It was a classic "Tank and Healer" duo. Rex, the Warrior, and Clara, the Cleric.
Ethan Quinn watched them from the periphery of the woods, a bitter twinge of nostalgia hitting him. They reminded him far too much of himself and Evie in their previous life.
Rex strode ahead with unearned confidence, his six-foot frame built like a brick wall. He looked the part of a protector, broad-shouldered and loud. Clara followed closely behind, though she was hardly the dainty priestess her name suggested. She was as sturdy as Rex, clutching an Inferior Cleric’s Staff while her eyes scanned the undergrowth with nervous intensity.
Then, the canopy screamed.
A sharp hiss of rushing air preceded the strike. Before either could react, two thick ropes of bone-white silk slammed into them. The force jerked them off their feet, pinning them against an ancient oak.
A massive shadow descended. A pitch-black, multi-eyed horror—the size of a small van—slid down a silver thread.
"What the hell is that?!" Rex’s voice cracked into a frantic shriek.
"Spider! Get it off me! Get it off!" Clara wailed, her earlier vigilance dissolving into pure terror.
[The Broodnest (Lv. 1)]
[Rank: Bronze]
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. This wasn't a Common mob; it was a Bronze-tier Mini-Boss. To Ethan, this wasn't a threat—it was a goldmine. Killing a Boss-tier creature guaranteed Evolution Points, the most precious resource in his arsenal.
He remained motionless, his form bleeding into the gloom.
Bronze Broodnest. Health pool likely between 1,500 and 2,000, Ethan calculated. Suicide for a fresh player. And where there’s a Broodnest, there’s a swarm.
He didn't move to help. In this world, mercy was a luxury that got people buried.
A dry rustling sound rose from the surrounding trees—the sound of a thousand skittering legs. Dozens of smaller, obsidian spiders began crawling down the webs, converging on the trapped couple.
[Broodnest Spiderling (Lv. 1)]
[Rank: Common]
These were the spawns of the Bronze nightmare. Each one was nearly a meter long, their four pairs of compound eyes gleaming with predatory hunger.
Rex, who moments ago had been boasting about his prowess, was now paralyzed by fear. The silk was too thick, and their levels were too low; they didn't have the Strength stats to break free. They could only watch, sobbing, as the swarm crawled over their legs and began to feed.
The screams were short-lived. Damage numbers cascaded over their heads in a frantic blur until their health bars hit zero.
Two orbs of pale gray light—their very lifespans—spilled from their corpses. The spiderlings crowded around the orbs, fighting to feast on the stolen years.
Now.
A flash of steel cut through the dim light. Ethan moved like a ghost, his agility maximized as he lunged. His blade sang, carving deep into one of the Broodnest’s primary eyes.
-338! (Weak Point Critical!)
The Boss shrieked, its hundred eyes swiveling to find its attacker. But Ethan was already gone. Shadow Veil had swallowed him whole before the beast could even spit a counter-attack.
The Broodnest tilted its massive head, confused. Below it, its children continued to gorge themselves on Rex and Clara’s remains, oblivious to the predator hunting their parent.
Ethan waited. Twenty-six seconds. The precise cooldown of his survival.
Once Shadow Veil refreshed, he flickered back into existence on the creature's flank. His Rusted Iron Dagger found another eye, burying itself to the hilt.
-338! (Weak Point Critical!)
He vanished again.
The Boss’s health bar had dipped below fifty percent. Three more hits, Ethan noted, retreating several yards.
Enraged by the invisible stings, the Broodnest began spraying silk indiscriminately in a frantic AOE (Area of Effect) burst. It was the kind of desperate move that would have wiped out a full six-man party of rookies. Ethan, however, had already predicted the pattern. He stood well outside the reach of the sticky white spray, watching the beast exhaust itself.
Once the cooldown reset, he approached again. The Boss was agitated, twitching its abdomen to prevent another sneak attack, but its biology was its downfall—it had too many weak points to guard them all.
He switched to the Worn Iron Blade, delivering another devastating puncture.
-338!
Ethan slipped back into the shadows. It was a "cheesy" tactic, the kind of hit-and-run gameplay that frustrated AI and players alike, but Ethan wasn't playing for honor. He was playing for efficiency.
