.......

Going back at the time at Shin's side, inside the core chamber of the corrupted nest, Immortal threw the huge blazing black spear at Shin's direction, saying, "I'm pretty sure that I can create an excellent undead monster with that body of yours."

Shin stared at the incoming spear with calm eyes, muttering to himself with a bitter smile on his lips, "Looks like this will be my first defeat."

The tip of the blazing black spear was just about to hit his head, when time seemed to slow down from Shin's perspective. It continued to slow down until it felt like everything had completely stopped moving.

Shin wasn't sure if it was just some special effects of the game when a player died, since he had never experienced this before. After all, he still hadn't died inside the game. But this was not how it was supposed to be, based on the videos that he had watched from the forums. All he knew was that darkness would blanket the players' sight.

There was also a probability that this might be a delusion of his, as it was his first time experiencing this kind of situation. He was not sure what this actually was.

While these thoughts were running in his mind, an unknown yet familiar voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"But, is it really your first time?"

Shin's thoughts came into a sudden halt when that voice sounded out of nowhere. He tried to find the owner of the voice by turning his body around even though he knew that he only had a little bit of strength left.

But strange enough, he managed to turn around without having much of a problem. What's more, he discovered after looking back, something that made him even more confused.

The world had turned pitch black, devoid of anything, aside from darkness. And Shin was standing in the middle of it. It was as if he was thrown in the abyss once again.

He tilted his head to the side, thinking about what was happening. If he had to guess based on what had happened, then he might be dead already. But what about the voice that he'd heard earlier? Was it just a figment of his imagination? And what about the system? Why didn't it notify about his death? What about the notification about his revival?

Questions after questions popped in Shin's head. What was happening made his mind a mess. Though, if anyone else was put in his place, they might've felt the same.

"Heh! Looks like you really did it this time."

The voice sounded once again, echoing. When Shin heard that, he couldn't help but turn his body repeatedly to look for the source of the voice. It was fruitless; he couldn't find it all. He didn't know why but he kept having a feeling that he knew the owner of this voice; it was too familiar to him. Weirdly enough, he also felt that he hadn't heard this voice before.

"Have you?"

The voice seemed to disagree with his last thought.

Shin knitted his brows and asked. "Who are you?"

An immediate reply was thrown to him. "So~ you really did erase them and threw it all in the back of your head just to forget about it."

That answer made him even more confused. And before he even managed to say anything more, the voice immediately continued. "Heh! But if that was the case, why are you here again? I see, you are still a coward just like before. After all of those big talks, you are still nothing but a mere weakling, nothing more."

Shin was already raising his brows as he heard what was this voice blabbering. He couldn't understand him at all. "I am asking, who are you? Don't tell me you are an inner demon. Heh! This is my first-time hearing about it, if that was the case. An inner demon in virtual world might really be something. Even if I am not familiar in the virtual world, I still know that it is impossible for an inner demon to manifest in this world, due to them being an inner spiritual being of a person, instead of a part of their minds."

The voice seemed to chuckle after hearing what Shin had said. It was as if he had heard a quite good joke. The voice replied once again, in a tone that was a little cold, "If you know that it is impossible to have an inner demon, then why bother asking about it? I see that you are still an idi*t just like that time."

This time, the voice didn't give Shin time to talk and immediately resumed talking. "I still don't understand why you made that choice, but it seems that you are still no different from before, even after saying all those words. I can't afford to be disappointed about it, since I was kind of expecting that."

"If only you'd listened at that that time, then you wouldn't be this weak now. You might have even achieved something that you couldn't even imagine, as of now. Yet, you just threw me in this place after I helped you with everything! Do you take me as some disposable tool that you could throw away after being used? And you even had the guts to forget about everything?"

"Heh! Look at the irony, you are back in this place once again and asking for yet another help. What a coward you are. Always running from something that you couldn't beat. Heh! That's why you are always losing something so dear to you…"

The voice continued to chatter but Shin already couldn't hear him. He was too confused about whatever this voice was saying. For some unknown reason, he felt that his chest was being stabbed by something whenever the voice pointed out something. Along with that, his head was suddenly assaulted by an intense headache.

Shin was already rolling on the 'ground' because of the unbearable pain when the voice suddenly stopped talking. Then a silhouette of a person suddenly appeared beside him and looked down at him.

And after a few moments, the silhouette spoke. "You're still not ready to remember the truth and receive it, huh?"

The silhouette paused for a moment as if it was thinking about something. "But since things have already reached this point, I may as well take advantage of it and take a look outside. What's more, I have a reputation to hold. I can't take a loss yet. At least, not until this idi*t beats me."

