Flying archer

Walking on the stone-made bridge, Frederick calmly made his way to the next floating island. It has been exactly 3 weeks since the beginning of the story.

Those three weeks were relatively uneventful. From time to time, Frederick purposely slowed down the pace so other candidates could catch up. The reason was simple and obvious: he wanted to maximize his experience gain.

Yet Frederick did not let his guard down. He knew that from now on, all candidates would be relatively strong and very cautious.

In addition to the candidates, the story itself was extremely ruthless. Considering that each candidate would, on average, take between 20 minutes to three hours to ascend an island if they are unlucky enough. This left only about two hours of rest per island climbed. And that was assuming they ignored the night phase, where climbing was next to impossible due to the wind and lack of vision.

Luckily, this also worked in Frederick's favor. Most candidates would be extremely exhausted from the constant pressure, making his job of hunting them even easier.

Soon, the next floating island appeared in the distance, and Frederick accelerated.

After crossing the bridge, he arrived in a familiar environment. It was a flatland covered with dead trees. The ground was full of roots, and the vegetation was mostly withered. There was no life, and the whole island was completely silent, giving off an eerie aura.

Frederick did not say anything and continued his way. He was already used to this view. After the first week, the vegetation slowly died because of the intense rain during the night phase, which drowned all plants.

When he first visited the tower that served as a school, he had some theories about how these islands or how the tower ended up here. He became sure of it only after seeing multiple buildings with the same origin. If his guess was correct, these flying islands were not created by the Chronicles. Instead, they were "stolen" from a realm called Terra, to which the tower he previously visited belonged.

However, Terra had no such thing as flying islands, meaning that the Chronicles probably just took large chunks of the realm, made them float, and called it a day.

"Looking at the state of the tower I previously visited, they were likely still occupied by humans before being pulled here. If all the ground in the main story is from Terra, then... the world must be destroyed. Even if it wasn't, it is probably riddled with holes."

The more he thought about it, the more probable it seemed.

Taking one of the shortest bridges toward the next island, Frederick did not waste any time and quickly traversed it.

When he was about halfway, he suddenly noticed a shadow. Immediately, he moved forward and barely dodged. As he did, an arrow brushed past his head and lodged itself in the stone bridge.

 Seeing this, Frederick frowned a bit.

'It is much faster than the average arrow.'

Looking in the direction from which the arrow had come, Frederick's frown deepened. Without wasting time, he sprinted as fast as possible toward the next island.

Above the void, a giant insect was flying. It had the body of an insect, and the wings resembled bats. Its appearance was reminiscent of a dragonfly, and its eyes were gleaming. It also had a stinger on its behind and a metallic-looking exoskeleton.

On the insect's back sat a human figure. He had a red bow in hand and was currently aiming at Frederick.

However, Frederick did not show any sign of fear. Instead, his enhanced mind was racing at full speed to analyze the situation.

'Since One against the World did not activate, we're very still likely in the Main Hub World. If we count the fact that only hunters and candidates are allowed in this world, that creature must be a candidate... A transformation type authority?'

Authorities can have various kinds of effects and properties. Some need to be activated using calculative power, while some rare authorities are passive and activate automatically when certain conditions are met.

There are also authorities that have both passive and active effects. Transformation-type authorities fall into this category. Users of transformation authorities can transform into a creature that fits the nature of their authority.

By transforming into their beast form, the authority alters the user's form and significantly boosts their attributes, sometimes even granting them supernatural abilities like invisibility or fire breath on rare occasions.

Moreover, their transformation does not require any calculative power. Despite this, transformation-type authorities are not considered rare. In fact, they are quite common, as no matter how powerful a transformation authority might be, it will always be classified as a lesser rarity because of its low growth potential.

'They probably saw me way earlier but patiently waited for me to start climbing a bridge to attack me. This will be difficult. I can't dodge efficiently nor seek cover.'

"Shoot."

The man riding the insect-like creature shot an arrow. This arrow was clearly different from the previous one; it was much faster and had a light green color with a strange symbol on the shaft.

