Chapter 339: Simulating Multiversal Stakes?

Black Sun Mateo’s Floating Island, a long distance away from Uhtred and Zara...

A glowing hot piercing round burst through the head of a Goblin, eliciting shrieks of panic from the few left standing. Of the eight who had invaded Black Sun Mateo’s Island, only three remained on their feet.

With desperate haste, they scrambled back toward their own Floating Islands, shrieking in anger and pain at their heavy losses.

"Yeah! Get the fuck off our Island!" Antoine Blanc yelled after them, pointing his weapon at their retreating figures. He was heavily wounded, with blood trailing down several deep gashes across his body.

For a race so small in size, the Goblins were a hassle to deal with. At first, both Antoine Blanc and Black Sun Mateo had taken control of the battle rhythm despite being ambushed. But taking control and actually finishing the job were two very different things.

Black Sun Mateo’s long-distance shots were devastating, and working in tandem with Antoine Blanc fighting at close range with his blade, it had initially looked like they would make short work of the entire raiding party.

But after the first two Goblins went down, the others quickly adapted. They moved in unpredictable, erratic patterns, making it extremely difficult for Mateo to land clean shots from afar. That, in turn, placed a massive burden on Antoine Blanc, who was left taking the brunt of their desperate counterattacks up close.

After a grueling, drawn-out fight, only three Goblins remained standing.

Black Sun Mateo charged down the small hill he’d been sniping from, intent on killing the remaining three Goblins before they could cross back to their own Floating Islands.

"Come on, Antoine! We need their shards! Don’t let them go!!" he barked, trying to spur Antoine Blanc into action. But the man was completely spent.

Despite his best efforts to give chase, Antoine Blanc’s legs gave out under him. He collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily and clenching his chest with a grimace — his core throbbing in agony from severe over-exertion.

"Fuck!" Mateo cursed. Seeing that Antoine Blanc was completely out of commission, he gave chase himself, trying to breach at least one of the Goblin Islands before they escaped.

Already, one of the Goblins had leapt onto its own island and immediately began steering it toward the others, including the islands of its deceased teammates.

It was clear the surviving Goblins intended to imitate the Faeries and link their islands together, taking control of the Shards belonging to their fallen comrades in the process — an outcome Mateo desperately wanted to prevent.

"No fucking way we did all this work just for you fuckers to run off with your tails between your legs!!" he seethed, firing off several compressed flame shots.

Unfortunately, none of the rounds connected. The Goblins were absurdly fast on their tiny legs, widening the gap rapidly and pulling beyond Mateo’s effective range.

"Come back here, you green fuckers! Antoine! Steer the island their way! We can still close the gap before they take off!"

Antoine Blanc, watching the entire spectacle from his knees with an exhausted, worn expression, could only let out a heavy sigh. "It’s useless, Mateo... you know that as well as I do. There’s no way we can catch them..."

"Just do it!" Mateo barked, still firing useless shots as he sprinted to the edge of the Floating Island. "Antoine! Move the damned island!"

Mateo’s frantic shouts continued to echo across the open sky — a jarring sight, especially considering how calm and composed he usually was.

In the end, the Goblins escaped, taking along with them the Shards that should have been rightfully Mateo’s and Antoine Blanc’s to claim as spoils of battle.

"Fuck!!" Mateo yelled, unleashing all his built-up frustration and anger in a single, furious shout. Surprisingly, he didn’t direct any of that rage toward Antoine Blanc, even though it seemed like Antoine could have prevented the escape simply by moving the island as requested.

Clearly, Mateo knew Antoine Blanc was right. Even if they had managed to shift their island immediately, they simply didn’t have the speed to catch up to those Goblins... and that was because their island lacked a shard present to provide the necessary power.

Even if the Goblins had somehow managed to win, they wouldn’t have found any shard on the island... and that was because the Race Shard that should have been present was gone.

Black Sun Mateo and Antoine Blanc had both lost their Race Shards. In fact, Mateo had even lost his Floating Island altogether.

"This damned competition," Mateo muttered, slumping to the ground and panting heavily after all his running. "It’s just been loss after loss since we began. We’ve only just started gaining points, and now this... Imagine how many points we would’ve racked up for claiming five Race Shards!"

