This was Lightchaser.
Rita was certain of it.
She once said that Arisentna had honors far brighter than Divine Ga, yet she herself had never truly moved past it.
A corroded moon crown... her teacher wasn’t so unbreakable after all.
Rita pressed her head lightly against one of the deep cracks in the ice. Maybe the mont Lightchaser found peace wasn’t so far away.
With every victory her power surged through rewards, always pushing her further ahead. The day she rekindled Lightchaser’s mont would be the day the ice lted and the crown was reborn.
The thought made her pulse race. She glanced up at the mosasaur circling above and summoned Wrathful Moon. The moonlight inside the lantern matched the crown’s glow exactly. She exited the shadow world.
The instant she returned, she shouted, "I found it. I found Lightchaser’s Soulfire!"
The ga froze. Even the mosasaur halted.
Five glowing orbs appeared before her and sank into her body. Cat’s Ideal and I Just Want to Improve So Badly were back. So were the other missing skills.
She dropped into the familiar crimson pillar of light.
She had won again.
The audience was left blinking, disoriented, like watching a film that suddenly rolled the credits at its climax.
Before they could cheer, a massive pure-white throne appeared within the pillar. Then beams of gold, azure, and crimson swirled upward into the sky, spiraling into the golden hills at the center, carving a door etched with intricate designs.
GodDraw77.
A strange na for a ga, but that didn’t stop the world from erupting in madness.
It was like waking from a dream. The crowd that had fallen into silence exploded into cheers. After forty-one long years, the GodDraw77 event had opened again.
But not everyone was cheering. A few stared in confusion at the student standing before the throne.
She had changed.
Her gaze still brimd with emotion, but the colors in her eyes were no longer pure. There was calm now, and curiosity. And when she looked at the world, there was a layer of scrutiny, of suspicion, she herself didn’t seem to realize.
A mont ago, she had been like the rising sun—warm, brilliant, impossible to ignore. Now, she was the moon reflected on water, untouchable, slipping away the mont one reached.
Lightchaser shot to her feet. She stared at the Soulfire burning above her student’s head.
Changed.
The star at its core was no longer alone. It dragged a tail of smaller star-fires behind it, scattering in uneven streams of color.
It still soared skyward, but it was no longer pure.
Just like her moon crown, its beauty and its colors were both power and blemish. Rust in another form.
And Rita’s face bore no joy, no pride. After a mont of confusion, a storm of emotions had taken root—pain, regret, guilt.
She looked helplessly toward the audience. For a heartbeat, she looked once more like the fourteen-year-old Moonlight Marsh Rita.
Searching. For soone.
...
[Congratulations, player. You have won the Solo Championship.]
[Champion’s Reward: Copy and permanently acquire any one skill owned by another contestant during the ga, plus 200 free attribute points.]
[Congratulations, player. You have unlocked GodDraw77.]
[Unlock Reward: The potential of your race has been raised. All divine-gift talents of your race ranked below A are advanced by one tier. A-ranked divine talents now have a chance to mutate. Every mber of your race gains 30 free attribute points.]
[Congratulations, player. You have cleared the event "Wager Everything."]
[Gift from the Mysterious Angler: One chance to return.]
[Your world BS- faces a crisis beyond the ability of BS-players to resolve. You have been granted temporary return access. To balance the consequences of your absence, ti flow will adjust: for every day spent in BS-, one year will pass in Arisentna.]
[If the ga ends while you are away, you will be placed directly into the settlent phase. If you refuse and remain here, your mories will remain sealed.]
[Please decide before GodDraw77 officially begins.]
[Countdown: 30 seconds.]
It ca rushing back. All of it.
She was BS-Rita.
There had been no transmigration. It was always Divine Ga.
Of course she had to go back.
Resolve the crisis, then return. So what if her tournant score dipped? A ga’s record was nothing compared to the survival of BS-.
But then... Lightchaser’s mont. The promise she had made.
GodDraw77 appeared at her side, seizing her wrist, eyes sharp with suspicion. "Rita?"
But when she looked into Rita’s eyes, her suspicion faltered, replaced by confusion.
Her apprentice—yet not.
Wail appeared on her other side.
The crowd grew uneasy, the air itself thick with strangeness. The cheers dimd.
Rita closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Then she spoke to GodDraw77. "Tell my teacher..."
"What do you want to tell ?"
A thunderclap split the air. An elf strode across the void, stepping down as if the sky itself were her floor. For the first ti, Rita saw true worry in Lightchaser’s gaze.
She only managed two words. "I’m sorry..."
The Sumr Snowman never lted, not even in this mistaken, beautiful season.
Her soul, now awake, was flooded with questions. Why was Lightchaser so good to her? What purpose lay behind it? Was she herself the test of this ga? Whose script had she been acting all along? Was this another tower?
So wounds could not be healed, even when mory was stripped and life began anew.
Pain gave way to regret, regret to guilt. And regret, perhaps, was the truest constant of life.
The Lightchaser Mont would not co.
And in her teacher’s eyes, would her departure be read as betrayal?
That corroded, moss-stained crown of the moon—what would it beco now?
The student vanished from the throne.
Even with both GodDraw77 reaching out, neither could hold her.
Lightchaser’s hand closed on nothing but wind.
...
"Nivalis! Have you reached her? She’s been gone nearly four months!"
Nivalis shoved back a tide of undead with her flas of frost, snapping, "No, no, no! How many tis do I have to say it?"
She almost never lost patience like this, but she’d been fighting nonstop for ten days. Every high-level alien in Warzone A was hers to shoulder. She had never in her life fought so hard.
When the dungeon veil suddenly dropped across the skies and the Lania Kaia sward, the great legions reacted fast.
Half of BS- was abandoned outright. Teleportation skills pulled the players into strongholds, while special seals cut off the rest of the territory along with every player under level 10. All of it hidden, removed from the reach of the invading veil. Only three warzones remained exposed: A, B, and C.
Without that, Nivalis would never have coped.
Black Jade was already sent north with Shadow.Q, who held temporary command of B Zone. B8017913 was holding the southwest in C. And Nivalis, she was A Zone.
Every player above level 15 was here, scattered through those three warzones. At the brink of annihilation, nationality, grudges—none of it mattered anymore.
The legions opened their vaults, distributing equipnt, potions, als that usually required points or rit to access. Supplies from the top guilds flowed to the three fronts.
Even the gear and items Rita had entrusted to the White Family had been distributed. Jason had cried his eyes out handing them out, wailing that the White Family was finished.
But none of that mattered.
The only goal now was survival. Survive until Rita ca back.
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