“Damn it!!!”

It was twisted. Twisted beyond all recognition, a complete and utter mess.

Boom-!

Teiz, a player from the Lotus faction, vented his fury on an innocent wall.

Grin.

His face flushed crimson to the top of his head.

“You tricked me?”

He had been absolutely certain player 8 would build a shieldbearer deck.

Player 8. The bastard had chosen the very class Teiz despised most—the assassin.

Crunch-!

Teiz ground his molars hard enough to crack them, seething with indignation.

“Reyan Rutabus. When the hell is that damned champion going to disappear!”

Since the number of 4-Cost champions was limited, Teiz had memorized the entire roster of 4-Cost champions that appeared on the battlefield.

Reyan Rutabus, the assassin guild leader of the magitech city Stern.

A brilliant magitech engineer and assassin, he was a powerhouse who had reached the 4-Cost threshold—the absolute limit of human capability. In reality, Teiz wouldn’t dare meet his eyes.

But the one on the battlefield was merely an avatar. Here, at least, he could curse the man to his heart’s content.

Teiz muttered under his breath.

“There’s only one thing left to trust.”

【Curse’s Death Rattle】

– Cloak of Resistance + Troll’s Belt

– Health +50, Magic Resistance +20

– When the champion equipped with Curse’s Death Rattle dies, it unleashes a terrible scream at the enemy who delivered the finishing blow. Exposure to the scream reduces defense and magic resistance by 20% and silences skills for 15 seconds.

An item that could reduce an entire champion to a useless fool.

He could only pray that Curse’s Death Rattle would do its job and shut down Reyan Rutabus.

Teiz, eyes bloodshot, stared holes into the battlefield display.

Reyan Rutabus moved.

His mana was full. He had used his skill.

<<Lock On (★)>>

Dashes to the enemy with the lowest HP and deals 80 physical damage. Securing a kill with Lock On fully restores mana.

“Got him!”

Teiz cheered. After all, the champion Reyan Rutabus had attacked was the very one equipped with Curse’s Death Rattle.

This was exactly why he had equipped the most expendable champion with Curse’s Death Rattle in the first place.

“Keuk-“

Fwoosh-

Reyan Rutabus landed the finishing blow on the gunslinger. Now the terrible scream would ring out, and that eyesore of a champion would be rendered useless.

“Heh heh heh—once that one’s gone, the rest are easy pickings for my gunslinger.”

He had equipped his main damage-dealing gunslinger with the Giant Slayer, so shieldbearers would be mowed down in an instant.

After all, shieldbearers were the perfect prey for an anti-tank gunslinger deck.

“Huh…?”

But something was wrong.

The scream that should have echoed never came. By now, the shieldbearers should have collapsed too…

The battlefield was deathly silent.

Then it hit him.

Less than five seconds had passed since the battle began.

Magic Engineering (4): When combat begins, allied Magic Engineering units fire a pulse bomb. The bomb detonates, disabling the items of enemies within 2 tiles for 5 seconds.

Even though a champion had died, Curse’s Death Rattle hadn’t activated. And with the Giant Slayer’s effect disabled, the shieldbearers couldn’t be dispatched quickly either.

<<Solid Exoskeleton (★★)>>

Grants a shield that absorbs damage for 10 seconds. The shield is equal to 60% of maximum health.

<<Earth Barrier (★★)>>

Erects a thick barrier that blocks 200 damage. When the barrier shatters, fragments scatter and stun enemies who attacked the barrier for 1.5 seconds.

The shieldbearers who had been absorbing the brunt of the attacks activated their skills.

Reyan Rutabus, his mana fully restored from the kill, swept across the battlefield once more.

<<Lock On (★)>>

Dashes to the enemy with the lowest HP and deals 80 physical damage. Securing a kill with Lock On fully restores mana.

<<Lock On (★)>>

Dashes to the enemy with the lowest HP and deals 80 physical damage. Securing a kill with Lock On fully restores mana.

