The Fallen

As soon as Nosferatu sees the main screen floating above the center of the arena, his jaw drops open slightly in surprise. Meanwhile, Saxa finishes bringing him over to join her and notices the expression on his face before turning to look at the screen as well.

“Yeah, that isn’t really what people would normally expect of a Competitor traveling through a deep ocean, now is it?” she says with a short chuckle.

On the main screen, Wolf can be seen casually walking across the surface of the water, with the water freezing over beneath his boots with each step he takes. His eyes glow with a faint light, splitting the darkness of the nearly endless ocean as he walks with his hands in his pockets.

‘I don’t know what to comment on first…’ Norbert thinks to himself before shaking his head. ‘The fact that he’s casually walking through a dangerous, monster-infested ocean, or the bored atmosphere that’s practically radiating from him right now.’

“Just for some foreknowledge, in case you missed how he was when he first got on the floor,” Saxa begins while waving her hand and making a rerun of earlier events appear next to the main screen, “The Winter Wolf tried and failed to find the bottom of the ocean floor, even after swimming down for over a kilometer. So he just swam back to the surface and started his walk.”

A few minutes pass showing this exact scene at a fast-forwarded pace before Wolf can be seen reaching the surface and taking a couple of steps forwards to test his ability and the ability of his ice to hold him without sinking. After he finds that he can walk without fear of sinking, he simply begins to walk through the dark ocean without a hint of fear on his face, occasionally waving his hand and sending out spikes of ice at any oceanic monster that gets close.

“And that’s how he ended up like this,” Saxa says with a shrug of her shoulders. “Despite this floor likely being meant as a psychological burden on the Competitors. What, with the Competitors being forced to constantly be in a seemingly bottomless ocean full of monsters where they might never know when a monster may or may not be swimming up to attack them.”

“That’s just…” Norbert mutters without taking his eyes off of the main screen, “unfair.” He then turns to look at Saxa and asks, “Is there any way to become a harbinger without it happening at the System Initialization?”

The woman appears surprised for a second before looking at Wolf and answering, “Yes, it is. But it’s not easy.”

“Tell me,” Norbert says, not even bothering with hiding his intentions.

Saxa glances at him and says, “There are a few ways, but only one person has actually managed to achieve it. And all of the ways are either through evolution of your current class, or from finding a certain item located within the Administrator Dungeon.”

Before the man can ask any further questions, she continues speaking, “To evolve your class – outside of a mutation class’s first evolution, that is – you have to first unlock all of its effects. After that, you need three things. One is a Class Evolution Stone. Another is to have at least advanced your class by one tier since either getting it or the last time you evolved it. And the last one is a direction towards what you want it to evolve into; one that matches your person.”

Meanwhile, throughout the audience, hundreds of undead can be seen messing with their menus, recording this conversation for later reference due to the rarity of advancement knowledge like this.

“As for the item that can let you evolve into a harbinger? Not even I’m aware of what that’s called, or how to get it,” Saxa says with a shrug, “the Chairman of the Arcadian Magic Association should be the only one with that knowledge.”

Nosferatu begins rubbing his chin in thought as he watches Wolf continue walking across the surface of the ocean, stopping only briefly as a large shark – spanning nearly three meters in length – surfaces and tries to eat him, only to be frozen alive by Wolf’s ice.

“But no matter what, remember this,” Saxa suddenly says, her face turning serious, “even if you do manage to become a harbinger, it’s not guaranteed that you will get a power even remotely similar to The Winter Wolf’s. After all, you’re two entirely different people, with different types of magic.”

Her statement leaves a sour look on the dhampir’s face before he nods his head in appreciation and says, “Thank you.”

Right as the host is nodding her own head back at him, drumbeats begin echoing throughout the arena, marking the time for Nosferatu’s departure.

“Please be safe and come back any time you’d like!” she says with a smile towards him before watching him disappear in a flash of green light.

Wolf

I’m bored.

This thought echoes through my head as I walk across the surface of the water amidst the peaceful sounds of the rain hitting the water and the beautiful waves lightly crashing down everywhere.

The theme may look beautiful, despite the dark theme it seems to be following, but it’s rather boring and empty. There isn’t really that many monsters, and the ones I do find are still too weak to really do anything to me. Especially when I can just turn them into popsicles before they even reach me.

Although it does make me wonder what monster might be the-

My thoughts are interrupted as a loud splashing sound. When I turn to look at the source of the noise, I find a large shark jumping out of the water several dozen meters away from me. It has an enormous fin on its back, with several rows of razor sharp teeth, and a blackish-blue coloring to its skin.

Hmm, that must be a mini boss.

With that being the case, I wonder where its exit is? And is this even anywhere near its area?

I really don’t like hazardous floors. Specifically due to the issue of finding the mini boss’s areas.

Especially in an ocean one like this.

Is the exit underwater? Will it appear when the mini boss dies?

So many annoying questions.

Anyways, I change my direction to go towards the large shark whilst identifying it just before it hits the water again.

_-| Unnamed – Selarch – Level 674 |-_

I frown slightly at the name of its species before mentally shrugging and continuing my way towards it. However, right as the monster enters my life senses, I pause.

This might be a good time to try out that new skill.

And with that thought, I activate the new skill on my right arm before grunting from the pain caused by the transformation. Which is quite a bit different from how it was with my old razor claws skill.

Because with this one, it feels like thousands of sharp needles are stabbing me through my entire arm.

But it at least doesn’t last for long.

“Damn,” I mutter, letting out a sigh of relief as the transformation finishes, “should’ve expected that.”

When I focus on the monster again, I find it swimming directly towards me with its pitch-black eyes staring straight ahead.

Let’s see how this turns out…

I raise my arm – which is now in the form of a cannon – towards the large shark before instinctively understanding how to fire it. Soon enough, I feel a draw on my bone marrow and heart that pushes me towards creating ice element. The ice element is then sucked straight into the cannon as a faint blue light begins to emit from the cannon’s barrel.

The shark continues speeding towards me until it’s only a few meters in front of me, beneath the water’s surface. It’s then that the building light suddenly flashes before blasting outwards in a thick beam towards the shark, freezing it in seconds, followed shortly by a large portion of the ocean around it.

I pant slightly in exhaustion before glancing between the frozen – and sinking – shark and the cannon making up my arm.

That was strong… but…

It took quite a while to charge up. Not to mention the large amount of ice element it used.

My thoughts are interrupted as I see a flash of light from down in the ocean.

Oh? Could that be the door?

Or just another monster.