Recognizing its life was in danger, the Broodnest didn't stay to die. It scrambled up a nearby trunk, attempting to flee into the higher canopy.
"Two more," Ethan whispered.
He didn't chase. Instead, he reached down and scooped up a jagged stone from the forest floor. In Godsfall, every object had properties. This fist-sized rock possessed a meager 2 points of Attack Power.
But with Shadow Veil’s massive break-stealth multiplier, even a pebble was lethal.
He wound up and hurled the stone with practiced precision. It struck the Broodnest’s soft underbelly with a sickening thud.
-279! (Weak Point Hit!)
Ethan vanished again. The spider was panicked now, scuttling through the branches as the spiderlings finished their meal and began hunting for the source of the disturbance.
They were too slow. Ethan reappeared twenty meters away, another stone already in flight.
The projectile caught the fleeing Boss squarely in the thorax. The massive creature lost its grip, crashing through the branches and hitting the forest floor with a heavy, final crunch.
[You have slain 'The Broodnest' (Bronze Rank).]
[You gained 300 XP.]
[Level Up! You are now Level 2.]
[You gained 2 Evolution Points!]
[Shellhaven Leaderboards Unlocked. You gained 1 Renown Point!]
A chime echoed not just in Ethan’s mind, but in the minds of every player currently in the region.
[System Announcement: Player 'Shade' has slain 'The Broodnest' (Bronze) and is the first to reach Level 2. Shellhaven Level Rankings are now live!]
The three hundred-plus players currently wandering Shellhaven froze. These were mostly adults—young professionals and students who had been snatched from their sleep. They were still grappling with the "game" reality, terrified of the monsters they had seen in the woods.
Pear Drop and her team, who were currently scouring the town for supplies, stared at the sky in stunned silence. Rex and Clara, having just respawned in the town square with pale, haunted faces, felt their hearts drop.
"No way..." Pear gripped her recurve bow, her knuckles white. "That 'Shade' guy... the one who walked out alone?"
"It has to be him," one of her teammates stammered. "But he’s Level 2 already? And he killed a Bronze Boss? We couldn't even dent a Common mob with five of us!"
"Look at the leaderboard," Pear whispered.
Under the Shellhaven Level Rankings, a single name stood alone at the top:
1. Shade — Lv. 2
It was a solitary, intimidating sight.
In the town square, the atmosphere had shifted from confusion to burgeoning dread.
Rex sat on the fountain's edge, trembling. He and Clara had lost half their lifespans. He had gone from having fifty years left to barely twenty-five. The reality of their mortality was sinking in.
"That spider..." Clara whispered, her voice trembling. "Someone killed it. That monster that ate us... this 'Shade' killed it alone."
While the masses panicked, a few started to organize. A golden-haired youth stood on a crate, shouting for people to form parties, realizing that safety lay in numbers.
At the north gate, a man named Victor—a towering figure with the Holy Vanguard class—gathered a hand-picked group of five others. "Ignore the noise," Victor told his team. "This Shade person found a way. If he can do it, we can too. I have an invulnerability skill. You guys focus on DPS. We aren't losing any years today."
The world was waking up. Thousands of "Starter Towns" across the globe were seeing the same surge of players. Whether from Daxia, North America, or Europe, the elite were starting to separate themselves from the herd.
But Ethan Quinn was already miles ahead.
"Renown," Ethan muttered, glancing at his notifications. It was a rare currency, used much later to buy high-tier artifacts from legendary NPCs.
He stood over the steaming corpse of the Broodnest and reached out. A large gray orb of light drifted into his palm.
[You have harvested 46 Days of Lifespan (Tradable).]
A massive haul. Killing a Boss was worth more than a dozen Common mobs, and since he didn't have to share the loot with a party, the profit was his alone.
He reached into the carcass, pulling out the drops. Two items were unremarkable, but the third—a leather-bound tome—made his heart skip a beat.
"Jackpot."
[Skill Book: Greedy Grasp (Bronze)]
[Class: Assassin/Rogue]
[Effect: When used on a monster corpse, provides a 20% chance to loot an additional item.]
[Requirement: Level 1]
A twenty percent chance seemed low to the average player. But Ethan Quinn didn't plan on leaving it at twenty percent.
He had Evolution Points. And he knew exactly where to put them.