FLAME STORM.
Tier 9 in BHAO.
According to the consistent rule in BHAO that “skill slots are like pay stubs—you can see the class gap at a glance,” he had five skills.
Honestly, I used to think the whole “Tier” thing was pretty abstract—until I got stepped on by my classmates’ stares in real life and stepped on again by skill counts in-game.
Only then did I understand: a person’s dignity really could be paid for in installments by the slot.
I had never heard this name before, not even on the seeded player list for the lower-tier preliminary round.
He was probably just one of those types who cruised through on “high-tier suppression”—like someone driving an off-road vehicle on the sidewalk.
It didn’t mean his driving skills were good; it just meant he didn’t care about the rules of the road.
Still, whether or not he was worth going all out on, he had used the information he obtained to completely block off my Dawn Witch route.
My mirrors, my doll, my “pretty but unreasonable reflection combo”—he had casually sentenced them all to death with a single phrase: “skill information leak.”
So—
“Can you predict this scythe too?”
The moment the blue flames rushed straight at me, instinct yanked me back by the scruff of my neck.
The instant my body sprang up, countless black two-dimensional squares surged from my ankles and wrapped around me like a burial shroud.
The conversion from three dimensions to a two-dimensional plane completed with unnatural smoothness against the background roar of the blue flames.
The speed was so clean that I almost suspected the smoothest “growth” in my entire life hadn’t come from studying or making friends, but from running away.
The next second, the flames swept past where I had just been, leaving a lingering scorch in the air like a delayed insult.
“S-something strange just happened! The instant FLAME STORM threw his blue flames toward UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR, UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR suddenly vanished! It was like he evaporated into thin air! What on earth is going on?!”
“E-evaporated? Did UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR get vaporized by FLAME STORM’s high-temperature flames?”
“No, look—the BHAO duel roster still has three names on it.”
“Right—and if you look closely, UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR’s character ID has become blurrier, like it’s covered in mosaic.”
Niya-chan’s ability to stir emotions remained as reliable as ever.
Honestly, if she became a director she could probably sell a flop as “a very bold experimental piece,” but right now she was just commentating—and the only one suffering was me.
Of course, even without her guidance, the Blue Sea Academy students watching this Reward Match would still be stunned by a performance that wasn’t in any publicly released skill information.
After all, human curiosity and gossip were handled by the same organ: the one called “restless brain.”
Aaaah, forget it—whether my identity gets exposed and people make up some weird story about me, or whether THE EARTH RING starts investigating me, I’ll deal with it after I finish this Reward Match first.
That “survive first, worry about dignity later” mindset usually only appeared in war or exams.
Yet here I was, stuck in both—real-life exams and in-game war.
Looked like I was destined to be the kind of person who had to pay tolls while shuttling between two hells.
Still, I had to admit—slipping into the shadows felt incredibly refreshing.
In the darkness, I could observe everything above me.
Not only could I ignore three-dimensional obstacles, I could also dodge any three-dimensional attack except “slashes or stabs.” At its core, this “two-dimensionalization” ability was exactly like my usual social strategy: make yourself thinner, more transparent, just a line in other people’s vision that could be ignored.
The Night Witch really was still my favorite role.
I gripped the Witch’s Scythe tightly.
The air on both sides of the blade parted, the turbulence rushing backward like tidal waves in the sea.
The cutting edge itself was as cold and sharp as a shark’s dorsal fin.
I used the dimensional shift as naturally as breathing—or rather, I treated darkness like an ocean where I could move freely.
“Niya-chan still can’t locate UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR! Could this former Tier 0 player have a hidden trump card like an invisibility skill?!”
I rolled my eyes inside the shadows.
Invisibility? That sounded like a cool ninja move. Mine felt more like “social anxiety survival tactics forced into active duty.”
“Yoruichi… is that you…?”
The moment Xieyi Mayne’s voice reached me, my fingers twitched imperceptibly.
It felt like someone had suddenly called my real name—even though I was clearly wearing a mask, I instinctively worried the mask was about to slip.
“Yep. That’s right.”
