Second World Online

The small glass bottle that had previously contained the thick blue liquid was now empty. I wiped the remaining drops of Mana Potion from the corner of my lips, feeling the flow of magical energy once again filling every blood vessel of my Elf avatar. That refreshing cold sensation was tangible proof of the high quality of the potion I had crafted myself.

From atop the eastern gate fortress wall of StoneBrook City, I stared straight toward the horizon. The Eastern Forest that had once been lush and green now looked like a sea of dust and destruction. The first wave of the monster invasion had successfully been suppressed by the players’ defensive lines, leaving behind thousands of digital corpses that slowly faded into polygon fragments.

Yet there were no cheers of victory. The atmosphere only grew tenser.

The ground beneath this stone wall shook once more, this time with far more brutal intensity. The rumbling sound of footsteps was heavier, slower, yet radiated an aura of intimidation that made the Novice players on the front line swallow hard with difficulty.

[System Warning: Second Wave of Invasion Has Begun! Average Monster Level: 15 – 18. Monsters from the northern area are arriving.]

From behind the thick curtain of dust, giant silhouettes began to emerge. If the first wave had been dominated by wolves and wild boars that relied on numbers and speed, this second wave was purely about destructive physical power.

I narrowed my eyes and activated [Eagle Eye] to scan the enemy front line.

Appearing were the [Armored Mountain Trolls – Level 18], three-meter-tall giants with gray skin as hard as stone, wearing tattered armor made of rusted iron plates. Behind them, ranks of [High Orc Warriors – Level 16] marched neatly, carrying dual axes whose tips dripped with green poisonous liquid. There were also [Venomous Treants – Level 17], living tree monsters whose roots crawled rapidly across the ground, ready to ensnare anyone who let their guard down.

"Hold the formation! No one retreats! Healers, make sure the Tankers’ barriers do not break!"

Command shouts from the Guild leaders echoed once again. However, the moment the first clash between the giant monsters and the players’ ranks occurred, the difference in strength became immediately clear.

KRAAAK! BOOOM!

A Troll swung its iron club the size of a tree trunk. Three Warriors who blocked the attack with their shields were instantly sent flying through the air like rag dolls. The front-line formation immediately buckled. Screams of panic began to rise as the High Orcs broke through the opened gap, swinging their axes toward the thin-HP players in the middle ranks.

Seeing the chaos beginning to spread, I knew I could no longer hold back my abilities.

"Time to work overtime," I muttered while drawing the Whispering Ash bow. "I will not let you break through this gate and ruin my hunting grounds."

My eyes quickly scanned the chaotic battlefield, searching for crisis points where players were being pressed. My gaze returned to the left side of the battlefield, where Arthur’s party was fighting desperately.

Arthur, my best friend from the real world who now appeared as a silver-armored Vanguard, was facing an [Armored Mountain Troll] in one-on-one combat.

With his large sword, Arthur managed to parry the Troll’s club swing. Sparks scattered through the air. His virtual muscles tensed, his feet dragged backward until they left a small trench in the ground. He countered with a vertical slash that radiated golden light, striking the Troll’s chest and forcing it to retreat.

Arthur was truly displaying extraordinary combat instincts. He was a perfect protector for his party members.

However, his one-hundred-percent focus on the giant in front of him created a fatal blind spot. From the shadow of a fallen Treant not far from him, two [Goblin Assassins – Level 16] with stealth ability crawled out. They were not targeting Arthur. Their red eyes were fixed on a female Cleric in a white hood behind Arthur who was busy chanting a healing spell.

"This is bad. If that Healer dies, Arthur’s formation will collapse instantly," I whispered.

The distance between my position atop the wall and Arthur’s position nearly reached one hundred and fifty meters. The wind was blowing quite strongly from the south. Shooting a moving target from this far required extremely precise calculation.

I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the gust of wind that swept across my face. I shifted my aim five degrees to the left and raised the elevation angle to compensate for the bullet’s gravitational pull.

Inside my head, I no longer saw monsters or players, but a collection of data consisting of trajectory paths, impact points, and wind speed. My real-world archery talent merged perfectly with the system statistics.

"Die."

I released two arrows in succession with an interval of less than half a second. Both arrows were immediately wrapped with [Piercing Gale Arrow].

Syuuuut! Syuuuut!

The wind projectiles shot forward in a curved path that sliced through the battlefield air, nearly invisible to the naked eye because of their speed.

Exactly a fraction of a second before the Goblin Assassin’s dagger touched the Cleric’s neck, my first arrow struck the Goblin’s temple squarely from the side.

CRASH!

The massive thrust from Power Shot made the monster’s head snap hard, instantly canceling its attack. Before the second Goblin could even realize what had happened, my second arrow embedded itself precisely in its throat. The secondary wind explosion (Splash Damage) from both arrows swept over their bodies, draining their thin HP all the way to zero.

