MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

Zahra used a skill, surrounding Alex, herself, Old Man Zang, and the real Yue in glowing runes of the life element. Then, with a calm yet chilling smile, she told everyone present.

"I just invited their deaths."

The Apothecary, startled by her declaration and the sudden phenomenon, immediately tried to strike Zahra down.

Yet no matter how many attacks he unleashed, Zahra healed within seconds, and worse still, none of his blows could kill any of those protected by her runes.

Realizing something was terribly wrong, the Apothecary attempted to negotiate, but it was already too late. Seconds later, a sound like shattering glass rang out.

Space itself was torn apart, and from the rift stepped a man whose aura was so oppressive that Alex could not compare it to anything he had ever sensed.

The man was none other than Vasticus Icarah, the Redeemer of the Benighted Tower.

At Zahra's command, he slaughtered the Apothecary and the Immortal Phoenix Sect elders with ease, then even presented Alex with a complete memory shard of the Sanguine Avatar Technique.

The ordeal ended with the Immortal Phoenix Sect suffering devastating losses for daring to provoke Zahra, or more precisely, the Drakaryx Clan, one of the three great clans whose authority rivaled, if not surpassed, that of the three empires.

The fact that Vasticus, the second seat of the Drakaryx Clan, had personally come to carry out Zahra's wishes as though she were his superior was shocking.

As the second seat of power, only two individuals in the entire clan officially outranked him, and perhaps, in truth, only the clan leader himself could command him.

For Zahra to hold such influence meant she was someone extraordinary, and as for her importance, Alex did not know, nor did he wish to find out.

Their paths parted with Zahra's haunting words: "If only we had met a little sooner." That single sentence etched itself into Alex's mind, the memory of the mysterious girl with strange powers lingering no matter how hard he tried to push it away.

The silver lining was that, after two months of effort, Alex had succeeded in creating two perfect clones. With time, he also learned to let both avatars act independently while roaming freely, allowing him to pursue three separate goals simultaneously.

The first of his avatars, Aeon, stayed at the Starfall Sect to keep growing his sword skills. His second avatar, disguised as the Hidden One, joined the Magi Empire's Thirteenth Legion to approach Lady Elara.

With his avatars occupied, Alex decided to pursue another lead personally.

Alex recalled a grimoire he had once stolen in the Ancient World from Astovian Gold, the ancestor of Morgan, the merchant of the Gold Empire.

Though Alex had originally taken it to complete a legacy artifact, the grimoire also contained a secret: the location of a hidden time treasure buried within the Ancestral Realm.

Following its clues, Alex arrives at an ancient dragon tomb and is drawn into a special trial that is activated only for those with sufficient talent in the element of time.

After solving intricate riddles and overcoming one trial after another, Alex finally obtained a unique, gradeless mask known as Revery. This relic granted him the power to peer into the past, at the cost of reversing his own age, one day for every day he glimpsed.

This side effect in turn bestowed a broken ability: the power to reset any skill's cooldown, restore his mana and mental strength, and even step back from the brink of death.

The price was to erase minutes to hours of his life.

Alex lost his Hidden One avatar after a brief incident with the Sin Champion of Pride. Since he had already completed the tedious work of climbing through the Magi Empire's military ranks, he decided to replace the Hidden One himself.

Not long after, the Magi Empire declared war on the Skaven, the ratling race, and the Thirteenth Legion was ordered to cleanse the land of Vozentar, where one of the ratling's major clans resided.

At first, no reason was given for the war. But the truth soon revealed itself. When the legion descended upon the Clan Venenox in Vozentar, they encountered their king, Ratanak.

The ratlings had always been regarded as a bottom-tier race: weak, numerous, and valuable only as laborers. But the appearance of a Rat King changed everything.

Because a Rat King was no mere title for the strong, it was a unique organism, one that was a myth, that commanded absolute authority over all Skaven. With their king's arrival, the once docile race transformed, as billions of Skaven grew fiercer, stronger, and more violent, their loyalty absolute.

Thus, the Ratanak Empire was born, and its king declared war upon the Magi Empire.

In their first clash, Ratanak himself annihilated the assembled forces, slaughtering tens of thousands of soldiers and even several of their commanders.

Alex survived the chaos and managed to save many of his men. However, like the few other survivors, he and his battalion leader were dragged into a rift that hurled them into an unknown region of the Ancestral Realm.

But Ratanak was not the only new threat. He was one of three calamities that made their presence known to the world.

Ratanak plunged the Magi Empire into bloody war. In the Cultivator Domain, the work of the Mad Apothecary resurfaced, unleashing hordes of twisted mutants, spreading chaos and devastation.

Even the Empire of Iron was not spared, as a Plague of Rust swept across its lands, corroding materials from the inside out, wreaking havoc upon its civilization.

Months passed in turmoil, bringing an end to the second year.

Alex, Andrei, and Venedikt eventually returned to the real world. After a full year inside the realm, exhausted and mentally worn, the three were simply happy to spend a day with their families.

But their peace did not last long.

After leaving the guild hall, the trio stopped by a mall to buy gifts for Sophie. There, Venedikt was suddenly kidnapped by unknown men, Russian speakers, some of them Awakened individuals.

In the aftermath, Alex sought out Zero, hoping to learn how to save Venedikt and uncover who was behind it.

From Zero, he learned that Slavik Makarov, the father of Venedikt and Andrei, was still alive, and he was partly tied to Venedikt's kidnapping.

Alex struck a deal with Zero: protection for himself and those around him, in exchange for Mystium Ore rights.

