CHAPTER 824: 824: DIVINE GAME – CARD SWAP 73

She had rehearsed this sequence in her head countless times.

After securing the fifth statue, Rita turned and shot toward the intersection of their beams.

Flying at full speed, her body was nearly parallel to the ground.

In the stands, the audience rose to their feet without realizing it.

At this point, everyone understood what she was about to do, and how the so-called "god" was meant to be "found."

Even GodDraw77 couldn’t help standing, only to be shoved aside by a pair of butterfly wings from behind.

"You’re blocking us!"

Wail stood on her chair, arms folded, her serious expression keeping anyone from trying the same. That was the reputation thieves carried.

Across Kasilanar, in every corner where the broadcast was streaming, it was the same.

People held their breath, eyes fixed on the screen, as if even breathing might disturb the third-year racing toward the champion’s throne.

Even those who’d lost interest in Divine Game and were just passing by a public screen stopped to watch.

Those who hadn’t followed the match from the start couldn’t understand exactly what the apprentice on the screen was doing.

But someone charging toward a goal with every fiber of their being had a way of making you stop and watch.

She stopped.

She stopped in the middle of a crossroads, five crimson beams flaring around her.

Raising her right hand high, five comet-shaped keys dangling from her fingers, she declared to the game, "I, Moonlight Marsh’s Rita, am the god hidden within Demon City!"

The five keys became lances of white light that shot skyward, merging into a single pillar that slammed down onto her.

The words "magical girl transformation" were already at the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them back.

She was thirteen now—no longer a kid.

Time is Ticking. With her health at full, Rita immediately turned her weapons on herself, cutting down her own HP.

Every apprentice abandoned the statues and rushed toward her.

The god had appeared. Whoever could take all of Moonlight Marsh Rita’s health would claim the individual championship.

The players weren’t there yet, but their skills were.

Bolts and beams flew from all sides, making her look like the center of a firework.

Her platinum academy robes billowed in the wind whipped up by the barrage.

A dragon reeking of liquor coiled into being behind her, circling once before diving into the crowd.

Its scales were covered in a dense weave of runes.

This was a combo of [Drunkfire Cooking] and [One Wild Binge].

Everyone swept by the flame-dragon felt the disorienting illusion that their bodies were no longer under their control.

[School Rule No. 801], and [School Rule No. 805].

The runes for Ambition and Defiance flared on her brow. From that moment on, every skill would cost her 50% of her health—its absolute limit—and every cooldown would drop to one second.

Every incoming attack would convert to healing, and nothing else in the game could damage her. She no longer had to worry about failing to land the killing blow on herself.

Bound within the pillar of light, Rita unleashed every ranged skill she had. Half of them intercepted incoming fire, the rest struck at players.

Even draining her own health nonstop, the flood of enemy attacks healing her was so overwhelming that she couldn’t burn it down fast enough.

She let Windrush’s dagger sink into her side. He asked, baffled, "Why aren’t you using time-stop?"

Her answer was clear: "Because when I take the champion’s throne, I don’t want anyone saying I won it with time-stop. I want everyone to admit it."

She wasn’t lying to him, and she wasn’t bluffing.

No skill suited this game’s final stage more than [Waste Guide]—and it had only thirty minutes left on its cooldown.

She could wait. She wouldn’t.

The gear Reyhana had given her, [Stop Waiting], carried a line in its description: "Waiting is a kind of torment."

She hadn’t understood it then.

On the road to the championship, she finally knew what "torment" meant.

She reveled in the fight—everyone rushing her, everyone desperate to kill her.

And she would keep winning.

She wasn’t even close to desperate yet. She hadn’t used time-stop, nor had she touched [No Logic] or [There’s a Cat], either of which could turn the battle instantly.

One of the crimson beams had already faded to pale red.

Two uses of [Mind Control] blasted back a pair of apprentices who’d slipped past the dragon’s sweep.

A spring blossom flew into Windrush’s body—[Brief Hibernation].

She grabbed him by the collar and soared upward, every flying apprentice still conscious swarming after her.

For a moment, she was the starting point of all light, like bait in the water drawing in every fish.

She climbed until only two seconds remained on Rule 710, then used Windrush as a shield to block the attacks below before hitting him with two skills.

Her health hit zero.

She blacked out and began to fall.

At last, she had found the god—and slain the god.

...

Ninety-nine screens shattered, leaving only the falling figure.

Above the long river and Gray Valley’s cliffs, silence reigned save for the sound of water.

After a long pause, Fat Goose’s voice shook as he asked Mistblade on his right, "She’s the champion?"

Mistblade sounded dazed. Afraid it was a dream, she asked Maple Syrup quietly, "She’s the champion?"

Maple Syrup stared blankly at the black cat beside her. "She’s the champion?"

The black cat murmured, "Third year... two championships? She just won two championships. Only one step short..."

Every other competitor had been kicked from the game, deposited on the crimson platform floating above the river.

On screen, the "dead" Rita opened her eyes in a blaze of white light, her wounds visibly knitting shut.

When her health bar hit full, she began falling again.

Under the eyes of millions, she dropped into the crimson pillar behind the platform.

Two more pillars rose to either side—one deep blue, the other golden-bright.

The blue pillar became a ribbon of flame that spiraled around the crimson one.

Individual and Fun Match, double champion.

A throne of pure crimson light materialized behind her. Rita sat down as if she’d been there before.

If her Fun Match win could be dismissed as luck, as a quirk of the rules, then this one was exactly as she’d said: "I want everyone to admit it."

The audience said nothing. They were waiting for her champion’s declaration.

Students and teachers from all forty-five schools outside Moonlight Marsh said nothing either. Even if Rita was about to trash-talk them all, they’d wait for her speech before answering.

Rita scanned the magically expanded stands along the cliff face, trying to pick her teacher out from tens of millions.

Of course, it was impossible.

Her gaze settled instead on the sunset at the end of the river.

Word by word, she said, "When I was in Auberdine buying intel, a gray marten told me, ’If you want to open GodDraw77, this year is your last chance.’"

"The only thing wrong with that intel is that it shouldn’t have been said to me."

"Because for the next four years, GodDraw77 will open because of me."