Read ahead on RoyalRoad.com
Landen saw the score — three to zero in favor of Team Varro.
He blinked, half-expecting the glowing holographic numbers to morph into a middle finger.
What? They got two points for that?He didn't even kill the beast.
He replayed the wave in his head — Gragic's roar, the bristleback going still mid-charge, head lowering, that glassy, compliant look settling over its eyes. Then it just... stood there. Beside him. Like a pet.
"System." He said flatly. "Explain that."
"The threat was removed from the wave count. The two points are valid."
Landen stared at the tamed bristleback currently trying to sniff Gragic's armored backside.
"He didn't remove anything. He adopted it." He pointed at the beast. "That's not a kill. That's livestock."
"The beast is no longer hostile."
"It's hostile to my team."
"Correct."
Landen pinched the bridge of his nose.
"...So beast taming counts as murder now."
"For scoring purposes, yes."
"Fine." He sighed.
Landen moved on, scanning the battlefield until he found Elle.
Nearby stood Team Varro's support, Cynder Veyl, his massive scythe planted in the ground. It was an unusual weapon for a support to wield, but somehow it suited him.
The scythe wasn't the usual single-blade design. It carried three blades — white, black, and red — one curved like a proper scythe, the other two jutting forward like a polearm's spearhead. At any given time, the blades would switch places with another, one becoming the proper scythe while the other pointed forward. The blades shifted and rotated as if alive, cycling through their configurations, until the white blade settled as the scythe.
Cynder slid his hand down the edge of the blade, causing blood to pool from his palm and drawing energy from the weapon. A glowing white sphere of blood formed in his hand, hovering and pulsing with power.
Landen's system detected it.
[ System ]
New Ability Registering…
Caster: Cynder Veyl (Team Varro)
Passed him, Elle danced through a cluster of bristlebacks with effortless grace, a dagger held in each hand, blades pointed downward. She looked more like a performer than a fighter. Her pigtails bounced with every step as she weaved between snapping jaws and charging tusks.
Her focus was locked on a single bristleback whose life bar was already whittled down to half.
Cynder saw this, and the sphere in his hand shot a spurt of blood, striking the bristleback. There was no visible damage or reaction, but Landen's system noticed.
[ System ]
White Blood Tag Ability Detected…
Details Pending…
Then in an instant, Elle vanished — or more like shifted — nearly ten feet in the blink of an eye, leaving a fading afterimage where she had been. In that same fraction of a second, she struck the bristleback on the head, leaving a glowing mark where her blade hit. The attack was so blindingly fast the bristleback didn't even have time to flinch.
[ System ]
Two New Abilities Registering…
Caster: Elara Vesperine (Team Halvek)
Over the next few seconds, Elle effortlessly slipped past the retaliating beasts. She shifted another ten feet, striking the same spot to leave a second mark. She did it again, and then again, dancing around the target until five glowing dagger marks formed a perfect, rotating circle on the beast's head.
The moment the fifth mark landed, the five symbols flared brightly and detonated, hurling both the target and its companion backward.
Elle flipped away from the blast and landed gracefully in front of Cynder, who stood motionless with his massive scythe.
She offered a dramatic, sweeping bow. "A round of applause, please!"
Cynder, stiff as a statue and entirely emotionless, didn't respond.
Landen watched the beasts' health bars plummet into the red as the system logged the data.
[ System ]
Five-Blade Requiem: (Passive) Each dagger strike applies a Mark. Striking the exact same location five consecutive times triggers the marks to detonate.
Effect: Deals 50 AoE (Area of Effect) damage (+1% Extra Physical Attack) of the target's Max HP and applies knockback to the target and nearby enemies.
Phantom Shift: (Active)
Instantly shift up to 10 ft in any direction.
Charge Capacity: 5 Cost: 1 ChargeShift Cooldown: 2 secCharge Recovery: +1 per 10 sec
Elle hadn't been moving randomly. Every shift had put her exactly where she needed to be, avoiding an attack while lining up another strike on the same weak point.
Five hits to arm the explosion... then the burst damage.
Landen smiled to himself.
She's an executioner.
Most people would only see an agile assassin. He saw something else.
If I can keep a target locked down long enough for her to stack those marks, she'll melt anything with a large health pool.
