Monster Paradise

Lin Huang had spent less than a day completing three fairly difficult reserve missions.

He headed straight to Death Sickle’s base in the Iron Fist Shelter as soon as he completed the missions, and handed both over both the beast carcasses and the Poisonous Swamp Frog venom.

The reception staff was a lady with hair that was permed into large, loose waves. She was rather surprised when she received the mission items.

“These three missions have been sitting there for ages. Nobody was willing to accept them, and we never expected that anyone would be able to complete them either,” the lady muttered softly as she processed the promotion paperwork for Lin Huang.

Very soon, the formalities were completed. The lady looked up at Lin Huang.

“It’s Xie Lin, am I right? I’ve submitted your mission results and proceeded with your promotion formalities. It usually takes around three minutes to update your level. If nothing changes after an hour, come back and we’ll handle that for you.”

Lin Huang headed straight back to the hotel after leaving Death Sickle’s base.

He clicked on Death Sickle’s official website and saw that his level had indeed been updated. It had been upgraded from the initial ‘reserve’ to ‘Black Sickle’ now. Apart from that, the default image changed from the word ‘reserve’ to a pair of crossed black sickles.

Not only that, there was a change in his access authorization too.

The previously locked trading and forum exchange sections were accessible now. The missions section no longer showed only the section for reserve members; there was a Black Sickle section as well. The message section now gave him access to Black Sickle level information.

Lin Huang could finally see Death Sickle’s Black Sickle, White Sickle, and Gold Sickle Leaderboards.

Apart from the code names used by Death Sickle members, the leaderboards recorded combat strength, the number of completed missions, the number of failed missions and total reward points.

“Code Name: Fallen Star”

“Combat Strength: Virtual God rank-9”

“Number of Completed Mission: 1361”

“Number of Failed Mission: 33

“Total Reward Points: 6071518”

…

“Code Name: Destiny”

“Combat Strength: Virtual God rank-9”

“Number of Completed Mission: 1368”

“Number of Failed Mission: 59”

“Total Reward Points: 5712623”

…

“Code Name: Twin”

“Combat Strength: Virtual God rank-9”

“Number of Completed Mission: 1281”

“Number of Failed Mission: 88”

“Total Reward Points: 5112513”

…

Almost all of the top 30 names on the Black Sickle Leaderboard were at Virtual God rank-9.

Lin Huang looked through the Black Sickle Leaderboard for a while before turning his attention to the White Sickle Leaderboard.

“Code Name: Virtuoso”

“Combat Strength: Seventh-rank True God”

“Number of Completed Mission: 768”

“Number of Failed Mission: 0”

“Total Reward Points: Access denied due to low authorization”

Lin Huang was shocked when he saw the details of the No.1 name, Virtuoso.

“His combat strength is only at the level of seventh-rank True God and he’s taken on very few missions, but he’s still on the top spot?!”

The person listed after Virtuoso was a ninth-rank True God who had completed 3,619 missions. Although he failed 78 missions, he was still ranked No.2. Clearly, the missions that Virtuoso took on were more difficult so the reward points had to be very high.

“He didn’t fail at any of those 700-over difficult missions?” Lin Huang’s attention was drawn to this particular point.

Obviously, this person with the codename Virtuoso was very powerful.

On the White Sickle Leaderboard, the person in the No.2 spot failed 78 missions while No.3 completed over 3,700 missions and failed 126 missions. The next person in line had over 200 failed missions.

It was obvious that White Sickle-level missions were not easy to complete.

After browsing the White Sickle Leaderboard for a while, Lin Huang proceeded to look at the higher-ranked Gold Sickle Leaderboard.

The person who ranked No.1 there was no other than Buried Heaven who was famous in the entire God Territory. Even Lin Huang, a recent arrival to the God Territory, had heard of him.

“Code Name: Buried Heaven”

“Combat Strength: Ninth-rank heavenly god-level”

“Number of Completed Mission: 5128”

“Number of Failed Mission: 13”

“Total Reward Points: Access denied due to low authorization”

…

After checking out Buried Heaven’s statistics, Lin Huang was convinced that Virtuoso, the top rank on the White Sickle Leaderboard, was a genius. Buried Heaven ranked No.1 on the Gold Sickle Leaderboard and had ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat strength—yet he had failed 13 missions.

Meanwhile, the people who ranked second and third after Buried Heaven had failed more than 50 missions.

