Yao had seen the two distinct, flattened paths in the maize earlier, converging from different directions. Her first, chilling assumption was a pair working in concert. The timing was too perfect. If outsiders had arrived this early, they must have been in the immediate vicinity when the Calamity Field descended, watching the sky tear open. For two unrelated, capable individuals to stumble upon the same rookie dungeon at the same moment spoke of spectacularly bad luck on her part.
But then… the second one never showed. During the frantic, sprawling battle with the swarms, the Swarm Leader, and Chen Lixing, the second presence remained a ghost. No new crushed stalks, no shift in position. It was as if they'd turned to stone. That was improbable. With her Agility, she should have sensed something—a displaced breath, the crunch of a leaf, the weight of a gaze. If she hadn't, it meant their stealth eclipsed her senses. And if they possessed that level of skill, why hadn't they simply ended her? The logic fractured.
Even as she'd dueled the hunter, a cold, analytical part of her mind had wrestled with the puzzle. Now, standing over Chen Lixing's still-warm body, the answer crystallized. The second party wasn't overwhelmingly powerful. If they were, they'd have acted. Like the hunter, they were cautious, assessing her, waiting for the perfect moment. Their method of concealment was likely specialized—a high-tier Cloaking spell, a mimicry ability to blend with the maize, or an earth-based technique allowing them to sink into the very soil. Since they hadn't revealed themselves even after her back-to-back victories, they were either gone or still hesitating.
Time to force the issue. As her fingers twitched, releasing a fresh, near-invisible network of Gossamer strands to coat the ground around her, she called out, her voice cutting through the smoky, insect-stenched air. "You've been watching long enough. Doesn't your neck ache? Or are you waiting for me to look down?"
The maize rustled in the faint, hot breeze. Nothing else.
Gone?The tension coiled tighter in her gut.
Then, the faintest tremor traveled up the Gossamer strands connected to her ring—a vibration not from above, but from below. She threw herself sideways, a blur of motion, as the earth where she'd been standing erupted.
Not with fire or claw, but with cold, gleaming metal. A two-meter square of the soil transformed, thrusting upwards in a grid of wickedly sharp, foot-long iron spikes. They gleamed dully in the firelight, a brutal, mechanical flower blooming from the loam.
Tier 3 Earth-Arcana Trap: Gridiron Bed. Devastating if triggered, nearly impossible to survive unscathed. But it was slow, Spirit-intensive, and its tell-tale mana fluctuations were usually detectable. Unless, of course, the caster was already beneaththe earth, the soil itself masking the buildup. The trap had been laid at her feet the entire time, a sleeping metal viper.
A cold sweat broke out on her back. Too close.The hunter, now this. She was a resource broker playing a deadly game in a world of born killers. Her initial 99 Spirit was respectable, but not prodigious. Her real advantage was knowledge, caution, and a ruthless willingness to use every dirty trick in the book. Without those, she'd be dead twice over.
Heart hammering against her ribs, she stared at the vicious metal bed. The ambusher was underground. Untouchable. But a new thought surfaced: this trap could have been sprung earlier. It could have caught both her andthe hunter. Why hadn't it?
If they were allies, the hunter would have shown some awareness, some signal. He'd shown none. So, not allies. Yet the ambusher hadn't acted. Which meant… they couldn't. A limitation. The path. The trap's location.
Two facts locked into place in her mind. She looked coldly at the metal spikes, then deliberately walked around them, positioning herself with the trap between her and the southern edge of the field, where one of the mysterious paths originated.
She began to crouch towards Chen Lixing's body, her movements deliberately slow. "Whoever you are," she said, her voice conversational, "you had plenty of chances to kill him. But you didn't. You waited for me. Rude." Her fingers hovered over the hunter's belt pouch. "Your hiding place must be fixed. A sustained camouflage art. The moment you move to attack, you give yourself away. So… I suppose it's safe for me to collect my winnings?"
She was baiting him. He'd just seen her loot the Swarm Leader and instantly grow stronger. He wouldn't risk her doing it again.
As she feinted the looting motion, as her gaze seemed fixed on the southern stalks, the attack came from the opposite direction. A patch of bare earth fifteen meters behind her bulged, then split. Not a spike, but a circular, metallic snout emerged, followed by the dull gleam of an etched barrel.
Crack!
The sound was different from the hunter's bow—sharper, more final. A projectile not of wood and fletching, but of solidified, magically-enhanced metal screamed towards her spine. It was a Piercing Round, designed to punch through low-tier enchanted leather and bone with contemptuous ease.
