At this moment, in the forest near the coastal area.
A lot of people are moving around as they scavenged through the forest. They are people from the seven star alliance, solar sect and other alliances under them. The whole forest is a mess.
One of the elders of the seven star alliance is also there and he seemed to have spotted something in the forest.
“There is a group here. I am going in to check.”
He yelled at his group before he jumped off of a tree. He looked at the players in front of him. He is very familiar with the faces of Sam and the rest of the players by now and he looked at the same faces in front of him.
But he is not sure if they are real. He just aimed his hand and threw out a wind blade.
The blade cleanly cut through the seven players and their faces and bodies disappeared. In their place there are a bunch of scrappy metal puppets that are destroyed by the windblade.
“Another false set.”
He yelled in frustration.
The reason there are so many people in this forest is because, the largest chunk of the puppets that Sam sent actually landed in various areas of the coastal forest. They not only land here, they even spread far and wide as if they are really escaping.
Just this elder actually came across over half a dozen sets of puppets.
He just left.
But as soon as he left to a fair distance away, a faint shadow seemed to have came out of one of the puppets and it zoomed towards the other six puppets as if it is collecting something.
Soon, the shadow disappeared from there and reappeared in a different location. Out of thin air, a new set of seven puppets appeared and they all moved towards a certain direction in unison.
They direction they are going is actually, the coast, the sea.
On their way, another elder found the puppets and destroyed them. After he left, the same thing repeated again. Another set of puppet emerged and all of them started walking towards the coast.
This repeated until they reached the sea.
After they arrived at the sea, the puppets disappeared and in their place, all seven players appeared.
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Sam looked at the rest of the players and smiled.
“I think we can handle the rest from here, right?”
The rest of the players couldn’t help but smile. They really managed to get here without anyone noticing. There is no one in the surroundings because this is one area that didn’t have any ping.
If Sam was in the sect leaders’ place he would have definitely suspected why this one area didn’t have any ping.
But these people didn’t because they are sure that Sam and the players wouldn’t just go to the enemy land, even if they wanted to get away.
He took advantage of that and arrived here.
“From now on, you are all by yourself. I am going to take my leave.”
Sam said and whipped out Harbinger before he soared towards the sea.
The players all looked at each other.
“Bye guys, see you at the location.”
Akhil said as he waved his land, a large turtle appeared out of nowhere and appeared in the sea. The turtle is so large that Akhil comfortably sat in its mouth and it swam away in the water.
The rest of the players started taking out their own means and made their move.
Meanwhile, within the coastal forest, something that no one noticed is happening. From the scrap metals of these puppets, dozens of seeds fell all over.
The seeds spread almost the entire forest because of the explosions and they quickly seeped into the soil as if they have a consciousness of their own.
And within a few minutes, they started sprouting and they started sucking the vitality from their surroundings. Until they grew their roots properly, everything within a few meters around them became barren.
Then, the roots dug deeper and deeper as they started absorbing the vitality from the soil. But the spread didn’t stop.
The roots kept on moving and if one noticed they would understand that the direction they are moving is towards the sea.
At the same time, the vine itself is not staying idle. It is growing at an incredibly fast pace as it mixed with the vegetation and soon it started devouring the beasts, big and small within the surroundings.
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The same thing is happening everywhere in the forest silently.
But none of them noticed.
Meanwhile, Sam felt the cool ocean breeze hit his face as he made his way to the location. He is not at this maximum speed, but he is still faster than everyone of the players.
After a few minutes, he arrived at the location. But he was surprised to see that there is nothing there. It is just the sea. The vast blue sea. There is no landmass in the sight. Even with his enhanced sight of an Astral Plane cultivator, he couldn’t see anything in the horizon.
As he waited there, soon Akhil arrived. He stood on top of the turtle and looked at Sam.
“What is this? Why is there nothing here?”
Sam just shrugged and shook his head. Even he doesn’t know.
They waited and soon the remaining players arrived one by one. After everyone arrived as if they triggered something, the water started rumbling.
A huge vortex appeared and soon a landmass the size of a house started ascending from underneath the water.
Sam is surprised. Because, when he arrived here, he obviously checked under the water. He didn’t ignore such a deliberate spot. But he didn’t sense anything at all.
But this landmass appeared out of nowhere.
After examining the mass from the air, Sam landed on it first.
The other players followed.
After they all landed, there a voice appeared in their heads.
“Congratulations on clearing the Hell training. You are now going to be moved to the next round of this game.
Now you are going to play the game of war. All the best.”
As the voice rung in their heads, they disappeared from the landmass. It’s a space gate and it took them away from there.
The next moment, all the players appeared in what seemed like a large room dungeon. The stone walls are full of moss as water dripped down. They all felt a sense of serenity in there.
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The room is massive. So massive, that Sam is sure that a small size village could be put in there.
But that massive room is also not something that attracted their gaze. It was the water fall on the other side of the room and what the water is falling on that captured their attention.
There is a massive statue of Kartikeya on that side.
And the water is falling on it with such force that they could feel the vibrations from that far even without their senses enhanced.
The water looked like it is trying to challenge the statues existence there.
As for the statue itself, it looked like it could take on not just the waterfall but everything else in this world. There is a sense of rigid stability being displayed.
As they got lost in the beauty of the scene, the time froze and Kartikeya’s projection appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of them with a smile.
“Hello kids. Long time no see.
Congratulations on your Hell training. Not a lot of people can endure and come out on top. But you did. Good job.”
The players looked at him in surprise, but it is also kind of expected after they saw the statue.
Kartikeya didn’t mind their silence and spoke with a smile on his face.
“You must have already heard the announcement saying, the next round of the game is a war game.
You are going to participate in four different types of war and your participation and achievements in these wars will allow you to advance further.
From today onwards, you can consider your battle training as officially over. At least the training provided from the gods.
And throughout the war game, your movements are not restricted and there are no power restrictions and there are no travel restrictions and the final goal of this war game round is this.”
He waved his hand and a bunch of projections appeared. Each one has a mountain range and there are a total of twelve.
“These are the Demi God academies. You might not know anything about them now. But everyone within the Divine Plane would dream of attending there. You will no more details in the future.
These Demi God academies are established by the twelve gods that are part of the game. You can only be a student in one academy, but you can receive honorary status from the other academies if you wished to do so.
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Anyway, you will know when you get there. They are still far away.
Now let’s talk about the immediate challenge you have to face.”