He looked back toward Elle.
She's even stronger than I thought.
Back on the battlefield, Elle was bowing her head, and Cynder took this opportunity to spurt out another droplet of blood, but this time it struck the back of Elle's arm without her noticing. A small symbol bloomed on her skin where it landed.
It wasn't the first tag.
He'd been doing this since the moment he activated the ability — tagging Elle, tagging the bristlebacks, marking anything he could reach when the opportunity came. Landen didn't know what he was building toward, but it didn't seem like something good.
Meanwhile, the heavily wounded bristleback staggered back to its feet. With a panicked squeal, it turned and fled toward the forest. Right away, Elle took off after it — and this time, Cynder followed.
Elle burst forward, closing the final few meters in an instant. She flipped one dagger into a reverse grip while raising the other for the finishing strike. But hiding mysteriously behind her shoulders were five white blood tags.
"The wounded bristleback is barely standing. One clean hit would be enough."
Just as Elle's daggers descended, Cynder flicked a finger, and the five white blood tags on her shoulder shattered into wisps of white light. Her blades connected cleanly for the final blow.
She looked at her dagger.
Then at the bristleback.
Nothing.
The bristleback barely flinched.
Elle's eyes widened. What?
"She has no damage," Landen said, eyes narrowing. "Something happened."
The bristleback let out an enraged squeal and whipped around, tusks sweeping toward Elle in a desperate strike to end the fight.
But suddenly, Cynder's scythe hooked around her waist and yanked her away. Then he stepped into the blow himself — but before it landed, his hand twitched again, and whatever damage the beast meant to deal, it didn't.
Instead, the beast looked up to see Cynder's aura exploding with power. Power that wasn't there a few seconds earlier. A white aura could be seen swirling around his body.
[ System ]
Detecting a 100% increase in damage.
Then the aura quickly disappeared, then lighting up his scythe, the white blade blazing with power. He planted a foot, twisted through his hips, and unleashed a full 360-degree spin. A sharp crack split the air, and a wave of white energy tore outward like an exploding star, carving a perfect circle through space.
Slash!
The bristleback froze, and a crimson line split across its body before it collapsed to the ground.
Silence settled over the battlefield.
Team Varro had stolen the kill.
[ System ]
New Ability Detected
Blood Covenant (Active): Cynder pierces his hand with one of his scythe's three blades, imbuing his blood with that blade's attribute. His blood can then be applied as Blood Tags to allies, enemies, or beasts. Each blade creates a different type of tag.
White Blood Tag — Energy:
Empowers the target's next attack.Each tag increases the target's next attack damage by 10%.Stacks up to 5 times.All White Blood Tags are consumed after the target makes an attack, whether it hits or misses.Penalty: The target's attack damage is reduced by 10% per tag consumed or removed for 5 seconds. Black Blood Tag — Drain:
Description Unknown.Red Blood Tag — Ward:
Description Unknown.
[ System ]
New Ability Detected
White Requiem (Active): Removes all active White Blood Tags at once. For each tag consumed, Cynder's own attack damage is increased by 10% for 5 seconds. (No limit)
Activating a second time unleashes a full 360-degree spin, dealing 200 flat damage plus 200% of his physical attack damage to all enemies caught in the arc. The attack damage buff resets to zero once this spin is triggered.
Caster: Cynder Veyl (Team Varro).
Landen's smile disappeared.
His eyes stayed locked on Cynder as the system windows scrolled past.
This mother fucker — posing as a supporter — is secretly a leech. What kind of crazy ability is that?
Landen saw this person for who he was, a manipulator. A person who decides who deals damage — and who doesn't. That's dangerous. Very dangerous.
The scary part isn't the damage. It's the timing. Cynder could spend an entire fight quietly planting tags patiently, waiting for the one exchange that can decide everything — a last hit, a duel, a boss fight. One perfectly timed activation, and the outcome would swing before anyone realized what had happened.
And if nobody understood his ability, they'd never blame him. They'd blame themselves.
Why didn't my attack kill? Why was that hit so weak?
Nobody would suspect the support standing thirty meters away.
Landen let out a quiet breath, then realized — Cynder had two other tags yet to be identified. Whatever they did, he'd have to learn them before they became a problem.
[ System ]
Varro 4 || Halvek 0
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