The two Goblin Assassin corpses fell with a thud onto the ground, right behind the heels of the Cleric who had now turned deathly pale upon realizing she had just escaped death.

Hearing the sound of the wind explosion behind him, Arthur turned quickly. He saw the two Goblin corpses and realized what had just happened. His gaze followed the direction from which the arrows had come, tracing an imaginary trajectory until his eyes stopped on the silver-haired Elf figure standing at the peak of the gate wall.

From afar, I could see Arthur raise his large sword for a moment, giving a brief gesture of respect toward me before returning his focus to cutting down the Troll in front of him. He did not know that the goddess of salvation who had just saved his group was his own male best friend who lay sick in the real world.

I only smiled faintly behind the blowing wind. "You’re welcome, Mr. Vanguard. Keep fighting."

While continuing to rain arrows from my comfortable position, I took a moment to glance at my party status indicator. The HP bar of [Yuuki] was still full at one hundred percent, yet her Mana bar kept rising and falling wildly.

I searched for my little sister’s presence in the middle of that sea of giants and was once again left in awe by what I saw.

Alya had truly evolved into an anomaly on this battlefield. Her two-tailed fox form gave her mobility that was utterly unreasonable. If in the first wave she had only used simple hit-and-run tactics, now she seemed to be dancing on a deadly stage.

She ran through the gaps between the giant legs of the Trolls. When a Troll tried to step on her, Alya did not merely dodge; she climbed the monster’s limb, jumped from its knee to its shoulder with the agility of a cat, then used the monster’s face as a foothold to leap into the air.

At the highest point of her jump, both of her thick tails glowed bright red.

(Party Chat) [Yuuki]: Take this, you stupid giant! Double Fireball!

Two giant fireballs shot simultaneously from both of her tails, striking the Troll’s face with an ear-splitting explosion. The combination of magic damage and the fire element made the monster howl in pain, its eyes blinded, and its body staggered into its own comrades.

Several players nearby stared at the little fox with jaws half open. They might have thought Alya was a high-level Summon belonging to an upper-level Mage, when in reality she was merely a beginner player fully enjoying the adrenaline of VR.

Seeing that Alya could take care of herself extremely well, I refocused my concentration on the enemy ranks. My name slowly but surely climbed into the Top 10 on the Event contribution ranking board.

However, the system apparently did not want to allow the players to feel safe for too long.

Just as the players’ front line began successfully pushing back the wave of Trolls and Orcs, the sky that had previously only been adorned by swirling black clouds suddenly rumbled.

It was not the sound of thunder or lightning, but a high-pitched screeching of thousands that deafened the ears and pierced the bones.

[System Warning: Aerial Wave Has Arrived! Beware of attacks from above!]

At that very moment, the atmosphere of the battlefield transformed into true chaos.

From behind the dark cloud vortex above StoneBrook City, thousands of black dots shot downward at terrifying speed. As their distance grew closer, the true form of this new threat finally became clear.

They were a flock of [Bloodwing Harpies – Level 17], half-woman half-predatory-bird monsters with blood-red feathered wings and foot claws as sharp as steel swords. Among the Harpy flock floated the silhouettes of giant bat-winged stone creatures [Stone Gargoyles – Level 19], aerial monsters with extraordinarily thick physical defense.

This aerial wave completely destroyed the players’ entire formation strategy. The Warriors and Tankers below swung their swords into the air in vain; the range of their melee weapons could not reach monsters flying more than a dozen meters high.

The Harpy flock was extremely intelligent. They ignored the front line thick with armor. They dove sharply, crossed the defensive fence, and directly targeted the city gate wall platforms, the place where thin-HP Mages, Healers, and Archers were gathered!

"WATCH OUT!! THEY’RE ATTACKING THE WALL!!" screamed a Mage beside me, exactly one second before a Gargoyle crashed into him with full force, shattering his magic barrier and throwing his body off the twenty-meter-high wall. The unfortunate player immediately turned into light particles the moment he hit the ground.

Mass panic exploded atop the wall. Suddenly, the snipers who had previously been shooting comfortably now had to struggle to defend their own lives.

Three Bloodwing Harpies folded their wings and dove sharply toward me like fighter jets locking onto a target. Their poison-coated claws aimed for my face and eyes.

"Damn it!"

I did not stand still. I immediately channeled Mana into the soles of my feet and activated [Wind Walk].

My steps instantly became as light as the wind. I performed a spinning backward jump (backflip), avoiding the first Harpy’s claws that scratched the stone floor where I had been standing a second earlier. In mid-air, while upside down, I reflexively drew my bowstring. My eyes, assisted by Eagle Eye, tracked their super-fast movements.

