Terra Nova Online: Rise of The Strongest Player

Chapter 344: An elaborate ruse

( Meanwhile Leo )

Unlike other players who had received just one class specific pack, Leo received two of them, since he technically owned two classes.

The first pack was for the ‘Actor’ class while the other was for the ‘Merchant’ class.

Once all the excitement surrounding the levels gained settled, Leo decided to check out these packs as he wanted to see if they were as valuable as the future events information pack that he had received before or not.

“Which pack should I open first? Actor? Or Merchant?” Leo questioned, as after thinking for a few seconds he decided to open the ‘Actor’ class pack first, since it was the more mysterious pack of the two, while ‘Merchant’ seemed pretty straight forward.

Immediately as he opened the pack, Leo found himself sucked into a vision, where he saw two demons interacting with one another.

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The setting seemed to be one of a dense forest.

And through the large forest, one large demon seemed to travel alongside a 2-3 year old child, which Leo later found out was the larger demon’s son.

“Father…. Father, where are we going today? Why have you brought me out here in the wild without anyone finding out?” An innocent looking demon child said, as his father rubbed his tiny head lovingly.

“We are here so that you can tame your first familiar son…. This is an opportunity of a lifetime, in one of our outings into the Eastern Forest, we have found a living dragon egg.

Although we don’t know how the tribals stole a dragon egg, what we do know is that it is about to hatch soon… and you will imprint yourself upon the dragon as soon as it is born when it is at its most feeble state–” The larger demon said, as the little demon looked at him with questions marks forming above his head.

“And why would we do that father?” The little demon asked innocently, as his father smiled and said “Because my son…. The appearance of possessing power is more important than actually possessing power”.

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( Scene Change )

The scene changed, and Leo now saw an adolescent demon child exploring some shady ancient ruins alongside a bunch of his other demon friends.

Upon close inspection, Leo realized that this was the same child as before as he had the same skin tone and the same tattoo-like pattern as the child he saw before.

‘Is this the child’s life story?’ Leo wondered, as he watched on in anticipation of what was about to happen next.

As the group of adolescent demons entered a particularly tricky corridor, suddenly a trap triggered, causing a trapdoor to activate, which dropped the main demon into a different room, while the rest of his crew were stuck on a level above him.

From there on, the adolescent demon whose story Leo was following explored the ruins on his own, trying to look for a way out, however, instead stumbled upon a pendant which amplified his aura to become more bloodthirsty and domineering than it really was.

It was clearly an artificial increase in power…. Something without substance to back its lies, however, at that moment the adolescent demon repeated the same line that his father had taught him in childhood, that the “Appearance of power was more important than actual power”

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( Scene Change )

The scene shifted once again, and the adolescent demon seemed to have become a proper and developed young man now.

He seemed to be in full battle gear as he and his crew-mates tried to battle a black dragon.

The dragon was extremely powerful, the flames coming out of its mouth were strong enough to melt holes through mountains. However, as Leo observed the battle, he could see that while the dragon fiercely attacked the young demon’s allies, it purposefully never attacked the young demon.

It was a carefully crafted show… a show that was 20 years in the making, as the dragon was the same entity that the young demon had imprinted as a child.

From there on what happened was that the young demon managed to mount the dragon as the two flew off into the distance, only for him to return to the Capital City of the demons riding that same dragon, as he was welcomed there by his father, the old demon king with open arms.

“MY SON…. THE DRAGON CONQUEROR” The demon king announced with pride, as the common demons went wild with their celebrations.

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( Scene Change )

The final scene of the series was one where the young demon had finally ascended to the throne of the Demon King, succeeding his father, as all the demons in the land bowed their heads to him in surrender.

With the fake aura pendant on his chest, he appeared to be extremely domineering, however, Leo doubted if that was really the case? Since he already knew about the secret of the pendant.

The whole story was a scam, a fake act 20+ years in the making, however, it was crafted so beautifully that to the unknowing fool it appeared as a mythic legend.

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( Return to reality )

Leo was stunned speechless after what he saw, as he realized what the ‘epitome’ of the slogan ‘Fake It Till You Make It’ really looked like.

” I concede defeat, Demon King, you are a better actor than me, for sure” Leo muttered, as he thought that this was a fictional story, having no clue that the main character of this story was the actual demon king who currently ruled the demon realm posing as it’s first ‘GrandMaster’ level fighter in history.

The legend of the Demon King, the tales of his greatness were in reality nothing more than a father’s efforts to secure his child’s future, as since the Demon Society was not patriarchal and the throne was not passed via lineage, the only way for him to secure the seat for his son was for him to create an elaborate ruse that could justify his strength.