Online Game: I Started with Max Charisma and Caught the Goddess's Eye

In the southern district of the Imperial Capital, near the ruins of a large shopping mall, Luca and his team were meticulously searching the area.

This was the exact location where Fuzzsir had first spotted the initial monster.

Though the creature itself hadn’t been particularly powerful, the fact that the first monster had appeared here meant the site held special significance.

Beneath the rubble lay the bodies of victims and the mangled remains of slain monsters.

During the search, the team ran into all kinds of minor complications.

What caught Luca’s attention most was the peculiar concentration of elemental energies lingering around the ruins.

Monsters were sustained by chaotic energy.

If the first monster had emerged here, it could mean this site had served as a gateway—a possible outlet for that chaos.

But despite his efforts, Luca found no trace of true chaotic power.

Meanwhile, Melania and Fuzzsir focused on gathering more surface-level evidence: signs of battle, monster classifications, and the city’s initial response.

Only Nova seemed to be wandering aimlessly.

She drifted from one spot to another, peering here and there with no clear objective—almost like she was just casually sightseeing.

After about thirty minutes of searching, the group regrouped.

Melania was the first to speak.

“Just like Fuzzsir said, the battle here didn’t last long. The monster wasn’t very strong—Fuzzsir took it down using a soul-based spell almost immediately.”

She gave a clear report on the combat traces, then moved on to the monster’s classification and the human response.

“It was just a standard demon-wolf, level 27 at most. But it appeared so suddenly that the civilians around the mall had no time to react. The result was catastrophic casualties.”

Fuzzsir nodded and added,

“The monster wasn’t strong, no. But for normal people, it was more than enough to cause devastation. There was roughly a ten-minute gap between its appearance and when I arrived on the scene.”

Luca nodded silently.

Both Melania and Fuzzsir had done their jobs.

The data they’d collected was accurate and properly presented.

But it wasn’t helpful. None of it offered Luca any real leads.

After a moment of contemplation, he turned to Nova.

“Did you find anything?”

Nova didn’t hesitate.

“I did. And it’s something significant—a lead connected to artificially engineered monsters.”

Her words dropped like a bomb.

“You’re not serious, are you?” Melania immediately snapped, her tone full of doubt.

“There’s no way something like an artificially created monster would be here.”

Luca and Fuzzsir didn’t speak, but their expressions made it clear—they shared her skepticism.

Nova simply smiled.

“Artificial monsters leave behind a very specific kind of residual energy,” she explained calmly.

“Because the technology behind them is still relatively undeveloped, the energy they carry doesn’t fully disperse after they’re killed—unlike natural monsters.”

She had just revealed a critical trait of synthetic monsters.

The moment Luca heard this, his eyes darted toward the southeastern corner of the ruins.

Nova, still smiling, looked at him knowingly.

“You figured it out, didn’t you?”

Luca gave a small nod.

Under Melania and Fuzzsir’s puzzled gazes, he walked swiftly toward the southeast corner.

And just as Nova had implied—there it was. A faint but unmistakable trace of chaotic energy.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Melania said sharply, arms crossed.

“It only proves there’s a traitor in the Imperial Capital. Someone let chaos energy in.”

“No,” Luca said firmly, his voice cutting through the tension.

“There’s a hidden tunnel beneath the rubble. We need to get inside and investigate immediately.”

The others stared at him, stunned.

Even Nova—who had discovered the chaos residue—was momentarily surprised.

She hadn’t noticed any tunnel.

That was because Luca had a distinct advantage—

His Perception skill was maxed out.

Once he got close enough, he could feel the pulsing energy inside the hidden tunnel. It stood out like a beacon to him.

Without wasting time, the group began digging deeper into the wreckage under Luca’s direction.

An hour later, they finally uncovered the entrance to the concealed passage.

And at its mouth, the chaotic energy was overwhelming.

This was all the proof they needed—the monsters had definitely entered the Imperial Capital through here.

“All of your previous assumptions were wrong,” Luca said calmly.

“Yes, some monsters remained in the city after the last horde. But they played almost no role in this attack.”

Melania and Fuzzsir both stiffened, their expressions grim.

Because they knew exactly what Luca wasn’t saying out loud:

The real threat had come through this tunnel.

And that meant only one thing—

The Morning Star defenders and the Imperial Capital Guard Corps had completely failed in their duty to protect the city.

Luca didn’t blame anyone. He was simply stating his analysis, nothing more.

At that moment, Nova suddenly spoke up.