Yao was already moving, her feint turning into a genuine, graceless dive. The round buzzed through the space her torso had occupied, shredding a dozen maize stalks into fibrous confetti. Even as she rolled, her right hand completed a somatic gesture. Emberburst. The compact fireball didn't aim for the gun—it aimed for the ground aroundthe freshly opened hole.
WHUMP.Dirt, roots, and clods of earth erupted in a gout of flame and smoke. The explosion flushed the shooter out.
What tumbled into the open, coughing and patting smoldering patches on its fur, was not a man.
It was… a groundhog. A stout, golden-furred groundhog standing about eighty centimeters tall, clad in a tiny, custom-fitted harness of tooled leather. In its front paws, it clutched a rifle nearly as long as it was tall, the stock intricately carved with geometric runes. It glared at her with beady, intelligent black eyes, its whiskers twitching in outrage.
"Ack!Filthy human female!" it squawked, its voice a surprising, gravelly baritone. "You disturb the sacred slumber of Gronk! As the dread boss of this field, I command my legion to devour you!"
Yao stared, the sheer absurdity of the moment cutting through her adrenaline. A talking… marmot? With a gun?
Then her instincts, honed by a thousand bestiaries and lore entries, kicked in. Talking creatures in the wild were either high-level bosses… or something else. She let her eyes widen in manufactured terror. "A talking boss! Ten-tier at least! I'm outmatched!" She turned as if to flee, a picture of panicked retreat.
In the same instant, she pivoted on her heel, her left hand slashing through the air. A Verdant Locust Wing, its edge humming with lethal energy, sliced towards the creature. The groundhog—Gronk—was equally fast, bringing his rifle up and firing from the hip in one fluid motion.
The crescent of wind sheared through a thick stand of maize. The enhanced round plowed a furrow in the dirt where Yao's feet had been. Both attacks missed, both combatants already melting back into the cover of the towering stalks, each seeking to break the other's line of sight.
From her new hiding place, Yao called out, her voice now cool and analytical, all pretence of fear gone. "An Earth-Walker clan. Battle-Scarred Marmot lineage. Which burrow do you hail from? One so fond of tall tales… perhaps the 'Oaks' Warren'?"
It wasn't a boss. It was a Sapient Species. Arcane Thronethe game had boasted dozens of playable races. This world had hundreds of intelligent peoples living in a messy, contested tapestry. Humans dominated this region, but they were not alone.
The marmot huffed, the sound like a busted bellows. "Clever words won't save you, human girl! Your Spirit is a guttering candle. Mine burns bright, and my ammunition pouch is deep! The hunter's spoils are mine by right of salvage! A fair trade for my disturbed nap!"
The creature had a point, in its own bizarre, greedy way. Her Spirit pool wasdangerously low. He likely had reserves, and that rifle hit like a runaway cart.
"Most Earth-Walkers of your strain," Yao countered, her mind racing, "can't maintain a full earth-meld for long without a prepared tunnel. You're topside now. To sink again will take time your bloodline doesn't have. And my speed outstrips yours. That rifle is a fine weapon, but it's heavy. You think you can win a battle of attrition before I close the distance?"
Gronk snarled, a surprisingly fierce sound from a creature so rotund. "Try me, leaf-eater!"
The air crackled with impending violence. Yao's posture shifted, her fingers curling as if to begin a spell. "Then let's—"
Swish.She spun and sprinted away, a streak of motion through the maize.
Gronk blinked. "What?!" His screech of pure outrage was cut short as he saw her Gossamer strand, previously unseen, snake out and wrap around the dead hunter's ankle. With a mighty heave, she began dragging Chen Lixing's corpse with her as she ran. "Cheater! Thief! Come back with my loot, you long-legged brigand!"
Of course she ran! Her earlier bluster was just that—bluster. The marmot's single shot had confirmed her fears: his raw firepower surpassed hers. A protracted fight was suicide. But a race? That was her domain.
Cursing in a language that mixed guttural barks with mangled Trade Tongue, Gronk gave chase, his short legs pumping. He lifted his rifle, trying to draw a bead on the zigzagging figure and her macabre cargo, but Yao was already one step ahead. Without breaking stride, she flung a hand back. Not a aimed spell, but a wide-fan Emberburst directed at the dry stalks beside her path.
Whoosh.A wall of flame erupted, cutting across Gronk's line of pursuit. "Aieee! Fire! Hate it, hate it!" he yelped, skidding to a halt and frantically backtracking as the flames licked at his golden fur. Through the curtain of fire, he saw Yao's form dwindling, the hunter's body bouncing behind her like a grisly kite.
Growling in frustration, he rummaged in a pouch on his harness and pulled out a small vial filled with a swirling, liquid. Sprint of the Zephyr – Tier 2. It cost a small fortune. He drained it in one gulp. A visible nimbus of wind wrapped around his stumpy legs. With a burst of speed that belied his shape, he shot forward, througha gap in the flames, closing the distance with terrifying efficiency.
