Chapter 80: Kill Points! Rank V! Mistveil March!

The golden announcement did not stop at one line.

It buried every Fortune Duel message still on the screen.

[Shattered Marches Notice]

[Second Regional Ranking begins]

[Ranking Metric: Kill Points]

[Rank 1 Region: Regional Warden Free Attribute +50 | Region Fortune +5]

[Rank 2 Region: Regional Warden Free Attribute +30 | Region Fortune +3]

[Rank 3 Region: Regional Warden Free Attribute +20 | Region Fortune +2]

[Rank 4—10 Region: Regional Warden Free Attribute +10 | Region Fortune +1]

[Settlement: 10 Realm Days later, 12:00]

[Ranking refreshes daily at 12:00]

The Shattered Marches Channel changed subjects instantly.

A moment ago, everyone had been arguing about Agriculture.

Now every Warden was looking at Kill Points.

The Fortune Duel belonged to Sable March and Riftward.

This ranking belonged to everyone.

Darian spoke first.

[Darian Frost: I like this one.]

Gareth followed.

[Gareth Halvern: Ten days.]

[Gareth Halvern: Long enough.]

Seraphine asked only one question.

[Seraphine Valcrest: How are Kill Points calculated?]

The system rules unfolded immediately.

Wild Monster.

Enemy Troop.

Hero.

Lord.

One entry after another.

Then one line turned gold.

[Killing another Lord / Hero / Troop grants 10× the Kill Points of a Wild Monster of the same level.]

The Channel went quiet for a breath.

Then exploded.

[Anonymous Lord: Ten times?!]

[Anonymous Warden: They want us killing each other?]

[Anonymous Lord: I’m an agriculture Lord. Anyone comes to my Domain, I’m shutting the gate.]

[Black Banner Lord: Ask again in ten days who has the nerve to fight.]

Cassian did not join the discussion.

Because on the other side, a battle report from Crystal Bastion’s perimeter had already appeared.

[Sigrid killed: Crystal Stalker]

[Quality: Elite | Level: 45]

[Kill Points: +90]

He looked at it for two seconds.

Then shifted his gaze to the Crystal Mother record.

Continuous Crystal activation.

Continuous Crystalkin generation.

Yesterday, that made it a stable high-level Monster source.

Today, its price changed again.

Veyra saw it too.

"You’re smiling again."

"I’m not."

"The corner of your mouth moved."

Cassian placed the Kill Points rule beside the Crystal Bastion route.

"Yesterday, she could make monsters."

"Today, those monsters give ranking points."

Veyra looked at the two lines.

"So now you want to kill the Crystal Mother even less."

"At least for the next ten days."

"And after ten days?"

"Depends whether she’s still worth more alive."

Veyra gave a soft snort.

"That does sound like you."

There was only one problem.

The route.

Getting to Crystal Bastion still did not mean stepping out of Forgotten Shrine directly at the fortress perimeter.

The current Warden Gate’s stable reach was not enough.

It could reach the earlier observation point.

After that, they still had to travel.

Once or twice was fine.

Ten days of continuous monster farming made that inefficiency impossible to ignore.

Cassian opened Forgotten Shrine’s advancement panel.

[Forgotten Shrine | Rank IV → Rank V]

[Other Requirements: Satisfied]

[Missing Key Resource: Sulfur]

Sulfur.

A new red line.

Cassian posted the request directly in the Riftward Regional Channel.

[Cassian Vale: Buying verified Sulfur Vein coordinates at a high price.]

[Requirement: must be verifiable.]

Tobias appeared in under a minute.

[Tobias Reed: You’re advancing again?]

[Cassian Vale: Yeah.]

[Tobias Reed: How long have you even been Rank IV?]

[Cassian Vale: Long enough.]

[Tobias Reed: ...]

Ten minutes passed.

No coordinates came in.

Sulfur was not a Gold Vein.

Very few people inside Riftward had reliable access to it yet.

Cassian did not keep raising the bounty.

He opened Tobias’s private channel instead.

