Chapter 204: Matched with Master Blacktiger

Chapter 204: Chapter 204: Matched with Master Blacktiger

She drew a short sword from her waist, then kicked Victor Warner in the side. The spot she kicked seemed to be concealing something; wincing, Victor pulled a dagger from there and gripped it in his hand.

The man glanced from Selene Lawson’s short sword to Seraphina Sinclair’s long saber, and the more he looked, the more pathetic his own dagger seemed.

But that wasn’t the point. Victor Warner looked up, his eyes wide with disbelief, and pointed at Seraphina Sinclair. "You’re Master Blacktiger? For real? It’s really you? I got matched with Master Blacktiger? No way!"

Seraphina Sinclair neither confirmed nor denied it.

She simply averted her gaze, and with a flick of her wrist, the long saber vanished as if it had never been there.

"Three minutes left," she reminded them, her voice still calm, as if she weren’t the person they were discussing at all.

But her implicit confirmation only made Victor Warner more excited. He knew this wasn’t the time to act like a fan, however, so he forcibly suppressed his surging emotions and nodded repeatedly. "Right, right! Get ready! Get ready!"

Selene Lawson also took a deep breath, steadying her own turbulent emotions.

She had long suspected Seraphina Sinclair was formidable, but she had never imagined she was *this* important!

’Teaming up with the number one player will undoubtedly increase our chances of survival, but... the pressure is also much greater. A person like that won’t be content with an early exit, which means we’ll probably have to fight until the very last wave.’

’Still, meeting her is an opportunity.’

Selene Lawson was silent for only a moment before she realized this was a golden opportunity to earn rewards! Though she could be greedy, she was still rational. She knew that anyone who could securely hold the number-one spot was by no means a soft-hearted person.

’If I want to survive and get rewards, I have to show her my value!’

So, Selene Lawson declared, "I’m pretty smart. My physical fitness might be lacking, but I absolutely will not be a burden."

Although Victor Warner wasn’t sure why she was saying all this now, he followed her lead to present his own qualifications. "I can fight monsters, I can eat, and I can talk! Master, whatever you tell me to do, I’ll do it!"

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t have a plan. She wasn’t some kind of prophet; how could she make a decision before even seeing the monsters? But since they had asked, she wasn’t one to leave them hanging. She gripped her long saber, took a step forward, and said, "We’ll meet soldiers with a general, and a flood with earth."

The excitement Victor Warner had struggled to suppress came rushing back. He yelled like a true fanboy, "Master Blacktiger! Can I have your autograph, Master Blacktiger!"

Selene Lawson was truly speechless now. She felt like she was the only normal person among the three of them, but she couldn’t say that out loud. And more importantly...

She suddenly looked up at Seraphina Sinclair and said earnestly, "Master Blacktiger, since you’re our teammate, I’m personally willing to hand over my Sunflower for you to use the Clear Kill function. You—"

Selene Lawson stopped short, seeming to hesitate over whether she should continue.

Victor Warner didn’t have so many reservations. Hearing her, he immediately chimed in, "Me too, me too! As long as I can survive and get rewards, I’ll listen to Master Blacktiger! She’s so powerful, the three uses of Clear Kill will definitely be enough, right?"

This was clearly what Selene Lawson had been getting at as well.

The reason she hadn’t said it aloud was her fear that if the uses of Clear Kill proved insufficient, Seraphina Sinclair would sacrifice the two of them.

Seraphina Sinclair’s gaze rested on Victor Warner’s face for a moment. Her expression was completely calm, yet it made him feel an inexplicable pressure, and he subconsciously swallowed the rest of his words.

"Clear Kill is a last resort, not a standard tactic."

Seraphina Sinclair’s voice was still devoid of inflection, as if she had never even considered relying on it to pass.

"If that’s all we focus on using, we might die even faster."

Selene Lawson nodded immediately. She understood what Seraphina Sinclair meant.

Placing all one’s hope in an external power—especially one with an unknown cost—was a massive risk in itself.

More importantly...

She looked at Seraphina Sinclair. The number-one player probably disdained—and didn’t need—to use an ability that required a "vote" to activate and could potentially be constrained by others.

"We understand," Selene Lawson answered for the group. "We will cooperate fully and do our best to ensure it doesn’t come to that."

Victor Warner caught on and quickly agreed.

The three minutes slipped away during their conversation. A notification popped up in front of all three of them at the same time, heralding the arrival of the first wave.

Almost simultaneously, unsettling rustles and low growls sounded from outside the outpost. It was as if countless things were awakening within the dense fog, converging on the isolated station.

"They’re here!" Victor Warner growled, holding his dagger across his chest, muscles tensed.

Selene Lawson took a deep breath, tightened her grip on her short sword, and readied herself for combat.

Seraphina Sinclair stood perfectly still, merely adjusting the angle of the hand gripping her long saber. Her eyes were as placid as ice as she peered out through a crack in the damaged wooden window. The dense fog was churning, and those scalp-tingling rustles and growls grew nearer and clearer.

"Remember what was in the log?" she reminded them in a low voice. "They’re afraid of fire."

The words had barely left her mouth when the first black shadow slammed into the wooden fence!

It was a twisted monster, about half a person tall, with slick, grayish-green skin. Its limbs were as long and thin as dead branches but tipped with sharp bone claws. It had no eyes, only a circular maw that constantly opened and closed, lined with a multitude of sharp teeth and emitting a HISSING sound.

The wooden fence shook violently from the impact.

Then a second, a third...

More monsters emerged from the dense fog. They came in all shapes and sizes—some looked like bloated masses of rotting flesh, others like twisted amalgamations of multi-limbed insects. But without exception, they all radiated an intense malice, throwing themselves at the outpost’s only wooden door and the weakest points in the fence.

Victor Warner swore under his breath, slid his dagger back into his belt, and strode over to the fireplace, intending to grab a burning piece of wood. "The Master’s right! The log said these monsters are afraid of fire. Since they’re afraid of it, let’s use fire to fight them!"

He bent down, and just as he was about to pull the wood from the fireplace, Seraphina Sinclair suddenly stopped him. "Wait a minute."

Seraphina Sinclair’s gaze landed on the wooden doorframe. She raised her hand and tried to pry it off, but the moment she applied force, another notification appeared in front of them:

[Please do not damage the outpost’s permanent fixtures! This includes the broken wooden door, the broken floorboards, the broken...]

"What... What’s this..." Victor Warner looked up, his expression clearly baffled.

Selene Lawson, however, figured it out instantly. "We can’t use any of this wood. Does that mean the only fuel for the fireplace is the small pile we already have?"

Seraphina Sinclair’s eyes swept over the notification, her expression turning cold.

"It seems the system won’t give us a chance to exploit any loopholes."

She let go. The doorframe hadn’t budged. "These structures may look dilapidated, but they’re all protected by the rules."