I woke up, gasping, surrounded by darkness.

The ground under me felt soft and cold.

Snow.

I squinted my eyes and looked around. The walls around me, and the tents not far away, revealed that I was back in our base. My Death Ward must've saved me. My one precious chance to respawn.

How long had it been?

I could find neither Saber nor Tanin as I looked around. At least our Base Core was intact.

I eased myself up. I had woken up next to our vending machine, which slowly soothed the burns on my body. My clothes had already been mended, likely by the magic of the Death Ward. I gingerly rolled up the leg of my pants. The skin only turned out to be red and tender, not scorched off as it had likely been earlier. And the frigid air eased what pain remained.

My HP refilled gradually. I ought to be ready for action in a few more minutes. Hopefully, my absence from the battlefield wouldn't be too much of a hindrance to our team.

I opened the team notebook to report that I was fine, and would be back in action soon.

「Saber has destroyed a top tower.」

Good. As I confronted our opponents one-versus-two in the bottom lane, at least that freed up my team to attack the rest of the battlefield. Was a tower worth my Death Token? It felt like a losing trade, but still, better than nothing.

Saber soon returned to base, in a flash of light characteristic of the Ring of Recall's magic.

"It was Sylvia," I told her. "She took the zombies. I think she used her Ultimate ability on me."

Seeing me on the ground, Saber knelt down. She eased me up slowly and dusted the snowflakes from my eyelashes. "Is she level 6?"

"Seems like it. HP in the thousands, ridiculously strong offense. Flame-based abilities."

Then it clicked.

"Her abilities," I said. "Burrowing with lava eruption. Stone spears. She's just like the stone giant we fought back in the beginning."

The one that killed Becky.

"...What does that mean?" Saber said with a thoughtful frown. "Did she copy its abilities? That's too strange to be a coincidence."

"I don't know. Maybe the two of them just have the same abilities, because Alice designed things that way. Maybe there's no further implication. Where's Tanin?"

"Still out there, somewhere. He hasn't contacted me yet. Still alive, apparently. We should get back outside. Sophia, can you defend our bottom tower? Just play it safe, freeze the wave near tower."

Freezing the wave meant to make sure the ally and enemy golems fought near a consistent location on the map, without the line of confrontation pushing one way or the other. It took careful planning to execute, though nothing I couldn't handle.

I needed to make sure the enemy golems would fight ours just outside the firing range of my bottom tower. If they ever marched into firing range, they'd die to the tower's laser. Which could easily weaken the enemy golem's forces too much, and cause our ally golems to beat them back. I didn't want that. I needed to keep the theater of battle near my own tower, so I myself could stand under the tower's protection and farm XP and gold safely.

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If the enemy golems dwindled too much in numbers, I'd need to attack them less, so they wouldn't get pushed away. If the enemy golems grew too numerous, I'd need to kill some off to prevent them from pushing into tower range. If an enemy player came and tried to kill off my ally golems, I'd need to match them and kill off enemy golems in roughly equal measure, to maintain a balance of forces. It was essentially a balancing act, to force the golems into a draw at a location where I can farm them without excessive risk.

Freezing offered safety at the cost of offense and battlefield presence. While I farmed and froze the wave, I couldn't help take any enemy towers, or help in any fights elsewhere. Saber and Tanin would need to cover the rest of the map by themselves, two-on-three. But wave-freezing was likely my best option right now. If I got caught by Sylvia again, without a Death Ward, I could die permanently.

After buying and drinking a couple more potions from the vending machine, I once again ventured out of our base and headed to the bottom lane. Thankfully, when I arrived, the golems were already fighting not far from the tower's range. I just had to get them a little closer, then keep them there. Once I hit level 6, things ought to get much easier. I'd have my own Ultimate ability, Maw of Leviathan. If it had been potent enough to take out Fink, it'd do a number on Sylvia too.

As I tended to the golems in combat, meticulously checking the numbers on both sides and calculating how much I needed to attack the enemy ones, someone emerged from the forests nearby.

Sylvia.

As she laid her eyes upon me, she held her hand out. Pieces of rock flew up from the ground and assembled themselves into a sword of stone in her grasp. The seams between its individual shards ignited with a golden, fiery glow, like veins of fire.

"Don't move," she said. "I know you wouldn't want to burn to death. Stay still and I'll make this painless."

I nearly laughed.

"Traitor," I spat. I conjured a Cold Grenade in my palm. "You've planned for all this, haven't you? From the first day we met. Figuring out how to gain our trust. And when we rested with our guards down, you took our jungle camps. And then you'd take our lives for an easy victory. Is that it?"

"And that's how I outplayed you. Isn't that the whole point? This is a death game, and I played to win."

"We could have all lived in peace!"

"If only. Already, this arena is freezing over. There will be no more light, or dawn, or sun. Even you, with your ice magic, will die of hypothermia in a day's time. That's the design of the creators. No life can be sustained here."

"And you lured everyone in knowing that. You didn't even care if your own friends would die in battle."

"Of course they won't," she said. "Because I will finish you off myself."

I flung my Cold Grenade at her. She slammed her blade into the ground, opening a fissure, and she sank in. A split second later, the ground under my golems grew red hot. A fountain of lava erupted, knocking my golems down to their fiery end. The enemy forces, unhindered now, advanced towards my tower.

I had to back off. I didn't have the firepower to fend off both her and her golems. Even the tower's lasers might not be enough to swing this fight in my favor.

I turned and ran.

"Too late," Sylvia said. She snapped her fingers.

Four wolves, made from stone and clad in fire, leaped out of the woods behind my tower. They prowled toward me upon the road of the bottom lane, cutting off retreat.

Sylvia summoned her stone spears, those massive, razor-sharp spires.

"I want to save my teammates too!" she shouted at me. "I have a family back home too! Don't take this personally, Sophia. you're honestly a pretty nice gal."

The stone spears flew forth, converging upon me. I summoned a Vortex Shield, feeble as it might be. I had never excelled when it came to defense magic.

I was sent flying off my feet, into the air.

But not backwards, by the impact of the spears. I flew sideways. And I landed in someone's arms.

"...Brandon?!" I gasped, realizing.

I looked down. Stuck to my waist was a string of web, and the other end of the string came out of his wrist. He had pulled me towards himself, out of harm's way, Spiderman-style.

He looked at Sylvia. And I could tell, he was angry.