Yao felt the change, the sudden, pressurized whooshof air. She glanced back, her eyes widening. Oh, hell.The marmot was a verdant cannonball, gaining fast.
CRACK!
Another shot. This one grazed the stalk beside her head, the sonic boom deafening. She threw herself into a desperate roll, using the Gossamer to yank the hunter's body as a makeshift shield, then sprang up, flinging a Verdant Locust Wing behind her without aiming.
The marmot dodged with an agility that matched his new speed, the wind-crescent slicing uselessly through empty air. He was bringing the rifle up again, his beady eyes narrowed in triumph.
Then, Yao vanished.
The Cloaking Stone's cooldown had ended. She winked out of existence.
Gronk froze, his triumphant sneer dissolving into alarm. Invisible!He backpedaled, rifle sweeping erratically, expecting a point-blank ambush. The tables had turned again.
In the tense silence, a new sound reached them both. Not the drone of insects. A deeper, rhythmic thrumfrom the sky, growing rapidly louder. Powerful engines.
Yao's voice, disembodied and tense, came from a spot ten meters to Gronk's left. "Ground-pounder! Run!"
"Trickery!" Gronk snapped, but his eyes darted to the wrist-comp on his own furry arm. A single, blinking red dot appeared on its simple scanner. Then two. Then five. Approaching fast from the north. Not swarm signatures. Vehicle-sized. Human-sized.
He understood. The new arrivals had thermal. The fire, their body heat—they were lit up like festival lanterns. He paled beneath his fur. "Burrow and blast it!"
Both of them moved. Yao, still invisible, abandoned all stealth and crashed through the maize in a straight line away from the engine noise. Gronk didn't bother with the rifle. He dropped to all fours and began to dig, his claws a blur, earth flying between his legs as he attempted to bury himself.
They were too late.
The flyer, sleek and predatory, settled into a hover at the edge of the burning field. Its belly glowed with a soft amber light—a wide-spectrum scanner washing over the maize. Two thermal signatures, one hot, one cooling rapidly as it plunged into the earth, flared on the display inside.
"Two targets. One going to ground. Clean them up," a cool, young voice ordered.
Guns mounted on the flyer's stubby wings whirred, acquiring targets. A sustained burst of blue-white energy bolts, designed to shred light armor and flesh, ripped into the maize field, stitching a line of destruction towards the last known locations.
Yao felt the heat of near-misses, heard the stalks around her vaporize. She didn't stop. She fumbled in her pack as she ran, her fingers closing on a small, frost-rimed case. The Cryo-dependent Auxiliary Crystal. Without hesitation, she slammed it against her own chest, activating its stored energy.
A wave of intense, soul-numbing cold radiated from the point of contact, washing over her body. Her breath fogged, her skin prickled with instant gooseflesh. On the flyer's thermal display, the bright, human-shaped blob that was Yao Xie simply… dissolved. Snuffed out. Gone.
Beside her, Gronk, only half-submerged, felt the scorching heat of the energy bolts sear the earth around his hole. He gave a final, desperate push and vanished completely into the welcoming, insulating darkness of the soil.
The flyer's guns fell silent. The maize field, now crisscrossed with smoldering trenches, was quiet save for the crackle of flames.
"Targets… lost. Thermal signature on the runner just vanished. Some kind of cryo-shield. The digger is subsurface, beyond effective range."
Inside the flyer, the freckled youth frowned, tapping the display. "The fire will flush the runner. The digger will have to surface eventually. They're headed for the creek. It's the only cover that leads out." He pointed to a silvery line on the topographic map. "Set down there. We'll intercept."
Five minutes later, four figures in light combat gear stood at the creek's edge, examining the muddy bank. Clear, fresh prints—one set human, one set small, deep, and clawed—led into the water and did not emerge on the other side.
"Gone. Took the water road. Fast." one of them muttered, peering downstream at the swift, dark current.
The freckled youth said nothing, his gaze following the flow of the water into the deeper shadows of the woods. A faint, reluctant respect flickered in his eyes. They'd been outmaneuvered by a pair of rats in a burning maze.
Half a kilometer downstream, where the creek widened into a shallow, rocky pool, two sodden figures hauled themselves onto a broad, moss-covered stone. One was a young woman, her clothes soaked and steaming faintly with dissipating cold. The other was a drenched, bedraggled marmot, water streaming from his fur, his prized rifle clutched to his chest like a drowning man's log. They sat in silence for a moment, side by side, dripping and exhausted, the only sound the gurgle of the creek and their own ragged breathing.