Is this really a Game?!

Boom!

A powerful explosion shook a mountain as Reign and Eisenhorn stared at a crater they had just created.

"It's not there, did it get away again?" Eisenhorn asked as Reign focused and tried to sense the surrounding mana and souls.

"No, it's right there!" Both of the men charged at the spot where Reign had pointed at before attacking once again.

It has been a full 6 hours since Reign had told the others that he might have found traces of a monster that could help them. Since then, the party had spent 5 hours looking around for the monster, but with no luck.

It was only about half an hour ago when the party was resting that the monster had actually stumbled upon them first. Upon seeing the monster and what it could do, the whole party was ecstatic as that was exactly what they needed to successfully launch a stealth attack on the capital.

For some reason, there had been no aerial monsters that they could find, and maybe there were some deeper inside the mountain range, but none of them were willing to go deep inside and risk their lives, especially not now when they had realized just how dangerous and mysterious the mountain range was.

They had to get the monster that had appeared before them, otherwise, they might not have a second chance of running into something like this again.

But the monster proved to be hard to catch. It was a high-grade Tier III monster, and although both Reign and Eisenhorn could defeat it in battle without much trouble, catching it alive and relatively alright was a different story.

None of them knew just how strong the monster was, but they knew one thing.

"This bastard is too good at running away and hiding!" Eisenhorn shouted in anger as the monster once again managed to flee from him and Reign. They had been chasing the damn thing for about half an hour now, and the monster showed no signs of slowing down or retaliating.

It was an increasingly frustrating thing to do since Eisenhorn knew that he and Reign could easily take care of the monster if they were to go all out and attack it, but that would ruin their plans since they needed the monster desperately right now.

Vibrations could be felt through the ground as the monster ran, prompting Reign and Eisenhorn to curse again and chase after it.

The rest of the party was left back since they could offer little to no help. Even Raigon's creation ability wouldn't be helpful when it came to this monster, thus it was decided that he would stay back and defend the rest if monsters were to come to them.

They all made sure to retract their mana and keep silent in case a powerful monster was to come and attack them.

Thanks to the great ruckus that Reign and Eisenhorn were making, however, it would be hard for any monster to come over here since they would either stay away from the area after sensing the two powerful auras that were chasing after a monster, or they would run away in fear.

The chase continued for quite some time. The monster desperately tried to run away from the crazy duo that was spamming attacks and sending them its way while blowing up the surrounding area.

The monster was even confused as to why the two were chasing after it for so long since it was certain it had done nothing to earn their wrath. It might have come inside their territory before, but that was no reason to continue attacking it for so long, right?

It dared not stop and look at its attackers as it knew that death would come for it soon if it was to stop. The two beings that were constantly attacking it from behind were much more powerful than it was and they could kill it with little difficulty.

The monster didn't really think about how Reign and Eisenhorn were so much stronger than it was that they should have been able to kill it during the chase, multiple times during the chase. But it was a monster, and although the higher the realm, the more intelligent the monster, it was still a monster and had intelligence that rivaled a kid, not a full-blown adult that could think about things properly.

Reign and Eisenhorn knew that, and they also knew that trying to speak with the monster or calm it down was not possible.

'Perhaps if Beast was here, this would have gone much, much easier.' Reign thought as he thought back to how Beast had been able to improve upon his taming ability to not only be able to tame monsters without the need to fight them right now but how he was also able to appear friendly to all manners of beasts and have them calm down merely by being near them.

He would have been the perfect choice for doing something like this, not a bunch of people that only knew how to fight and kill things, especially monsters.

The two continued their chase and rained down a plethora of attacks at the monster, only to barely even scratch the bastard.

"This bastard is really starting to get on my nerves, damn it!" Eisenhorn yelled out as he glanced at Reign, only to find a similar, pissed-off expression on his face as well.

"I know what you mean, but we can't lose our tempers, not now, not when we are so close to getting what we need for the attack." Reign reminded Eisenhorn as the latter nodded at him. They both knew that it was of great importance to get the monster and to make sure it was not badly wounded while doing so.

That meant that they couldn't simply crush or cut off a limb or two to make it slow down. Had Laura been here, then Reign could rest easy and done anything he wanted to do to the monster as she would have been able to easily heal it and bring it back to almost perfect condition.

Even a cut limb could be placed back with her help, and even those that were crushed to pieces could be healed as if nothing had ever happened.

Reign could truly feel just how important each member of his party was when he was away from them. He and the others had gotten used to each other, which led to them forgetting just how rare people with their particular powers were.

Tank could stand in front of them and block nearly any attack that an enemy was to send, allowing them to attack from a distance and deal damage with ease. He could also switch to his axe and deliver astonishing attacks, something most tank classes were unable to do.

Shadow could not only manipulate shadows and darkness, which was perfect for controlling a lot of monsters and not allowing them free movement, but he could also deal with powerful enemies with his darkness corrosion that was deadly to nearly all beings.

Wolf could simply blow up any monster that was attacking. No matter if it was a group or one powerful monster when faced with Wolf and his incredible strength and flames, it would be dead.

Greenie on the other side could do the job of many. He could tank attacks, he could dish out damage, and he could grab and hold an enemy, forcing them to be unable to move and defend themselves, he was simply an incredibly valuable team member that could adapt to the situation with great flexibility.

That meant that no matter what kind of mission they had to do, or what kind of monster they had to kill or capture, the party was equipped to deal with almost any scenario even without them preparing for it.

Reign wasn't sure if the others were thinking of the same things while being far away on different planets themselves. For now, Reign could only hope each of them was alright and that nothing had gone wrong with their challenge. fr𝚎e𝙬𝚎𝚋𝚗૦ν𝚎𝒍.c૦m

As for him, he was forced to chase after a monster just to have a good chance of getting inside the capital and gaining the opportunity to finish the challenge or at least the second step of the challenge since he had no idea whether there would be more steps after this one.

He hoped not.

The first step was already dangerous enough and had led to him being heavily injured by the demon, this second step could prove to be even more dangerous as he was facing a monster he knew nothing about.

Fighting demons was usually not complicated as demons would never back down from a good fight. They would rarely use tricks during the battle or before the battle, and it would be quite straightforward.

But after hearing of all that had happened during his sleep, Reign was well aware that the queen was not like that. She would definitely not mind pulling some tricks during a fight in order to win.

It was only half an hour later that the two men had finally managed to corner the monster and beat it to submission. It was time now to go back and attack the capital.