CHAPTER 180: SPECIAL MISSION

Colors started coming back to his eyes, pulling Darian back to reality. The first thing he saw was a white-haired man; right beside him was Leander. Both of them were staring at him with a weird look.

Darian glanced around and realized he was back at the altar, on Earth. As for that look on their faces... he didn’t even need to think much.

"Did I rack up a lot of points this time?" Darian said casually.

Leander sighed, then gave a small nod: "Not just you... the twins scored a billion merit points each. And more than you did the first time."

Darian nodded. Last time, he had played a huge part in destroying the Abyssal Nest and killing the Risen Lord. This time... he hadn’t directly done much. Over the years, several nests had already been wiped out, and probably other Risen Lords too. But now... the three of them had done something completely unique.

"I found the two of them on the other side, so we got lucky and managed to help a lot with the push in another galaxy," Darian said calmly, gauging their reaction. "You guys probably guessed it already... in the middle of chaos, brute force isn’t always the key."

The old man let out a small snort. True enough... even a weakling could change everything... if they figured something out in the shadows and had a crap ton of luck. Darian had already shown when he came back the first time that he had both godlike luck and talent. The crazy part was... he’d done it twice now... and this time in an even more ridiculous way.

He’d only gone to that universe twice. Both times, massive events happened. Both times, he raked in a mountain of merit... was he some kind of disaster-and-reward magnet?

"Everyone else has already left. You three were the last ones left... because your merit points took forever to calculate and deliver." As Leander said that, two lights appeared behind Darian.

Lucy and Lucius stepped out of the altar, still with their eyes closed. The second they touched the ground, they woke up.

Darian moved fast, catching both of them, already anticipating...

*Bleaarghh!*

In perfect creepy sync, the two started vomiting uncontrollably.

Leander rushed to help. They were in the exact same state Darian had been earlier, purging all the impurities from their bodies and starting to become true High Humans.

After twenty minutes, they finally stabilized. Soon, they were taken to a private room along with Leander.

Darian briefly explained the reason for that reaction, then guided them to absorb their Merit power. Once the twins closed their eyes to focus, Darian turned to Leander.

"So... what happened?"

"Nothing wrong in the clan. Actually... everything’s already 70% built. I worked as fast as I could, like you asked." Leander said lightly.

"But... this month, all the empires on Earth received an extremely important mission."

He paused for a second, then pulled out an artifact. Leander activated the power of his ring and touched the ground, using his blessing and the artifact together.

Darian tensed up. This sounded serious. That kind of setup was to make sure nobody could listen in... and also to block any tech or artifact from picking up on it.

After confirming, Leander sighed and nodded.

An ethereal figure appeared in front of him, taking form. Her golden wings opened softly. Rhea materialized in her physical form, then glanced at the twins for a few seconds.

"Even these two... such freaks..." She smiled, murmuring quietly.

Then she looked straight into Darian’s eyes. "It’s a special and terrifying mission. And it wasn’t just Earth that got it... every planet in the universe got the same one."

Leander explained in detail: "Every planet will send 30 Spiritual Guardians..."

It was a joint mission, with people from the entire universe. This had happened three times before. The first time was two hundred years ago. Back then, it had been the highest risk S-rank mission in the whole universe. Two of the top 15 strongest planets had to team up just to pull it off.

In short, the mission was to end a terrifying war happening between two twin universes. These twin universes were super rare... they started as one single universe, but for some reason, ended up splitting into two. Not just the universes themselves, but all their internal power too.

Because they were twin universes, they were super close... literally stuck side by side. That’s why it wasn’t impossible for someone crazy strong to open a channel between them.

That’s exactly what happened. One universe gave birth to a Yang Fire Phoenix. The other... to a Yin Ice Phoenix. At some point, both beasts used their power to reconnect the two universes.

The result... was all-out war between the two... and both beasts didn’t seem to care at all about stopping it.

The S-rank mission was pretty straightforward: end the war. But they’d probably have to deal with both Phoenixes too.

Two armies made up of eight-ring Spiritual Guardians, led by two nine-ringers, were sent.

Somehow, they won. In the end, they came back to Earth bringing something terrifying: the full bodies and blood of both beasts.

That stuff was priceless, with countless uses. As a result, nowadays, those two planets are ranked 8th and 9th in power across the universe. They were renamed Planet Cinderia and Planet Frostra.

A hundred years after that mission, something completely unique in history happened again: all the planets in the universe received another special joint mission.

They had to send thirty Spiritual Guardians, with no more than two rings and under thirty years old. The mission would once again take place in the same twin universes. But this time, they had to compete with the natives for the two primordial phoenix seeds left behind by the dead beasts.

It was like a trial, where only two winners would get the seeds. And crazy enough, the natives of that universe could have power equal to a three-ringed Spiritual Guardian.

But... the competition wasn’t even close. The winners were two young Spiritual Guardians from Planets Cinderia and Frostra.

The reason was simple: they had used the blood of the two phoenixes to boost their Spiritual Guardians’ bodies, giving them a natural edge.

After everyone came back, those two shot up like dragons to the heavens. Both managed to reach nine rings in just thirty years, becoming the strongest figures among all Spiritual Guardians.

Then, fifty years after that mission, totally out of nowhere... the same mission came again.

"I was part of that one," Rhea said seriously.

And yep, again, two young ones from the same planets won.

But this time... in less than ten years, those kids had already reached nine rings—and they were way, way scarier than the first two.

It was obvious that the primordial seed was getting stronger. That’s why this current mission has got the entire universe throwing everything they’ve got into the fight.

Rhea explained to Darian in detail how that test worked when she participated. Even if you don’t win the seed, the trial still gives huge benefits to everyone who takes part. Earth is just a mid-tier planet in the universe, so those benefits are a big deal.

After hearing all of it, Darian’s eyes lit up.

She, on the other hand, looked at him with clear excitement: "You, the twins, and two more people were chosen to go on this special mission. This is your shot to show off that freaky ’luck’ of yours. This time... to the whole universe."