“Are we really going in? I have a bad feeling about this. If we enter that tunnel, we could be walking straight into serious danger.”

Melania and Fuzzsir clearly felt the same way. The unease was written on their faces.

Luca paused for a moment, then said quietly,

“If you don’t want to go in, you can stay here and guard the entrance.”

With that, he stepped into the tunnel alone.

Nova hesitated—but then clenched her jaw and followed him inside.

Melania instinctively moved to go in after them, but Fuzzsir grabbed her arm.

“Are you out of your mind? There’s bound to be serious danger in there! You cannot go in!”

But Melania shook him off without a second thought.

“You stay here. I’m going in to support Luca.”

And with that, she disappeared into the tunnel.

Fuzzsir let out a helpless sigh. He knew there was no changing her mind.

Melania had always been fiercely independent.

All he could do was stay behind at the tunnel’s mouth—

After all, he was still recovering from severe injuries.

The tunnel was narrow—tight enough that only one person could move through it at a time.

As Luca advanced deeper, he could feel something strange—something besides the presence of chaotic energy.

There was primal power.

And that completely threw him.

“How could the Gods of Chaos possibly be using primal power? Wasn’t primal power tied to the Ancient Gods? Could Zenobia have formed some kind of alliance with them?”

According to every piece of intelligence he’d gathered, the Gods of Chaos and the Ancient Gods were bitter enemies.

An alliance seemed impossible.

After half an hour of moving through the tunnel, Luca reached a fork in the path.

To the left, the air was thick with chaotic energy.

To the right, it pulsed with concentrated primal power.

He hesitated.

Then suddenly, Sophia’s voice whispered in his mind.

“Luca. Close your eyes. Feel the primal power in the right-hand tunnel carefully.”

Following her guidance, Luca shut his eyes and focused his senses.

And in that instant—he felt it.

The primal power wasn’t just present—it was radiating from somewhere deep underground.

Moreover, it was being suppressed.

If it weren’t being held down, that energy would have already surged to the surface by now.

Its origin point was located beneath the core district of the Imperial Capital.

As the pieces fell into place in his mind, Luca’s eyes flew open.

He finally understood Zenobia’s true goal.

Her attack on the Imperial Capital hadn’t been random.

She was after the object hidden deep beneath the city’s core—

The source of that suppressed, yet incredibly powerful primal energy.

“Do you have any thoughts?” Luca asked directly, his voice steady.

“I once read a description in the Mages’ Association library,” Sophia replied slowly.

“It spoke of a relic called the Origin Holy Grail. It’s said to constantly emit primal power.”

She shared the details piece by piece, revealing what she remembered.

If what lay beneath the Imperial Capital truly was the Origin Holy Grail, then the situation was far more complicated than any of them had anticipated.

Luca immediately realized—he needed to secure the Origin Holy Grail as soon as possible.

“According to the records, the Origin Holy Grail once killed a Chaos God,” Sophia continued.

“But after that battle, it disappeared without a trace. No one has ever found it again.”

Everything she recalled only served to further confirm Luca’s suspicions.

“If the Origin Holy Grail holds that much primal power,” he thought,

“then with it, I might be able to bring Sophia back to life—sooner than I expected.”

The thought of reviving Sophia filled him with a renewed sense of urgency.

But Sophia didn’t respond again.

In her weakened state, even speaking a few sentences was exhausting.

Just then, Nova and Melania finally caught up.

“So there really is a fork down here,” Nova muttered as she spotted the two diverging paths.

Without thinking, she turned to Luca and asked, “Which direction do you think we should explore?”

But she immediately realized her own mistake—

Luca was clearly already debating that very question.

“Maybe we should take the left path,” Nova offered quickly, recovering.

“It’s filled with strong chaotic energy. If we follow that, we might be able to find the origin of the monster horde.”

Predictably, Melania countered her.

“I think we should go right. That path doesn’t seem nearly as dangerous. At the very least, we won’t be running into powerful monsters there. Honestly, I think we should hold off for now.”

Nova turned and shot Melania a furious glare.

Melania glared right back, completely unfazed.

As the tension between the two of them simmered, Luca’s voice broke through from ahead.

“I think Melania’s right. Let’s mark this location for now. Both paths are risky. We’ll come back once we’re better prepared.”

With that, he turned and began heading back the way they came.

Nova looked frustrated.

She clearly thought this was a rare, golden opportunity—and it shouldn’t be wasted.

But in the end, she said nothing.

She just gritted her teeth and followed.

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