"You think the sky is your safe zone?!" I growled.

I did not use a physical arrow, but instead directly fired a [Water Ball] that I had modified into a high-speed projectile element.

BYUR!

The high-pressure water ball struck the second Harpy’s wing right at the joint. The water’s moisture immediately weighed down its wing feathers, destroying the monster’s aerodynamic balance. The Harpy lost control and crashed into a stone watchtower, its head instantly crushed.

When my feet landed back on the wall, I immediately shot forward running along the edge of the parapet, dancing between claws and wing beats. Every time I found an opening, my bow would sing. I aimed not at their bodies, but at the roots of their wings and their eyes.

One by one, the Harpies and Gargoyles that tried to approach me fell from the sky like flies sprayed with pesticide. My agile fighting style and deadly shots amid the panic-stricken wall slowly turned me into the center of attention, as well as the greatest threat magnet.

Because I had killed too many, the monsters’ aggro system began concentrating their targets on me.

Suddenly, the air temperature around me plummeted drastically. A giant shadow covered the light surrounding me. The sound of wing beats far heavier and more powerful than ordinary Harpies sent several players near me tumbling backward.

I looked up, and my eyes immediately narrowed sharply.

Directly above me floated a stone monster twice the size of a normal Gargoyle. Its wings were made of obsidian that emitted a poisonous purple glow. A pair of curved horns adorned its head, and its eyes burned blood-red as they stared straight at me, as if acknowledging that I was the strongest prey on this wall.

[Gargoyle Commander – Elite Mini-Boss Level 20]

"A Level 20 Mini-Boss in the aerial wave," I whispered, feeling adrenaline racing wildly once again. "Chronos Tech is really not playing around with the difficulty of their inaugural event."

The commander spread its wings, opened its stone jaw filled with diamond-sharp fangs, and released a sonic roar that made my eardrums ring loudly. The next second, it dove vertically, directly targeting my Elf body at a speed similar to a falling meteorite.

"You’re targeting the wrong person, you ugly rock."

I smirked coldly. Instead of dodging and running, I firmly planted my feet into the stone wall floor. I opened my inventory panel and took out a special arrow whose tip I had dipped into a thick green liquid that pulsed slowly.

It was [Concentrated Spider Venom], the result of my refined Alchemy experiment from last night, which I had successfully synthesized before my login time ran out.

I nocked the poisoned arrow onto the Whispering Ash string. I did not channel energy gradually. I forced one hundred percent of the remaining Mana I possessed into a single absolute shot.

[Power Shot], [Piercing Gale Arrow], and [Vital Shot] were combined into one unified whole. The tip of my arrow created a resonance of wind vortex blended with the green poisonous aura, emitting a light that dazzled the eyes.

The Gargoyle Commander was already ten meters above me. The wind from its dive pressed against my body, trying to force me to my knees. Yet I did not move. My eyes locked precisely into the giant’s open mouth cavity that was unprotected by armor.

ZWWWWAAAAAAASSSHH!!!

The silk string was released. A sonic boom tore through the air above StoneBrook’s wall.

The poisoned arrow wrapped in a wind vortex shot vertically, piercing the empty space and striking the unprotected inner jaw of the stone commander squarely.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

An elemental wind explosion occurred inside the Mini-Boss’s chest cavity! The whirlwind tore through its virtual internal organs, while the corrosive spider venom immediately spread throughout its digital bloodstream.

[FATAL CRITICAL EXPLOIT! – 3,250 Magic & Physical Damage!]

[Poison Effect Active: –150 HP per second for 10 Seconds!]

The once majestic Mini-Boss did not even manage to touch the tip of my nose. The thrust of my arrow halted its free-fall momentum, sending it flying backward, losing control of its wings, and finally crashing into one of the city’s protective towers until it was completely shattered into pieces.

Thick smoke billowed from the tower ruins. Absolute silence immediately enveloped the entire eastern wall defense area.

Hundreds of pairs of players’ eyes that had previously been panicked now froze, staring with jaws dropped toward the silver-haired Elf figure who still stood in a pose holding the bow that had just released the shot. The wind gently blew my leather cloak.

Ding!

A golden area-scale notification floated in the air, reinforcing my dominance.

[Regional System: Player ’Syl’ has successfully killed [Gargoyle Commander – Elite Mini-Boss] alone! Contributing the highest points at the Eastern Gate!]

Cheers of admiration immediately erupted atop the wall, merging with the roars of the remaining monsters still fighting below.

I slowly lowered my bow, exhaled a long breath, and stared at the still-turbulent virtual sky. The aerial wave might have been brought under control, yet my instincts as a gamer told me that the true boss of this insane event was still waiting behind the shadows of the forest over there.