Chapter 99: Dark Fall Conquest (5), Alice’s Resolve

’Sixth.’ She loosed the arrow anyway, form perfect despite the thought sitting sour in the back of her mind. ’Just sixth. Not last.’

She pushed the feeling down and kept firing, Starpiercer Volley thinning the herd’s front rank while Radiant Snare rooted anything that got too close for comfort.

---

Wave twenty-five hit her tower alone harder than any of the previous ones had managed, a full Legendary-rank herd converging from three directions at once while Logan remained two towers away, buried in someone else’s fight.

Alice held through it with everything she had, Comet Step keeping her clear of the worst convergence points while her arrows worked as fast as her draw allowed.

The second minute started eating into that margin fast, three separate flanks closing distance she no longer had the angles to cover alone.

She didn’t call out. She just kept shooting, jaw set, refusing to waste breath on anything but the next shot.

Logan felt the shift before he ever saw it, some instinct built out of thirty straight waves of watching her fight.

He glanced back mid-swing, and the herd swallowing their tower had thickened past anything one archer should be asked to hold alone.

The lock he’d never let expire off her position gave Reaper’s Stride exactly what it needed. It tore him across the gap before the thought fully finished forming, landing directly between Alice and the nearest closing flank.

Overgrim Slash cleared half the herd in one sweep, and Grim Devouring Slash finished the rest before Alice had even lowered her bow.

"Got thick fast." He said it easy, already scanning for anything he’d missed, no apology in it and no question behind it either.

Alice’s breathing came ragged, and she didn’t bother pretending otherwise. "A little."

"I’ve got an eye on it." Logan squeezed her shoulder once, already turning to leave again. "You won’t need to call. I’ll know."

"I know you will." She managed a tired grin despite herself, watching him go. "Doesn’t mean I like needing you to."

He left a moment later, and Alice watched him go longer than she meant to before turning back toward her tower’s next wave.

’Every wave.’ The thought sat quiet under the grin, small enough that it never reached her face. ’I don’t want to be the one who gets watched over. I want to be the one worth watching.’

---

The waves kept climbing through twenty-six, twenty-seven, and twenty-eight. Legendary-rank herds thickened with each pass, and occasional Mythic-tier stragglers tested towers that hadn’t fully adapted to the new baseline yet.

Logan’s count kept climbing at a pace nothing else on the field could match, five towers deep into his circuit by the time the twenty-seventh wave cleared.

```

[ Individual Elimination Leaderboard, Wave 27 ]

>1. Leon Flanke: 27,450

>2. Sylvana Emberleaf: 17,800

>3. Corvin Emberleaf: 17,450

>4. Lyria Windshard: 16,500

>5. Kruk Bloodfang: 16,300

>6. Ruby Starviel: 15,980

```

Alice read the gap between first and sixth twice over, and a knot of insecurity pulled tighter behind her sternum each time she did.

’Team’s fine.’ She told herself it firmly, arrow already nocked for the next surge breaking from the treeline. ’We’re still winning. That’s what matters.’

It was true, and she knew it was true, and it still didn’t quite reach whatever part of her kept sitting uneasy every time that leaderboard flashed her name dead last among six.

She fired anyway, Starflow instincts sharp despite the noise in her head, and told herself the ache would pass once the event actually ended.

It didn’t, not fully. But she buried it deep enough to keep functioning, and kept her bow moving through waves twenty-eight and twenty-nine both, solo the entire stretch.

Logan’s visits grew shorter and further apart as the towers he’d already secured started holding on their own.

---

```

[ Wave 30: Incoming. Mythic-rank threat detected. All towers affected. ]

```

The forest itself seemed to hold its breath the moment the notification cleared, every tower’s treeline going dead still in a way none of the previous waves had managed.

Then the ground split open at the center of the entire field, and something vast dragged itself up out of the dark beneath it, limbs uncoiling in numbers too high to count at a glance.

```

[ Voidfall Devourer ]

Mythic | Level 40

```

Tendrils lashed out toward every tower within range simultaneously, and Alice’s eyes went wide watching one whip directly toward her platform from a distance that should’ve made it impossible.

"Logan!" She didn’t bother hiding the urgency this time, already loosing everything she had into the incoming limb. "This one’s different!"

He was already moving before she finished the sentence, the lock on her position doing exactly what it was built for.

Reaper’s Stride tore him back across the gap he’d spent the last ten waves widening, landing hard beside her just as the tendril crashed into the space where she’d been standing a half second earlier.

