The battlefield chat was still buzzing about Pine Bloom.
Ever since Sakura·Oolong said, "Could it be her divine talent skill got penalized?", everyone had been watching and waiting. Not just him—plenty of players glued to the channel were waiting for a reply. But Pine Bloom remained silent.
Even when Sakura·Oolong baited her with a casual, "Well, I feel a lot better now," she still didn't respond.
At that point, everyone more or less had their suspicions.
[Lania Kaia·Fat Goose]: No way! BS Rita, come on, spill it—did you really get Pine Bloom's divine gift skill?!
[Sakura·Yii]: Oolong, did you get killed by BS Rita too?
[Sakura·Oolong]: Reflected damage. Took myself out.
[Lania Kaia·Maple Syrup]: Pine Bloom, you good? I remember the last time you cried was when you were 17.
[Blazing Flame·A-Pie]: I was still playing with mud at Tier 7...
[Tingo·JE]: I've said it before—BS Rita is nothing but trouble!
[Marmang·Crab]: And who exactly isn't trouble to you on this battlefield?
[Tingo·Autumn Deer]: I'm telling you, someone moved me to Restaurant 3 during time-stop. You believe me, right?
[Sakura·Lizi]: You're dead meat!!!
[Black Spring·Mud Bears]: Why couldn't it have been Maple Syrup who got hit instead... BS Rita, you're a true friend to the Autumn Bear clan. Respect.
[Lania Kaia·Maple Syrup]: Mud Bears, you're literally a walking cookie.
[Black Spring·Mud Bears]: @#￥%#@!...
Everyone was talking over each other. The whole channel felt like a New Year's party.
Rita, much like Pine Bloom, was playing dead.
But pretending in chat was one thing—real life was another.
Marmang-Crab and Sea Pony had already flanked her, one on each side.
Marmang-Crab leaned in, nosy as ever. "So… did you really get Pine Bloom's divine gift skill?"
Stuff wasn't exactly rare on the world battlefield. With reward mechanics scaling by kill count, plus all the special events and weird rules, it wasn't unusual for divine skills to change hands.
Marmang-Crab had lost a divine skill once too. Of course, it had stolen others in return.
Among players with power levels above Tier 15, 99% had experienced this in some form.
But BS Rita was different—she was only Tier 7. And she had already stolen Midnight Exile from Winter Sea Frenzied Shark.
Marmang-Crab had seen her up close during the Kart Racing event. Between that and the battlefield-wide curses, she had Midnight Exile, Absurd Story, Bedtime Tale, and Ancient Curse.
Now she had Pine Bloom's divine skill too…
Before, Marmang-Crab merely suspected BS Rita would one day stand on their level.
Once might be luck. Twice? That's no coincidence.
BS Rita was emerging like Lania Kaia's Maple Syrup or Pine Bloom had back in the day—but even flashier.
Because not all high-level players are created equal.
Some "god-tier" players just grinded their way up—barely scraping by, gaming the system, showing up only when it suited them, stacking stats in the real world, and avoiding divine penalties like the plague. Give that strategy enough time and even a pig could reach Tier 18.
But others fought tooth and nail for every inch of progress.
They might not join every Divine Game, but when they did, they went all in.
And Marmang-Crab was starting to suspect Rita had a theft skill.
No hard evidence yet.
Tingo Autumn Deer wasn't exactly reliable—seven out of ten of his words were usually lies. And Rita, aside from the Winter Sea incident, hadn't shown any obvious signs.
But even if she did have one, so what?
Theft skills were rare, sure, but in a battlefield with thousands of players, "rare" still meant plenty of people had them. And most of them never amounted to anything.
You couldn't steal attributes. Most items and artifacts were soul-bound. So what could you even snatch?
Sure, this current weird game mechanic let you grab actual skills, which was a jackpot for thieves. But even players without theft skills had ways to get their hands on one.
The gods loved chaos and surprises. They hated boredom and playing it safe.
Just as Rita opened her mouth to respond, her HP plummeted.
100% → 70% → 40% → 10% → 0%.
In the blink of an eye, she was dead and back in the respawn room.
One glance at the system log confirmed it: Pine Bloom had done it.
She had used Ballroom Host to reclaim the health she'd "gifted" through Ballroom Formalwear.
Rita didn't expect it to come this fast.
If each kill on the same player only earned rewards up to three times, why burn one this quickly, especially if Pine Bloom really cared about Midnight Exile?
That wasn't like her at all. She wasn't the impulsive type.
And right as that thought crossed her mind—
She got another notification.
[Player Lania Kaia Pine Bloom has used Divine Game reward item – "Meal Upgrade" on you. Your current revival cost has been forcibly raised to Tier 10. You must give up one divine gift skill to revive.]
Well, not impossible.
Her Sharpshooter class still had three divine skills. Even if Survive Until the End couldn't be dropped, skill two or three could go.
Thinking back, she kinda regretted sacrificing the Sharpshooter class just because she didn't want to give up a few S-tier skills.
But that moment of regret was short-lived. Her brain was already racing.
What if Pine Bloom just kept killing her after she revived?
How many "Meal Upgrades" did she have?
Forget the health debt from the cooking contest—just the 3000% HP Rita had drained during time-stop would give Pine Bloom ten more kills.
If there were items that increased kill rewards, were there also ones that raised how many times she could get those rewards?
She had to prepare for the worst.
Wishing "maybe she only has one" was not a strategy.
She only planned for the scenario where things go as bad as possible—then worked from there.
Mysterious Power was her best bet.
But Pine Bloom's assault was a combo attack—once she dropped to 10% HP, it was already over. Without Bedtime Tale, she wouldn't even survive four hits.
And her best bet for breaking the cycle—One-Person Party, Ancient Curse, or the pairing skill Reward or Punishment—weren't equipped. B80234615 couldn't activate skills either.
So right now, her only option was to rely on Fourfold Spring, the 4% heal skill...