While everyone else’s personal apocalypse was just kicking into high gear, Reed Newt had already dealt with his last night.
In fact, he’d wrapped it up so fast he was back in bed by nine.
Even if another wave of Tier-1 sea monsters decided to crash the shore today…
Well, Reed’s trusty flintlock gun and his unnervingly absolute, aimbot-level marksmanship made the whole thing feel less like a fight for survival and more like point-blank target practice.
For the rest of the student body, however?
This wasn’t practice.
This was a whole-ass, soul-crushing tragedy.
***
On a distant, nameless island.
“Roar-!”
Rudyard Wilf sat cross-legged atop a jagged boulder, meditating, or at least trying to look cool while meditating.
Every few minutes, a bloodcurdling shriek echoed in the distance, making his eye twitch.
His face tightened into a dead-serious expression.
“It’s day seven,” he muttered under his breath, staring grimly toward the ocean.
“The Tier-1 sea monsters are already lurking in the tree lines.”
Just like the textbooks had warned, the First Plague usually launched a hit squad of roughly ten Tier-1 sea monsters accompanied by dozens of mindless, bottom-feeding fodder.
Worse, Tier-1 monsters were notoriously petty and hyper-cunning.
They didn’t do honorable duels.
They preferred cheap shots, midnight ambushes, and jumping you in groups, strictly zero martial sportsmanship.
Right now, the island seems eerie and peaceful.
In reality, it was a death trap.
“With my peak Tier-1 strength, as long as I don’t get gang-jumped, I can survive today,” Rudyard told himself, running through his mental checklist.
He’d deliberately chosen this barren boulder.
There wasn’t a tree, bush, or hiding spot for a hundred yards.
Clear lines of sight, 360-degree vision.
Zero chance of a sneak attack.
The plan was simple: play it safe, farm a few stragglers, keep his energy high, and survive the seventh day.
The Island Holder assessment didn’t require you to wipe out the whole ecosystem; it just required you to stay alive for thirty days to get your official license.
“Still…
who on earth is this Reed Newt guy from our academy?” Unable to contain his curiosity, Rudyard tapped into his mind and pulled up the Valley View Academy leaderboard.
He instantly locked onto the top spot.
Rank 1: Reed Newt (Valley View Academy)
Kills: 355 Sea Monsters
Total Points: 4,350
Rudyard blinked once. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Then twice.
The kill count was absurd, sure, but the point total was completely broken.
Over 300 kills and a score north of 4,000?!
That math only worked out if a huge chunk of those kills were high-tier threats.
In the past, Rudyard could only look up to Hanna Raelene, the undisputed idol-tier genius, with awe.
But compared to Reed’s current score, even Hanna looked like an absolute peasant.
“Tier-3…” Rudyard swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a shocked whisper.
“He’s definitely hit Tier-3 already!”
There was no other explanation.
Nobody in their right mind could rack up a body count that terrifying before day seven without being an absolute monster themselves.
Rudyard’s eyes widened as a wilder thought hit him.
Wait.
Did this lunatic actually swim out into the deep sea to go hunting?!
It made total sense.
The meager handful of monsters landing on a single island couldn’t possibly total over three hundred!
***
Meanwhile, on a sandy beach elsewhere…
“BOOM!” Helge Nollaig was locked in a brutal, bare-knuckle brawl with three common sea monsters.
Claws lashed out, jaws snapped, but Helge’s ridiculous physical defense tanked every blow like a brick wall.
As a dedicated brawler, the longer he fought, the more his adrenaline spiked.
His fists became heavy, terrifying hammers.
Every punch sent shockwaves through the monsters, liquefying their internal organs on impact.
“DIE!” With a final, devastating double-jab, the last of the three monsters collapsed into a lifeless heap.
“Tier-1 monsters are moving in.
Time to fall back to defensible high ground and set up a kill zone,” Helge grunted, casually digging three evolutionary cores out of the bloody mess.
He didn’t waste a second looking back as he retreated deeper into the jungle.
As he walked, he pulled up the Valley View leaderboard in his head.
He’d climbed to 15th place.
Not bad.
In fact, among this year’s Valley View cohort, only two people were ahead of him.
Rudyard Wilf was holding down 8th place, a solid, beatable target for his next milestone.
As for the #1 spot?
Helge shuddered slightly.
***
Out in the vast, open ocean.
Hanna Raelene was standing on a single, waterlogged log, drifting hopelessly across the waves with the ultimate “I have given up on life” expression.
She let the ocean currents carry her around like cheap driftwood.
She had been stuck in this existential crisis for eight hours straight.
“Roar-!” Beneath the surface, dark shadows glided through the deep.
A pack of sea monsters was slowly encircling her, locking onto what looked like an easy, floating snack.
Suddenly, the silent, brooding Hanna snapped her head down.
She glared at the water with eyes cold enough to freeze the ocean.
“Three Tier-1s and seven common bottom-feeders?” she spat, her voice laced with pure venom.
“You trash actually think you can hunt me?!”
BOOM!
A terrifying surge of power erupted from her body, driving into the sea like a depth charge and throwing fifty-foot waves into the sky.
Tens of seconds later, the violent waters calmed.
One by one, dead sea monsters floated to the surface, their faces frozen in absolute terror as they’d just witnessed the end of the world.
Hanna didn’t even blink.
She casually hooked her slender fingers, using her energy to pull a dozen-strong cluster of evolutionary cores right into her palm.
She pulled up the Valley View standings, glaring directly at Reed’s name.
“So what if you hit Tier-3 first?” she muttered bitterly to herself.
“So what if you went to the deep sea to farm?
If you can do it, Reed Newt, so can I!”
After sulking on a piece of wood for eight hours, she’d finally figured it out.
She used to wonder why Reed’s score hadn’t moved for days, assuming he was stuck bottlenecked at Tier-2 just like her.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
The guy hadn’t just bypassed Tier-2; he’d skyrocketed straight into Tier-3 and immediately sprinted into the deep ocean to commit mass ecological genocide.
“Thirty more evolutionary cores…” Hanna took a deep, steadying breath, her eyes blazing with fierce, competitive fire.
“Just thirty more, and I can force a Tier-3 breakthrough and dive into the deep ocean too!”
Was it wildly dangerous to force a premature breakthrough and swim into high-level waters?
Absolute suicide.
Did she care?
Not a bit.
It was the only way she was ever going to catch up to that utter psycho.