Chapter 96

[Third Person's PoV]

Zoe immediately sprang into action. She shot the arrow without hesitation, hitting a harpy in the chest. It puffed into purple smoke, scoring her 2 points.

In quick succession, she took arrows from her quiver and began releasing them.

She would grab an arrow, close one eye to aim, and fire her shot. Due to the speed of the monsters and their ability to dodge, Zoe missed a few.

But she quickly made up for them, showing exactly why she was the commander of Artemis' Hunters.

With one of her arrows, she even managed to kill two monsters at once due to careful and fast planning.

Toward the end of her turn, she killed one of the monsters and used the purple mist as a smoke screen, firing her arrow through it so the monsters couldn't detect it.

"And that's enough!" Artemis said, turning off the machine. All the monsters exploded into purple mist and flew back toward the projector.

Zoe went around collecting her used arrows from the ground before walking toward Artemis to inquire about her score.

"You scored a total of 176 points. You did well," Artemis praised with a smile.

Zoe looked toward Lucian, a bit smugly.

Lucian wasn't fazed and smiled. "For someone of your caliber, you did well."

"Hmm, naturally... Wait a minute," Zoe scoffed, quickly realizing something didn't sound right. But Lucian was already walking toward the center with his bow resting on his shoulder.

Artemis couldn't help but giggle at Zoe's expression.

Zoe looked at Artemis with a betrayed expression, causing Artemis to pat Zoe on the back. "I'm sorry, but your face was funny. You gotta learn how to make fast comebacks if you ever want to get back at him," she advised.

Zoe grumbled a bit before nodding in understanding.

Lucian conjured an arrow and prepared to shoot. He looked toward Artemis and nodded, indicating he was ready.

Artemis nodded back and hit the button. Not a second passed before Lucian shot his shot, hitting a Cyclops right in its giant eye.

Lucian ran around, pulling back on his bowstring, which caused an arrow to immediately form.

Using his spatial awareness made it easier for him to aim upwards and shoot where he wanted, hitting anything he wanted.

Lucian then slid on the floor while aiming up, and every time he flicked the bowstring, arrows appeared, firing toward the sky.

A group of hellhounds appeared, causing Lucian to jump into the sky.

Lucian faced down, aimed his bow at the hellhounds, conjured three arrows at once, and fired them, before firing some more. He then turned to the side and fired one more arrow at a storm spirit.

Lucian performed a flip, landed back on the ground, and continued to fire arrows with sharp turns.

Toward the end, when the 10 minutes were almost up, Lucian threw his bow toward the sky, faced Zoe, and fired a backfire arrow at her.

Before it reached her, a Griffin unexpectedly flew past, causing the fire arrow to hit it and explode. The fire arrow took the shape of a heart with a message in the middle: "You lose ;)"

"And that's final!" Artemis called out as Lucian's timer ran out. She hit the off button and Lucian walked up toward her. Zoe glared at him.

"You don't know for sure."

He didn't reply and looked toward Artemis with a smile.

Instead of giving his score, Artemis sighed and asked, "Why are you so petty?"

Lucian chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. "It's just who I am."

Zoe looked at Artemis in confusion. "What score did he receive?" she questioned, causing Artemis to sigh again.

"He got 177... exactly 1 more than you. His score could have been higher, but he chose to just one-up you," Artemis explained.

Zoe's eyebrows twitched. "Are you saying he's better than me, my lady?" she asked, her fist tightening and her knuckles turning white.

"I'm afraid so, my dear. It's truly unfortunate you aren't a girl Lucian," Artemis regrettably sighed.

"Please forgive me, my lady, but I refuse to believe it. I have honed my skill for years on end until my fingers bled. And you expect me to believe someone who just recently got into his double digits is better than me?" Zoe said.

"You saw it yourself, Zoe. Accept your loss with pride. It was a fair competition in which you both agreed on the rules."

"It's not about the competition. I know I lost. No matter how much I want to complain and refuse such a notion, I know I lost, so there's nothing to say about that. I won't admit he's better than me."

Artemis just nodded, understanding how Zoe was feeling.

Lucian shrugged his shoulders, not really caring either way. "The results speak for themselves, lady," he said as he walked away, waving.

After finishing his training with his bow, Lucian went on to train his mastery with other weapons—whether with his sword, spear, chain sickle, or bo staff—until late into the night.

As he walked back towards his cabin, Lucian noticed that the lights in the library were still on and decided to check it out.

When he entered, he saw Annabeth sorting books and putting them back where they belonged while standing on a tall ladder.

When she noticed Lucian, she smiled and slid down. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Saw the lights were on and wanted to see if you needed help."

Annabeth shook her head. "No thanks. I've got everything covered, plus it's good for the you-know-what."

Lucian nodded before sitting down by one of the reading tables, waiting for her to finish as she stored more books.

"So, anything planned?" Annabeth asked, wanting to start a conversation.

"Yeah, in a few days I have to travel to Europe," Lucian said, leaning back in the chair.

Annabeth was a bit surprised to hear that. "How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know. It depends on how long it takes me to find what I need."

"And that is?"

"Essence of a treasure-hunting mouse."

"Shouldn't it be rather easy?" Annabeth wondered.

Lucian shook his head. "They're hard to find and extremely rare."

"Wait," Annabeth said as she stopped what she was doing and turned towards Lucian. "Were you seriously planning on searching all of Russia?"

"Yeah? Shouldn't I? I mean, I would also use my shadow soldiers to help."

Annabeth blinked a few times before giggling and shaking her head. "There's no need to do all that. You'd just be wasting your time. You're able to control riches, so gather a bunch of gems and drachmas and other treasures, imbue them with a locator spell, and bury them all together. Instead of driving yourself crazy looking for them, they would come to you. There's no need to search the entirety of Russia to find them."

Lucian looked away, a bit embarrassed, as Annabeth continued to giggle. "I can't believe you were seriously about to do that. It would have taken you months."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Lucian said, rolling his eyes with a small smile.

Annabeth looked at Lucian and smirked. "Don't worry, I am," she said, still giggling.

"Thanks for the idea, though" Lucian said with a nod.

"Anytime," Annabeth smiled.