Once the protective bubble disappeared, Emily, Lizzy, and Maria quickly rushed out of the broken house they were in. Since they already agreed on what to do earlier, Maria and Emily quickly darted to the right after they exited the broken house while Lizzy went in the opposite direction. They kept close attention to their surroundings and tried to hear for any monster noises that would indicate that there was a monster camp near their location.
Luckily, the Battle Royale had a tracking function so even without using a skill or spell despite how far apart they were, Maria and the girls would be able to know each other's locations even if they were completely separated. Maria could be on the other side of the map and in a completely different region and the other 2 girls would still know where she was precisely. This was good since in the case that Maria suddenly got lost, Emily and Lizzy would be able to easily find her. However, they were still not willing to let her go explore the area by herself because if she suddenly encountered an enemy squad and was too far away from them, she might be taken out of the game early due to being swarmed by them.
Unlike outside of the Colosseum Arena where Maria had all of her equipment and stats that could boost her battle capabilities and let her fight multiple players or monsters all at once, the Battle Royale mode stripped her of her equipment effects and completely leveled her stats, so everyone started almost at the same level of power. Even if she was confident in herself, Maria still needed to think realistically and not let her teammates down because in this battle mode, teamwork was the key to victory.
“Mary, remember to stick close to Emi!”
“Yes, yes, I won’t stray too far away...but what happens if I see an enemy?”
“Then you wait until I get back! We’ll attack together, always! You hear me?”
“Loud and clear, ma’am~”
"Alright, enough playing around. Keep your eyes and ears peeled and search for a monster camp. We need to find one and hopefully get some good drops from them,” Lizzy said after she got a hundred meters away from them. She was making good use of her wings to move faster. Players with wings could only glide in the air and not fly but Lizzy was hopping and flapping her wings to give her an extra boost to the distance she traveled while still remaining on the ground.
“Roger.”
“Mhm!”
Most of the winged players had this ‘speed’ enhancement and they abused it quite a lot while on the move and during battle. Fighting against a very agile enemy was always a pain in the butt. Maria didn't know about this speed mechanic and wasn't using it, however, she wasn't moving normally at all. She had her Greed's Chains and they were helping her move around the area. A new feature had been unlocked after she had consumed a few more Sin Devil Souls and she could now change the ends of Greed’s Chains into different shapes.
She could change them into hooks, sharp ends, weights, and a few other things. With this new feature, Maria was deploying her chains and stabbing or hooking them onto the walls of the ancient ruins and propelling herself forward by retracting them while they were still connected. There was another new feature that was unlocked and it was the same one that the Sin Devil Greed used to summon multiple chains at once by deploying them through small dimensional portals.
Now that Maria had finally unlocked this really nifty function, it allowed for more dynamic movement while being propelled by those chains. She could move herself in a different direction while in mid-air or even pull herself back to a safe distance in case she needed to protect herself. She had much more agility than Lizzy and since she was able to wrap her chains around Emily, this allowed her to move around with her friend.
“W-Wow, this is so much fun! It feels like we're sp*derman! Mary, is this one of your items or something?”
“Yeah! It’s my upgraded Greed’s Chains. Since I’ve gotten them, I’ve had a fun time experimenting and playing around with them. The only downside is that since the dimensional portals are connected to various parts of my body, I could get hurt if people attacked them!”
“I-I see. You better not tell anyone else about this!”
“Yup!”
Maria continued moving around in such a manner while navigating through the complex ruins area that seemed a bit like a maze to her.
“Mary, pull us toward the left once we get to that Y-split!”
“Gotcha!”
Thankfully, she had a navigator with her so Maria wasn’t going to get lost as she would definitely be if she was moving through this complex area without her.
“Be careful of enemies!”
“Un!”
When they got to the Y-Split, Maria launched her chains on a high spot just in case. Once they were propelled into the air, Maria rapidly twisted around and looked in the two directions for any signs of enemies and found none. She quickly changed directions and followed Emily’s orders before they arrived at an area and heard sounds of battle.