After a general look through the three leaderboards, what impressed Lin Huang most was not the Gold Sickle Leaderboard, nor Buried Heaven who was ranked the most powerful. It was Virtuoso who ranked No.1 on the White Sickle Leaderboard.

Unfortunately, as a Black Sickle member, Lin Huang did not have the authorization to access details of White Sickle and Gold Sickle members.

Interest piqued, Lin Huang tried hunting for information on Virtuoso over the internet but found nothing. In contrast, information on Buried Heaven could be found easily; there were even many videos of him killing his targets.

Buried Heaven’s modus operandi was different from other assassins; one might even call him an anomaly. He never bothered with sneak attacks— in every assassination he appeared before his targets in full sight and made no attempt to disguise or hide his face. He would confront his targets directly, kill them, and leave.

He had also never prevented any spectators from recording his battles, nor did he care about the consequences that might ensue after his videos were posted on the internet.

As for the storm of mocking and teasing after the videos of his two failed missions went viral on the internet, he had never responded to any of it.

“This Buried Heaven is quite an interesting guy.”

After closing the page, Lin Huang reined in his curiosity and began to look through the forum’s message section.

Before beginning anything, the most important step was to retrieve information related to the task at hand. This was the advice that Bloody had given to Lin Huang.

As a result, Lin Huang thought he would check out the message section to see if he could find anything useful before he officially took on any missions.

Reserve members were denied access to the message section. It was Lin Huang’s first time checking it since his promotion to Black Sickle level.

Based on popularity, the top thread was one entitled ‘The Top 10 Most Deceptive Missions (Black Sickle Version)’.

Lin Huang could not help clicking on the thread after seeing the title.

“The No.1 Most Deceptive Mission:”

“Mission: Killing the Wine Ant Queen.”

“Target Information: Bug Tribe Wine Ant Queen, mythical-level, Virtual God rank-9 combat strength (might elevate to true god-level anytime). Has four pseudo-mythical-level bug guardians whose combat strength is also peak Virtual God rank-9. She has over a hundred million Ant Tribe fighters under her, all of them at virtual god-level. The Wine Ant Queen can produce up to 1,000 Ant Tribe fighters every minute when she has sufficient resources…”

“Mission Reward Points: 300,000 points (Excluding points for selling bug carcasses and pseudo-mythical-level bug guardians. Extra 10,000 points for each kill.)”

“Challenges of the Mission:

1. The Wine Ant Queen has at least a hundred million Ant Tribe fighters, all of which are at virtual god-level. Not only that, she does not stop producing Ant Tribe fighters along the way. Even a beginner-stage true god-level powerhouse would find it hard to go deep into the colony. As soon as one’s Divine Power is exhausted, a True God would die in the colony.

2. The four pseudo-mythical-level bug guardians are individually almost as strong as True Gods. Not only that, all of them have different abilities. Some are good in long-distance attacks, some excel at close-range combat, while others specialize in control and defense. The four bug guardians have been fighting together for years. When they join forces, even a second-rank True God might not be able to defeat them.

3. The Ant Queen is mythical-level herself. Her ability might be comparable to a first-rank True God were she to go into battle.

4. The star zone where the Wine Ant Queen resides is a battleground in itself. Apart from the Ant Queen, there are also other powerful Bug Tribes around.

…

Lin Huang was all fired up after reading the mission’s description, instead of being discouraged.

Perhaps to other Black Sickle members, this mission seemed impossible; it was practically going to one’s death even. Lin Huang, however, was not at all afraid of these sorts of Bug Tribes with a Queen Mother.

The numbers of the Ant Queen’s troops were merely numbers as long as their ability was below Nightmare Tapir.

The incredibly high 300,000 reward points were very tempting as well.

After all, for Black Sickle members, ordinary missions to kill Virtual Gods were only worth between 100 to 10,000 points. Only limited, difficult true god-level missions would have reward points over 10,000.

The 300,000 reward points awarded for killing the Wine Ant Queen were because the difficulty was much higher than assassinating ordinary beginner-stage True Gods.

If this mission was posted in the missions section for White Sickle members, most of the beginner-stage True Gods might be afraid to accept it; only medium-rank True Gods would dare to take the risk. After all, although True Gods had Divine Fire within their bodies, as soon as the drain on Divine Power surpassed the speed by which Divine Fire could produce Divine Power, one’s Divine Fire might be exhausted too.

This mission deserved to be called the No.1 Most Deceptive Mission.

After reading through the mission’s full description, Lin Huang considered it for a little, then proceeded to check out other missions on the leaderboard…