[You have slain the ‘Blitz Stalker’ (Bronze Tier).]
[You have gained 600 Experience Points.]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 3!]
[You have earned 2 Evolution Points.]
[You have obtained 55 Days of Lifespan (Tradeable).]
The system notifications chimed in Ethan Quinn’s mind the moment the boss slammed into the dirt. Without a second’s delay, Ethan triggered Shadow Veil. His silhouette blurred and vanished back into the gloom before the dust could even settle.
Shadow Veil’s cooldown is twenty-six seconds. Still too slow, Ethan mused, his eyes scanning the treeline. It’s capping my efficiency. But once I dump these Evolution Points into ‘Greedy Grasp,’ things are going to change.
He glided silently toward the Blitz Stalker’s carcass. To the six survivors watching from a distance, the scene was unsettling. The spoils of the boss—glimmering loot and fragments of gear—simply blinked out of existence, vanishing into thin air.
“Friend, thank you!” Victor called out. He stared at the empty space where he sensed the stranger might be, his expression dead serious. He gave a sharp, respectful nod to the void. “We owe you our lives.”
“Thanking me?” Ethan’s voice drifted through the trees, disjointed and impossible to pin down. “Don’t be so quick to trust people in the Wilds.”
Victor’s posture stiffened. “I understand. Thank you for the warning.”
In Godsfall, safety was a luxury found only within town walls. Out here, player-killing was a grim reality. A single death meant losing half of your total lifespan—both the tradeable days and the bound ones. While a killer could only directly loot the tradeable portion, the bound lifespan didn't just vanish; it was absorbed by the local monsters, who became stronger and more lucrative targets.
Ethan could have slaughtered Victor’s entire team in seconds and harvested them. He didn't, but not out of the goodness of his heart. They were just too damn poor. There wasn't enough meat on their bones to justify the effort.
Victor seemed to realize this too. If the stranger wanted them dead, he wouldn't be giving advice.
“We’ll get out of your hair then. Don't want to interrupt your looting,” Victor said, signaling his team to retreat. “The name’s Victor. If you ever need a hand, just look me up.”
As they turned to leave, a mud-caked but undeniably striking girl waved at the empty air. “Hey! Hey, Mister! I’m Black Plum! Can I add you?”
Ethan nearly snorted. He knew her—or rather, he would know her. In his previous life, her real name was Finn. Her father was a Lin, her mother a Li; hence the codename. She was a 'Seer,' a rare hidden class far superior to a standard Mage, and her fiery personality was as well-known as her curves. In the old timeline, she’d eventually become a high-ranking official in the Daxia Realm.
It seemed her start was the same this time around: tethered to Victor’s hip.
“Not interested,” Ethan’s voice came back, cold and dismissive.
Finn pouted, looking ready to argue, but the team’s middle-aged Cleric grabbed her by the collar and dragged her away before she could make a scene.
Ethan watched them go. Victor’s 'Holy Vanguard' class was as tanky as they came, and that Cleric was actually an 'Oracle Cleric'—a hidden class with double the standard healing output. Without that duo, they would have been shredded minutes ago.
I might be pulling off one-shots, Ethan thought, but my kill-speed is bottlenecked. It took me two minutes to clear this boss and its lackeys because of my cooldowns.
Two minutes would have been a world-record for most teams, but for Ethan, it was a crawl. He turned back to the Blitz Stalker and activated his signature skill.
[‘Greedy Grasp’ activated.]
[You have obtained 2 Evolution Points!]
[You have obtained 55 Days of Lifespan (Tradeable).]
A single Bronze boss had netted him four Evolution Points and 110 days of tradeable life, alongside five items. He sifted through the loot: three pieces of gear and two skill books. Most of it was junk for his class, but one item caught his eye.
[Sprinter's Hide Greaves (Bronze)]
Type: Assassin Gear
Physical Defense: +9
Elemental Resistance: +5
Cooldown Rate: +15%
Requirement: Level 2
He equipped them immediately.
In Godsfall, there was no "Cooldown Reduction." There was only "Cooldown Rate." The math was simple: Final Cooldown = Base Cooldown / (1 + Cooldown Rate). At 400% Cooldown Rate, a twenty-second skill would drop to four seconds.
