Several minutes after Karon had left, a few dozen creatures burrowed out of the ground and took to the skies. The insect monsters that guarded this crown looked more akin to flies than ants. They had compounded eyes and hovered from one place to another, seemingly unimpeded by their size and weight. Their backs were fuzzy and their insect legs had large hooks protruding from their skeleton in several places. From the way they were staring at me, I knew they considered me as their next dinner.

They were a little more threatening than the ants had been, thanks to their mobility, but their defenses were lacking. As they rammed into my maelstrom, they were torn limb from limb before they even got past the outside barrier. I knew flying creatures were more brittle, but damn.

Once again, the hive mind controlling them ordered them to keep their distance from me, but this seemingly went against their instincts. Before long, they would revert to their previous pattern of behavior: rush to their deaths. The few stragglers that were either smart or obedient enough to stay away were quickly cut down by my overloaded sword.

Like this, my attackers were wiped out, before being replaced by another group of reinforcements, which died in similar ways.

Time passed, and wave after wave of bugs put me under siege, as hordes of flying monsters dotted the sky, ready to defend their territory. The corpses piled up around my maelstrom and the green blood pooled around my feet. This method of hunting was convenient, at least. All I had to do was concentrate and keep my skill up.

After what felt like an hour, I noticed the number of insects start to thin again. I stood up and readied my sword, expecting another tier 3 monster to appear. Sure enough, after I killed the last normal bug, another rose to the skies to meet me.

Of similar size as the centipede had been, the dragonfly kept its eyes on me as its wings beat so quickly it nearly hurled me off of my feet. The sheer size of those wings, paired with their wingbeat which was too fast to see with the naked eye, was enough to tear shrubbery straight from the earth, roots and all. Its front wings and back wings moved opposite from one another, which I supposed allowed it to hover in place.

At least I was finally getting some use out of my armor, since its weight helped keep my feet on the ground.

Our battle began without any exchange of words, obviously. The dragonfly zipped from my left to my right, quickly approaching me as if I were prey. Its wings became more synchronized, now moving simultaneously as it homed in on me. I used my [Dark blade maelstrom] to interrupt its chase in an attempt to catch it off guard, but it dodged out of the way of my erupting cyclone right at the last second, and flew higher into the sky.

A moment later, I saw it hovering a few meters away from the outer part of my maelstrom, sizing me up. We stared at one another for a few moments, until I decided that I was wasting time and let my maelstrom go. The predatory dragonfly flew right at me with a glint in its eye, having found an opportunity to strike. This straightforward style of hunting was to its detriment, however. Right before it reached me, I used [Overloaded sword] and sent a sword arc in between its two compounded eyes. The creature didn’t even have the time to shriek as its body was split into two halves, which parted ways before my eyes, splattering me with bug blood. The two halves of its body fell to my sides.

I breathed out in relief.

“Well, that was easy. Thank Helios for dumb monsters that charge straight ahead. Did its intelligence not rise at all from when it was an actual dragonfly? That thing just followed its instincts, I think…” I muttered.

The dragonfly's moronic tactics also proved that the hive mind couldn’t commence tier 3 creatures, like it could tier 2 ones. At least, that was if there was a hive mind at all. For all I knew, the tournament organizers control all of these bugs themselves.

Event notification: The tier 3 ‘King’ monster in charge of this crown has been defeated. The crown will now disappear and no longer reward points to those within the area. For clearing a crown, you and your alliance have been awarded points.

As the notification rang, I saw the golden mark in the sky slowly fade away, and the golden circle that designated this crown turned to dust in the wind. That was another one down, making my total amount of conquered crowns two. If I was right and there were only 26 to start with, I would have gotten a large percentage of the total available points to myself. Still, this wasn’t the time to get arrogant. There were more crowns to conquer and more points to gain.

I repeated this mantra to myself as I shot into the sky, jumping from aura-foothold to foothold, in search of any nearby golden light.

~scene transition~

Ten minutes later, I still hadn’t come across any crowns. Many must have been conquered by now, because I felt like I was wasting my time at this point. Why didn’t the organizers introduce another mechanic to spice things up, like they had done in the doubles category?

My question was soon answered by the flashing lights on the horizon. A myriad of colors and shapes were erupting constantly, swallowing one another. I dropped down to the ground and stealthily approached, curious to see what was going on before making my presence known.

As I got nearer and nearer to the lights, I heard voices shout, scream and moan, but not in a good way. These people were fighting, and the flashing lights were actually a battlefield. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, but still a little disappointing. I had hoped for a new way to gain points, but the lack of a crown or any event notification meant that a group of people had just randomly decided to start fighting.

I stepped onto a boulder and crouched, looking over the edge of another rock to see who was fighting who.

I took in the sights of some twenty-odd classers duking it out. Two separate factions had gathered and were fighting as if they had grudges to settle. A lot of cursing and excessive brutality made this skirmish seem like it had been in the works for a few decades, rather than a few hours.

One of the faction's apparent leaders spoke up, and I listened intently, curious to know the situation.

“Don’t you think you’ve gone far enough, John?! Look at all this carnage! You’re tearing the alliance apart!” a man with a scraggly beard said.

