From their high perch, the valley unfolded like a diorama of impending conflict. Eight figures, young and moving with the lean, efficient grace of seasoned predators, advanced through the scrub towards the carnage-strewn wind cave. Yao watched, her analytical mind dissecting their movements. Their footwork, their spacing, the way they used the scant cover—it spoke of experience. Not the flailing inexperience of game newbies, but the hard-won caution of those who'd survived real dungeons. If their displayed Agility was any indicator, they were all past Level 10. In this world, reaching that mark outside an academy implied at least two, maybe three, forays into sanctioned death-zones like this one.
But her gaze narrowed. The team's formation was off. Four on the left moved as a tight unit. Three on the right. The lead figure, a young man, kept a deliberate distance from the girl behind him—'Aqi,' they'd called her. And the person tailing Aqi followed too closely, a hunter herding prey. Fissures,Yao thought. This team has cracks.
One of the figures, a sharp-faced youth with an air of command—Yan Shangjun, she'd later learn—raised a monocular. Yao instantly pulled back, shoving Gronk's furry head down. The marmot's fur was impossibly soft, like crushed velvet over solid muscle.
"Wha—?" he began, then understood. Below, Yan Shangjun's lens swept over the boss corpses, the litter of lesser kills, then skimmed the cliff face. It paused for a half-second on their ledge, then moved on. A smooth, barren rock face held no interest.
"They're gone. Bosses are dead. Looted," Yan Shangjun's voice, tight with frustration, carried up on the hot, smoky air. His team emerged from cover, clustering around the massive insect corpses with a mixture of greed and wariness.
"They left the claws? That's… wasteful. Were they a full raid team?"
"Scatter! Check for an ambush!"
They fanned out, movements professional, but found nothing. Only the ominous, buzzing dark maw of the wind cave offered concealment. "Aqi," Yan Shangjun said, "You're fast. Scout the mouth. We'll cover you."
The girl, Aqi, was slight, with a quiet, almost vacant expression. She glanced at Yan Shangjun, then nodded silently. As she approached the cave, her eyes, unlike the others', didn't just sweep the surroundings; they analyzed. They noted the specific pattern of the boss's fatal wounds, the angle of the fallen carcass, and, for the briefest moment, flickered towards the cliff ledge. She said nothing. A few steps from the entrance, she stopped, her head tilting. The buzzing from within had changed, grown deeper, more pervasive.
"There's a swarm inside. A large one. I cannot estimate numbers." Her voice was flat. "Your call, Captain."
The others reacted with a surge of avaricious excitement. A nesting chamber! Untouched loot! Treasure crates! They began pulling gear from dimensional pouches and satchels with practiced ease. Scrolls of Frost Nova and Chain Lightning. Magical Claymore Mines etched with fire runes. Nets woven from Mire-Toad tendons, designed to entangle and slow. A small arsenal, laid out with the casual wealth of those who'd done this before.
Watching from above, Yao felt a pang of something that was not quite envy, but the cold acknowledgment of disparity. She'd carved a path with a single ring and sheer, desperate ingenuity. These people solved problems with capital. Her Gossamer was a scalpel; their approach was a bulldozer.
"There could be thousands more," Gronk whispered, his nose twitching. "If it's too many, we bolt, right? They can fly, and they'll smell us."
"If our new friends are sufficiently capable, they'll provide a protective perimeter," Yao replied, her tone serene. "We're all fellow aspirants here. One big, happy family."
Gronk stared at her. "You… you have a very flexible relationship with the truth."
Below, the swarm erupted. The initial wave, funneled by the narrow cave mouth, met a wall of orchestrated destruction. Mines detonated, scrolls unrolled into tempests of ice and lightning, nets snagged entire clusters. The valley floor trembled. The first two thousand swarmers died in a spectacular, cacophonous fireworks display of spell effects and gore. Experience prompts, invisible to Yao and Gronk but undoubtedly flooding the team's interfaces, would be lighting up.
Then the restcame. A living tsunami of chitin and wings, flooding out in a seemingly endless stream. Panic flickered across the team's faces.
"Fall back!"
"No! Hold the choke! If we break formation, we're dead!"
Yan Shangjun made the right, brutal call. "Stand firm! This is the last of them! Everything you've got!"
The team dug in. Potions were chugged. Barrier totems were slammed into the earth. One member, a burly youth, activated a skill that sheathed his arms in glowing stone, allowing him to shove back the front line. Another chanted a continuous Healing Aura. It was messy, desperate, and extravagantly expensive. They were burning through resources worth millions of copper, but they were holding.