“Mary, stop! You hear that?”
“I hear it, what should we do?”
The two quickly stopped and placed right as Lizzy suddenly asked through the chat, [Mary, Em, did you find anything?]
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“We hear sounds of battle. Get your ass over here Liz!” Emily immediately replied.
[Nice! Gimme a few seconds―actually, wait! How the hell did you two get so far?!]
“Just hurry up and get here or else we’ll attack them without you!”
“Let’s go, Em. We can catch them by surprise by landing on top of them from the air! I’ve got [Calamity Cleave] ready so we can stun them, take out one quickly, and it’ll just be a two-on-two after that!”
“Eh? But―”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
Before Emily could even say anything more, Maria wrapped her chains around her and she immediately propelled them into the air toward the direction where the fight was happening. They could hear the dying sounds of the monsters the other squad was fighting so the battle was likely almost over. If they didn’t move now, it’d be much too late.
Lizzy heard what Maria said and she couldn’t help but whine, [Hold up, wait for me, dammit! I want to fight too!]
“It’ll be too late! We’re jumping in now!”
[Be careful!]
*****
Down on the ground where one of the Ancient Ruins’ monster camps was located, a team of 3 players that didn’t seem to be affiliated with each other was currently attacking a monster camp of a few kobolds. The smaller kobolds had been killed already and there were only 2 medium-sized ones and a large one left.
These 3 players had queued up for random matchmaking so they didn’t know each other too well. The three were too busy coordinating with each other that the one who was supposed to be spotting for them didn’t notice that Maria and Emily were already in the air right above them after Maria launched a chain into a nearby tall structure and pulled them up there. After that, she glided right on top of them before turning to Emily and nodding to her. Emily nodded back and Maria quickly readied her Calamity. Since they were going to need the stun, she had her Calamity in its ax form and activated her skill, [Calamity Cleave].
“GROAARR!”
The warcry from the large kobold masked the activation of her skill and Maria immediately launched her attack at the 3 unsuspecting players below. A loud crash was heard as it struck right in the center of the enemy team’s formation. Maria's chains were always connected to her Calamity, so she tugged on them and propelled herself forward along with Emily in tow. Once she appeared next to her ax, Maria used her chains to pull one of the players over to her and she cleaved her Calamity right on top of the stunned player's head.
Her chains could only do this to an enemy player if they were afflicted with a status affliction that prevented them from moving. Since the player was afflicted with [Stun], she could grab them using her chains. She kicked the handle of her ax and brought it back up for a second slash and it was then that Emily finally crash-landed right on top of the unfortunate player's head with her large warhammer, immediately ending the player's life.
"Nice take down, Em!"
"Focus! There's still two more of them! Mary, let's just double team one of them! If we can kill one quickly we'll be able to kill the other!"
"Roger!"
The two players quickly recovered from their stunned states and one of them cursed, “D-Dammit, where did these guys come from?!"
"I told you to keep an eye on our surroundings earlier!"
"That was the job of that fool who just died!"
"Damn, that f*cking noob!"
While the two enemy players were arguing with each other, Maria and Emily quickly capitalized on that and launched their attacks. They picked the closest target and immediately rushed at him, completely ignoring the monsters whose aggro were still directed at the two enemy players and used their help to quickly bring them down. Maria pierced their target with numerous chains before finishing him off with a flick of her wings that activated an [Angel’s Rage] which turned the player into a porcupine.
In the Battle Royale, Maria’s skills all had their regular cooldowns except for [Angel’s Rage] which normally didn’t have a cooldown. Now, she couldn’t use it whenever she wanted since it had a 30-second cooldown with a limit of 10 shots per usage restricting it from its usual power. However, it was still okay because each feather still inflicted a fixed amount of pure damage to her targets and with her being able to land all 10 of them, the amount of damage she did was still quite substantial.
