"I declare that when Shanrane of Lania Kaia dies on Blue Star, no means will ever bring him back!" As the battle reached its end, a five-second countdown appeared above Shanrane’s head. It was the second One-Person Party countdown. It was his death clock. With his final breath, Shanrane roared over the battlefield, "The reason Lania Kaia rushed this invasion is because you have BS-Rita!" His last words carried like poison. Then, with his strength spent, he rasped out one last curse to her. "Blue Star will shatter!" His mocking gaze locked on Rita. You can change nothing. When Shanrane’s mountain-sized body began to fall, every fighter on the field, whether Blue Star or Lania Kaia, stopped moving. All eyes followed the corpse tumbling from the sky. \[You have slain a registered Divine Game player: Shanrane of Lania Kaia. You gain half of his World Graveyard at random. Blue Star devours 25% of the Minotaur race’s destiny.] \[System Announcement: Minotaur leader Shanrane of Lania Kaia has been slain by BS-Rita. Blue Star devours 25% of the Minotaur race’s destiny.] Rita hovered in the air, iceflame drifting from her dagger, her blue hair streaming frost. She gazed down coldly at the corpse, at every invader below. The platinum helm-wheel spun behind her shoulder, the antique lantern at her waist flickered with playful light. The Lania Kaia forces began to edge backward. They would wait. Wait for the next leader to descend. It was the first ceasefire signal since the war began. Silence fell. Yet no cheer rose. Relief trembled in their throats, but the first sound to break the stillness was weeping. They were saved. She had truly come back. But war was merciless. Their comrades’ corpses still lay everywhere. Most of the fallen were not elites. They had no revival crystals waiting. They would not return. Rita looked down at the battlefield in silence. Shanrane’s last words had been meant to brand her as the cause. The invasion had come early because of BS-Rita. And during the fight, she had learned from B8017913 the truth of the lineup arrayed against her in the Divine Game. Maple Syrup and Pine Bloom. Moon Emperor Mistblade. The undead lords Wither Monarch, Syntax, and Mute. The Windscythe King Ironmeal and Raccoon. The Candlebeast King. Fat Goose and Tender Pig. Siren King Misu. That was the team sent to crush her. Mostly highborn races. Three undead lords among them. They had made certain she could not leave easily. If not for the memory wipe in this special match, she would never know what state she’d return in when she left. If she came back weakened, would she still be able to save Blue Star before its fall? She would not apologize. The blame lay with war, with Lania Kaia, with gods and their games. Not with her, who had led Blue Star through so many evolutions. But when she saw the battlefield, fewer players than even a single Divine Game audience, and those tearful eyes filled with gratitude, she wondered if right or wrong mattered at all. She should simply do what she could. Spreading her arms, she raised her hands. She invoked the reward of the individual championship. "Copy and permanently learn one skill from another contestant." She had searched long during her time-stops. She chose JE’s skill—That Was Close, Almost a Wipe. Fresh chapters posted on novel~fire~net The other records vanished from her mind as soon as she confirmed it. \[That Was Close, Almost a Wipe] (SSS): "That was close, the Wind Whale almost went extinct!" Target a region. Revives the dead whose will lingers, reshaping them as sprites no larger than twenty centimeters. They lose their bodies, and in exchange their leveling becomes five times harder. Each revival consumes seawater. Until the sea runs dry, the sprites cannot be destroyed. Even if their health hits zero, they will return on some future rainy day. (Only works on your race. The user may cancel the effect at any time.) The drawbacks were many. The cost was real. It traded away potential for revival. But revival outweighed all else. And in that moment, nothing was more precious than raising the fallen. Perhaps for the sirens’ sake, every warfront lay close to the sea. Seawater rose in waves, as if the ocean had flipped to the sky, and it fell as a downpour over the battlefield. From bloodsoaked soil and broken corpses, one after another pale-blue sprites floated up. No bigger than phones, each bore the face of the player they once were. When their forms stabilized, they blinked in confusion at their comrades, then turned in unison toward the sky. "The rest of the spirits will wait for me to return," Rita said. The lines were too long. One skill was not enough. She only wanted to plant hope, a signal that would race across the warfronts and lift them all. Then she twisted Cat’s Ideal and jumped to the other battlefields. Her first stop was the worst of them, Battle Zone B. Like Zone A, it stood only because of B8017913. Every high-level alien was dragged or teleported straight to it. Sanchez and Avery fought beside it, the three of them holding the most dangerous line in Blue Star. Rita’s stats from fighting Shanrane still burned in her veins. She blinked to the rear of the alien host and soared across their lines. For ten thousand meters, ice spires ripped from the ground in her wake, shattering every alien they touched. The legion froze. The aliens broke and fell back. B8017913 dropped to one knee, systems flickering at 1% charge. When she landed before it, it rasped, "I did pretty well, right?" Sanchez laughed as she collapsed backward, her skis tilting up. She thrust her claw-blade high. "You sure know how to make an entrance!" Even Avery sank to the ground. The woman who always wore her full set of jewels had pinned her hair with a single simple jade pin. She summoned her panda, EasySing, and sat heavily on its back. Some foreigners shouted at her in their own tongue, their voices raw with relief. Rita reached out, gently patting B8017913’s lowered head. "The best thing I ever did was picking through that garbage heap." "I really did help you, didn’t I?" it asked. She clenched her fist and tapped her shoulder with mock severity. "If you fall, I’ll guard your memory for seven years!" "...Thanks," it murmured. "That actually moved me." Doubt Nivalis. Understand Nivalis. If only it had told her ten years instead. Ten years wasn’t too much to ask.