The moment Rick left, Rita turned on every revealing mist humidifier in her room.
Not only did she fill them with advanced revealing potion, she made sure each machine contained enough liquid to keep running for an entire week.
Only then did she leave Los Angeles by car.
Her destination was New Orleans, over four thousand kilometers away.
She avoided highways whenever possible.
If there was a smaller road, she took it.
Mostly because she was terrified of Phantom Shifting back onto a freeway later and getting flattened by a truck the second she materialized.
Dying like that would be way too pathetic.
She treated the trip like map exploration.
The more places she physically visited now, the more locations she could Phantom Shift to in the future.
Thankfully, years of filming all over the country meant she had already been to most major cities before.
Halfway through the drive, Rita genuinely started falling apart.
She even put on the filthy White Dragon cloth belt she stole from Theodore for the extra Constitution point.
Every so often she had to stop and cook recovery dishes to restore her stamina and mental focus.
She finally reached New Orleans on the morning of the 9th.
She ignored everything else.
First came a shower.
Then sleep.
At 7 a.m. on the 10th, Rita video called Scarlett.
She showed Scarlett and Samuel the scenery around New Orleans and asked whether they wanted local specialties as souvenirs.
She also repeatedly reminded them:
"Make sure Rick stays glued to his phone today. You two should keep yours nearby too."
After chatting for another ten minutes, she hung up.
Then she immediately began Phantom Shifting back toward Los Angeles.
Over four thousand kilometers.
With fourteen Intelligence, her maximum range per shift was only fourteen kilometers.
And because she avoided highways, the route was even longer than the shortest possible distance.
She estimated it would take over three hundred jumps.
All while maintaining Phantom Cloak the entire time.
After fifty Phantom Shifts, Rita started feeling dizzy.
After one hundred, she wanted to vomit.
She stopped to drink coffee and recover mana, then ate food that boosted mental strength.
One hundred twenty shifts.
One hundred fifty.
Two hundred.
After the two hundredth shift, Rita collapsed to the ground and vomited violently for a long time.
It was still not even 8 a.m.
But instead of relief, a cold chill spread through her chest.
She had left so early.
She had even factored rest time into her schedule.
And yet something still went wrong.
It felt like some invisible force was actively preventing her from returning to Los Angeles smoothly.
Especially after crossing the halfway point.
Her Phantom Shift kept drifting slightly off course.
A fourteen-kilometer jump would suddenly veer left.
Then left again.
Like being trapped in a ghost maze.
Rita gritted her teeth.
Continue.
Rick's luck was high.
But her Luck stat was maxed too.
Even if she had to crawl, she would make it back to Los Angeles today.
And if she failed to stop Rick from entering the game...
Then she would just kill him.
After three hundred Phantom Shifts, she was still over five hundred kilometers away from Los Angeles.
Rita suddenly coughed up blood.
A new status appeared beside her character panel:
[Weakened]
For the next 24 hours, all attributes reduced by 20%.
"Great," Rita muttered.
She shoveled the blood from the ground into a bag and stored it in her inventory.
Then she swallowed the blood still in her mouth together with another sip of mana-restoring coffee.
9:00 a.m.
Still enough time.
10:07 a.m.
Rita finally entered Los Angeles territory.
She restored her mana and mentally prepared herself.
The second she reached Rick, she would cast Sleep Spell immediately.
10:10 a.m.
With blood still in her mouth, Rita Phantom Shifted into Rick's room.
Empty.
Rage flooded her eyes.
But the angrier Rita became, the calmer her mind grew.
The more desperate the situation, the colder her thoughts became.
Her body trembled with panic, dread, and regret.
But her mind stayed perfectly sharp.
As she pulled out her phone and downloaded Starsea: Rift of the Beasts using mobile data, she analyzed calmly.
Rick would never want anyone learning about his Divine Gift.
Not even his parents.
So where would he hide?
The Wilson family home?
10:11 a.m.
Invisible, Rita appeared inside Rick's old room at the Wilson residence.
No one.
His apartment?
No.
Julian was there.
Even less likely.
Then...
Rita stepped out of the room and headed toward the Wilson family study.
After drinking a phasing potion, she passed through the wall.
Inside the hidden chamber beneath the study, Rick sat atop a wooden crate, staring at his phone with ecstatic joy.
Rita walked closer.
And at that exact moment, she saw the moon plunge into the screen.
Every instinct in her soul screamed at her.
Kill him.
Kill him now.
If you let him live, he'll soar beyond your reach.
But in the very next second, even Rita herself was shocked by her own greed, madness, and terrifying calmness.
Maybe all the excuses she used before were lies.
The stuff about revenge.
About making him suffer properly.
Maybe none of that mattered.
Maybe ever since obtaining [Thief God]...
No.
Maybe even in her previous life...
She had always coveted Rick's Divine Gift.
Rick never revealed all his divine abilities to anyone.
But this was the Divine Gift that made three elite families fight over him.
The Divine Gift that made three proud prodigies willingly share him.
She refused to believe Rick himself was that irresistible.
No man was charming enough to make three top-tier heiresses abandon both pride and dignity.
Instantly, Rita cast [Wheel of Fate] on Rick, lowering his Luck.
Then she left behind her shadow.
Her shadow merged seamlessly into Rick's own.
Afterward, Rita herself quietly exited the secret chamber and returned to her own bedroom nearby.
Separated by only a single wall, she opened the game.
At the same time, she looked through her shadow's perspective.
And saw Rick's game interface.
Saw his Divine Gift:
[God of the Culinary Arts] (SS Rank)
Rita felt as though her mind had split in two.
One side was icy calm.
The other was consumed by fear, greed, and insanity.
Rick's character spawned inside Silvermoon City, one of the blood elf capitals.
Rita logged in too.
Using Disguise, she transformed herself into a blood elf.
Then she walked calmly past the wanted posters plastered at the city gate.
One undead.
One goblin.
Both looked very familiar.
She used the teleportation system to travel to Silvermoon City.
This was already the third beta.
The number of players logging in had increased ten thousandfold.
The city was packed.
Crowds shoved shoulder to shoulder everywhere.
If the main alien forces were already capable of full projection, the city probably would not have been large enough to hold everyone.
Rick's little blood elf stood in the massive city curiously looking around.
He passed inns, herb shops, weapon stores.
He walked past the statue of the Elven King.
Rita followed the exact same route.
Passed the same shops.
Passed the same statue.
The two brushed past each other.
Then Rita used Insight on the silver-haired blood elf.
[Character] Rick
[Divine Gift] ?
The next second, she activated her skill without hesitation.
She was going to steal Rick's Divine Gift.
[In the name of the Thief God, you attempt to steal the Divine Gift of the elf player Rick.]
[Theft successful.]
[Target Divine Gift rank too high detected.]
[Theft interrupted.]
Rita turned and walked toward the city gates while opening her status panel.
Inside [Thief God], Skill 2:
[The Thief God's Theft Is Also Robbery]
Had become dark gray and unusable.
Meanwhile, beneath [Immortal], a new Divine Gift appeared:
[God of the Culinary Arts] (SS Rank) (Incomplete)
When expanded, it displayed five abilities.
Only two were lit up.
When she stole from the Undead City Lord, she obtained three abilities in one attempt.
Yet after stealing from Rick while his Luck was reduced to one, she only managed to obtain two.
Rita did not bother reading the skill descriptions.
Instead, she left the city and headed toward the nearest graveyard outside Silvermoon.
Then she selected all the explosives in her inventory and dropped them beneath her character.
A few seconds later, the screen went black.
[You Have Died]