Scott's fifth, sixth, and seventh enchanted arrows screamed off the string in a single burst.
Three arrows. Three fire dragons.
They came at Jasper from different angles, tearing heat through the air like living blades.
Jasper slipped past the first dragon by a hair and sprinted straight at Scott.
Archers had two problems: they ran out of arrows, and once you got inside their space, their power dropped fast. Scott's bone bow clearly wasn't limitless—and up close, even those freak enchantments would have to get cramped.
Jasper could retreat.
He didn't.
An enemy like this didn't come often—strong enough to matter, not so strong it was hopeless. If anything was going to shove him over the line into Bronze Tier, Rank 6, it was a fight like this.
He triggered Shadow Assassination and flashed into Scott's face.
The Lazuli Blade chopped down for Scott's skull.
Scott snapped the jagged limb of his bone bow up and caught it.
Jasper's left Wrist Blade stabbed for Scott's ribs—
—and got jammed by the other end of the bow, like Scott had a second shield built into the weapon.
The block held, but the impact didn't.
Scott still went flying, skidding back more than ten meters across broken stone.
Behind Jasper, the three fire dragons curved in, hungry and fast.
Jasper started to move—
Something lashed around his ankle.
Green vines.
His foot locked in place.
While he'd been sending Scott flying, Scott had dumped enchanted arrows onto the ground. Jasper had charged exactly where Scott wanted him to.
A trap.
Jasper clicked his tongue and fired three fine-steel needles into the incoming dragons.
Explosions tore through flame. Fire and steel vanished into thick smoke.
Jasper chopped the vines apart with the Lazuli Blade and tore free.
Fine-steel needles left: 16.
Scott rose and pulled out a potion, downing it in one hard swallow.
His aura surged.
Bronze Tier, Rank 6.
Jasper didn't hesitate.
For the first time, he activated Berserk.
Power flooded him in a savage rush, his battle qi snapping louder, heavier—
Bronze Tier, Rank 6.
Scott nocked an eighth arrow.
This time, he aimed at the ground beneath his own feet and fired.
Before the arrow even hit, a small magic circle flared under Scott—dark, sharp-edged runes spinning into place.
Black armor crawled over his bones, sealing him inside a sleek, pitch-dark shell.
Then Scott rushed Jasper.
No clunky drag. No slowed steps. The armor didn't weigh him down at all.
And now the "archer weakness" was gone. Up close, Scott was still a problem.
Jasper felt a sting of irritation.
His runes were useful—fast to carve anywhere, any time—but compared to Scott's enchantments? Scott had fire dragons, conjured armor, nonsense like that. Jasper had blasts… and a "lighting" rune Garrick Forge had once taught him that was basically a prank unless you had a reason to use it.
Scott swung the bladed limb of his bone bow like a cleaver.
Jasper spun into a roundhouse kick—
Scott blocked with the bow.
Jasper followed with the Lazuli Blade, slashing into Scott's chest.
Metal-on-metal.
Nothing.
The armor swallowed the hit.
Jasper swore he could hear Scott laughing.
Scott countered, the bow's edge ripping toward Jasper's neck.
Jasper caught it with his left Wrist Blade—
—and Scott's right fist smashed into Jasper's gut.
Jasper flew back, breath ripping out of him.
Scott nocked a ninth arrow while Jasper was still in the air.
A sandy-yellow glow wrapped around Jasper.
The ground answered.
A cage of earth snapped up around him—walls locking tight, sealing him in.
Scott nocked a tenth arrow and lowered his voice, almost reverent.
"Victory Arrow: Lightfire."
The arrow launched.
It didn't just glow—it blinded.
A white, searing flame slammed down on Jasper like judgment itself.
His vision washed out.
The world blurred.
Then went black.
If Jasper could've seen his system screen in that moment, he would've been stunned.
A new entry was forming on its own.
And the red energy bar—the one he didn't fully understand—emptied in a single drop.
