Is this really a Game?!



[ You will be sent to a different world for the evolution challenge in 3 hours. ]

"So it's one of those again, huh?" Shadow asked before yawning.

"Will we be sent to the same planets again?" Beast asked as he put a piece of meat in his mouth.

Compared to how they acted in the past, now, the evolution challenges did little to throw them off their guard. After all, they had already done multiple and had been sent to different planets twice.

"Who knows, they might send us to the same planets we visited before, or a new one, the system never specifies that," Wolf said before taking a glass of water.

"Yeah, but I doubt I will be at the same place at the very least, the overall strength of the people there is simply not high enough to warrant a challenge," Shadow said as he looked to the side.

"What do you think, Reign?"

"Well … I was sent to the same place twice, the first time I was there, they only had a handful of Tier I combatants, and the next time, they already had some Tier III combatants as well, and the enemy we faced was a completely different one from before."

"During the first challenge, I helped them fight back some kingdoms that had attacked them, but the next time, it was demons and humans that had been changed that I fought against, and they were much more powerful."

"Some of the people I knew from the first challenge had already died when I arrived, and some were possessed." Reign said as he thought back on Lieara who had been possessed and changed to become the Saintess of the demons. Her body had been left in the capital of Riplas, and Reign doubted that he would ever see her again as the fragments of the soul that were still with him were not healing, even Aethion said that to do such a thing was well above the scope of a Transcendent.

Shadow and Wolf noticed the slight change in Reign's expression as he finished the sentence, but they said nothing. Each of them had gone through different things during their evolution challenges, and it wasn't like they were going to speak about everything that occurred there.

"Well, I hope I get sent back to the planet I was previously at, I quite liked it there." Tank said as he picked up a large piece of meat before eating it, ripping it apart with his teeth.

"You really have to learn to eat differently," Shadow said with a sigh before leaning back on the chair.

"Well, I guess the only thing we can do is make sure the territory is completely safe right now and notify the top teams, we don't have to hide the fact that we are going away this time as we don't have any enemies left in the region."

"Yeah, I doubt they will come across any problems while we're gone, but even if they do, the tree should be enough to defend them, even more than 100 Tier IV monsters were barely able to leave a few cracks on it, so I doubt anything near the cities can destroy it." Shadow said as he stretched a bit.

Upon finishing their breakfast, Reign and the others quickly called for the top teams and told them to notify the people that they would be leaving in 3 hours before starting their 'inspection'.

They visited their bases, the two cities, as well as their allied territories and made sure that nothing was out of place before returning to Doncaster. The inspection didn't take them too long, about 2 hours, which meant they still had an hour before being teleported.

Many people could be seen scrambling around as they were shocked to hear the news. The first time Reign and the others had gone to a different planet, a similar thing had happened, but they didn't go the next two evolutions after that, so to hear that they would go to another planet after the previous challenge was also one that sent them to another planet was not expected.

They believed that there was a pattern to the challenges that the system gave, but unfortunately, that was not really the case. As for the ones that were affected by the news, they didn't really care that much.

This was the third time they were being sent to a different planet, so they already knew what to expect. A problem would be found at the place they were sent, and they would get a mission to fix the said problem, that was pretty much it.

Of course, it didn't mean that things would be easy as Reign had almost died during the last challenge. If not for the demon getting a bit too cocky and impatient, thus trying to forcibly reach the next realm, Reign would have had a much harder time defeating him, and he might have even lost the battle in the end.

The second part of the challenge was not counted as Reign believed wholeheartedly that the only reason he had been sent there twice was because of the queen. It was too big of a coincidence that a being from the abyss, one of the rare ones in the universe that had a connection with the Nephilims as her race had, was there for his challenge.

She acted as a sort of trigger for his racial awakening, and Reign was certain the system had done it on purpose. Both of the challenges had been a well-thought-out plan to not only pressure him and get him to become stronger, but also to unlock his true potential. 

Since the queen was gone, he doubted that he would be sent to Riplas again. The areas around it were simply not enough for him to be pressured, and he doubted that yet another issue as big or bigger than the demon infestation had occurred near the kingdom, which might have even become an empire at this point.

He didn't know if this was the case for everybody, however. From what he knows, they were all placed in situations and planets that would bring them benefits and improve their abilities and the way they fought, especially Laura who had been sent to a demon-infested planet twice so far.

One thing he was certain of, was that wherever he was sent, it would be because the system deemed it as the best place for him to develop further. He just didn't know in what way the system would try and get him to develop now.

The system was very interested in him, or to be better said, it was very interested in the Nephilims who were one of the races in the universe that existed outside the scope of the system. The system knew nothing about them, and Reign knew that it must be trying to get any sort of information in any way he can.

Why was the ancestor of the Nephilims, the oldest and strongest being alive, Raziel, on bad terms with the system?

Why was Cyrus, the Will of Earth, hostile to it as well?

Just what had happened all those years ago when Raziel had gone against what seemed to have been almost the entirety of the universe?

Reign had so many questions, but he got no answers, and that was one of the things that really made him confused and a bit apprehensive. Raziel and Cyrus had both told him not to trust the system, and Reign hadn't allowed the system to get information about his Nephilim form at all because of that.

He didn't know why he trusted them, but he guessed that he might learn of that later. After all, from what Reign had seen during his visions, he was pretty sure that Raziel was not a bad guy, but something was stuck in the back of his mind though.

He was sure he had seen a lot more visions, but he couldn't remember them. Each time he tried to, it was foggy and he got nothing from it. He wondered why it was so, but for now, he knew that there was nothing he could do about it.

Under the gazes of thousands of players that had come to see them off, Reign and the others were covered by a bright light before disappearing from the center of Doncaster. Their challenge had arrived.

Reign opened his eyes and stared ahead.

'Well, I'm definitely not back in Riplas.' 

Pitch-black soil and cracks were around him as a scorching temperature was present in the place he was at. There was no life around him, the soil was burned, seemingly dead, any form of plant life gone and nothing except for the black soil was visible to him.

"Reign?" A voice was suddenly heard behind Reign, and when he turned around, his eyes opened wide in shock as he stared ahead at the person that was with him. He blinked a couple of times and even looked around before finally opening his mouth.

"Laura?"