Then the that silhouette suddenly disappeared once again and left Shin lying there all by himself.

...

Going back outside.

In the core chamber of the corrupted nest, the blazing black spear was already upon Shin when 'Time' started moving once again.

But before it managed to reached him, Shin's body suddenly turned into an illusionary figure letting the blazing black spear pass through his body.

Swoosh!

Boom!

An explosion was created when the black spear collided with the wall of the chamber, and along with it, cloud of smoke and dust covered Shin.

This action was quite fast, that was why Immortal didn't notice it immediately. His eyebrows only furrowed when he realized that the system didn't notify him about Shin's death.

He squinted his eyes and looked at the cloud of dust and waited for it to settle. And after a few moments of waiting, he finally saw a silhouette standing at the middle of it.

'He survived it? So, he still has a little strength to fight back?' He thought to himself when he saw that. He planned to attack once again but quickly abandoned the idea when Shin came into his sight once again.

It was because he felt that the Shin standing few distances away from him was somewhat different from the one that he had fought earlier. He was not sure if it was because his senses with his clone and his actual body were quite different or something else. But he knew this for sure, the feeling that he was getting now was entirely different to the previous one.

If the Shin from before was like a sheathed blade that could hide his intentions to kill unless he was pulled out of the sheath, then this 'Shin' that was currently standing before him, was like an unsheathed sword that was pointed at him. He could fell the overwhelming threat of death even if just he was standing there. What's more, the aura that he was getting from this guy was also completely different from earlier, it was as if death was always looming around this guy.

While Immortal was pondering about this, 'Shin' was currently checking out the skills that he had on his arsenal. "Hmm… these skills are quite decent enough, but unfortunately I am not good at dealing with swords."

He took a look at the scythe that he was currently holding and added, "At least this weapon suits me a little better. And these magical stuffs are quite interesting too. I may give it a try."

Immortal came back to his senses and muttered to himself. "That was not important. I need to end this as soon as possible before the War God arrives here."

But surprisingly, Shin seemed to hear what he had muttered and said to him. "Heh! Aren't you being a little too confident? Do you honestly believe that you could end me in that state of yours?'

Immortal was taken aback at what he said. He also become a little confused hearing that. Shin, on the other hand, suddenly started chuckling when he saw that reaction from the former.

Then he looked at the Lich God and said while looking straight at the eyes of his opponent, "Heh! Don't try to deny it. My eyes are always saying the truth. And from what I can see, your body is in a very weakened state. Hmm… Why is that? Is it because of the death of your clone? Or because of the forceful teleportation in here? Nah~! It may be both."

This time, Immortal was really shocked at what Shin had said. This guy's attitude was very different compared to before. Plus, what he'd said was on point. 'What's with this?'

Even if Immortal was quite curious about it, he didn't have the leisure to think about it and said, "You are quite sharp, huh? But that's not important anymore. You are going to die anyway, even if I have this little strength."

After that, Immortal summoned another blazing black spear before sending it at Shin almost instantly.

Shin seemed to smirk behind his mask and sneered at Immortal. "Heh, I wonder about that."

He held the scythe with both of his hands while gathering some water/ice elemental mana on it. At the same time, he took a single step forward with his left foot while twisting his waist in clockwise direction together with the scythe.

And before the black spear managed to reach the five-meter mark away from him, Shin immediately turned his waist to the opposite direction while swinging the scythe at the same time.

With that, a crescent energy wave with silver color was also sent forward to greet the incoming black spear.

'Slayer Skill: Half-Moon Slash'

Swoosh! Boom!

Surprisingly, the two opposing powers were of equal power despite Shin's skill being of lower rank than the skill sent by Immortal. The latter was clearly aware why. It was because Shin had infused enough Mana on that skill to maximize its potential so that it could counter Immortal's skill.

With just that brief exchange of skills, Immortal sensed that he was battling an entirely new guy. If the Shin earlier was too good at physical skills and simple magical tricks, then this guy in front of him now was someone that seemed to be knowledgeable in terms of magic.

'What happened to him? Or is this his real strength?' Immortal was baffled; confused at what was happening. This was completely something unexpected.

Shin on the other hand was quite busy checking out the scythe at his hands, muttering to himself, "Hoh~! This is interesting. It is an entirely different type of energy compared to the ones in the real world, yet they are also somewhat similar."

Then he licked his lips before turning his head at Immortal, mumbling, "Well… for now, let's see if I can also learn how to properly utilized these energies from this guy."

…..