With one of their targets down, Maria and Emily focused their efforts on the last target and killed him quickly. With the enemy team completely wiped out, they now turned their eyes to the 3 remaining monsters and quickly dealt with them as well. The monsters dropped a skill upgrade book, 2 pieces of equipment, and a few EXP vials while the 3 players they had killed each dropped 2 EXP vials.
At the start of the match, all of the players had their levels reduced to one and they needed to kill monsters or each other to level up. The maximum level in the match was level 10 and it was easily obtainable as long as the players killed enough or survived for long enough because EXP was also obtained passively as the game progressed regardless of whether they hunted or not. The purpose of hunting monsters and other players was only to get equipment and skill upgrade books. Levels weren't too important, but it was advantageous for a team to be high-leveled in the early stages so they could stay ahead of other teams. Even if a team was ambushed, the difference in levels at the start of the match could help determine whether the ambushed team would be able to survive or not.
The real deciding factor for a team's victory was the number of upgrades and equipment they had on themselves from hunting monsters and another factor would be the team's coordination. It was quite obvious already that coordination was also key because the earlier team that Maria and Emily defeated had extremely horrible coordination since they were just a bunch of randoms queuing for a match. Their 0 coordination was what landed them into the situation of being ambushed and easily being picked off one by one by only 2 players.
Emily quickly picked up all of the drops while Maria surveyed the area. Emily checked their map before they raced back to meet up with Lizzy who was still on her way to their location. Staying there wasn’t safe because the sounds of battle would definitely attract other squads in the area. The cooldown times of their skills were a pain to wait for so typically, squads would retreat from battle once their skills were on cooldown.
It was quite dangerous to use up all of one’s skills in a single battle so Emily and Lizzy made sure to remind Maria not to use up everything in her arsenal since there were other squads that would come to prey on those that had all their skills on cooldown. They were like mantises stalking a cicada and would wait for the best time to strike which was usually after a large clash between two parties so one of the key things was to always be vigilant even after wiping out a squad and making sure you still have a skill in reserve to prevent another squad from attacking yours.
The two quickly met back up with Lizzy who was pouting at them when they showed her their battle spoils.
“That’s not fair! You guys started the party without me!” Lizzy complained.
“If we waited for you, their battle would have been over and we wouldn’t be able to ambush them like earlier. Mary, I thought I told you not to use all of your skills? I saw you using your Battle Skill and Weapon Skill earlier!” Emily said as she gave Maria her cut of the spoils.
“S-Sorry, I just got really excited!”
“I know this is your first time but please be more mindful. You never know when one of those hyena bastards comes and nip us from behind.”
“Hyena?”
“It’s a term we call those teams that hide in wait for others to clash before they swoop in at the end and take everything after killing the winning team,” Lizzy explained to her.
Maria frowned when she heard that and said, “That sounds like a hateful way to play the game…”
“It sure is and it’s frustrating to be in the position that’s being attacked but that’s just one of the many tactics you can use in this battle mode. We'll even use it if the situation calls for it!”
“Hmmm…” Maria nodded in understanding. To be fair, that’s kind of what they did earlier.
The monsters and that squad of players had been attacking each other but they suddenly swooped in from the skies and decimated the players without warning.
Lizzy was the party leader so other than the EXP Vials that were already distributed evenly between them, she took the Skill book and armor upgrade stones.
“Em and I will take the equipment while you take the skill book, Mary. Wait until level 4 and then unlock your Ultimate with that book. For now, let’s go farm some monsters in that direction and quickly level up!” Lizzy said after she gave Emily one of the equipment pieces they obtained while Maria took the skill book.
After reading Maria’s skill, she knew that unlocking her Ultimate was the best course of action for their team since it was a skill that had 3 effects in one. She remembered this skill from a while back and she occasionally saw it whenever Maria streamed, however, the effects were ridiculous when she read its description.
“The sounds of battle from here will attract the other squads in the area so we’ll have a window of opportunity to stealthily hunt some monster camps. I saw one just before I left to return to you guys so let’s hurry!”