[Cassian Vale: Push Road Intelligence farther into the Outer March.]

[Tobias Reed: Looking for Sulfur?]

[Cassian Vale: Yeah.]

[Tobias Reed: Since when does Regional Patrol double as prospecting?]

[Cassian Vale: Don’t you look at everything anyway?]

There was a pause.

[Tobias Reed: That was not a compliment.]

[Cassian Vale: It wasn’t meant to be.]

Tobias stopped wasting words.

[Tobias Reed: I’ll look.]

——

One day passed.

Kill Points began changing the atmosphere of the entire Shattered Marches.

People still hunted Wild Monsters.

But in the Regional Channels, there were noticeably more questions about borders, Waygates, and unfamiliar Troop routes.

Ten times.

That was enough to make Regions that had only considered fighting "eventually" start checking their neighbors early.

Cassian did not start hunting Lords just because of the multiplier.

He had a Crystal Mother.

There was no reason to begin with the most troublesome source of points.

That afternoon, Tobias finally sent a coordinate.

[Tobias Reed: Found one.]

[Tobias Reed: Outer March, north-northwest.]

[Tobias Reed: Strong Sulfur reaction.]

Another message followed immediately.

[Tobias Reed: Don’t rush to thank me. The things guarding it are high-level. My people didn’t engage.]

Cassian saw the last sentence and answered that one first.

[Cassian Vale: Good call.]

Two seconds later—

[Tobias Reed: You actually say that now?]

Cassian was already opening his personal Warden Gate.

——

The air around the Sulfur Vein was hot.

Not volcanic.

But a heavy, acrid smell seeped out of the cracks in the rock.

The Flamehorn Rhinos around the outer edge were already getting to their feet.

Level forty-plus.

Thick hides.

Fire-aligned.

Not an overwhelming number.

Cassian did not let the fight become a second main event.

Aurelia pinned the first one from above.

Celia cut down the fastest flanker.

The Stormlance punched through the center.

In under ten minutes, the mine entrance was quiet.

[Sulfur Vein: Verified]

Cassian immediately opened the Rank V panel.

The missing resource was now available for collection.

"Call eight idle Settlers."

Gloomhoof handled the first load of tools and transport.

Eight Settlers entered through the Gate soon after.

Cassian left them with one instruction.

"Report the moment we have enough for advancement."

He did not tell them to strip the whole vein.

The Kill Points Ranking was already running.

The Crystal Bastion route became more valuable with every hour he connected it sooner.

——

Another day later.

The Sulfur Requirement finally turned green.

[Forgotten Shrine | Rank IV → Rank V]

[All Requirements: Satisfied]

Cassian did not wait.

"Advance."

Golden light spread outward from the Domain Core.

Forgotten Shrine’s main-layer boundary expanded again.

The Deep Layer stretched farther inward with it.

Training area.

Agricultural sector.

The recovery zone around the Fountain.

All of them gained more room.

[Forgotten Shrine: Rank V]

[Domain Effective Area: Expanded]

[Deep Domain Layer Capacity: Expanded]

[New Building Unlocked: Archer Hall]

[Archer Hall: Can Recruit Elite Human Archer]

Cassian looked once.

Elite again.

The Swordsman Hall still had not been built.

Now there was an Archer Hall too.

He did not queue it simply because the words New Building had appeared.

"Leave it."

Veyra stood beside him.

"Two Elite Halls and you want neither?"

"Not neither."

"Not now."

Veyra nodded.

This time, she did not even ask why.

Because the notification below it was what actually stopped Cassian.

[Warden Gate | Rank V Domain Reach Authorization updated]

[Stable Personal-Link Reach: Expanded]

[Current maximum stable reach: approximately 500 km]

On the map, the route that had previously reached only the outer observation point finally extended to Crystal Bastion’s perimeter.

Cassian selected it immediately.

[Target: Crystal Bastion Perimeter]

"Open."

Silver ripples filled the gate frame.

The other side was not grassland.

Not the transfer observation point.

A crystal mountainside appeared directly beyond the Gate.

