Read Novel Full Chapter 221: Pay To Win
Chapter 221: Pay To Win
Ayela pulled her hair back as the wind blew across the battlefield.
She wasn’t panting, but her chest rose and fell as if she was breathing hard.
Orc blood splattered the grass around her and she flicked some off her cheek with a small frown before glancing toward Lucius.
’I’m trying to impress him so that he can make my transition to Grimmaw easier,’ she thought, narrowing her eyes at him as he toyed with the orcs.
Between all the top guilds, two stood out in her mind.
The Saintess Guild, overflowing with women who secretly fantasized about sharing a bed with the Saintess.
And then Grimmaw... a guild where everyone seemed obsessed with Lucius in one way or another. But obsessions aside, Grimmaw put in terrifying amounts of work as of late.
They pushed themselves without mercy, raiding nonstop. From the way they were spread thin this week, Ayela sometimes wondered how many active members they actually had.
’Plus they’re Top 10 now,’ she thought, eyes glinting. ’There’s a chance they’ll make Top 1 this year... and of course I’d want to be there.’
She looked again at Lucius, expecting him to be sneaking glances at her or at least paying some attention to how hard she was fighting.
But he wasn’t.
His eyes weren’t even remotely facing her direction. In fact, he looked like he was having the time of his life bullying the orcs... using space to yank spears out of the hands of a cluster of them and making them fall face-first on top of each other. Seeing them trip, stumble, and collide into one another again and again was so ridiculous that Ayela lifted her hand to cover her mouth as she burst into laughter.
[@ButterMeltling: LMFAOOO THESE ORCS ARE SO DUMB]
[@WindyWheeze: bro why do they walk like newborn giraffes 😭]
[@OniChef: Lucius is literally clowning them]
[@PinkToxicity: I can’t breathe fr]
[@FourLeggedBard: this dungeon turned into slapstick comedy]
Her laughter faded as a different presence rose into the air.
Vanessa and she was not just floating... she had manifested two enormous wings made of blood behind her back. They glowed a deep crimson, dripping red mist into the air.
’We need to wrap this up fast,’ Vanessa thought as she scanned the remaining battlefield. The staircase was in sight, practically within a hundred meters, and she didn’t intend to waste time any longer.
This floor was too short to drag out.
Blood surged into her palm, swirling in a controlled storm until it shaped itself into a bow.
Her expression hardened with calm focus as she strung the weapon and summoned a blood arrow.
"Death Arrow," she whispered, her wings flaring out as she loosed the projectile.
The arrow shot forward with a thunderclap, the shockwave rattling the ground as it collided with one of the orcs that Lucius had caused to slip.
The corpse detonated on impact. A massive bloom of blood exploded outward, swallowing several other orcs in a crimson storm. When the red haze faded, nothing remained except puddles of green orc blood.
Vanessa swept her hand in a circular motion, controlling the spilled blood and pulling it sharply back toward her like a living river.
Lucius glanced at her, eyes flicking up to the wings behind her back before a small grin tugged at his mouth.
"You look like an angel, you know... with those wings," he said, it wasn’t even flirty... but Vanessa liked compliments.
Vanessa didn’t answer, but her ears reddened immediately. The drone caught everything.
[@FangirlCries: AAAAA VANESSA SO CUTEEE]
[@CrimsonsThorn: her blushingggg]
[@BabyLuxe: SHE’S SO DOWN BAD]
[@MermaidOrbit: lucius flirting casually like that 😭]
[@KarmaKiss: couple energy fr]
Meanwhile, Grimm and the others were getting ganged up by a large cluster of orcs.
Even worse, several orcs had formed a circle around Supreme Man, stomping on him repeatedly.
’My team is more important,’ Vanessa thought as she turned her head sharply toward Grimm’s group.
Without hesitation, she drew another arrow... except this time, it was green. She had converted orc blood into ammunition.
"Get the hell out of there!" she shouted.
Grimm paused for a moment, spear lodged in an orc’s collarbone, and looked back.
Matthias and Raven were each fighting off several orcs. Erika was blasting clusters of them with explosive mana balls as she had learned as of late.
Luna swooped in with repulsors firing on full power, flipping backward as she kicked an orc into the dirt.
"You heard her!" Grimm yelled as he jumped back with a mana-assisted leap.
Luna blasted another orc into a tree while the others backed away, forcing the entire cluster to take a step forward.
Vanessa let the arrow fly.
It pierced straight through the chest of the lead orc and detonated. The explosion was large enough that everyone’s hair was blown backward from the shockwave.
The orcs evaporated into green mist; within seconds all of it was pulled back to Vanessa, forming a new arrow in her hand.
[@ValkyrieSimp: OMG THAT POWER]
[@GojoIsCrying: she’s carrying the whole server rn]
[@BeatDropMage: Vanessa >>>> every blood mage out there]
[@BlueberrySaint: that explosion was BEAUTIFUL]
[@SootGremlin: I fear she’s wife material]
’How strong is Guild Leader really...?’ Erika wondered as she slammed another mana bomb into a group of orcs.
She turned toward Supreme Man, who was still under orc feet. Even now, he was getting kicked like a broken vending machine.
"Let’s help him out," she sighed.
...