"Together this time." He said it without a trace of doubt in it, Grimlord’s Blade already rising. "All the way through."

"Took you long enough." Alice’s grin came fierce despite the fear still humming underneath it, bow rising in perfect sync with his blade.

The fight that followed tested everything either of them had built across the last thirty waves. Logan’s Sword Intent carved clean lines through limb after regenerating limb, while Alice’s arrows found the gaps his cuts left behind.

Grim Siphoning Edge kept his MP flowing steadily, even against something feeding raw magic through every one of its tendrils.

They found its core together, buried deep beneath layers of writhing limb, and Overgrim Slash opened the path while Horizon’s Requiem tore straight through the opening Logan’s cut had carved.

```

[ You have eliminated Voidfall Devourer. +6,000 points. ]

```

The forest went quiet in its wake, and both of them stood there a long moment, breathing hard. The adrenaline of thirty straight waves finally started to bleed out of their shoulders.

```

[ Individual Elimination Leaderboard, Wave 30 ]

>1. Leon Flanke: 34,900

>2. Sylvana Emberleaf: 23,600

>3. Corvin Emberleaf: 22,550

>4. Lyria Windshard: 21,300

>5. Kruk Bloodfang: 20,100

>6. Ruby Starviel: 19,850

```

Alice looked at the numbers one more time, sixth place sitting there plain and undeniable, and the ache she’d carried through the back half of the event finally settled into resolve instead.

A soft chime interrupted the thought before it could fully finish forming.

```

[ Stardust Horizon Ranger: Class Level 20 reached. Choose one new skill. ]

> Piercing Comet (Active) - A heavy, slow-charging shot that detonates on impact, dealing area damage in a wide radius around the point of contact.

> Aegis of Dawn (Passive) - Generates a shield of solid starlight that absorbs a portion of incoming damage, recharging fully after a short cooldown.

> Starflow Arts (Passive) - Choose one effect to apply to your next arrow before release. Stun Star stuns the target for three seconds on impact. Death Star increases critical damage by 200% when the arrow strikes a fatal point. Hungry Star steals 30% of the target’s current MP on impact, transferring it directly to you.

> 5 unspent skill points available.

```

Alice read all three twice, but her eyes kept coming back to the third option long after she’d finished the first pass.

’One skill, three faces.’ She turned the thought over slowly. ’With this, I can have a consistent way to refill my MP. I can’t use Horizon’s Requiem for MP regain in this type of battle. It takes time, and costs more than it recovers unless I hit it on a boss.’

"Starflow Arts." She said it out loud, quietly, mostly to herself.

```

[ Starflow Arts selected. ]

```

She didn’t hesitate over the skill points either, all five sinking into the new skill in the same breath, each one deepening the same three effects a fraction further.

```

[ Starflow Arts upgraded. Stun Star: 3s → 4.5s. Death Star: +200% → +300% critical damage on fatal strike. Hungry Star: 30% → 45% MP transfer. ]

```

"Nice." Logan glanced over at the notification blooming across her status window, genuine warmth in it. "New toy?"

"New toy." Alice echoed it back, testing the draw of an arrow that hadn’t existed a moment earlier, Hungry Star’s faint violet shimmer curling along its fletching. "Figured it was time I picked something up too."

He nodded, already turning to survey the quiet field around them, and didn’t catch the way her eyes lingered on him a moment longer than the conversation strictly called for.

Alice watched him check his blade, unhurried, thirty-four thousand points sitting behind his name like it had cost him nothing at all to get there.

The fear she’d buried all through wave twenty-one to thirty finally surfaced, plain enough that she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there anymore.

’He’s pulling ahead. Not because he doesn’t care. Because he can’t help it.’ The thought settled cold for exactly one second before stubborn determination burned straight through it. ’I won’t let a gap like that become a habit.’

She thought of Sword Intent belonging to Logan, of talents that woke up through nothing but comprehension and will, of a boy who’d earned an eleven-point jump in a single fight because he’d finally understood something deep enough to change what he was.

If he could do it, so could she.

Alice turned to look at him fully, bow still loose in one hand. Determination burned steady behind her eyes, equal parts love and refusal to be left behind.

Logan caught the look and raised an eyebrow, half a question forming on his lips.

She didn’t answer it out loud. She didn’t need to.

Her eyes said all of it anyway.

Logan didn’t understand fully. But he could see clearly from her eyes that she was determined about something.

So he just smiled and encouraged her.

"You can do it."