Maria and the girls quickly rushed towards the location of the monster camp Lizzy had spotted earlier. Along the way, Lizzy was quite surprised by Maria’s method of movement. It was a lot faster and more agile than her hop-gliding technique but this was thanks to Maria’s unique equipment. There were a few that had unique equipment similar to Maria who used chains, but they were usually their main weapons, not an auxiliary item which acted like a weapon such as Maria’s [Greed’s Chains].
Not only that, but with her 8-wings flourishing around her, she could move around with an extra layer of defense even without the armor modifications and boost her movement speed just like her. Lizzy began teaching her how to do that and Maria easily learned it since she was much more familiar with using her wings than probably anyone else in the game since she had 8 of them and always had that deep curiosity of flying, so she always strived to perfect her way of using her wings.
Unlike Lizzy and the other players that could only boost their movement speed in one direction, Maria learned how to do it while also being able to change directions and stopping whenever she wanted to. Knowing how to move each wing individually was required for this and the other players could probably do it too if they practiced.
“Jeez, Mary...you learned it in an instant and you can move around in the air while doing it as well! You’re such a cheat!” Lizzy teased.
“I’ve had these wings longer than anyone and I have multiple pairs. Unlike you guys who only know how to flap them, I can move mine around like extra pairs of limbs!” Maria smugly said in reply.
“Sheeesh! Rub it in my face why don’t ya!”
“Hehehe~ my wings aren’t used only for flying and with Wraith’s Heart, I don’t even need to use them to fly anymore so I’ve been training on using them for something else but my [Angel’s Rage] skill helped a lot in that area.”
“Not just weapons and skills, but I guess a racial advantage also exists in this game mode. By the way, what race are you now, Mary? The last world announcement said that you Awakened or something and earlier, there was that extra menu…” Emily asked.
The 3 of them were having this conversation as they were moving. However, once they arrived, Maria quickly rushed forward and attacked the monsters in the camp. Like she was told to before, Maria kept all her skills in reserve but that’s where Calamity’s passive effect that normally didn’t matter to her, finally began showing its true worth. Calamity provided her with Life Steal and Mana Steal along with increased ATK SPD so she was able to tank the monsters even better than Emily who was their Knight.
Also, even without the increased ATK SPD, the delay in Maria’s attack seemed nonexistent as she would attack not only with her Calamity but also with her chains and wings. The monsters’ HP bar melted at her assault and she quickly took one of them down before moving on to the next. This particular monster camp was pretty large but their numbers didn’t matter since they were easily killed. Lizzy and Emily also played their part and with Maria going on a frenzy, they also took the job of keeping a lookout while their battle-crazed friend killed the monsters as she hummed in delight.
“Hm~ hm~ hm~”
“Mary…”
“What?”
“Nothing…”
Emily had a resigned smile on her face as she watched her friend delightedly strike down the monsters. She did watch a few of her friend’s streams and knew that Maria was a bit battle-crazed. She was a prim and proper young lady in real life but in the game, she had become completely unrestrained and acted so haughty, violent, and even a little bit manipulative as was seen in her interaction with her NPCs.
Maria liked her persona as the Dire Queen so she acted much differently in the game and real life. It would be boring to be herself in the game when she could be anyone she wanted but she knew when and where to separate her gaming life and real-life personas. Once the entire monster camp was cleared, they gathered their spoils, and this time, they gave all of the EXP Vials to Maria and she leveled up to level 4 and immediately unlocked her Ultimate skill.
“Alright, now that our preparations are ready, let’s go hunt some players!” Lizzy said as she began marking their map.
“Isn’t this a little too early, Liz?” Emily asked after hearing her words.
“No, it’s just the right time. With Maria’s Ultimate, we can quickly kill a lot of squads from a distance or at close range. We should take advantage of her skill to quickly level up and upgrade our loadouts.”
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“Finally, the fun’s going to start!” Maria excitedly quipped.
Emily shrugged and said, “Since Mary’s all for it, lead the way, Captain.”
"This place is a good place to camp out but I don’t want to go around looking for squads here in this maze-like area. We can go to the plains instead, that’s where one of the hotspots is located.”
Lizzy quickly led them away from the ruins area and rushed straight for the plains which were quite close. Maria had been running at the back of their formation when she felt a prickling feeling on her neck. She stopped in place before launching herself backward in the air using her chains without any warning.
Emily quickly noticed and turned around while shouting, “Liz!”
“Hm?”
Maria was already high up in the air when the two turned around and before they could say anything, she threw down her Axe before propelling herself downwards in the direction of her weapon.
“Guys, I’ve found us some prey!”
“Go support her!” Liz commanded.
“Already on it!”
