"Forty-five minutes. Plenty of time," Silas muttered, checking the existence timer.
Special entities like the Aurelian Wraith-Cutter weren't permanent fixtures of the marsh; they were transient anomalies. If he didn't sink the ship within the hour, it would vanish back into the void, taking its unique relic with it.
Silas didn't waste a second. He waited for his Shadow Cloak to refresh, then launched into his opening rotation.
Instant Shadow Slash!
-549!-549!-549!
Five strikes tore through the spectral wood. As Silas flickered past the bow, he flicked a Poison Dart at the golden bell hanging near the figurehead.
-621! (Weak Point Critical)
The skeletons at the oars let out a collective, dry rattle, their eye sockets igniting with a baleful golden fire. The marsh water began to churn. Silas didn't hang around to watch; he activated his stealth and sprinted away.
Seconds later, dozen-meter-high geysers of necrotic water erupted from the muck. Had Silas been a fraction slower, his fragile Assassin frame would have been pulverized.
"The closer you are, the higher the density of the geysers," Silas noted, keeping his distance. "Unless a Warrior is decked out in full Silver gear, they aren't surviving a single hit."
As the water settled, twelve Rot-Wraiths, each possessing the combat power of a Silver Boss, crawled from the slime. These summons were the reason the Wraith-Cutter was a "No-Go" zone for most. They provided zero XP, dropped zero loot, and were respawned every three minutes. If you couldn't out-damage the summons, you'd be buried in a mountain of rotting flesh.
Silas opened a private message to Lily while dodging a stray geyser.
Silas: "Lily, I'm going to die once in a few minutes. Don't panic. Just wait for me to get back."
Lily: "Wait... who is 'Lily'?"
Silas: "Aren't you Black Dahlia?"
Lily nearly tripped over her own robes on the cliffside. She had chosen the flowery name to sound mysterious and elegant, but Silas used her real name with such casual indifference it stripped away her entire "Seer" persona.
Meanwhile: The Marsh Perimeter
A man with a jagged cross-shaped scar on his face, known as Tony "Iron-Heart", trudged through the mud, flanked by twenty men.
"I was leading raids in Legend of Mir while this Shadow kid was still in diapers," Tony growled. He had been hunting for Silas ever since Silas had executed his scouts near Shell Town.
He had finally caught a break when he saw Silas leave with a girl. "Typical kid. Can't wait to show off for his girlfriend. If he's invisible, she isn't. We just follow her, and we find his secrets."
One of his scouts shouted from ahead. "Boss! Found the girl on the cliff! And there's a Gold Boss in the swamp... Shadow is currently fighting it!"
Tony's eyes lit up with greed. "Perfect! Let the kid do the hard work. We'll jump in, finish the boss, and take his place as the #1 in Shell Town. Look at the size of that life-orb he'll drop when he dies! That's centuries of lifespan!"
In the swamp, Silas had whittled the boss down to 50% health. It had taken ten minutes of agonizingly slow hit-and-run tactics.
As the HP bar crossed the midway point, the golden bell on the bow rang with a sound that didn't hit the ears, it hit the soul. A grey ripple of energy expanded outward, covering a hundred meters.
Silas, even in stealth, was hit. His body froze.
[Status: Soul-Locked (5 Seconds)]
It was an unavoidable Isu-scripted mechanic. Silas watched calmly as the marsh beneath his feet began to glow. A massive pillar of water erupted directly into his chest.
-1,059! (Lethal)
[You have died. You have lost 326 Years of Non-Tradeable Lifespan.][You have lost 1,087 Days of Tradeable Lifespan.]
His life currency was slashed in half instantly. To a normal player, this would be a devastating setback. To Silas, it was merely the price of admission.
As Silas's body dissolved into a massive, shimmering grey light-orb, Tony "Iron-Heart" and his twenty men charged into the clearing.
"HAHA! The heavens are on my side!" Tony laughed, pointing at the massive life-orb floating in the muck. "The 'Legend' is dead! Take over the boss! Loot the kid's orb!"
But they didn't even make it ten meters.
The thirty-six Rot-Wraiths Silas had been kiting turned as one toward the newcomers. Between the Silver-tier summons and the Wraith-Cutter's relentless geyser barrage, all twenty-four men were wiped in less than five seconds.
The marsh was suddenly filled with dozens of smaller life-orbs.
Back at the Shell Town resurrection point, Tony and his men stared at their screens in absolute shock.
"How... how did the boss do that?" Tony stammered. "And how the hell did that Shadow kid take it to 50% without dying until now?!"
The realization hit them like a cold wave: they weren't even playing the same game as Silas.