[Max's POV]
After the abrupt interjection of the system with the final scoreboard before anyone could even react properly, everyone was teleported to a new location.
I appeared with a fading magic circle beneath me and landed on something soft and dry. I looked around and found myself alone, and even at some distance from me, no one was appearing.
This place felt slightly eerie to me; the trees around me were huge, and there were glowing veins and overarching branches. It was the opposite transition from the serene environment of Arcanum Primafolia.
I also found a ruin covered by overgrown roots and branches, and I also noticed white fog started spreading around. I immediately used my OGS to confirm that it was a slightly corrupted version of mana, a mana fog.
'So a dangerous environment...huh....Would PvP also be included?' And like right on cue, a system panel appeared with more information.
[PHASE 5 | THE ELIMINATION GAUNTLET]
[Round 1 – The Verdant Survival Field]
[Participants – 5,000]
[Advancement Slots – 500]
[Duration – 60 minutes]
[All players are equally divided among 50 independent battlefields with 100 players per field]
[The last 10 remaining players, or the top 10 players based on score after 60 minutes per battlefield, will move forward]
[Combat Conditions – ]
PvP and PvE Enabled
Revival is Disabled (once killed in the field, you will be eliminated from the tournament and sent to the floor you were on before the start of the tournament).
[Scoring Parameters – ]
Combat contributions
Survival Efficiency
Damage dealt to hostile entities
Damage Taken
Boss & Elite monster hunt participation
[Round 1 Begins...]
After the system panel disappeared, before I could move an inch, roots from all sides attacked me. Some are targeting my legs, while some are targeting my torso.
I immediately took out Lamina and sliced the roots, aiming for my legs, and rolled over to avoid the roots at my torso.
"Straight from the beginning and a nice tackle too, so the theme behind this is pure strength," I remarked.
Lamina thrummed in my hands. "Well, partner, let's show them strength." I looked at Lamina and declared.
I soared towards the sky; some roots tried to attack me mid-flight. However, some were deflected, and some were sliced by Lamina.
I spread my sense to the entire field and finalized the position of the boss monster and flew straight towards it.
On the ground I saw a few players fighting each other while a few formed a group to attack elite monsters.
In a few minutes, I reached the location of the boss monster. The location was a large ruin covered in aged roots and decayed leaves and branches.
While I was observing the ruins, I sensed movements, and soon after, a towering humanoid monster whose body looked like it was made of interwoven roots.
It had armor donned on made of old, tough barks and antlers as a crown with glowing greenish veins all over its body. Surprisingly agile for its big size.
It stood at some distance from me while I was floating in air, silently observing him. The pale system materialized with information.
[Verdant Rootbound Sovereign]
[Rank – A - ]
[Skills – Judgement of Roots, Verdant Decree, Life Reclamation, Arbiter's Gaze, Final Verdict]
Although at A- rank, it has more skills than those bosses in StormRend Plateau. I readied myself for its attack, but something unexpected happened.
"You are here too early, player, and you are alone. Are you sure you want to face me alone?" It spoke.
I froze for a few seconds, thinking that I got to see a talking monster this early. I thought I had to reach peak B rank or even A rank before I faced off against such monsters.
However, it took my silence as fear and spoke boisterously, "Look at you, paralyzed just by my presence. So go for now and bring your friends before you start a fight with me," and turned to leave.
I was slightly annoyed by this good-for-nothing rotten tree root, so I called out, "Hey, Rotten Root, you speak, which means you can fight better, right?"
It stopped and turned around and looked at me angrily with green glowing eyes, like I stepped on its antlers, and spoke with contained fury, "As a Sovereign, I showed you mercy, but clearly your mother didn't tell you how to behave in front of superiors. I will kill you; you will probably revive out of this realm. Then think of your words."
He was boasting again, but that comment about Mother just ticked me off. I took the fighting stance with Lamina in one hand while Plasma and VermillionVolt orbs materialized beside me in multiple numbers.
I saw his fist and multiple roots coming; vermillion volt orbs divided to form a crisscross safety net around me, while plasma orbs made a straight wall to block his punch.
I reinforced the plasma wall with more mana and a mana shield.
The wall blocked the punch and did some damage to his hands, while the safety net cut any roots into pieces of those who approached.
The boss was slightly surprised seeing me fine. I looked straight into his eye while floating a little higher and spoke, "Are you sure you don't want to call your minions and fight me alone?"
Enraged, he created a dome of roots around us both and attacked with roots with more fervor while shouting, "Insolence, in front of the Sovereign, I will bind you to roots in my ruins and torture you for hours."
The VermillionVolt orbs did their jobs while I dodged his punch and branches coming out of his arms.
He roared, which caused the speed at which roots were attacking to be doubled. I had to use Lamina to cut down some roots.
He was attacking only with fury and anger; I didn't see any point in dragging this further, but his armor was tough; plasma would take time to cut through.
So I decided to take the time due to his unfocused fight and merge the wind element with plasma to make something that could cut through the tough bark.
This continued for about 2 minutes, and now my joy of meeting a talking monster has reduced. Voltara and Azerion fought better than this rage-filled Rotten root.
While I was dodging, I suddenly felt an attack coming from the shield with high speed. I couldn't dodge in time, so I made a reinforced mana shield to tank the attack.
The shield stopped the attack but came to almost breaking stage.
The boss looked surprised. "So that was the point of the dome," I spoke. A nice idea came, but I shelved that thought.
"Yes, when you dodge my attack too much, the dome will attack you with full force, but you tanked that. I see why you came alone." The boss's mood changed when he saw me tanking one of his most powerful attacks.
"But you see, I wasn't dodging only," I answered and signaled upwards.
That same time I received a system notification.
[You have created a sub-hybrid Element – Aethercut Plasma]
The plasma orb and wind orb, which were combining earlier, have now merged to form this new element.
The orb was smooth in appearance with a light blue color; it seemed like it had collected all the lightning at its core, giving it a luminous blue visual.
The orb was stationary, and rather the wind around it was moving around from one side to the other. Its surface had small lightning flickers of violet-white color.
The boss appeared perplexed and asked, "What is it?"
I smiled; the orb above took the shape of an inverted funnel and said, "Your death." The inverted funnel came down at full speed but without any sound and passed through the boss.
For a second nothing happened, then suddenly a large lightning crackle was heard, and the boss, cleaved in half, fell on both sides with a surprised look on both halves of his face.
I was content with the result of this combination. As the body of the boss disappeared, a voice came from behind, "Wow, you took the boss down easily. We would make a great team together."