"They're rich," Gronk muttered, equal parts awed and disdainful. "And tough. All Green gear, probably. Good thing we're up here. Still… flashy consumables. No staying power. Not like my racial talents or your… spidery nonsense." He couldn't help the boast.
"You have a lovely tail," Yao remarked absently, her eyes tracking the battle below. "Very… expressive. And your hindquarters have an admirable structural integrity."
Gronk froze, his furry cheeks puffing out. "Are you… are you making fun of my proportions again? It's a burrowing adaptation! The muscle mass is essential for—oh, forget it! As party leader, shouldn't you be allocating the loot instead of critiquing my morphology?" He gestured impatiently at the pile of glittering items between them.
The system allowed for manual distribution or an automatic split based on contribution. Yao, without a moment's hesitation, selected 'Automatic – Contribution Weighted.'
Gronk blinked. It was the safe choice, avoiding any awkward haggling between strangers. It also meant they might not get the specific items best suited to their builds. "You're not worried you'll miss out on something you need?"
"If I get something you need, you'll be willing to trade. If you get something I need, you'll also be willing to trade. The system just saved us fifteen minutes of polite extortion," Yao said, her logic air-tight and utterly devoid of sentiment.
Gronk harrumphed, conceding the point, and dived into his share. His loot pile shimmered: a dozen Arcane Missile tomes, one rare Earth's Snarl tome, five Sand Tomb scrolls, a Green-tier vambrace, assorted Bronze gear, three Tier 1 Constitution Gems, three Agility Gems, a peculiar green talisman that pulsed with a subterranean hum—'Sigh from the Depths'—and a single, beautiful S1 Key.
Yao's haul was equally impressive: Two Verdant Locust Wing tomes, sixteen Arcane Missiles, the prized 'Locust's Daze' skill book (glowing with a soft green light—a Boss-drop treasure), five Sand Tombs, a Green greave, more Bronze gear, four Constitution Gems, three Strength Gems, a talisman of her own—'Terror of the Alpha'—a Bronze-tier Mask of Dissimulation, and two S1 Keys.
"The system's being generous," Gronk chirped, tail wagging. "Small party, tough fight. Better odds. Hey, you have Sand Tomb? Useless for you, right? I'll trade my extra Missiles for it, plus cover the value difference. It's perfect for me!" He was already calculating, pulling out a stack of copper notes.
Yao tossed him the scrolls and accepted the money without looking. Her attention was on the 'Sigh from the Depths.' "Allows subterranean attack? Fits you perfectly. More valuable than an S1 for your build. Mine is a debuff charm. 'Terror of the Alpha'—induces a two-second fear in a Boss up to five levels higher. Situational, but a lifesaver."
She showed him. Gronk whistled. "Nice! So, you going all-in on Agility, then?" He'd noticed her trading her Constitution gems for his Agility ones.
"The current… logistics demand it," she said, her gaze drifting back to the struggling team below. They'd whittled the swarm down by two-thirds, but at a cost. Three of their members lay still among the insect corpses. The remaining five were bloodied but ferocious, their initial panic hardening into a grim determination to see it through.
"They're going to win," Gronk fretted. "I thought it'd be a mutual kill. We underestimated them."
"Their victory is temporary. The fracture in their team is about to widen. But first…" She looked at Gronk. "You claimed your Strength was impressive. Prove it. Can you fell that tree?" She pointed to a mature pine near the cliff edge.
Gronk, confused but willing, scampered over. His stone-clad paws made short work of the trunk. With a grunt of effort, he pushed the falling tree to teeter on the cliff's brink. "Now what?"
Below, the battle was in its final, brutal phase. The last few hundred swarmers were being cornered. The survivors were already casting covetous glances at the bodies of their fallen comrades—and at each other.
Yao waited. She focused on one of the fighters, a man named Zhang Qi who was looking particularly aggressive. As he lunged for a kill, she activated 'Locust's Daze.' A invisible wave of disorienting energy washed over him.
He staggered, a swarmer's mandible scoring a deep groove across his arm. "Zhang Qi! What are you doing?" someone shouted.
"I—I was stunned! Someone hit me with a Daze!"
"What? How?"
Zhang Qi's furious eyes found Aqi, who was cleanly finishing off a cluster of insects with precise, icy daggers. "You! It was you!"
Aqi didn't look up. "Teammates can't deal direct damage. Status effects have no such restriction. You planned this!" His accusation was a spark in a room full of fumes.
The others turned on Aqi, their weapons shifting subtly. The remaining swarmers were an afterthought now.
Aqi sighed, a small sound. "It wasn't me. I have no Daze skill. Captain, please—"
A notification chimed in her mind. [You have been removed from the party 'Vanguard Aspirants.']