I circled behind the enemy inside the shadows and raised the scythe.
Xieyi Mayne frowned slightly. But more than confusion, her face showed shock.
After all, what she faced now wasn’t “that useless little boy she always pushed away,” but—a person who had torn open a hole in her rules.
A scythe with shadow damage added, attacking from behind.
Stack every condition together and you had the Night Witch’s strongest strike.
A setup like this would be almost impossible in a fighting game.
It was too unfair. But BHAO had never pursued fairness; it pursued “excitement.” And excitement was often built on someone else’s suffering.
Guess this is your misfortune, mister with the virtual name FLAME STORM. Because of my parents, I have a reason I absolutely must stay in this school.
I issued the skill command:
“SLASH!”
The scythe, polished mirror-smooth, transformed into a black whirlwind under the drive of mana and slashed downward.
The sound of it tearing through the air was as sharp as ripping fabric, as if the darkness itself was roaring.
Then—
The cutting sound was so smooth it was almost silent.
FLAME STORM’s head fell from its original position, rolled a few times, and then—together with his body—shattered into sparkling data squares that dispersed in the center of the racetrack.
It was like a deleted video clip; he didn’t even have time to load a final line.
Honestly, the feeling of a “one-shot kill” was incredibly satisfying.
Satisfying enough that I briefly forgot my HP was down to “one-hit death” territory.
Satisfying enough that I almost wanted to laugh.
But I knew very clearly—the satisfaction didn’t come from victory.
It came from “finally being the one who pressed someone down for once.”
Humans really were despicable.
“As the KING—” I returned from two-dimensional state to three-dimensional, scythe resting against my leg, my tone as casual as asking about the weather, “—you should have realized something after seeing a skill like this, right, Xieyi Mayne?”
FLAME STORM’s HP bar dropped to zero in an instant.
The visual effect was perfect, but I wasn’t about to underestimate the guy because of it.
The Witch’s Scythe could indeed one-shot players without much experience, but my opponent was a KING.
Worse still—my current Life Points were hanging by a thread.
I couldn’t withstand even a single strike from JUSTICE PIKE.
In other words, I had looked cool for one second, and the next second I might die like a joke.
“I really held back a lot to avoid exposing my identity.”
I rubbed the back of my head helplessly, smiling like I was talking about someone else’s story.
“Now that it’s completely exposed, I actually feel relieved. After all… the reputation of my current identity isn’t any smaller than yours.”
Of course, reputation came in two flavors: one called “admired,” the other called “spectated.” I most likely belonged to the latter.
“Yoruichi… is this real?”
“What’s real?”
I looked straight into her eyes without dodging in the slightest.
“My strength? Or… my identity?”
She was the Rider King with the fastest speed in all of BHAO.
I had no reason to fight her head-on.
But the Reward Match countdown was still ticking, which meant that within the rules, I could still challenge the KING.
“Both… But how is this even possible!?”
Xieyi Mayne looked like someone had yanked her spine out. She clutched her own head.
Her sharp gaze lost its light, and her justice-filled face was filled with “this can’t be happening.”
Seeing her like this, I should have felt satisfied.
Because her collapse didn’t look like acting.
She was genuinely—losing some kind of expectation.
“Ah, I know it seems impossible too.” I gave a bitter smile.
“But if UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR hadn’t been such a useless class back then, or if you as KING hadn’t put so much pressure on me, maybe I would never have become like this.”
I had expected her to mock me, to laugh wildly, to thrust her lance and treat my confession as a weakness handed to her on a silver platter.
But she didn’t.
She simply lowered her head, body trembling slightly.
The atmosphere in the air changed abruptly—not the killing intent before battle, not the coldness of a scheme, but the resentment and unwillingness that came after losing an expectation.
It was like someone who had gone to great lengths to prepare a feast, only to discover the guest had never even sat down.
“Mayne… what exactly are you planning?”
She still didn’t answer.
I took a step forward, tightening my grip on the Witch’s Scythe as if pouring all my right to speak into the metal.
“Still no answer, huh.” I sighed.
