<strong>November 30th, 2021;</strong>
<strong>Mt. Estrya, Whale Island;</strong>
At the foot of a dormant volcano, a group of teenagers was battling a Volcanus beast. It is in the 4-star realm and is of gold grade. There are carcasses of beasts lying around.
"Navi, look for its injured parts and strike when you see the opportunity." "Alia, you just focus on the healing" "Stella and I'll take care of its attention."
A 13-year-old girl, who was acting as the leader of the group, passed down the instructions to her teammates and rushed forward with a spear in her left hand and a shield in her right.
*Roar*
The maroon-colored beast let out a roar and curled itself into a giant ball of spikes before attacking the teenagers.
"I got this…" shouted the leader as she raised the shield while continuing to rush forward.
"Soul skill: Barrier of the… Eh?"
Just as she was about to launch a soul skill, she saw a blinding flash of light before her, followed by the appearance of a young and handsome teenager who has some sort of hourglass in his hand.
And in the next second, the large spiky ball crashed into the boy and was stopped by his other hand. Azzy caught it in reflex.
"Thank goodness. It's only in the 4-star realm. I guess not a bad landing spot," Azzy let out a sigh of relief before he swung his hand, casually throwing the beast, atleast a hundred meters away.
Once it was out of his sight, Azzy took a glance at his surroundings. "Hmm?"
He sensed people behind him and turned around while dismissing the hourglass. They appeared to be rooted in their spots, staring at him with widening their eyes.
"Uhhh… are you in the middle of a battle with that monster?" He asked with a bit of embarrassment, remembering his first encounter with Iphi and her friends back when he was 12.
One of the girls responded with a question instead of answering him, "Who are you?"
"My name is Azrael and I'm a traveler," answered Azzy and then asked, "Can you tell me what is the present date?"
It's easy for people to forget the day for an Arcana master when one trains in the wild for a long time. Hence, none of them felt strange and the girl named Navi answered, "30th November."
"Year? Is it 2021?" Azzy probed once again. This time, they got surprised. Alia couldn't help but comment, "of course, it is 2021. Did you lose the perception of time after training in seclusion or something?"
Azzy knew that they misunderstood him. As he cannot reveal his time traveling ability to just anyone he met, he decided to play along and replied, "It's been a while since I saw a human. So, where is… Hmm…"
*roar*
As Azzy was about to ask them where he was, the roar of the Volcanus beast interrupted him. His attention shifted toward the beast, which was charging toward them with its spikes glowing hot red.
The girl became alerted.
"Well, how about I do a small favor as thanks to your answer." Azzy raised his hand and performed a seal. All of them recognized the technique.
Upon completion of the seal, Azzy pushed forth his hand, releasing energy chains from the seal and binding the Volcanus beast.
It was a basic sealing technique, known to several elementary sealing masters.
However, the fact that Azzy captured the ruler of the whale island from more than 50 meters away clearly indicated that he was definitely a lot stronger than they imagined him to be.
Meanwhile, Azzy, who was satisfied with the outcome, took a leap to land before the beast and took a closer look at it. He was a little bit surprised, "wait a second. You are a Volcanus beast, native to the whale island. That means this is Mt. Estrya?"
He glanced around to see igneous rocks everywhere. His eyes finally fell on the familiar volcano, "The lava lake has been dried up? What happened here?" He wondered.
"Graaaaaa"
The Volcanus beast's scream brought him back to reality. It was trying its best to get free but wasn't able to.
Ignoring the beast, Azzy looked at the girls who are staying in their spots without moving, and he gestured for them to hurry up.
As the four of them reached the beast without letting their guard down, Azzy said, "Whoever wants to kill it can go ahead. Gold grade beasts aren't that difficult to come by, anyway."
"Not difficult?" The girls looked at each other in confusion before Navi spoke, "Mister, this is a level-2 region. Here, Gold grade beasts are the absolute rulers. There's only one such beast per region."
This time, Azzy felt confused instead, "only one gold grade per region and they are the kings?"
As something clicked in his mind, he pointed at the trapped Volcanus beast, "Don't tell me that this is a Volcanus King, the absolute ruler of the whale island."
"Yes, of course, it is." Navi and the other girls nodded. The leader of the group appeared to be in deep thoughts for some reason.
"I guess I was mistaken earlier." Azzy didn't know what was going on but he tried to act cool as if everything is normal. "Anyway, discuss between yourselves and decide on who wants to kill it. I'm going to take my leave."
Without waiting for the reply, he dashed away like a flash, disappearing from their sight in a fraction of a second. They felt as if he teleported away.
While he was going to the portal point, Azzy contacted the Reaper to clear his confusion.
Fortunately for him, the deity of death and time has the answers.
In fact, the Reaper answered immediately as if he already knew about it, "It's because of the incarnation of my counterpart, Thesan, the Deity of Life."
"Incarnation of Thesan?" Azzy asked for the details.
The Reaper then explained, "I don't know which world she was born on, but usually, whenever a god incarnates into intelligent form, changes will occur around him or her.
Now, those changes depend on which god has decided to incarnate and for what purpose. The greater the realm of the god, the greater the changes will be.
As Thesan is in rank-12, which is higher than true gods, you can believe that all the planets in the Galaxy with living things were affected.
Due to that, the fertility rate in Gaia and Arcana world increased tremendously, thereby, increasing the population of all types of living things.
The population increased but the amount of spiritual energy present on the planet is limited.
Hence, there is a decrease in the quality of Arcana spirits in soul cards and beasts in the wild.
You can safely assume that there are no more platinum-grade monsters in almost all the regions of level 3 and under. Fortunately, you are already in the 7-star realm and have the powerful undead army to survive even at the perimeters of level-5 regions. You won't need to worry about the current situation."
"I see…" Azzy nodded in understanding. He was indeed surprised by the changes in the world, but then again, he wasn't the one that is responsible for it. So, he was a lot cooler with accepting reality. "Anyway, now that I'm here, my first stop should be reuniting with Claire again. Wait a second…"
As the thoughts of Claire came to his mind, Azzy remembered something important and stopped in his tracks.
He took out the message card from his pocket, intending to send her the message of his arrival.
To his surprise, every soul signature was erased as the side effect of time travel.
"Dammit… What should I do now?"
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