Chapter 69 – Team Wipe
Honestly, Pick really was an unlucky bastard. As the team’s leader, he didn’t have a single team member willing to follow his commands. They even abandoned him to act on their own, and when he finally caught up to his teammates after exhausting himself, all he got was news of their complete annihilation. Just when he was stuck between advancing and retreating, he bumped into Tillisa, who had just finished her killing spree.
Life, huh…
Pick groaned inwardly. Being a Divine Son to this extent was really something else. He had come here full of ambition, thinking he could make a big splash at the Crown Cup, never expecting to be eliminated before he could even activate his Divine Analysis technique.
What a bunch of deadweights—three deadweights! Getting taken down one-versus-three by someone else. Even dealing with three pigs wouldn’t be this quick, would it??
At this point, nothing he said would matter. Pick could only keep cursing those three idiots in his heart for not waiting for him and trying to tough it out on their own.
If he had been there…
No, he couldn’t just exit the stage having done nothing. Pick felt unwilling to accept this.
So he did the last thing he could currently do—activate his Divine Analysis technique to scan Tillisa.
Last battle, he’d been beaten off the stage before he could even activate Divine Analysis. Pick couldn’t accept that. At the very least, he wanted to see the divine authority information of the enemy who had defeated his teammates.
Opening his eyelids wide, Pick’s eyes took on a faint luminous layer. The information about the girl before him—including her name, domain, and divine authority—came into view.
Literally burning his eyes.
“Ahhhhh!! My titanium divine eyes!!…” Pick covered his eyes, howling in agony.
What was happening?! Why were these words so searing to look at?!
Pick clutched his eyes in bewilderment, feeling an invisible flame ignite from his retinas, threatening to burn away his crystalline lenses.
Pick was at a loss, and Tillisa looked equally confused.
I haven’t even made my move yet—what are you yelling about, buddy?
“Quick, quick, shoot me, ow ow!”
“??” Tillisa silently aimed her bow at Pick.
Begging someone to kill him—she’d never heard such a strange request.
The light arrow struck the vulnerable neck precisely. One clean, accurate killing shot shattered Pick’s token and sent him out of the secret realm.
With that, all members of Team 57 were eliminated.
Tillisa glanced at the kill count in the upper left corner of her token. Team 30 had gained four kills—they’d wiped out an entire team.
When all members of a team are killed by the same opposing team, they receive a “team wipe” tag and earn bonus points.
Four kills, plus the team wipe bonus, plus a small amount of survival time—Tillisa no longer needed to worry about being eliminated due to poor performance and getting expelled from school.
But that wasn’t what occupied her thoughts. After completing her Divine Maiden transformation, her goal had evolved from “not getting eliminated counts as success” to claiming the champion’s crown of the newcomer cup.
Even Tillisa didn’t know where this strong competitive spirit came from, when she had never liked fighting for dominance before.
Perhaps it couldn’t even be called competitive spirit. Tillisa simply felt that at this level of competition, she shouldn’t lose, and couldn’t possibly lose.
The enemies pursuing her had all been eliminated. None of the participants had detailed maps of the secret realm, so Tillisa didn’t know how large this secret realm actually was.
Her legs wrapped in white stockings folded together, her skin gleaming invitingly in the sunlight’s reflection. Her snow-white feet pressed against the inner sides of her thighs at the roots, golden hair falling over both sides of her shoulders and cascading into the hollows of her feet.
Tillisa sat cross-legged, her gossamer-thin golden eyelashes fluttering once before she closed her eyes, sensing the constant feedback from the forest and nature.
A verdant expanse of life enveloped and surrounded her. In her field of vision, aside from the azure lake, there was vegetation bursting with endless vitality.
Several discordant life presences stood out awkwardly in this forest.
Tillisa lifted her eyelids, gracefully supporting her body as she rose, her eyes looking toward a certain part of the forest.
Elves living in forests had affinity with all of nature. Every blade of grass and tree was an extension of their eyes. They could easily capture intruders who didn’t belong to nature or their own kind from nature’s feedback.
These skills that Tillisa had never studied seemed innate to her, carved into her instincts. Even without any practical experience, using them felt completely natural.
This amazed Tillisa, yet didn’t particularly surprise her.
She should have been shocked by this, but surprisingly, when she released these abilities and skills unique to elves, she instinctively felt these perfectly natural things were only to be expected.
The same applied to releasing divine authority and domains. She didn’t feel like she was encountering this world for the first time and feeling unfamiliar with it.
Unable to understand why, Tillisa could only attribute this to physical memory and the instincts of the elf race.
Through natural sensing, Tillisa detected that someone had entered this forest—and not just one person.
She gently caressed an old tree’s trunk, minimizing her presence as much as possible and merging with this vibrant nature.
Before long, a team of four marched boldly into the woods. They seemed completely unprepared for the possibility of an ambush in the forest, or perhaps they relied too heavily on information from Divine Analysis techniques.
Tillisa used Divine Analysis to scan these four people.
Three showed no authority reactions, meaning only one Divine Maiden was in this four-person team.
This Divine Maiden hadn’t released her domain yet, but based on the fluctuations in her authority, Tillisa preliminarily determined this was a Heavy Artillery-class Divine Maiden.
Heavy Artillery class could deal tremendous destructive damage, but this type of Divine Maiden generally had weak resistance across the board and needed teammates for protection. Heavy Artillery class authority reserves were typically higher than average Divine Maidens.
Crouching in the bushes, Tillisa slowly drew her bowstring.
Among the four, the male student walking at the front should be the team’s Divine Son. However, unlike typical Divine Sons, this team’s Divine Son wasn’t a weak scholar with glasses, but a warrior holding sword and shield, walking in front to clear the path for his teammates.
He must be a second-rate Divine Son.
Tillisa made this judgment based on the sword and shield in this Divine Son’s hands.
Divine Sons who fought alongside their teammates on the battlefield weren’t unheard of, but trying to balance Divine Son knowledge while also training physical strength and combat ability was extremely difficult. The result could only be disappointing on both fronts—trying to manage both sides but mastering neither.
Wanting to excel at both required enormous energy and exceptional talent. Both were indispensable.
“…Hm?” The burly Divine Son walking at the front of the team frowned, feeling like something was observing him.
Could there be other Divine Sons nearby? That shouldn’t be possible, right?
He had just used [Wide Area Detection] to probe this area. There shouldn’t be any other teams around here.
He glanced at his teammates following behind him and gripped his single-edged sword tighter.
He was probably just being paranoid.