The instant before they plunged into the red pillar, a voice rang in Rita’s mind—\[Player Mojie has used Low-Risk Investnt on you. He has seized all of your gains from the past six hours].
There was no ti to dwell on the second Low-Risk Investnt now listed in her cart.
The mont she received the warning, before the ssage even finished, Rita unleashed \[The Right to Interpret], reversing it without hesitation.
A single second’s delay, and the map might have been stolen.
She had only told a few teammates about the skill—that was why they trusted her to hold all critical items during the team match—but the world was full of unpredictable powers. Who knew whether Mojie already knew about her ability? Or whether his squad carried sothing that could lock loot the mont it transferred?
Rita refused to gamble on that.
The map reappeared in her bag.
[Drunkfire Cooking] roared forth, the packed battlefield spitting out dragons of fire that struck five to seven tis per second.
[School Rule No. 801]!
Rita unleashed her ultimate, and the rest of her squad did the sa.
The dark cloud cue was still braced on the surface, aid at their location.
But by then, Rita and her team were already drowned under waves of enemies. After hesitating a mont, the cue shifted its aim toward Ship 1 instead, as it tried to force its way into the core battlefield.
Pine Bloom: ???
She was convinced those two owls had been born to counter her.
...
Motor surged forward, dragging his tethered teammates, pushing through the blockade of ships and apprentices, heading for the depths.
Fat Goose threw open his divine talent, pulling every hostile intent onto himself. Every apprentice nearby was overwheld by the sa compulsion: Fat Goose had to be killed first.
Even if they kept their sanity, the skill overrode it with a single ssage to their brains—kill him.
But not all hate could be diverted. Emotion and vendetta slipped through.
A towering ch, gleaming like a titan, clamped onto Motor’s handle.
Unlike Motor’s androgynous, electronic boyish tone, this ch spoke with the gentle voice of a sister comforting a crying child on the roadside. The dissonance against its crushing fra made it all the more terrifying.
"It’s laughable that your initial form is still this pathetic," it said.
Then its fist ca down, shattering Motor’s protective nebula bubble that had built up layers of absorbed damage.
Mistblade and Fat Goose leapt forward, intercepting.
They had traveled with Motor long enough to know the Titan race’s quirks: two forms, a low-cost daily form and a full battle form.
In the daily form, skill costs halved and effects doubled.
Motor had deliberately returned to his initial form when fusing with the No. 7 ball. There had to be a reason. Otherwise, he would never have canceled his battle state at such a critical mont.
Mistblade’s blade of blood-mist and Fat Goose’s gauntlets both locked the ch’s second punch.
Crash!
Both shattered at once.
The third punch ca down, but Rita arrived in ti.
She activated [School Rule No. 805], hands crossing, a spring blossom at her fingertips, combining [Drunken Slumber] and [Brief Hibernation] as she t the glowing red fist.
Not every Titan’s initial form was suited for combat.
Motor’s clearly wasn’t. Everyone could see it—even in this world without Motor’s kind of transport, it was obvious.
But when a Titan’s daily form was built for battle, it beca monstrous.
Like the one before them now: a black ch glowing with crimson at every joint, brighter than the pillar itself, like a miniature sun.
Cinnabar.
This Titan had a na, not just a form.
Because its initial form outclassed most combat forms, it had earned the right to be nad, to be set apart from the junkers Motor derisively called trash heaps.
For a mont the red glow dimd, but not for long.
Mistblade, gripping Motor’s handle, her voice firm, said, "It’s ti."
Rita blinked.
Dragging Motor closer to the water, she wondered why she was stuck playing chauffeur in another world—when suddenly, the chain yanked tight.
She and the others were pulled skyward with Mistblade, rising until no apprentices hovered above.
Then Mistblade dove. Straight down the pillar, toward the sea.
Her three fox tails ballooned outward, filling Rita’s vision. Then they fell, like hamrs, like axes, smashing into the surface.
Every ship and apprentice below fifty percent durability on the water was erased into ash.
That single strike alone earned them four more resurrections.
As Rita dove after her, she asked, "How many surprises are you hiding from ?"
She threw out fresh pumpkin hats for each teammate, patched every shattered bubble. That was her last [Nebula Bubble] used up.
Mistblade smirked. "When I activate GodDraw77, you’ll know."
Maple Syrup muttered, "You just blew your ultimate. I won’t say it."
Rita: "Spoiling."
Fat Goose: "Spoiling."
Motor: "Spoiling."
Mistblade: "..." Pine Bloom and Frenzied Shark had been right. Her team was insufferably loud.
Finally, with the surface cleared, they pierced the sea.
[Rita]: Don’t move, don’t struggle. I dropped a hibernating apprentice once. At first nothing happened. Then he woke up and thrashed, and that’s what drew the attack.
[Maple Syrup]: We’ve got eight resurrections now. Worst case, you ti-stop, dive, grab the treasure, then revive us.
[Rita]: But our tether is capped at ten ters. If the ship breaks, do we still qualify?
[Motor]: Exactly. Protect !
[Fat Goose]: The quest text never said a ship was required.
[Mistblade]: Without one, we can’t swim. I tried letting go just now. I couldn’t descend—without the chain tether, I was floating up.
[Motor]: Just protect , alright?! Cinnabar’s coming after us for sure.
Motor’s headlights and Rita’s blazing wings lit up the tunnel below.
Above, apprentices hacked at their own hulls, trying to sink with their ships into the depths.
Everyone had always suspected sothing lurked below. But when the squad holding the complete map entered the pillar and still no treasure appeared, nearly all surviving apprentices understood at last—
The treasure lay in the deep.
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