The five seconds elapsed and the Magic Engineering synergy wore off, but it was already too late.

“This is bullshit!!!”

Unable to contain his rage, Teiz swung his fist at the battlefield display.

Boom-!

“Aaagh-!”

But what met his fist wasn’t Reyan Rutabus—it was a solid wall.

Teiz’s innocent fist was turning an angry red.

A tear trickled down his cheek. Clutching his swollen fist, Teiz howled.

“My money!!!”

Being a Silver-tier player, he knew this all too well.

It was too late to change a completed deck.

Switching decks now would only result in an even more crushing defeat.

He had been perfectly countered.

It was as if someone had known exactly what deck he would build and crafted a counter specifically to destroy him.

A deliberate counter?

Whoosh-!

Teiz snapped his head up, deep creases etched between his brows.

“No way…!”

No one could have improvised a deck that perfectly targeted him.

Someone must have leaked his information. They knew what deck he was building.

Crunch-!

“How dare they sell my information?”

Teiz radiated murderous intent.

Only a handful of people in Trivik knew Teiz’s true identity.

If he interrogated every one of them, he’d find out who the spy was.

“I will get my money back. One way or another.”

He had bet his entire fortune on his own victory for one last big score.

And now a ridiculous information leak had wiped him out completely.

He could survive by selling the jeweled rings on his fingers, but living like a beggar was something his pride would never allow.

“Arrow of the Blue Sky, was it?”

He recalled the ridiculous masks covering the two players’ faces.

They seemed to have made an effort to hide their identities.

It was time to see what faces lay beneath those masks.

Finding someone to do the job wouldn’t be difficult.

Desperate vagrants were scattered across the streets right outside the gambling hall.

Teiz was no exception, but among players, those with formidable real-world combat ability were rare.

“They will pay the price. I’ll make sure of it.”

He couldn’t let the person who ruined his plan walk out of the gambling hall unscathed.

Teiz checked his device for the first time in a while.

Four players remained.

The battlefield had entered its late stages. Only a few rounds remained before this Paradise Private battlefield would conclude.

That was when it happened.

“Huh? Wait a minute.”

Blink.

Was he seeing things?

Teiz shut his eyes and opened them.

But the information hadn’t changed.

“What is this?”

Player 8 / Lv.7 / HP.82

– Magic Engineering (4): When combat begins, allied Magic Engineering units fire a pulse bomb. The bomb detonates, disabling the items of enemies within 2 tiles for 5 seconds.

– Shieldbearer (2): Shieldbearers reduce damage taken from all attacks by 10.

– Assassin (2): At the start of combat, leaps to the enemy’s rear and the first attack deals 130% bonus physical damage.

– Mage (2): Allied spell power increases by 20.

– Earth (2): Earth champions start combat with a 60-point shield.

The information he had missed while fixating on Reyan Rutabus finally registered.

The high health was understandable enough—the absurd shieldbearer performance in the early rounds explained that—but…

Teiz searched his memory.

The roulette synergies of Hans, the Arrow of the Blue Sky player, had been ‘Shieldbearer,’ ‘Assassin,’ and ‘Magic Engineering.’

“Magic Engineering… Shieldbearer, Assassin.”

They’re all there.

“You were aiming for the jackpot?”

Teiz’s mind went cold.

A chill crawled up his spine.

It wasn’t as if no player had ever hit the jackpot under roulette rules.

The typical case was getting lucky with core synergies on the roulette, then leveraging overwhelming item power to secure the jackpot.

But player 8 had no core items.

He had never heard of a player hitting the jackpot without a single item combination formula.

“That was close.”

Teiz regained his composure. Cold sweat trickled down his back.

Rumors of the ruins had drawn a surge of outside players to Trivik.

Interest in the ruins was universal—even Diamond-tier players weren’t exempt.

Some of them developed an interest in the Garos Private battlefield and joined random factions just to meet the entry requirements.