Yan Shangjun's face was a mask of cold disappointment. "Aqi, you've forced my hand." It was a signal. The four remaining fighters moved to surround her.
But Aqi was already moving. The moment the party link broke, she vanished—not a Cloak like Yao's, but a Shadow-Meld, a rogue's staple. Then she did something that made Yao's breath catch. A flick of her wrist, a surge of chaotic, red energy that washed over the remaining swarmers.
'Frenzied Leash.'
It was a legend. A skill whispered about in forum myths. The ultimate agent-provocateur ability. It hijacked a monster's aggression, amplified its power, and redirected its fury. The few hundred weakened swarmers erupted. Their bodies swelled, eyes glowing crimson. With a unified shriek, they turned not on Aqi, but on the two fighters Yan Shangjun had left to contain them. The men were engulfed, their screams cut short.
Now it was three against one. Yan Shangjun, Zhang Qi, and one other. And a horde of enraged, empowered insects.
"Now," Yao said.
Gronk needed no further prompting. He launched himself off the ledge—only to have his tail seized in mid-air. Yao had anchored a Gossamer line to the precariously balanced pine tree. She jumped, dragging the shrieking marmot with her in a controlled, screaming descent.
"INCOMING!" Gronk yowled, hitting the ground in a rolling crouch that shook the earth. He immediately began to sink, his form blurring as he used an earth-glide technique. Yao landed silently, already Cloaked.
Yan Shangjun's head snapped up. "Ambush!"
But from where? He saw the marmot vanish into the ground. He saw nothing else. Then, a Daze hit him, from nowhere. Aqi chose that moment to strike from the shadows. Not with a backstab, but with a spell. Her hands wove, and a bitter, blue-white cold exploded from Yan Shangjun's feet, crawling up his body. 'Deepfrost.' Movement slowed. Armor became brittle.
Yao, still invisible, added her own chaos. Wind, Fire, Wood. She ignited the dry grass around Yan Shangjun, creating a ring of fire. The sudden, intense heat clashing with the Deepfrost caused his Green armor to react violently, a protective matrix flaring to life around him in a shimmering dome—a powerful, but short-lived, automatic defense. It had just been triggered.
One second. Two.
Yan Shangjun roared, golden light—a Metal-element purge—erupting from his core, shattering the ice and shrugging off the Daze. But his invulnerability window was gone, burned on the environmental conflict. In that vulnerable heartbeat, two attacks struck.
From Yao's position, a humming Verdant Locust Wing. From Aqi's, a glacial Frost Spear.
Thwip! Thunk!
Both hit. Yan Shangjun rocked back, a line of blood opening on his cheek from the wind-blade, a deeper puncture weeping frostbitten blood on his side from the spear. He coughed, a spray of crimson. Aqi's damage was staggering—five times Yao's. Her Strength is monstrous,Yao realized.
But Yan Shangjun was a beast. Even wounded, he moved. A blur of motion, his sword—a shimmering Green blade—lancedout. Aqi was forced to block, the impact hurling her through the air. A Gossamer strand, unseen, snapped out from Yao's position, snagging Aqi's waist and yanking her sideways just as Yan Shangjun's left palm, inscribed with a glowing artillery-rune, fired. A cannonade of force detonated where she would have landed. The blast wave alone would have liquefied Yao.
Yan Shangjun panted, his neck now visibly coated in a rime of hoarfrost where Aqi's second, more focused Deepfrost had taken hold. He raised a hand, a dispel-charm glowing…
Yao acted. She pulled on two Gossamer lines. One was tied to Yan Shangjun's wrists, still tangled from earlier. The other… was tied to the massive pine tree teetering on the cliff above. And a third, almost invisible strand, was looped around his frost-encased neck.
With a mental scream of effort, she activated Gossamer Tempering on the neck strand. It flashed silver. At the same moment, she severed the line anchoring the tree.
Yan Shangjun's eyes, wide with fury and pain, saw the silver wire at his throat a microsecond before he felt the world drop out from under him. The two-ton pine tree, its fall unimpeded, plummeted. The Gossamer line around his neck, now hardened to monomolecular sharpness and anchored to thousands of pounds of accelerating timber, snapped taut.
Physics did the rest.
There was a sound like a rotten branch snapping in a gale. The frost-weakened flesh and vertebra offered no more resistance than wet paper. His head did not come clean off; it was wrenchedfrom his shoulders with such violence that the frozen arteries tore rather than sliced. A geyser of still-warm blood, horrifically vivid against the pale frost, arced into the air before his body crumpled.
Silence, for a single, suspended second. Then the headless body toppled forward.
Finishing Blow.