Earlier, Maria felt like something was wrong and that someone was watching them while they were moving out of the ruins area. With the Awakened Characteristic that she chose at the start of the match, [Enhanced Body], she was able to detect the presence of enemy players if they tried to use a skill on her. The players watching them had been waiting in ambush and one of the players tried using their [Detect] and [Inspect] skill on Maria and her party.
It was a mistake that they used a skill on her because it quickly revealed to Maria their location and she acted first before telling her friends in order to catch the enemy by surprise and she had most definitely succeeded.
"What the heck?! How?!"
"I'm stunned!"
"Shit, how did she find us out?!"
Maria used her [Calamity Cleave] on the ground and managed to strike 2 of the players that had been spying on her team. She quickly launched herself next to her ax by using her chains which surprised the one player in the enemy team that wasn’t stunned. The player in question was an archer and they tried to use [Charge Shot] on her, a crowd-control skill to stop her from moving, but before the player could even use their skill, Maria launched her chains, stabbed it into their body, and pulled herself towards them, tackling them in the process which interrupted their skill.
An archer had to knock an arrow on their bow before being able to use an attack or skill, so this gave Maria enough time to interrupt them. She didn’t give the player a chance to even recover because right after she tackled them, Maria kicked the player right in the face before slamming him down with her chains that were still attached to them. She pulled out her Calamity from the ground and changed it into its scythe form, used another [Calamity Cleave] that split apart the archer on the ground just before Lizzy and Emily arrived to help her.
Player: Maria has killed Player: Fly2Moon11
This was announced to everyone in the match and it was the third time her name appeared. The first 2 times were when she and Emily destroyed the previous team, so she now had 3 kills under her belt. The resulting energy waves from her [Calamity Cleave] struck one of the players that had just gotten out of their stunned state and Maria used the rest of her energy wave charges to attack this player and she managed to shave off a large amount of his health bar.
Just before she could finish that one off with an [Angel’s Rage], the other player in the enemy squad, who was a Swordmaster, quickly attacked her with a [Blade Rush], intending to stun her but before it could connect, Maria propelled herself away with her chains and dodged the attack. When the Swordmaster's skill missed and he unfortunately struck the wall behind Maria, stunning himself like an idiot. Maria quickly took notice of the debuff and quickly launched her chains at him. Once her enemy was tied by her chains, Maria used him like a wrecking ball and smashed him into his teammate.
“N-No way! That’s cheating!” The Swordmaster player said. He couldn’t understand why Maria was able to bring 2 weapons in the match but unfortunately for him, the other item wasn’t even a weapon. The chains were marked in the sub-weapon category which was the same as a mage's grimoire/spell book, an archer's quiver, or a knight's shield. The only difference was the function as Maria could use it to attack others. A knight's shield could also do the same thing, so there was no fault in the system's judgement.
“HAHAHAHA!” Maria laughed at his words and since they were right on top of each other now, she unhesitatingly used her [Angel’s Rage] and turned the two players into porcupines―dead porcupines.
Player: Maria has killed Player: Swk11 Player: Maria has killed Player: 11Kotei
“This is so much fun!”
Lizzy and Emily walked over to Maria after the battle was over and they both said, “Nice work, Mary.” “Good job!”
“Thank you, guys! Man, this mode is so much fun! Also, what were you guys doing just now?! I saw you guys in the corner just watching me fight!”
“Well, we didn't want to spoil your fun~"
"Besides, all of them were only level 2. You didn't even break a sweat, did you?"
"Well..."
"Anyway, the fun is over. This should be the last squad in our area, so let's move on! Don’t get cocky, alright? There’s still a lot of people left and we probably won't have the level or equipment advantage later!” Lizzy warned.
“Un!”
"We should get going then if we still wanna keep our advantage fresh," Emily said.
This was already her fifth kill and she had wiped out a whole squad all by herself―albeit it was due to her level advantage, equipment advantage, and the fact that she caught the team by surprise, but not just anyone could pull off what she did. Soloing a squad by yourself was always an incredible feat and many players who streamed the Battle Royale mode would always put highlight videos of their incredible 1 versus 2 or 1 versus 3 achievements.
After distributing the rewards, Maria, Lizzy, and Emily quickly moved to the next area where they planned on ambushing and fighting the teams that had spawned there. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't find anyone while they were on their way over to the place, but the kill feed began buzzing as other teams were fighting and killing each other. Maria noticed this and exclaimed, “People are already fighting! Let’s go, let’s go, let's go!”
“Don’t be too impatient, Mary,” Lizzy said. "We'll find our targets soon enough!"
Emily agreed with her and began explaining, “This map is still large but in a bit, the zones will start to close off one-by-one so all of the teams would have to move. The zones will continue to close until only one of them remains so after that, you’ll be able to hunt down the remaining players all you want or we can cut off the paths of the teams that are trying to move to the new zones!”
“Okay!”