He had no idea how skilled these players might be.

But player 8 was clearly an outsider from beyond Trivik.

Probably here for some amusement before the Garos Private battlefield began—dropping by the gambling hall for a quick flutter.

After all, private battlefields with roulette rules were scarce even in Trivik.

“Who the hell are they?”

A player who could effortlessly hit the jackpot while imposing the restriction of no item combination formulas on themselves?

He couldn’t fathom their identity at all.

Even Garos couldn’t be counted on to pull off something so bizarre.

“There are two players from Arrow of the Blue Sky.”

There might be more, but only two had participated in this private battlefield.

If the player assigned to Group B was even close to player 8’s level…

Gulp-

“The faction landscape of Trivik might just shift.”

When Alfred Luhibio, the lord of Trivik, vanished, factions emerged in his absence.

Since then, countless factions had risen and fallen, flourished and withered.

But through it all, one faction had stood unwavering.

Faction Ranking Number One: Garos.

That unshakable ranking might finally crack.

Teiz grinned, picturing Garos’s arrogant face.

“I need to see this for myself.”

Teiz erased the money he’d lost in this private battlefield from his mind.

A fire began to kindle in his chest.

‘This is an opportunity.’

The son of a merchant, he had been able to obtain player qualification by using the inheritance from his father—who had died in an accident—to purchase it.

To Teiz, power mattered more than money.

Driven solely by the desire to rise in the world, Teiz had squandered his entire inheritance.

Starting from scratch with no knowledge of what it meant to be a player, Teiz had clawed his way to Silver tier through sheer effort.

He studied synergies. He studied champions. He ceaselessly analyzed the battlefield.

Day after day, he had lived fiercely, eyes fixed on the heights above.

Then burnout found him.

After endless effort, he finally achieved Silver tier. The day he entered a ranked match with his heart pounding with excitement.

He recorded a devastating eighth place. That was the day Teiz’s spirit broke.

Money.

Without money, you could never win.

From that day on, Teiz became obsessed with money.

He earned money by any means necessary and reinvested it all back into the battlefield.

Clinging to the belief that someday he would make his comeback in the ranked matches.

But had his heart become corrupted?

At some point, his passion for the battlefield simply vanished.

It seemed to have started the day he first crossed into illegal territory to make money.

Watching himself become someone he couldn’t be proud of, he had sunk into a rut.

“I can just start over.”

In this private battlefield, he had lost every penny of his illicitly earned money.

Well, it was what remained after purchasing the Giant Slayer combination formula, but still.

Somehow, he felt refreshed.

“I’ll have to cancel my trip to Artemis.”

He didn’t even have enough money for the magitech train fare, let alone enough to stay in Artemis.

Though that was a ridiculous excuse.

He could live comfortably just by selling his remaining assets.

It wasn’t money keeping Teiz from leaving Trivik. It was the overwhelming desire to stay.

Two mysterious players.

They were undoubtedly outsiders from beyond Trivik.

But the fact that they had joined a faction meant they would remain in Trivik at least until the Garos Private battlefield concluded, wouldn’t it?

Even if only for a short time, he might learn something by watching them.

Opportunities like this didn’t come easily to players.

The merchant’s instinct inherited from his father and the survival sense Teiz had honed over the years both pointed in the same direction.

“I should join Arrow of the Blue Sky.”

Not right away, though.

He’d shave that unkempt beard, tidy himself up, and then pay them a visit.

He didn’t care if he started as a regular faction member.

A newcomer like himself couldn’t make unreasonable demands.

He would slowly build his presence and wait until the faction grew strong enough to threaten Garos.

And when that time came…

The lust for power he had buried deep in his chest stirred once more.

His heart pounded for the first time in ages.

It felt like returning to those Bronze-tier days when he had studied the battlefield with obsessive passion.

As the fire of passion reignited within him, the spark of vitality returned to Teiz’s eyes.