Antarctica was cold, white, and bright. Fortunately, between my increased Perception and Physical Defense, I didn’t need sunglasses. And thanks to my unisuit and the interior of the Aviaton, I wasn’t particularly cold.

Instead of a unisuit like the rest of us, Abelino had claimed a skill that formed a protective layer around him, functioning virtually the same as a suit—except it could be used by all his clones at once.

The layer had a metallic sheen that could reflect the sunlight almost as much as the snow and ice around us.

Dawnbreaker squeezed next to Abelino inside the Aviaton, her silver suit somehow outshining even Abelino’s armor.

Fortunately, I had equipped the Aviaton with an Invisibility Rune Pattern. Otherwise, these two glow sticks would doom us before we even started.

Cy had opted not to come, calling himself a bit to squishy for such a high-stakes fight. His pets were more useful against the hordes of monsters still attacking each city.

Not far from our Aviaton, Liling, Absame, and Renshu flew on an undead wyvern. They were also invisible to Mana Sensing and normal sight. Renshu, I had learned recently, was a Law Mage.

Law Mages could either be the easiest type of opponents, or the worst. They fought by bending reality’s laws. Normally, people were required to pick up to three affinities, ruling out the possibility of an all-rounded magician. But Law Mages could shrink space, slow or speed up perception of time, ignore gravity, and in this case, completely block my senses of the undead wyvern. Combat Law Mages were rare—Law Mages worked best with significant amounts of time. The few Law Mages who could alter reality in a matter of seconds, as opposed to minutes, were a nightmare to fight.

“It’s a shame we don’t have Evangeline,” Abelino said. He spoke with his usual straightforward tone; I couldn’t tell if he was poking fun at me. “Her void bolts would stand the best chance of anyone dealing damage to the dragon.”

It was true. Evangeline had all of us beat in terms of damage output. Sure, Dawnbreaker and Abelino had Martial Energy abilities that could compare, but repeated use came at a greater cost.

Fortunately, though, Evangeline was not here. She had isolated Europe from the rest of the world after an incident with the rest of the New World Government.

“She’s probably already surrendered to the Human Empire,” I said.

Dawnbreaker sighed.

We’d been over this already, hashed this out multiple times. Initially, when Evangeline tried to kill me, I thought it could be a quest that she had unlocked, or perhaps she had some ability to steal the skills or stats of the people she killed.

She had played up her innocence so thoroughly that most of the New World Government believed her—up until she made the mistake of trying to assassinate Liling in the middle of a battle against a Zone Lord.

Unfortunately for Evangeline, she had poor choice of targets. She tried to kill me, but I had Death’s Defier to save me.

Liling had already reached level 50 by the time Evangeline tried to assassinate her—and she hadn’t told anyone what her level 50 class upgrade was.

Evangeline didn’t know that Liling was a lich.

Evangeline obliterated Liling’s body with void magic, but that only sent Liling’s consciousness back to wherever she had hidden her phylactery.

The moment Evangeline failed, she activated some type of teleportation token.

And then Europe went dark.

It was obvious what was going on.

I had fought Imperial Scouts, back before I had claimed Nova City. Sending in scouts before the Schema officially allowed it was incredibly costly and dangerous—it came at the risk of angering the Schema itself.

But with great risk comes greater rewards. Maybe the Imperial Scouts held Evangeline’s family hostage, or maybe they convinced her that resistance was futile, or maybe they bribed her with incredible wealth.

Regardless, the only reason Evangeline would risk targeting Liling at this point would be if the Imperial Scouts were getting nervous. Nervous that we might actually succeed at clearing out all the Zone Lords and World Lords before the Imperial Army could teleport in.

I estimated that the chances of Evangeline and the Human Empire attempting to sabotage our battle against the Antarctic Ice Dragon were above 90%.

As we flew above the icy landscape, I wondered idly how the Human Empire would find us.

They had given Evangeline a teleportation token, but those had clear limitations. They couldn’t just teleport in.

I wish I knew Abasme and Renshu better. Anyone could be bought, at the right price—it just took time and leverage. Evangeline may have had that time and leverage, but she probably burned bridges by trying to kill Liling.

