn by Aelrinder, who was surprised to find a new spear in his hands.

The spear was of course taken by Aelrinder, who was overjoyed at getting a new weapon as the new spear was much more powerful than his old one.

The rest just took the Rank SS items they got, some sold them, and some equipped them.

And then, after about a week of nothing happening, something did happen.

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