Mira felt something she had not even experienced during the Demonic Supernatural Event in Woodstone City.
Because the figure hovering above her keep was not some ordinary opponent.
Lucky's presence was suffocating.
It pressed down on Mira's chest like an iron weight. The mana around her warped in subtle tremors, bending toward him like the forest itself acknowledged his dominion.
Her hand clenched tighter around the formation stone until her knuckles turned white, the faint glow spilling across her pale fingers.
Her mind screamed at her to act, to hurl the stone down and activate the formation at once. But her instincts betrayed her. They told her the truth her pride refused to accept.
The stone might buy her time. A few breaths. Maybe even a minute. But not victory.
Just a step forward-and the air screamed.
The world seemed to tear as a lance of green fire streaked from his palm, thin as a spear yet wide enough that the castle gate behind Mira blistered at its passing.
Reflex saved her; the stone flared and a translucent wall sprang up before her.
Blue light warped. The barrier writhed like heated glass, its surface
running in ripples as Lucky's fire crawled across it like a living thing. Mira's lips tightened, mana pouring into the stone as she forced the shield to hold. Sweat beaded instantly across her brow.
A low hiss that built into a shriek, as though the barrier itself was being peeled apart layer by layer. The fire didn't just burn-it corroded, eating at the formation like acid.
Mira's teeth clenched. "No..."
If only she knew Lucky was holding back due to a temporary delay in judgement due to her identity, who knows what she'll feel.
Cracks spidered through the wall, every pulse of green forcing them wider. A heartbeat later, the shield exploded outward in shards of blue light.
The blast threw Mira back across the courtyard. She rolled, coughing as her lungs filled with smoke that wasn't smoke-an acrid haze that clawed at her throat and stung her eyes.
When she rose, Lucky was already descending,
The keep itself groaned as fire licked across its walls, the stone darkening, bleeding light as if its life was being drawn away.
Despair clawed at her chest. She had faced monsters before. She had faced horrors in Woodstone City. But this was different.
Mira staggered, wiped her eyes, raised the stone again with shaking hands.
Lucky answered by closing his palm.
Green radiance folded inward, then snapped outward in a tight cone. The beam punched through the rebuilt barrier as if it were paper, kissed the formation stone, and turned it to drifting ash. The recoil numbed Mira's arm to the shoulder. For a breath she simply stared at her empty palm.
"Sorry," Lucky said-quiet, almost gentle.
A final streak of emerald light crossed her vision.
The system caught her before the fire did. White latticework wrapped her body, and the exam's emergency extraction flared.
She dissolved into motes, whisked out of the trial alive-but defeated.
The courtyard fell silent except for the soft hiss of Lucky's flame
eating its way into the stone.
He turned to the keep itself.
A single breath, and green fire poured from his mouth in a smooth arc
that slid along walls, windows, and seams.
[Castle 112 Destroyed.]
Lucky was already gone-blurring into the trees.
[Castle 089 Destroyed.]
[Castle 064 Destroyed.]
[Castle 173 Destroyed.]
In high air, the teachers watched the island's map freckle with
Lucky never hurried, yet he was everywhere.
For some that day, he was a nightmare of despair.
For a few long minutes, the island sounded like the inside of a storm.
Silence. Trees bent and slowly righted. Ash drifted like gray snow.
Aside from Michael and his two undead, nothing else on the shattered
Gale hovered back to his master's side, wings folding, pressure vanishing like a clenched fist opened. Lucky arrived a heartbeat later.
Panels bloomed in Michael's vision.
[Quest: Defend Your Castle - Completed]
[Objective: Defend your castle for 1 hour]
[Threshold surpassed.]
[Base Reward: +30 All Attributes, +2 Level-ups, +40 Free Attribute
[Performance Bonus Applied]
[Final Reward: +40 All Attributes, +4 Level-ups, +40 Free Attribute
Michael exhaled, a happy smile showing on his face.
Another pane slid into place.
[Quest: Defiance - Completed]
[Objective: Eliminate ≥30% of castles in 1 hour]
[Result: 66% of castles eliminated]
[Threshold surpassed.]
[Base Reward: +50 All Attributes, +4 Level-ups, +50 Free Attribute
[Performance Bonus Applied]
[Final Reward: +60 All Attributes, +6 Level-ups, +50 Free Attribute
A warm surge rolled through his body-raw, ordered power snapping into bone and tendon, coiling in his core. Stats climbed. The world sharpened another few degrees.
Joy hit him like fresh air after drowning.
He didn't whoop or pump a fist-Michael wasn't wired that way-but
the grin that cut across his face was unguarded, boyish. This-this
right here was part of why he'd stopped hiding.
After his last breakthrough, the limiter the system slapped on him for "outlier performance" had turned exp into
If he tried to climb on experience alone, he'd waste weeks for gains
that should've taken hours.
But quests were different.
Do more than the requirements, and the system pays you more.
Now, thanks to this opportunity he did not let pass him by, Michael was now a level 50 necromancer.
A peak rank 2 awakener, just one level away from achieving rank 3.
Michael didn't know how long the last step would take, but the Google seaʀᴄh 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝔫𝔢𝔱
distance wasn't the yawning gulf it had been at Level 40. It felt near. Reachable. Real.
Michael glanced at Gale and Lucky.
"Good work," Michael said softly and summoned the two undead back
But before he could turn to check the new panel that appeared,
Michael felt his vision shift.