As it neared Frederick, it suddenly split into six arrows, each aimed to prevent him from dodging. The arrows dispersed, covering a large area. Frederick's expression became slightly more serious.

He knew he couldn't dodge the arrows on the narrow bridge he was currently on. Blocking was his only viable option. However, the quantity posed a significant challenge.

Even with his physical strength and reflexes, blocking six arrows was impossible. With little choice, he drew his dagger and managed to deflect five arrows. The remaining one struck his left shoulder, piercing through his clothes and tearing a bit of his coat.

Yet Frederick did not stop, ignoring the arrows in his flesh. Soon, he arrived at the floating island and quickly hid behind a rock for cover.

With swift movements, Frederick removed the arrows from his body. Although the arrow head was still stuck inside his body, it was enough for now. His wound bled profusely for a moment, staining his clothes red, but then the bleeding abruptly stopped after a few seconds.

Since the purification of his body, he had become particularly attuned to any foreign object or substance inside him, including poisoned arrowheads like those that had struck him.

When Frederick was hit, he immediately felt the poison. He did not waste time and controlled his own blood, isolating the affected area to prevent the poison from spreading before forcefully ejecting it from his body.

The man on the flying insect saw that Frederick somehow survived and became annoyed.

"Did you get him?" asked the creature with a high-pitched voice.

"Who do you think I am? Although I have to admit he's fast. I didn't expect him to survive my multishot. But even if he did, he'll die from your poison," the archer replied with a smirk.

"Good! It's my turn to loot. You had the last one. I hope his authority is good enough—" However, before he could finish his sentence, a loud noise came from the island, and a bullet suddenly struck the insect's exoskeleton.

"Fuck, that hurts! He's got a gun, and it's not a small caliber!" cursed the creature, grunting in pain as it sped up and flew higher.

"Fly higher! He won't be able to aim correctly!"

"What do you think I'm doing?! Instead of complaining, shoot!"

Before they could take further precautions, a few more bullets struck the insect's wings, causing it to wobble and nearly fall.

The man on its back wore a serious expression and drew his red bow, his eyes scanning the area in a desperate attempt to locate the shooter.

"Uh? I can't detect him! All his traces disappeared!"

"What do you mean you can't detect him? Use your goddamn authority!"

"I'm trying! But no matter what I do, I can't seem to find him! There's not even any light from his gun when he shoots!"

The creature continued flying around in an attempt to dodge bullets while the archer frantically searched the surroundings. However, no matter where the archer looked, he couldn't see the shooter.

'Where the hell is he shooting from?!'

Soon, a few more bullets struck the flying insect, causing it to roar in pain as blood gushed out from its body.

"We can't keep on going like this! I can't see where he's shooting from! We're dead if we stay any longer! Let's run-" However, a sudden realization struck the man as his eyes widened, and a look of panic appeared on his face as he remembered something.

"Wait, you did not attack him directly, so... don't tell me-"

Seeing that the creature did not respond, the man started to panic "Oh no, no no no. Do something! You have a higher constitution attribute than this guy in this form and-"

"Just shut it! He's poisoned, so we just have to hold and wait for him to die!" the creature retorted.

With no choice, the insect lowered its altitude and began flying under one of the bridges to use it as cover. The man on its back was still aiming his bow, waiting for his opportunity and still looking for Frederick with no success.

Watching them fly around the island like headless flies, Frederick did not do anything and even stopped shooting. He knew that they were waiting for him to either waste ammo or get weakened by the poison.

It was indeed a one-sided fight, but unlike what they believed, it was not in their favor. While they were waiting for the poison to work, Frederick was waiting for the creature to bleed out due to his shots.

Yet, what they did not know was that Frederick had already ejected the poison out of his body, meaning that they were basically waiting for their own doom.

'Strange. Why don't they run away?'

Frederick frowned a bit. He did not understand why they did not leave when they had the chance. They had to know that they were in a bad spot.

After thinking for a moment, Frederick's eyes shined as a thought flashed through his mind. 'Nobody would be dumb enough to stay despite this situation. If they could run away, they would have already done so. It only leaves a single possibility... a curse.'