"Heh," Antoine Blanc chuckled humorlessly from behind. "Now some lucky bastard will stumble on those last three Goblins, make short work of them, and claim eight Goblin Race Shards all at once..."

The mere thought of that felt like adding salt to their wounds.

Mateo didn’t reply. He simply clenched his jaw and tried to change the subject. "Alexei had better still have that last shard when he comes back," he muttered.

King Alexei, being the strongest among them, was the only one with his Race Shard still in his possession. All three Champions had met up after Mateo lost his island and his shard. Naturally, that should have been the cue to combine their forces, but King Alexei’s monstrous ego simply couldn’t accept such an arrangement.

Apparently, he’d crossed paths with the Dragonkin race and witnessed firsthand how terrifyingly powerful they were. More importantly, he’d seen how fiercely solitary they operated.

Perhaps he viewed that as a personal challenge, but ever since then, he had flatly refused to team up. He had only promised to meet up periodically with Mateo and Antoine Blanc, preferring to hunt completely solo.

Perfection being solo as well did nothing to alleviate the situation. The mysterious man remained as elusive as ever. Neither Black Sun nor Antoine Blanc had caught so much as a glimpse of him since the scenario started.

He seemed to be doing well for himself, though. Perfection currently sat at Rank 41 on the Leaderboard, making him the third highest-ranked human Champion behind Uhtred and King Alexei.

"Have you checked the rankings lately, Mateo?" Antoine Blanc suddenly asked, his voice still ragged and weak.

Mateo immediately pulled up the Leaderboard interface. Upon seeing the current standing, he didn’t know whether to feel relieved or resentful.

Uhtred and Zara had only appeared on the rankings a few days ago, yet Uhtred had already blown past even the top human Champions, sitting currently at Rank 38 — ahead of King Alexei at Rank 40 and Perfection at Rank 42. Zara had also skyrocketed up the board, landing at Rank 49, ahead of Mateo’s own Rank 50.

In the end, a weary smile cracked open on Mateo’s face — one of genuine relief. He was far more glad that Uhtred and Zara had finally entered the fray than bitter about how ridiculously overpowered they were.

"Well, at least our main powerhouses are finally in the game," he said, pushing himself off the ground with renewed resolve. "We’ll wait for Alexei to return, and then our next agenda will be tracking down those two anomalies. Somehow, I just know our shitty luck will turn around once we find them..."

***

Meanwhile, back at Uhtred and Zara’s islands...

A heavy mechanical click followed by a sharp hiss echoed across the sky as Uhtred’s and Zara’s islands interlocked. They had finally mastered the procedure to conjoin their territories, just as the Faeries had done.

The instant the island borders sealed seamlessly together, a translucent System window materialized in both of their visions:

[Notice!]

[Interlocked Human Floating Islands registered! Do you wish to merge your shards at the new central location?]

[Y/N]

"Oh? Zara, are you seeing this?" Uhtred asked, raising a brow in mild surprise.

"Yeah. Should we do it? I think it’s the logical move, right? It’d help us defend our shards far better."

"I’ve selected yes," Uhtred replied, and Zara immediately confirmed the prompt as well.

In a flash of bright light, the two separate hovering shards shot across the sky, fusing into a single, glowing one at the center of their new conjoined territory. Nothing about their properties changed, except for the fact that the combined shard was noticeably larger and emitted a far denser aura of essence.

"Okay, so now what? We just fly around aimlessly looking for targets to hunt?" Zara asked, glancing over at Uhtred.

"Not quite," Uhtred said, shaking his head. "I mean, the part about flying around is definitely true. But I think there’s a deeper purpose behind this whole ’Floating Island’ thing."

Uhtred rubbed his chin thoughtfully, beginning to lay out his analysis of the Tower’s underlying design for this trial.

"Like I’ve told you before, the Tower never designs a scenario without a specific purpose, Zara. There were a thousand ways this competition could have been structured, but the fact that it is set up like this specifically should tell us something..."

"And what would that be?" Zara asked, her interest piqued.

"...I might be wrong, but I think these Floating Islands are meant to simulate the stakes we’ll face the moment our worlds are fully integrated into the Grand Multiverse."