His Shadow Veil timer dropped from 26 seconds to 22.61.
One more Evolution Point and I can push Greedy Grasp to Emerald tier, Ethan thought, slipping back into the deep woods. His tradeable lifespan was already sitting at 268 days. Once his bags were full of the gear he couldn't use, he’d head back to Shellcroft, liquidate the loot for more lifespan, and then—finally—he could look into manifesting his skills in the real world.
He was developing a hundred times faster than in his previous life. Back then, the learning curve had been a vertical cliff. As more players flooded into the world, the monsters didn't just sit around; they congregated. They learned.
Near the outskirts of Shellcroft, the atmosphere had shifted from excitement to pure terror.
Victor and his team were heading back toward the Level 1 zones to recover when they stumbled upon a massacre. A six-man squad was being torn apart by over a dozen Crawlers. Individually, a Crawler was manageable. In a pack of twelve? It was a death sentence.
“Are you shtting me? How many are there?!” one of the doomed players screamed before three Crawlers lunged at his throat, dragging him into the brush.
Victor raised his shield, his face pale. His team had barely recovered their mana. Finn, who had been whining about the "invisible expert" rejecting her friend request, went silent, her knuckles white as she gripped her staff.
The pack of Crawlers finished their meal and turned their black, beady eyes toward Victor’s squad. They hissed, sensing the group's strength, and then did something no MMO mob ever did.
They retreated.
They didn't just run; they systematically withdrew, carrying the stolen 'Bound Lifespan' of their victims with them.
“They’re... they’re leaving?” Victor muttered, stunned.
“They’re not just monsters,” Finn whispered. “They’re hunters.”
The realization was chilling. The creatures of Godsfall weren't waiting in pens to be farmed for XP. They were forming warbands. They were scavenging.
Back in the Shellcroft plaza, the respawn point was a revolving door of white light. Players were appearing every second, their faces etched with trauma.
“I thought Level 3 would be easy,” one man sobbed. “The monsters are grouping up. We can’t even step ten feet past the gate!”
“What happens if we never hit Level 3? Do we just stay in these pods forever? Are we braindead in the real world?”
“We need more people. If six isn't enough, we go out with thirty!”
“No! A forty-man group just got wiped by something called ‘The Hexbane.’ One skill killed thirty people instantly!”
The panic was a living thing until someone glanced at the Town Leaderboard.
“Look... ‘Shade’ hit Level 3.”
The crowd went silent.
“He’s soloing,” someone whispered. “He’s the only one that high. How the hell is he doing it?”
Among the crowd, a girl with short black hair and a charred expression stood by the fountain. Her name was Pear, and she had just respawned for the third time. Her bound lifespan had plummeted from eighty years to a mere ten.
“Pear... what do we do?” her teammate asked, her voice trembling. “We’ve killed four Crawlers in two hours. We aren't even halfway to Level 2.”
Pear looked at the name at the top of the leaderboard. Her eyes flashed with desperate resolve.
“Spread the word,” Pear said sharply. “I’m offering ten million RMB to whoever can get me in touch with Shade. I don't care about the game anymore—I just want to get back to the real world, and he’s the only one who knows how to survive this hell.”
The bounty hit the local chat like a lightning bolt.
Meanwhile, deep in the dark forest, Ethan Quinn felt the surge of power he had been waiting for. He’d just picked off a stray pack of Crawlers, harvesting the final Evolution Point he needed.
[You have consumed 5 Evolution Points.]
[Greedy Grasp (Platinum) has evolved to (Emerald Tier)!]
New Effect: 160% chance for extra loot.
New Effect: Extra loot has a 20% chance to be upgraded by one Tier.
Ethan’s heart hammered against his ribs. A 20% chance to upgrade the tier? If he killed a Bronze boss, he could pull Silver gear. If he killed a Silver boss... he’d be swimming in Gold.
He checked his mental map. There was a creature nearby, a monster known as ‘The Hexbane.’ It was a corrupted Treant that had just gorged itself on dozens of players. It was currently nesting, digesting a mountain of stolen lifespan.
Soon, it would evolve into a Silver-tier boss. And Ethan was going to be there to meet it.