'This is... my end?'

Feeling the heat as the entity which was too quick to see passed by him, the team leader shuddered on the spot as he could feel that the despair which he barely just lifted off his shoulders earlier fell back with double the weight. Truly, nothing but trouble happened since the very start of this sham of a mission!

It seemed like this 'Hope' might not necessarily be their hope, the whole mission once again had no meaning…

'Could it that the one behind the message is actually working with the enemy…?'

Simply asking himself this question, the team leader who felt insignificant after all he went through simply shrugged it off as there was no further reason to hurt his poor overloaded brain, the burning entity had already reached him, the only thing he could do was empty his mind and die in peace.

However!

Swish!

The moment he opened his eyes to face death bravely, the burning red object that could only be said to have been targeted at him a simple fraction of the second ago, swiftly avoided him as if it had a life of its own! Moreover, it seemed to have taken a few certain ferocious fellows as its target!

Roaaar!

Only after the screams of the gray-skinned chasers faded under the sounds of faint explosions mixed with dominant roars did the team leader once again come back to his senses and realize what just happened…

Most importantly, he finally started to see the shape of the burning red entity as well as its source…

'The is... the lege…'

Seeing that the source was moving towards him, he could only stop his thoughts once more and focus on how to deal with the identity of the source head-on.

`~~`~~`~~`

[ Interaction confirmed! Player Initiated quest 'Prophecy' has started! ]

'Hmmm?'

As if it was a plot that was already set in place, I immediately received a system notif as soon as I transferred my attention towards the source of the beastly voices!

��Not to mention that it's once again a completely new type of quest…'

No matter how much variety was taken into account when making this game, it was still a bit strange for a single player like me to continue getting different types of quests, especially when considering my gameplay time…

Of course, the most suspicious fact remained to be the timing of the quest. Ten minutes have hardly since my entry into this domain yet I already received a quest out of nowhere!

However, as I immediately checked the statuses of the quest triggering 'beasts', they definitely fitted their role, which was already apparent before I checked the actual quest details became visible…

[ 'Prophecy' (Player Initiated)

Quest Description:

Mysterious natives of the domain have received a 'Prophecy' of your arrival as their 'Hope' of salvation, you need to act on your designated role and show them a new path...

++ Quest is in sync with the main Quest 'Demons' advent' ]

'What a great welcome…'

[ Phase 1 of the quest is being created… ]

[ The first objective has been confirmed! ]

[ 'Prophecy' (Player Initiated)

Phase 1:

Your native guides have borne great trouble to reach the location of your descent, please quickly follow them to their 'Home' and help them along the way.

!Objective 1: it appears that your guides have been pursued by enemies that have lost all reason but killing their targets. Eliminate these threats or ensure the survival of your guides. (Bonus main quest info: the threats seem to possess the power of corruption.)

=Objective rewards:

- +20% of EP needed for the next level-up per threat eliminated.

- +50% of EP needed for next level-up for escorting the guides back to their 'Home'. ]

'Facing the Corrupted as soon as I took a few steps away from the door, truly a great welcome…'

Unlike the usual corrupted monsters that were inside dark gates who rose through the normal process of gate creation, these gray-skinned corrupted seemed to be completely different in essence, some of their features even seemed similar to the somewhat 'normal-looking' two that stood closer to me.

Obviously, this was either forced corruption or another method that the demons created to spread the power of corruption without bounds, just the thought of it made my mostly suppressed anger swell a bit…

Just as expected, it seemed like the demons of these domains had already moved past the preparation phase or had at least finished it recently, I was no longer free to play my cards to crush the seeds before they sprouted.

'I hoped that I would at least participate in the cleansing of another domain before things escalated to this stage…'

Nonetheless, it wasn't time to act emotionally just because of that, on the contrary, I had to act steadily in order not to compromise other possible approaches that were still plausible.

Various lines of actions were quickly processed in my mind as I turned my attention towards the unusual yet flustered 'guides'.

'The best option is to follow them to gather enough info even if I don't necessarily follow the quest, even the system pointed out they were friendly NPCs so that should be no problem…'

The description of the quest as a whole, its first phase, and even the reward obviously had various strange points that didn't make me want to trust it unconditionally, but the first objective seemed to align with my interests for now, so there was no harm in going along for the time being.

'Luckily, these Corrupted are barely on the level of peak low-tier demons…'

In comparison to the excessive reward of fixed EP bar filling, the strength of the Corrupted didn't have much to be said about it, so I immediately released the medium-sized Elemental Manifestation that I was building to quickly finish them off and make contact with the 'guides'!

Wasting no time, the flaming dragonoid dashed towards the screaming gray-skinned 'monsters' through the gap between the two 'guides', quickly getting rid of their beastly cries!

[ Objective 1's threat 'Corrupted#3' has been eliminated! ]

[ Objecti… ]

Not waiting for the system's spamming to reach its end, I took quick steps towards the 'guides' who seemed to be of quite the interesting species...