Alessio Leone's Perspective
Alessio had to admit: even for him, that rain of arrows had been unexpected.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen that combo.
In fact, it was one of the most common for archers in his past life.
The trio of basic skills—Swift and Agile, Rapid Shots, and Piercing Arrow—formed one of the earliest "metas" any dedicated player would discover.
And yet, he still found himself surprised to see it.
The reason was simple.
Executing that combination was no trivial matter. It required using multiple class skills repeatedly.
Its application demanded a tremendous amount of focus and concentration, something most beginners simply didn't have.
Every movement had to be perfect, every shot fired without pause, every skill switch calculated to the limit.
And though most still didn't know it, all of that consumed the game's invisible mana.
Not just to activate skills.
Even maintaining such a high level of focus drained that hidden energy from the body.
And the result of that constant drain…
Was something Alessio knew well.
That throbbing headache after a long and grueling fight wasn't some artificial mechanic created by developers to mask a nonexistent mana bar.
It was real.
Tangible.
A genuine mental expenditure capable of driving players to faint.
And Silent was proving that right now.
The girl had fired like a madwoman, sustaining the full combo of the three basic archer skills for nearly twenty seconds straight. And now, her body collapsed, unconscious, without even a chance to react.
It wasn't a system failure.
It wasn't a bug.
It was simply the Tower's reality.
Just a price to be paid.
Every use of the mind inside that place consumed mana.
Aiming.
Casting.
Calculating.
Even the simple act of maintaining extreme focus for consecutive minutes drained energy.
And all of that mana was governed by a single attribute: Intelligence.
And that was the problem.
Right now, they were only in the Tower's early stages, and Intelligence was still a scarce resource.
Even among classes naturally dependent on magic, the amount they had was too low to sustain long sequences. Mages already struggled to balance two or three consecutive casts without collapsing from exhaustion.
And for an archer—a class not fully built around Intelligence…
Having someone able to sustain that combo was an absurd, and rather unexpected, feat for Alessio.
If that display had come from someone like Eleanor, he wouldn't have been surprised.
Or perhaps from one of the players who, in the future, would become known as the Tower's five greatest sharpshooters.
But from the archer in his group?
The name SilentArrow sparked no memories for him.
In his past life, Alessio knew every name of the players who shaped the top of the game.
Because he had seen them as rivals he would one day try to surpass.
That was how he recognized Eleanor Whitmore so easily—it was impossible for a Tank like him to ignore a healer whose talent would one day become legendary.
But SilentArrow?
She had never stood out in any of Alessio's memories.
At least, not publicly.
No records. No echoes of her presence in forums, in elite guilds, or in streams watched across continents.
And yet…
A player capable of sustaining that rain of arrows on the Tower's second day, with that speed, that precision… she was definitely no ordinary person.
Alessio knew better than anyone: pulling that off required more than reflexes.
It demanded training, determination, and willpower.
It required a mind prepared to burn every ounce of focus as if it were vital energy.
It required enduring the pain, the weight, the mental exhaustion that came with spending the game's invisible mana.
Anyone capable of applying that combo so early, on only the second day of this game, certainly had abilities far beyond average.
There was no other explanation.
So what had happened?
What could have occurred in the future that kept Silent from standing out?
Why had a player with such potential never reached the public surface of the Tower?
Alessio frowned, watching the unconscious archer.
Deep down, it unsettled him.
Made him curious.
Almost anxious.
Because the Black Tower was ruthless in shaping destinies.
And if someone like her had vanished from the known pages of his past life…
It could only mean something—something big—had happened along the way.
Unfortunately, Alessio had no time—at least not right then—to dwell further on Silent.
The desperate struggle of his companions up to that point—the sweat, the tension, the barriers rising and breaking—combined with Silent's rain of arrows that had swept the hall… it had been enough to stabilize the battle.
The twenty-four goblins summoned by the sub-boss were dead.
But the fight wasn't over.
The sub-boss still breathed.
Weakened, yes. Staggering, yes. But alive.
And Alessio knew very well what that meant.
Any veteran of the Tower understood the cruel truth of this moment: the final instants of a boss were always the most dangerous.
It was when their routines broke.
When they became unpredictable.
When hidden skills, unrevealed patterns, or sheer savagery surfaced.
Alessio knew this risk better than anyone.
And unfortunately, it fell to him—and only him—to end this fight.
His eyes swept the chamber in an instant.
Matteo. Cassandra. Eleanor. All of them were running desperately toward Silent.
It was understandable.
They were still novices. Even Eleanor—who would one day become a monster—was just a novice now, someone who had never seen anyone faint inside the Tower.
It was only natural they'd forget the battlefield, guided solely by concern for their friend who had collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
But Matteo?
Alessio almost wanted to laugh, seeing his friend run as well.
His longtime friend.
The meticulous engineer—someone who, in his past life, Alessio had never managed to shape into a reliable ally.
This time, he planned to train him, to make him his right hand.
A disciplined mage, technical, able to think as he thought.
And yet… there was Matteo, running alongside the girls.
Drawn by the same scene that would make any young man's heart waver: a beauty in danger.
Alessio sighed inwardly.
He wouldn't blame them for it.
He wouldn't waste his energy trying to stop them.
But the practical result was clear:
He was alone.
Alone before a sub-boss still standing.
And as his eyes met the creature's, the reality only deepened.
The goblin warrior was still upright.
Its breathing was heavy, its muscles trembled, but hatred burned in its yellow eyes.
A savage hatred, fixed entirely on him.
Aslan.
The Tank who had defied its authority.
The human who had dared to face it as an equal.
Alessio raised his shield, steady.
He knew: the next moment would be anything but easy.
And if he wanted to survive, he'd need every last drop of focus his mind could muster.