Chapter 84: The Apocalyptic Archer (2/2)

The second one put up slightly more of a fight, a pair of players working the same base together, Rare-rank Spacecraft-equivalent summons scrambling into a defensive line the second her Motes crossed their detection range.

It didn’t matter. Emberlynx and Thistlemaw tore through the line in under a minute, and Meteor Nock finished the Core before either player managed to mount a real counterattack.

```

[ You have eliminated Player Halden Vosk. +2345 Tower Points. ]

```

```

[ You have eliminated Player Reya Vosk. +3215 Tower Points. ]

```

By the fourth base, Alice had stopped bothering to land at all, sniping Territory Cores from well outside their own detection range and moving on before the owners even finished registering the attack.

’This is almost boring, but I have to eliminate the players before they eliminate each other.’ She rolled her shoulders, scanning the map and sweeping across everything.

...

Three more days passed as she hunted almost all players, raided every possible dungeon in most of the areas, cleared challenges, and also found multiple merchants.

Today, she visited one of them.

The merchant looked up as she approached, unbothered, an old woman with too many rings on her fingers and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

"Veskrin’s the name." She gestured at the modest spread of goods laid out around her fire. "Not much left in stock this late in a match, but I’ve got one thing that might actually interest someone with your kind of score."

She held up a crystal, dark violet and faintly humming.

```

[ Talent Change Crystal ]

Cost: 150,000 Tier Points.

```

Alice’s eyebrows rose. She had more than enough sitting in her pocket.

’Wildbless Dessert’s been fun. But I don’t want a talent that just buffs my stats and gives me random effects based on which dessert I use it on.’ She turned the thought over once, weighing it seriously for the first time in longer than she wanted to admit. ’It’s legendary, but I want a Mythic-rank talent that boosts my power consistently instead.’

"I’ll take it."

She didn’t wait to get somewhere safer to use it. She activated it right there, in front of Veskrin’s fire, the crystal dissolving into a rush of violet light that sank straight into her own chest.

```

[ Talent Change: Wildbless Dessert (Legendary) -> Blazing Starlight Physique (Legendary). ]

```

Heat bloomed under her skin immediately, gentle at first, then sharper, a physique that generated its own light from somewhere deep inside her rather than pulling it from outside the way her old Talent had.

```

[ Blazing Starlight Physique ]

Rank: Legendary.

Effect: Generates Blazing Starlight, an internal energy that empowers all attacks and grants additional effects upon use.

```

"Well then." Alice flexed one hand, watching faint gold light curl off her own fingertips. "Let’s see what you actually do."

...

The next player, one of the last five left hidden on the map, gave her the perfect chance to test it.

He came at her fast, some kind of shadow-based class, twin daggers already dripping with something that looked corrosive. Alice didn’t bother dodging. She drew, loosed, and let Blazing Starlight answer the question for her.

Starpiercer Volley!

The arrows left her bow wreathed in gold fire this time, and where they struck, the fire didn’t just burn. It spread, catching along every inch of exposed skin like the man had been dipped in oil first.

"What the hell is this?!" He dropped his own daggers, patting frantically at flames that refused to go out.

’Burning.’ Alice filed the effect away, delighted. ’One down.’

’SURRENDER!’

The second test came from a Rare-rank Spacecraft-equivalent guard standing between her and the next Territory Core, plated in something that had shrugged off her arrows just fine before the Talent change.

Meteor Nock!

This time the shot didn’t just hit. It punched clean through the plating like it wasn’t there at all, gold light eating straight through metal that should have stopped it cold.

’And that’s piercing.’ She grinned wider. ’Two.’

By the fifth player she hunted down, she’d found a third effect entirely by accident, an arrow that missed clean and still detonated in a burst of starlight the instant it struck the ground, catching two more enemies standing nearby in the blast.

"Explosive on impact, apparently." She laughed out loud, genuinely thrilled now. "This Talent’s incredible."

The eliminations piled up fast after that. Bases fell one after another, their Territory Cores cracking open under arrows that burned, pierced, or detonated depending on what the fight actually called for. Players who tried to fight back lasted seconds longer than the ones who simply surrendered, and neither group lasted particularly long either way.

```

[ You have eliminated Player Dross Kane. +1350 Tower Points. ]

[ You have eliminated Player Wren Talbot. +55 Tower Points. ]

[ You have eliminated Player Mirela Vance. +3140 Tower Points. ]

```

By the time the sun started sinking, Alice’s own scanner turned up something she hadn’t seen in longer than she could remember.

One signature. Just one, sitting alone on a battlefield that had held ninety-nine other players not too long ago.

She landed in front of the last standing Territory Core an hour later, its owner already backing away with both hands raised before she’d even drawn her bow.

"I surrender. I surrender, just don’t-"

’SURRENDER!’

[You are the last player standing now. You may exit any time you wish.]

Logan had also made sure to clear whatever he could before exiting, and Alice proceeded to do the same.

She was even more thorough, and she had been dominating the match right from the start, snatching all achievements and getting most of the high-ranking dungeons, hidden areas, challenges, and so on thanks to Fortune Mole that she pulled pretty early. Epic-rank, but very useful in allowing her to increase her overall score.

’I have to sweep some areas I have yet to thoroughly check.’

"Air Command, gather up." She jumped on her Mythic-rank flying unit that Logan had merged at the forefront, leading her army for any possible conquest left in this world.

And then ten hours later, she was done.

She appeared back in Logan’s house, in the garden’s spot where she had disappeared a week ago.

It was day, early in the morning, with the sun that had just risen.

[Your journey in the match is complete.]

[Overall Score: 143,490]

[Player level: 10 retained. Class level: 10 retained.]

[Player’s Match Rank bracket: Champion. Reward Multiplier of 2.0x applied. Additional 0.5x multiplier from World Quest completion applied.]

[ 143,490 score = 14,349 Tier Points. ]

[ Inventory Conversion = 4780 Tier Points ]

[ Total Tier Points = 19129 ]

[ 19,129 x 2.5 = 47,822 Tier points. ]

Alice grinned.

[Remark: A dominating performance. You have achieved the No. 1 rank in the Floor 1 Score Leaderboard, breaking the previous record. Title: The Apocalyptic Archer.]

"Alice? You’re back."

Alice’s eyes sparkled as soon as she heard the voice.

"Darling!"

But just as she moved, her world became dizzy.

"Ehh...oh yeah, I haven’t slept for the last two days...’

She saw Logan appearing in front of her and grabbing her right before she was about to fall.

"Hi..." Alice smiled, but that was all she could manage before she knocked herself out cold.

Logan wryly smiled. "Well, you did it."

He looked at her face, her lips beautiful and inviting, but didn’t do anything and lightly coughed.

"Ahem, Miss Andi, should I put her in my home or..."

Andrivida appeared before him with a smile that Logan swears looked amused before it just vanished.

"Thank you. I’ll take her from here."