Chapter 187 - 480 billion per kill… not bad

Boom—

As soon as his steed kicked off, Kaelen’s vision blurred as the scenery flashed past him at an incredible rate. It was a similar experience to the first time he used the Titan Burst skill.

Along with the white scenery, several beasts flashed past him as well, making Kaelen realize that if he kept going at that pace, he might not achieve any kills.

He hurriedly pulled the steed’s reins to slow it down to a stop as he stared around him. The snowstorm decreased visibility so badly that it was hard to tell which direction he had come from, as every direction now looked similar to him.

He raised his head to look at the scoreboard and immediately frowned at what he saw.

The Red Team was leading him by 3,200 points already, while he was still at zero. He then used his mana perception to scout the snowy expanse for the position of the opposing team.

All he picked up were signs of several beasts and predators, but not a single humanoid that indicated there were any other candidates.

Kaelen didn’t understand why, but he suspected the team was probably using some kind of skill or item to block their mana signatures from foreign detection. And if that were the case, they might as well have a way of tracking the enemy, putting Kaelen at an unfavorable position.

There was no time to waste, and the moment he had just spent assessing everything brought the Red Team’s score up to 4,100.

There was no way to physically communicate with his steed, nor had Kaelen fought on one before, but he could feel a connection with the beast.

He felt like riding the steed to clear the floor would only hinder him, but he knew that without the speed, he’d stand no chance against the other team. But if he were able to make the beast follow his will, he’d truly be unbeatable.

Instead of controlling the direction with the reins, Kaelen decided to try to establish a connection with it instead, and as soon as his mana seeped into the steed, it was as if he’d awakened a third eye from the horse’s perspective that didn’t impair his own vision.

Without further ado, he grabbed the reins tightly with one hand so as not to lose his balance and tightened his grip around the hilt of his sword with the other hand.

This snowy plain was almost endless, crawling with all kinds of beasts that hadn’t charged at Kaelen yet because they sensed the presence of an apex predator.

He locked his perception onto one, and without a word or formal action, the steed burst forward in that direction.

One moment they were stationary; the next, they were already before the beast, which was supposed to be a distance away.

He hurriedly swung his sword in the beast’s direction, but due to the suddenness of the movement, his form wasn’t solid, and instead of the nape of the neck he had targeted, the blade hit the side of the beast’s head instead.

It didn’t deflect. It cleanly sliced through the side of the skull but didn’t touch any vital organs, making the beast sprint away in desperation.

As if he were controlling his own legs, the steed made a sharp curve and turned to intercept the beast ahead as Kaelen prepared himself this time. With a burst of speed, he appeared before the beast and swung his blade in an arc.

[You have killed a Frost-Claw Blood-Panther]

[10,000× Reward Multiplier Triggered...]

[You have received 480,000,000,000 Evolution Points]

[Your team has received 100 points]

"480 billion per kill... not bad," Kaelen mused and looked up at the scoreboard. He had gone up 100 points from zero, while the Red Team was at 6,000 points.

The timer that had been set for one hour was almost down to fifty minutes.

There was no cause to celebrate his first kill, so he locked his eyes onto the second target and moved.

The first time, he’d been caught off guard by the speed. This time, it was under his control, and before the beast could even jerk, its head had rolled across the ground, painting the snow red, while the perpetrator was already gone as soon as they arrived.

Due to the density of beasts in the area, it took Kaelen approximately ten seconds to find another beast after killing the last one, and for the next few minutes, Kaelen didn’t pause as he slaughtered every single beast that came into his perception without having to use the Heaven’s Window to assess their strengths and weaknesses first.

In just a few minutes, Kaelen had accumulated a kill count of over sixty, bringing his score up to 6,000 while the opposing team was at 10,000.

Though they were still ahead, anyone smart enough could predict it was only a matter of time before he caught up and surpassed them.

Kaelen was also certain the opposing team would figure this out, and it was about time they began hunting him as well.

This didn’t discourage Kaelen as he moved across the snow without slowing down, cutting down everything in his path with the enhanced Heaven-Splitting Twin Blades while keeping an eye out for hidden Easter eggs.

The dungeon masters had hidden them well enough that his mana perception couldn’t sense anything, just as it couldn’t sense the hidden door on the first floor.

This would require candidates to actively look for and find them in the snowstorm, which was easier said than done. But with the Heaven’s Window eye, all Kaelen needed to do was keep an eye out for anything that stood out, even if it were at the corner of his vision.

Sure enough, something caught his peripheral vision just as he cut down a beast. When he looked, it resembled a treasure chest. A golden one shining through the snow.

His eye immediately updated him.

[Hidden Easter Egg (Gold Treasure Chest)]

He was about to charge towards it when another line of text appeared in his vision.

[Tier-70 Guardian Beast Detected]

Kaelen’s eyes immediately snapped towards a boulder in the snow, mostly covered by snow algae.

To him, it looked like a regular boulder. But the line of text hovering above it said otherwise.

Just as he was about to charge in to seize the Easter egg for extra points, the sky above him suddenly brightened like the rising of the sun, and the snowstorm abruptly cut off.

The sudden change made Kaelen look up in confusion, only to see something that made his eyes widen in shock and disbelief.

It was a torrent of flaming arrows that covered the entire area and made it impossible for Kaelen to escape the area of effect.

Seeing how the guardian of the golden treasure chest was still pretending to be a boulder, there was only one possibility as to where the arrows came from...

They found him.