Minutes later, the battlefield was silent except for the crunching of boots on dead orc bodies.
Everything was covered in blood... green, red, and whatever mix resulted from clash after clash. The Awakeners began dissecting the corpses, digging out cores and tossing useless parts aside.
"Damn, that was stressful," Lucius muttered, stretching his arms lazily despite barely contributing aside from tripping orcs and slicing a few.
Everyone else had gone wild today, almost scarily energetic.
Minerva floated just above him with her legs crossed and tail swishing. She had done the bare minimum herself, tossing fireballs and occasionally hitting someone by accident.
"You’re lazy," he said, looking up at her.
She gasped dramatically. "Me? Lazy? I worked hard! You just made orcs trip today. That’s literally all you did. If anything, you were way lazier than me!"
"Impossible. I rallied the group since Supreme Man was—"
He didn’t finish because Ayela flew down gracefully and landed right in front of him.
Her hair was still fluttering from the fight, and she tucked a strand behind her ear with a strange soft expression.
"Lucius..." she said quietly.
"Yeah?" he replied, wary of whatever she was trying to pull.
"Can I talk to you in private?" Ayela asked, curling a piece of her hair around her finger as she looked up at him. Her cheeks were slightly pink. "It’s something very important."
Lucius blinked.
...
They were soon standing far away from the others, tucked behind a large tree whose trunk was wide enough to hide both of them from view.
The sounds of Awakeners pulling out cores and muttering among themselves were distant, muffled under the rustle of leaves and wind.
Lucius folded his hands across his chest and tilted his head slightly, looking at Ayela with a calm expression that made her shift nervously on her feet.
"What do you want...?" Lucius asked, not sounding particularly interested.
Ayela swallowed and forced herself to meet his eyes. "I wanted to ask for a spot on Grimmaw..."
Lucius blinked once.
"Then you should have met Vanessa. I won’t be able to help you." He turned slightly as if preparing to walk off, but Ayela grabbed his arm quickly before he could.
"I’m trying to escape from Supreme Man..." she blurted out.
Lucius paused mid-step.
"Eh? Escaping from Supreme Man?" He glanced back at her with a raised brow. "He looks like a genuinely nice guy."
He spat on the blood-soaked ground immediately after. "Nah, that’s not the word, but still... I don’t see why anyone would try to escape from him. He is ragebait worthy though."
"This is my last mission with the Supreme Guild," she said with a quiet voice. "I’m very uncomfortable being with him. I’ve been for a long time. So I wanted you to... put in a good word for me."
Lucius stared at her blankly for two seconds.
Then he lifted his phone. "Payment?"
Ayela twitched, her eye twitching as well.
Flashbacks of paying him earlier, paying him during the tentacle attack, paying him while nearly dying, paying him to breathe...
She gulped and slowly raised her phone. "How much...?"
For bigger guilds, she knew how things worked. You couldn’t simply walk into a Top Guild and get admitted because of rank.
Most guilds only accepted recommendations or internal connections. Lucius, unfortunately, was the strongest possible internal connection she could ask for. The problem was that he knew it.
"100,000 royals for putting you on the list," Lucius said casually, "and 200,000 royals for admitting you immediately."
Ayela’s jaw tightened. Her shoulders tensed. She felt the entire forest fade away for a moment as her inner voice screamed.
’Damn you! Damn you!! DAMN YOU!!!’
But she still paid.
Her thumb hovered over the confirm button, and then she pressed it. A soft chime echoed from both their screens.
"I’ve done it," she muttered. They were using the drone network since it was currently hovering high above, capturing the aftermath of the battle.
The P40 network made their transactions faster than usual, and within seconds, Lucius’s phone blinked.
"Sure, seen it," he said with a nod. "I’ll make sure you’re admitted."
He turned around and began walking away with the most casual stride, like she hadn’t just handed him almost a quarter million royals. "Oh, and try to stay safe. Since you have paid, if Supreme Man tries anything, just call my name and I’ll save you or some shit like that. You’ll have to pay extra though."
Ayela froze.
He walked off.
And her cheeks turned pink against her will.
’Save me...?’ she repeated internally, feeling her heart bounce strangely in her chest.
She lifted a hand to her face as if to hide it even though no one was watching. ’Why did that sound... weirdly comforting?’
Before she could overthink anymore, she shot into the air and headed straight for Supreme Man, who was still laid out on the ground.
The fight earlier had not been kind to him, and he was currently having spears pulled out of his body by the Saintess’s assistants.
"His skin is too strong..." one assistant grunted, tugging at a spear embedded in his shoulder.
She tried again, but it didn’t budge. "The arrowheads might break if I keep pulling."
"Don’t worry," Ayela said as she approached them.
She knelt beside Supreme Man, placed two fingers on the shaft of each spear, and connected threads of wind to them... thin, nearly invisible lines of compressed air that linked each spear to her fingertips.
She adjusted her footing slightly, inhaled, and pulled.
All the spears ripped out of his body at once.
They shot free cleanly, leaving behind holes that barely bled thanks to his ridiculous physique.
The assistants gasped.
Ayela handed the spears off to the side with a flick of her wrist.
"Thank you," one of the Saintess’s assistants said quickly as she moved in to treat the openings. "You saved us a lot of trouble. Let us heal him now."