The Human Empire’s scouts were not soldiers. They were infiltrators, saboteurs, and assassins. They would have teleportation skills, impersonation skills, mind-reading skills, and tracking skills. But teleportation skills always had some kind of drawback.

The first option was a token teleporter. If one of us had a token or were marked somehow, then they could teleport to the token. Paired with a scrying ability, they could pick the most inopportune time.

But they’d have to already be in the same Zone as us—because most teleportation skills couldn’t cross zone boundaries.

So they would impersonate whoever they need to get to a town as close as they could, use line-of-sight teleportation to get into the Antarctic Zone, and then they’d be set to scry or teleport.

Was this giving them too much credit?

I laughed to myself, earning a glance from Dawnbreaker.

Too much credit would be if they showed up with a fleet of Aviatons. Even that was possible, though.

It all depended on the projected value of the Earth once it finished Acclimating.

“So,” Dawnbreaker said, breaking the silence. “If you were able to fight off five dragons simultaneously in the Tower, why is this dragon a big deal?”

To clarify, Dawnbreaker was definitely not doubting that the last dragon was going to be a hell of a fight. We all knew the pattern; it didn’t take a data scientist to track this projection. District, Region, Zone, World.

Dawnbreaker just seemed to think I was exaggerating my exploits.

It was an interesting question, but in my mind, there was a more interesting one out there.

In all the lives I had lived, I had never had such a high Luck stat in relation to everyone else around me. And Luck often manifests in unpredictable ways. Could the Schema have paired me against dragons because it knew that the World Lord would be a dragon? There were so many other types of monsters, what were the odds that I’d fight against dragons twice? Three times if you count the wyverns?

It was possible. Or I was just “lucky,” with a lowercase L.

Of course, as someone who had already fought dragons, it didn’t make a difference to me.

“Those dragons were handicapped—A real C-rank dragon at level 39 would have to be C-rank from birth, gaining approximately 10 points per level, meaning a total of 390 gained stat points,” I said. “But that would make it a disadvantage to challenge the Tower before level 50. Fighting a C-rank monster at level 51—which gained 50 levels as a D-rank monster—would actually be easier than challenging a C-rank monster at level 39 (in terms of raw stats). So, the Tower nerfed the dragons that I fought, because it wants to incentivize lower-leveled challengers in the tower.

“Also, the dragon we’re fighting today will also have numerous titles and boosts.”

I paused, unsure if Dawnbreaker and Abelino had processed everything I had said. It was hard sometimes, dealing with people. Not knowing what level of an explanation they were looking for.

“And, according to the scouts, this one is over four times the size of the dragons I fought.”

Dawnbreaker didn’t say anything else, and in the lingering silence, I started wondering if I had over-explained.

“I can sense the first target,” Liling’s voice echoed in our minds. We were using some expensive communication devices that didn’t require Communication Towers—they worked as long as we were in the same Region, and they allowed us to “speak” in each other’s minds.

“It’s still here,” Liling continued.

It irked me, ever so slightly, that Liling could sense things before me. I had C-ranked Mana Sensing, for Schema’s sake. If only we had chosen Hell Mode.

We were approaching a battleground. There were rifts in the ground—greater than twenty feet deep—and mounds of upturned snow, plowed or blown randomly around.

And there were massive footprints—footprints longer than my arm.

I could sense a dense cloud of death-attributed mana swirling around Liling, but I could also sense death-attributed mana in front of us.

As we passed a fairly large peak—most likely the result of a battle—I finally saw what Liling had already sensed.

It was a Frost Giant’s corpse, about thirty feet tall, its thick skin shredded by icicles.

Liling dismounted from the wyvern and started chanting, and the dense death-attributed mana multiplied.

Renshu and Absame stood protectively nearby.

One of Abelino’s scouts had spotted the Frost Giant and the dragon fighting earlier. He hadn’t seen the victor, but there were some battles that were a foregone conclusion.

The Frost Giant probably never landed a single blow on the dragon.