Monster Integration

The Mainland

'The old snake seemed to be hell-bent on killing us,' Hera communicated; they had been fighting against the old snake for nearly a day, and they were reaching their limit.

She could see the curse, a blood-red thing that is elastic as liquid rubber, and it spread as she used her energy; it had already covered more than 50% of her, and in the better, Patriarch Bradford was in the worse.

Despite all his power, he was not able to stop the curse from spreading inside him; it had covered 80% of him, and it was affecting him heavily that he could only project around 60% of his original strength.

The worse thing is it is spreading fast, restricting more of his power; it wouldn't be long before he isn't able to fight against it the old snake.

It is not him, but others also in the worse shape, especially Lord Bishop and Lord Singh; the curse had covered more than 70% of their self and spreading rapidly, faster than even Patriarch Bradford.

Only she and Lord Rai are in better condition due to their special conditions, but those advantages wouldn't be able to save them; these three go down.

The despair couldn't help but fill her heart seeing this; it wasn't long before she held hope in her heart. A hope that they will be finally able to wipe the Grimms away for good, but the hope is taken away too soon, too suddenly.

They could not even stop the Grimms till the final badge of people came out, the ones who were holding on to deal the final blow to the Grimm.

The bastard old snake had destroyed it all, and now, when they come out of the final seven challenges, they will not see us holding down the line for them but our bodies buried in the ground and the world destroyed.

There is no hope they will come out of it alive; Lord Whitmore had told her what the healers could find out and shook her. The curse is not something that our healers would be able to do something; even the Grand Lord class healer would fail in front of it. The curse contains something that is beyond the highest level.

'It seemed like the time had come; ask Whitmore to release the night blade in ten minutes sharp,' order Patriarch Bradford; she is not surprised.

She had talked to Lord Hern not long ago and asked him to be ready.

"We might go down today, but we will take the old snake with us; everyone, the moment night blade appears, attacks the old snake with all your strength,"

"Burn your essence if you can, but get the maximum power; we have to kill this bastard, so the young ones will have a chance in defeating these bastards," said Patriarch Bradford, and nobody objected; all of them understood what is at stake and if they needed a victory in the war, they needed to sacrifice themselves.

So, the race could survive, which is the most important thing.

…

I stepped into the light, and the colossal pressure, vast as the ocean, vanished; not even a single speck of it remained.

The joy lasted only a moment before I focused on a new feeling, or the right word would be the state. The second of the top seven challenges seemed to have changed my state of mind, it is not just the last leg that did that, but the whole challenge; a brute force alone is not enough to sharper the will.

I wish I could spend more than analyzing my state of mind, but I do not have time. The human and Grimms ahead of me are already moving toward the reward, and to my surprise, it is not the boosts I expected.

They are things!

From artifacts to resources, everything seemed to be present in those hundred things; seeing those things, I couldn't help but get shocked, and I was not the only one.

The human and Grimm ahead of me are just as shocked.

"Getting things is good; My heart would have bled if I had lost a huge boost," said Sophia behind me as she appeared.

'Take the essence of azkaf marak; it will be extremely useful in your breakthrough,' I said to her and moved. While I was daydreaming, my clones looked at all the things, and as I had said, everything in those hundred bubbles was great, but I could only take one.

My eyes scanned through all the things despite already knowing what they were; they were in order, the first thing being more precious than the one after that.

I looked at the things in the top line, and they are precious but would help me a lot, but if anyone knows me, they know I like to think further and plan accordingly.

There is one thing among the hundred that will help the most; it might take a while for it to become useful, but when it does, it will provide me more benefits than any other things here, and if my luck were to hold, then I wouldn't have to wait for long, to get the benefits from it.

I appeared in front of a small bubble; it was the smallest bubble, and inside it was a small seed, a transparent seed with shining specks. It is a sunflower seed, not a seed of the common sunflower, but the seed of the star mist sunflower; I can't imagine my luck in getting this seed.

I did not waste any time and quickly took the seed.

"Hum, the seed of star mist sunflower; it is a single seed; I would have chosen it if it had been a whole sunflower," said the Grimm as it appeared behind me.

"No one asked for your opinion, Rofka," I said back, without turning to the Frogman; it the bastard who was ahead of me with the old man.

It had already made a choice; there was a deep blue orb in its hands, the orb of mor sea, which was in fourth place. Those who have reached this stage are intelligent enough to choose the thing they need rather than the things that are both.

Till now, six people have come out, and all of them have done that, as the things in the top three are still present in their environment.

"It is Lord Rofka, for you, Zaar," said the Grimm, and the mighty aura of Grand Lord had burst out of its body; the aura immediately got restricted before it reamed me, but I could still sense its mighty power.

I was quite surprised this bastard reached the class Grand; I should not be. It is a member of the coven and has all the qualifications to reach there, especially in this place.

Still, another Grimm Grand Lord means even bigger danger.

"Enjoy while it lasts," I said to it while directly looking into its eyes before walking away. It got quite angry at the supposed disrespect, but this is a safe zone, and I really wish it hadn't been because then, I would have been free to kill this bastard.

"You are right; this essence would really help me a lot," said Sophia as she looked small bottle filled with bright red essence. "Do you want some?" she asked, to which I shook my head.

"No," I replied. "Though I will not reject it if you offer me some after you finish with it," I said, to which she smiled.

"What did you get?" she asked, to which I showed her the seed. "There are better things there than this seed," she said, "I know, but this thing is more useful to me," I replied.

She opened her mouth to say something when suddenly a look of question appeared on her face as a blue storage box appeared in my hand.

"Here, take this; there are some things here that will help you in your breakthrough," I said and moved to give it to her, but she did not accept. "I can't accept it; you've already done enough for me, and besides, I already have everything I need for my breakthrough," she said, declining.

"These are no normal resources; they will help you upgrade your elemental core to maximum power," I said, and the hesitancy on her face disappeared.

If someone knew her core as intimately as her, then it would be I had helped it create it.

"Gasp!"

A gasp rang out of her mouth as she looked inside; as I have said, there are not normal resources, but very precious ones, from Grand Lord grade stainless lotus and metal essence fruit of her element; there are few other resources I have found and tons of precious High-Grandmaster class resources, which I have harvested from my core.

"This?" she asked in shock. "There are not for you alone; I have tagged them well; if you find others, give them these resources. There are some untagged resources; you can give them to anyone who you think has a chance," I said to her.

"You are leaving?" she asked as she saw me turned to toward the gate, and I nodded.

I have been getting a very bad feeling for quite a while, like something very bad is happening, and I have to go out of this thing as soon as possible, or even worse things would happen.

"But you have not even leveled up," she said; hearing that, a bright smile appeared on my face. "Am I not?" I asked back, and immediately her eyes went wide.

"Good luck with your next challenges, Sophia," I said to my friend and walked toward the exit; it had finally appeared, and it seemed like I was not the only one who was leaving.

Rofka was also leaving, and seeing me appearing behind it, it turned to me. "The moment you get out, I will kill you," it said with a killing smile and stepped into the gate.

I, too, followed it after, not heeding to the humans who were asking me to stop.