After Alice turned into icy dust, and the wind blew her away, all that remained was her broken Death Ward.
We had just destroyed Alice once. Do it again, and victory was ours.
「Green team has slain an enemy.」
「Green team has destroyed a tower.」
The tower behind her, too, shattered and fell into stony debris, frozen and white.
Hei gazed to his outstretched palm, then to the destruction beyond. Grass and trees and bushes had all been reduced to white powder like Alice. Even the path of the lane had become cracked and jagged and buried beneath ice, all the way up to the gate of the enemy base.
"...I didn't know you could do this," Hei said. I caught up to him from behind.
"Me neither," I admitted. After all, this was my first time unleashing Mk. II.
A burnt-smelling smoke seeped out of Jormungandr. Its handle felt hot in my grip.
[Condition - Overclocked. After being upgraded to Mk. II, Jurmungandr cannot be upgraded again for 30 minutes.]
I didn't know this debuff existed. Not that I ever had a chance to test the Deuterium Fuel Cell before this match. It was my secret weapon after all, and I doubted I could've tested its full power while under wraps.
"Let's hurry," I bid Hei. "On to the next tower."
We needed to push our advantage as much as we could while Alice was out. Soon she'd regain consciousness in her base, heal up, and come for us again. Hei and I marched our golem troops to the Inner Red Tower and began to chip away at it.
Footsteps raced towards us from behind. I spun around and saw Doublerift.
He glanced at the barren snowscape.
"Welcome back," I simply said.
"You did this," he said to me. "You took out Alice."
"For now. You'll need to cover me before I can do it again, I've got a cooldown."
Doublerift was still level 1, but his firepower helped us advance. We pressed our attack, blasting away the enemy golems and structures. Amidst bullets, spell blasts, and strikes of steel, the Inner Tower fell too.
Right behind it sat Alice's golem fabricator. We smashed it into pieces. Now no more enemy golems would spawn. With the path now cleared, our golems marched through the gate and into Alice's base.
We had reached the last stage. Victory was in grasp, but so was defeat. Without enemy golems spawning, there was no easy way to gain XP on the 1v1 map. Hei had reached level 6, and I had hit level 5 myself. Doublerift barely managed to reach level 3, but at least he caught up some.
The meadow inside the enemy base sprawled out before our eyes. Across the field was the Base-Core, a large, crimson crystal, embedded in a raised stone base.
A single tower remained, guarding it. Alice stood by her final tower, her sword drawn, as though she had been awaiting us.
Something was missing.
A faint golden glow seeped out of Alice.
"...Her vending machine's gone," I informed. "She must've absorbed it –"
Before I registered it, Alice leaped as a blur. By the time I could track her movements, she was in front of me, so close I could see the pupil of her eyes. She swung her blade up at me.
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White-hot flames surged as a towering crescent. I barely had time to conjure water and create a Vortex Shield. The attack burned clean through. The flames engulfed me in a blaze of pure heat. My body was lifted off the ground and thrown backwards, before crumpling into a heap. A smoldering wound stretched from my shoulder to my hip.
Hei and Doublerift had rushed on ahead, bringing their offense upon Alice before she could score another free hit. Her HP –
[HP: 8000 / 8000]
…No way.
She had sped up, so much that she now outmaneuvered Hei. The strikes of her blade shook the earth. And each of her flame slashes now burned even the ground, leaving behind gashes of lava.
Her stats had all been raised to absurd levels. Did she absorb the power of the potions within the vending machine too?!
She drove Hei and Doublerift back from the final tower. Hei landed his Schwarzchild Trident, but it didn't matter. He could scarcely damage her. Doublerift sprayed bullets from his gun. He opened portals, golden rings leading into the abyss. Countless more bullets rained down through them upon Alice, volley after volley. But it didn't matter.
"Take the tower!" Doublerift shouted at me.
That was our only option. Take the last tower, then the Base-Core. We didn't need to take down Alice. We just had to win the game. I marched my golems forward and began the siege.
Alice dashed at me with her sword aflame. Doublerift clenched his fist, crumpling the space between them. Distances distorted, space warped, and before I knew it Alice had been brought next to him.
I continued the siege, chipping away at the tower with my golems. Alice ignored Doublerift and rushed back at me. She sent a flaming slash. I managed to dodge out of the way, but half my golems perished in the inferno. A dim glow pulsated across her skin. She had reached level 5.
She closed in. I didn't have time to demolish the tower.
Hei Voidstepped in front of her. With a forceful thrust of his spear, he repelled Alice. The ground beneath him depressed as he unleashed a blast of gravity. Alice did not lose her footing, but she skidded back dozens of yards.
"Help Alice!" Hei shouted at Doublerift. Doublerift raced towards me. With a wave of his hand, all his portals converged their fire upon the tower. It began to crack under our onslaught.
Alice charged at me once more. The only thing keeping her at bay now was Hei.
She veered sharply to one side to pass him. But Hei dove at her with his spear extended. A pair of wings bursted out of his shoulders, dazzling white and made entirely of ice.
Alice lifted her blade to block. Hei's spear drove her back, even as her heels dug furrows into the ground.
"Ultimate ability," Hei announced. "Wings of the Ice Priestess."
Alice unleashed a flaming slash at Hei, but he moved out of the way.
The flames seemed a tad weaker. I noticed that her blade, and the hand holding it, had been covered with frost that glowed with a strange, gray light.
Besides the mobility of his wings, Hei had another power through his Ultimate: debuff application on hit. Not even 6e12 had been able to resist its effects when they had fought. Not even his destructive blasts, which erased the world itself, could function after a few strikes from Hei.
If we couldn't take Alice out, the least we could do was make her harmless.
Hei rose into the air, before diving down at Alice once more. Alice met him with fire and steel, with heat and force enough to reduce hills to valleys. But Hei kept up. He drifted and darted through the air, managing turns every bit as tight as he could on foot. His ice tempered her blaze ever more with each clash.
The final tower cracked and shook. Stones rained down. Any second now, it would fall.
「I am fifty meters forward.」
As those words left Alice's lips, she reappeared beside Doublerift and me.
But it was too late.
「Green team has destroyed a bottom tower.」
The announcement, in her own voice, sounded as the tower leaned over and fell. It rocked the arena as it collapsed into the ground.
Before us, her Base-Core stood exposed. All we had to do was take it out. I rushed on to the stone platform surrounding the Core, and took shelter behind the crystal from Alice. I readied a Frost Missile at the Core.
Instead of coming after me, Alice pressed her hand upon the Base-Core.
「Origin Reprisal.」
In a flash of light, her missing vending machine returned to where it was supposed to be, at the corner of her base.
Her Base-Core crystal, and the stone platform around it, vanished.
There was no soil nor stone beneath the platform. There was nothing beneath the platform.
The Base-Core and platform had disappeared, revealing a bottomless pit beneath.
I saw Hei rushing toward me as I fell in. But he couldn't reach.
I fell deeper and deeper down, together with Alice.
Before I realized it, I could see the arena above me. A floating chunk of land, with the sky as its backdrop.
And under us, there was only the shapeless void.
As we tumbled down, Alice looked to me and smiled.