Sigrid stood only a few dozen meters away.

She saw the Gate first.

Then Forgotten Shrine behind it.

"Lord."

"No detour anymore."

Cassian did not close the Gate immediately.

After Rank V, the connection between the Warden Gate and Forgotten Shrine was clearly more stable.

More importantly—

inside the Deep Layer, the pale-green Life Aura that normally covered the Fountain of Life’s recovery zone actually seeped through the Gate along the stable spatial Link.

On the far side, a small patch of the crystal slope near the Gate was washed in the same pale-green glow.

Aurelia dropped from higher ground.

The moment she stepped into it, a half-healed wound beneath her shoulder armor began closing noticeably faster.

She glanced down.

"That carries through."

Celia returned from the side slope.

A shallow cut on her arm, left by a crystal shard, was already knitting shut.

"Then we don’t have to walk all the way back to the Shrine every time."

Cassian looked through the Gate.

The travel problem was solved.

So was recovery.

The Crystal Mother was still alive.

New Crystalkin would keep appearing.

For the first time, the ten-day Kill Points Ranking had a route they could keep pressing without wasting hours on the road.

Cassian gave one order.

"Keep the Gate open during the Ranking."

Sigrid stood on the other side.

"The main keep?"

"Don’t touch it."

"The Crystal Mother?"

"Leave her alive."

"The perimeter?"

Cassian watched fresh crystal silhouettes moving behind the slope.

"Clear everything we can handle."

He did not order them to open fire yet.

There was still one more thing he had been waiting for.

Cassian opened the Regional Exchange.

The Epic Groundshock Skill Book in his hands had never found the right user.

It had dropped from the Stonehide Direbear.

Strong enough.

Wrong direction.

What Veyra and the Eclipse line lacked was not another way to stand still and hit harder.

Cassian had been filtering the Exchange for higher-grade training resources.

Then one offer stopped him.

[Trade Offer]

[Wanted: Epic offensive Skill Book]

[Offered: Mistveil March Training Manual | Epic]

Cassian opened the details.

Not raw power.

Not more defense.

It addressed exactly what the Eclipse line still lacked.

Movement.

Force control.

Formation repositioning.

Breaking contact and re-forming the line.

[Mistveil March Training Manual | Epic]

[Eclipse Legionnaire: High Compatibility]

[Eclipse Praetorian: High Compatibility]

Cassian finished reading.

He did not scroll any farther.

"Trade."

[Groundshock Skill Book | Epic: Transferred]

[Mistveil March Training Manual | Epic: Acquired]

Veyra was standing beside him.

Cassian handed her the Manual.

"Yours."

She took it.

At first, she only flipped to the first page.

Then the second.

The third.

Her movements slowed.

A moment later, she went back to the beginning.

"This isn’t about stacking more raw power."

"Right."

"It teaches the Eclipse how to reconnect the line after breaking contact."

"Right."

Veyra looked up at him.

"You’re starting to understand what my line actually needs."

Cassian glanced at the Manual in her hands.

"At least I know it isn’t Groundshock."

The corner of Veyra’s mouth moved.

Not quite a smile.

But she did not hand the Manual back.

"I’ll arrange the training."

"Good."

That was all.

From the other side of the Gate, Sigrid’s voice came through.

"Lord."

"Another group is coming out of the side valley."

Cassian turned.

Behind the crystal slope, fresh Crystal Wolves and Crystal Spiders were pushing forward.

They were not survivors from the last clearing.

The Crystal Mother was still sending out new Crystalkin.

Back at Forgotten Shrine, twenty Level-20 Dwarf Rocketiers had already shouldered their launchers.

The eleven Stormlance were gathering in front of the Gate.

Aurelia and Celia checked their weapons again.

Cassian glanced at the settlement countdown ten days away.

Kill Points.

Rank V.

Mistveil March.

Everything he needed for the next step was finally in place.

As for how fast this self-replenishing Crystal Bastion could drive the score—

they had not truly started yet.

Cassian raised one hand.

"Move in."