“Figures. With that stubborn personality of yours, I probably won’t get an answer without clashing weapons.”
I understood.
We were both acting on our own reasons.
Even if everything she had done to me before had some purpose behind it, or if she had been forced by some power, my resentment toward her wouldn’t disappear because of it.
People didn’t get hurt by someone else’s “reasons”; they got hurt by someone else’s “actions.”
So the only way left was through a duel.
The Night Witch had no recovery abilities. Naturally.
After possessing ultra-high burst and ghostly movement, if she could also self-heal, BHAO—this “mobile-connected full-dive game”—would have collapsed into chaos long ago. Balance was one thing, but more important was “character identity.”
A witch famous for nighttime horror-movie-style attacks suddenly pulling out a “healing spell”—that image would be way too jarring. Like me suddenly saying “I’m actually really good at socializing.” No one would believe it.
My Life Points were down to one-hit death.
The racetrack wasn’t completely dark, and mana couldn’t replenish quickly.
In a normal duel I would already be at a disadvantage.
But duels weren’t just about clashing strength; they were about using the terrain to turn disadvantages into “advantages.”
Think, Yoruichi! After making that big declaration, think hard about how to deal with this KING!
Xieyi Mayne didn’t attack first. Niya-chan’s commentary didn’t continue hyping the crowd either. It was as if the entire world had hit the pause button.
Only the cars racing along the track kept roaring.
Exhaust fumes hazy, lights dragging red streaks, a low “vroom” sweeping from far to near like a snap of the fingers for my thoughts.
“…Got it.”
My thoughts accelerated to the limit.
Being a scythe wielder didn’t require fast movements so much as a clear mind.
And right now, I had seized the answer.
This was the ultimate attack I could pull off at my current Tier 6 by making full use of the racetrack.
At the same time, it was the strongest strike I could deliver.
“I remember now! Niya-chan has completely remembered! I’m sure everyone else is wondering the same thing—the way to dodge FLAME STORM’s semi-tracking attack and counter it! That mysteriously appearing yet strangely familiar black scythe! Isn’t this the Night Witch, the one recently known as the ‘urban legend of the dark night’!”
“The Night Witch? That legendary existence who can defeat high-tier players despite having a low tier?”
“What? Wasn’t that just a joke? Low tier beating high tier… is that guy some kind of glitch monster?!”
“No way, he can’t be the Night Witch. Look at his character ID—it’s clearly UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR!”
“But… isn’t Yoruichi a boy…? How could he…?”
“Tch, so I got found out after all.” I clicked my tongue.
“Even with CHASE THE STARDUST confusing things, the number of people willing to believe is small while the number of people doubting is even larger. Humans really have no mercy—of course, I’m not qualified to criticize them. I usually live by doubting things myself.”
The sound of the scythe scraping against the concrete pulled my attention back to the battlefield.
Xieyi Mayne’s face was dark, as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words out.
A shadowed mask.
That was probably the only way to describe her expression—unreadable and intimidating. Honestly, I really didn’t want to keep fighting Mayne when she looked like this.
But battles didn’t stop just because you said so. Especially when you had already backed yourself into a corner.
“Haaah—!”
I swung the scythe fiercely. Black wind danced along the blade, squeezing the air until it screamed.
Close…
Even without a back attack, the Witch’s Scythe itself packed enough power.
I spun on my heel, kicked off the ground to accelerate, and shortened the distance—this was everything I could do.
However—
Clang!
Even sharper than sparks was the light shooting from Xieyi Mayne’s eyes.
She spoke, her voice as cold as if she had written the rules onto the edge of a blade:
“THE JUSTICE TRIAL!”
The black scythe was almost at her neck.
But the moment her words fell, the scythe’s trajectory twisted strangely—the downward slash was yanked back by some invisible hand and lifted in reverse.
Immediately after, the sound of metal clashing exploded once more.
Clang—
It wasn’t simply “blocked.” It was more like—
The very causality of what could be attacked had been corrected.
A causal skill that can revise the opponent’s attack and return it to its state from two seconds earlier!
This was the Rider King’s most powerful defensive skill.