Outside his body, red energy surfaced like living mist. It wrapped him.
The white flame hit it—
—and got swallowed.
Absorbed.
Scott froze, staring.
He didn't understand it either. He only felt something familiar in that red glow.
The same kind of force that burned in his eye sockets.
When the last of the white flame vanished, the red energy folded back into Jasper.
His wounds closed.
The arrow in his shoulder pushed itself out, clattering to the ground.
Jasper's eyes snapped open.
His body felt overfilled—battle qi packed so tight it hurt.
If he didn't vent it, it would tear him apart from the inside.
He raised the Lazuli Blade and struck the earth cage.
A red blade wave tore out—clean, vicious—and split the prison open.
The red slash kept going, racing straight at Scott.
Scott reacted fast, nocking three arrows at once—eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth—firing into the incoming red strike.
Only then did the slash break apart, scattering into sparks and pressure.
Jasper's mind cleared through the heat.
Scott's enchanted arrows were getting stronger the later they came.
And Jasper… Jasper now had something red moving through his qi that he'd never seen before.
Was it because of Berserk?
He didn't know.
He didn't have time.
Berserk: ten minutes left.
If he didn't finish Scott before the crash hit—before his strength dropped—he'd die here.
Jasper gathered every thread of red energy he could reach and poured it into the Lazuli Blade.
He released it.
A massive red beam—more like a column of light than a slash—blasted toward Scott.
Scott grabbed the remaining enchanted arrows and started firing them in a rush.
Fourteenth—became a fire lion. It evaporated on contact.
Fifteenth—became a shield. It held for half a second, then shattered.
The red beam didn't even slow.
Sixteenth—another shield, more complex. It survived two seconds.
Seventeenth—Scott forced out something darker.
Eighteenth—an unnatural black shield formed, wrong-looking in a way that made Jasper's skin crawl.
When the red beam hit it, the energy split and sprayed outward.
The nearby skeletons and ruined buildings paid the price. Stone blew apart. Bone dust burst into the air.
Two seconds.
Cracks crawled over the black shield.
Scott's hand jerked into his quiver.
Nineteenth arrow.
He fired it into the distance—far, far away—then looked back at Jasper. His voice came out like a blade dragged across glass.
"You're strong. We'll meet again."
The black shield shattered.
The red beam surged forward.
It would've hit.
Scott vanished.
Only a smear of violet energy remained, fading in the air.
The red beam punched through the city wall and kept going—straight into the skeleton mass beyond.
The explosion that followed was worse than the TNT at the gate.
Jasper stared at the empty space Scott had left behind, violet residue still drifting like smoke.
A thought snapped into place.
Ender Pulse.
He'd seen something like it once—in an old mod back on Earth. An enchantment that let you blink to a chosen location. Cleaner than an ender pearl. Perfect for murder. Perfect for escape.
Scott had it.
And Scott had promised they'd meet again.
Jasper didn't wait to imagine what that meant.
While Berserk was still active, he turned and ran.
He ran like someone who understood exactly what happened after the buff ended.
Where Scott's nineteenth arrow had landed, the arrow dissolved into light.
Scott appeared there.
So it really was Ender Pulse.
His black armor was half-destroyed, bones showing through, purple combat cloth visible beneath. Some ribs were cracked. One arm hung wrong.
He reached into his quiver and drew the final enchanted arrow.
Twentieth arrow.
He nocked it.
Then fired it into the ground.
A violet magic circle spread out under him, slow and deliberate.
His injuries began to knit.
Broken bone reformed.
The black armor peeled away and vanished.
His weapon separated back into an enchanted bow and a bone sword—one in hand, one slung again.
Scott turned toward the skeleton army and started walking.
And if Jasper had been there to see it, he would've noticed something else—
Scott's quiver refilled.
Twenty enchanted arrows, gleaming like nothing had happened.
From far off, his laughter crawled through the ruined city.