“Don’t gi’ me that, Rictas! Di’ you tell Iralo the same thing when you threw ‘im to the bugs?! I seem ta’ remember you promising me that you’d keep him safe as long as I sacrificed myself to beat that tier 3!”

As the two argued, they were stuck in a close battle. Both sides were struggling to finish the other side’s tanks. The leaders were now clashing weapons, John’s halberd grinding against Rictas’ metal spiked club.

“How many times do I have to fucking tell you that Iralo just died by accident?!”

“Yet half the alliance testifies to seeing you murder ‘im! Clearly, you’re not fit to remain a part of this here group! I kill you while this ‘internal conflict’ is still on, the system kicks you out o’ the alliance, simple. Go conquer a crown and make a new one, you bloody bastard!”

Their battle continued and they started to use more active skills, sending different elemental attacks at each other. John’s galeforce winds won out against Rictas’ fire, sending him sprawling on the floor. John walked up to his opponent menacingly, while Rictas struggled to rise to his feet.

“You’re just not willing to do what it takes, John! This is just a tournament, and Iralo doesn’t even lose any points for being sent out! If we all took turns sacrificing ourselves, we could get way more points artificially! Don’t you want to go to the finals, idiot?!”

“Go fuck yourself, Rictas. I don’t betray my friends for nothin’. Especially not for your sorry behind.” John whispered in righteous fury, bringing his halberd down in a vertical swing. It would’ve cracked Rictas’ skull, if he hadn’t been teleported away in time.

As John was now victorious, he took a moment to read a system notification, before lifting his arms to the sky and speaking to the rest of his alliance.

“You’ve now seen what our difference in opinion led ta’, and I’ve proven that I’m stronger than old Rictas. For all you who agreed with him, I’ve but one thing to say.” he announced loudly.

“Fuck off, would you kindly.”

Hearing that, I broke out in a quiet chuckle. If anything, it served its purpose, because Rictas’ crew scampered off into the woods, sore about their loss. When they were all gone and John’s side had started to bandage their wounded, I decided to reveal myself to their leader.

“Quite a performance.” was my opening statement. If John was at all surprised by my presence, he didn’t show it. Thankfully, he sated my curiosity rather quickly.

“Ah. our hidden spectator sees fit to reveal ‘imself. What do ya’ want, stranger?” he asked skeptically.

I grinned at his brash greeting.

“Nothing at all, nothing at all. John, is it? I just heard the commotion and came over to take a look. Say, you wouldn’t have seen any crowns anywhere, would you? I’m still looking for more, but all the golden lights have disappeared from the sky.”

His skepticism abated somewhat at my reply.

“Well, I haven’t seen any crowns for a while now, but I haven’t exactly been looking, what with this ‘internal conflict’ business. The last I saw in the sky was a few miles from here, in that direction.” he said, as he pointed in the direction that I had just come from. Clearly, he couldn’t help me further.

Lacking any concrete goals, I decided to just ask a few more questions.

“So how does that internal conflict work, exactly? Is it an event phase or something?”

“No, don’t think so, meself. Rictas and I got into an argument, and he was our alliance leader. During the argument, an event notification popped up and told all of us about a possible internal conflict. Accept, and the loser will not be part of the alliance anymore and lose a buncha’ points as well. Say, who are you, anyway? Where’s your alliance, stranger? Not too many lone players left, at this point…”

His caution had now reappeared in full force, since he couldn’t be certain if I was a bad egg that had gotten kicked out of his own alliance, after all.

No reason to lie, I decided to tell him the truth.

“I cleared two crowns on my own, so I’m the sole member of alliance ‘R’.” I spoke with a light chuckle, seeing his face warp in surprise.

As he recovered from his shock, he straightened his posture and stared me dead in the eyes.

“Bollocks.” he said dryly.

“Not bollocks.” I replied with a smile.

One of John’s thugs had approached us during the conversation and pulled John to the side to whisper into his ear. When John returned, he looked a lot more cautious than before.

“So my friend here tells me you’re some kinda’ big shot. So let’s say I believe you for now. That leaves the question of why you’re still even here in the first place. Looking for a fight?”

“Not at all. I’m looking for points, but I can't find any. All of the crowns are gone from the sky. Nothing to see for miles and miles.”

John took my measure for a moment, before surprising me with a proposal.

“Well, since that’s the case, why don’t you run with us for a while. You don’t need to join the alliance, mind you. We could use the extra muscle, is all. We lost a lot of good people to Rictas’ dumb ideology. Get a few people to the next round and fuck the rest, right? My belief is that everyone of us should get a fair shot. If we don’t make it, that’s on us being too weak. What’s the point of getting into the last round when you’re just gonna get knocked out in the first fight anyway?”

I nodded along to John’s explanation. I couldn’t relate, to be honest, but I could see how that ideology might be preferable to a larger group.

“Well, alright. I’ll stick with you guys for a while. The moment I see any points, however, I’m gone.”

John laughed. It was the kind of laugh that was easy to laugh along to, one that made you trust the other person instinctively.

“I’ll keep tha’ in mind, fella’.”