During this entire ordeal, he also crossed paths with Magnus, a man belonging to a shadowy power so vast that it influenced even governments.

Magnus had employed Slavik Makarov, or rather, had bound him into loyal service, stripped of his past memories.

Venedikt was eventually returned home safely. Though everyone connected to Sheikh would now be placed under surveillance, it was not an immediate problem.

When Alex returned to the Ancestral Realm, he gathered the final key shards to complete the entry token, and now all that remained was to meet Grand Arcanum Elara and secure the sword.

But to his shock, Alex discovered that Elara had been replaced by a regimental advisor, her whereabouts unknown. This was grim news because only Elara had the strength and will to stand against Vaken Zeld, the one who stood between Alex and the sword hidden beneath Vayen Palace.

Alex tried using a Ruler wish to find her whereabouts, but only discovered that while she was alive and well, she was out of reach, and to meet her, he would need a diamond-grade wish.

So, with no other choice, Alex began his grind to acquire a diamond-grade wish, and as time passed, another problem became increasingly troublesome for him.

Zahra. Her final words resurfaced in his mind again and again. It was not hard to guess this was unnatural; either Zahra herself or the Realm Ruler was responsible.

Meanwhile, the other two empires continued to deteriorate.

The Plague of Rust spread faster than ever, now corroding matter and seeping into minds, causing people to fall unconscious, lose their memories, and descend into madness or even a state of nothingness.

The mutants had also grown in great numbers, wreaking havoc both from within and outside the empire ranks.

Four more months passed before Alex managed to secure a Diamond-grade Wish, an absurdly steep price just for the chance to meet Grand Arcanum Elara.

But he had no choice other than appealing to the Realm Ruler for help.

Finally, Alex used the wish to arrange the meeting, and in doing so, he discovered the truth, thanks to the Realm Ruler's generosity once more.

Zahra had left a mark on him that forced him to continually recall their last meeting.

Why did the Realm Ruler go out of her way to help him? Alex still could not understand.

Finally, he met Lady Elara and told her about Vaken Zeld and how he kidnapped her daughter. After confirming the truth in his words, Elara immediately agreed to his request to help him get to the pocket dimension.

Alex also met Asher Winter, Elara's husband, and the First Seat of the Drakaryx Clan.

{As readers, we also learn here that the Drakaryx Clan Patriarch himself orders Asher to keep Alex within the clan at any cost, because Alex had been chosen as a potential Vessel Candidate.}

The trio, Alex, Asher, and Lady Elara, set out for Vaken City. There, while the furious mother confronted Vaken himself, Asher casually erased the entire city, reducing it to literal dust as he strolled leisurely with Alex toward the palace.

Free-spirited and open by nature, Asher spoke of his daughter and even proposed that Alex should marry her. Alex, of course, refused at once.

But this only prompted Asher to come up with more and more reasons why Alex should accept, though he never once forced or threatened him, keeping the tone teasing, nothing more.

Later, Asher revealed the truth behind the three anomalies plaguing the three empires.

The one orchestrating them was none other than The True King, master of the Tharokarn Clan, one of the three great clans.

His purpose was not some minor ambition, but to plunge the entire realm into collapse, condemning countless billions to death.

The True King, his clan, and his countless minions were all working toward a single purpose: mass death on a scale so vast that the cosmos itself would respond.

With the Realm Ruler weakened, she would fail to conceal the realm's existence, thereby exposing its location to the greater galaxy, and with the outside forces already knowing the genrel sector in which the realm was located, it would be easy to find the disturbance caused by the deaths of billions.

As Asher explained, the reason was clear: the outside power to which the True King belonged sought to capture the Realm Ruler.

Because while the realm was indeed a fruitful ground for cultivating talent, in the grand scheme of the cosmos, it was merely a small garden, useful, but not truly unique.

Asher also reveals that six months later, with the end of the third year of adventurers, the two Clans and the three Empires plan to support all adventurers, helping them grow, because that is what the Realm Ruler desires.

As the Clan understood it, the reason was that at some point the Realm Ruler tampered with the Nyxara Core, incurring the wrath of cosmic law. As punishment, she was heavily penalized and now sought to lessen that burden by aiding the younger generation.

The Realm Ruler remained their only hope of surviving the coming cataclysm, for even if every power united, the Tharokarn Clan and its subsidiaries would not fall easily.

And stopping their plan was impossible because death was all they sought, whether it was theirs or the other denizens of the realm.

Alex entered the realm with a heavy heart to obtain the blade, but instead of a trial, he unexpectedly relived the memories of Dark, signaling a deeper connection with the entity to whom his physique belonged.

In the vision, Alex witnessed Dark forging a chaos-infused sword that he gifted to his younger sister, Sera, before bidding farewell to her and to his friend, Cosmorian, as he stepped into the Cosmic Fringe, an act that all but guaranteed his death.

When Alex awoke, he found himself lying beside the same chaos-forged sword, named Sorrow. A weapon of gradeless condition, it came to him without trial, as if accepting him naturally.

Asher, carrying out his master's orders, invited Alex to temporarily join the Drakaryx Clan. His stated reason was that Alex wishes to marry his daughter and take her with him to the outside world.

Alex refused, but Asher persisted, saying that if his daughter could not win Alex over within four years, then Alex would be free to do as he wished.

Seeing no issue and already planning to enter the Clan to clear their trials to prepare for his death duel with Zarach, Alex agreed.

Upon learning of the duel, Asher recommended a trainer for Alex's final preparations. That trainer, he revealed, would be none other than The Inheritor, the Master of the Drakaryx Clan.