NOVEL NEXT Chapter 97: Monster Of The Fourth Day!
Looking at Aria's corpse lying motionless before him, Bruce exhaled softly, his expression unreadable.
"What a boring fight…" he muttered, his tone flat, disappointed even.
The words hung in the air, carried by the faint wind. Yet behind that calm voice, something else lingered. A dull, unfamiliar heaviness.
Honestly, the fight could have been interesting, should have been. Aria had skill, intelligence, the kind of tactical sharpness he rarely saw among recruits. But everything changed the moment she said it…
'Monster.'
He wasn't going to lie to himself. Those words stuck.
Bruce's gaze fell to his hand, the same one that had ended her life so easily moments ago. It still faintly glowed with residual light from his last skill, the faint warmth of [Holy Rupture] fading slowly.
'Monster, huh…' he thought quietly, flexing his fingers. The knuckles cracked softly. 'Is that what I'm becoming? Or was I already one long before this?'
The question didn't hurt. It didn't comfort him either. It just… lingered.
His reflection glimmered faintly in a puddle of blood near her head, eyes cold, posture relaxed, face devoid of remorse. For a second, he couldn't tell if what stared back at him was still human.
He let out a low sigh and shook his head.
'In the end, it's just VR. Just code. Data and projections.' He told himself that again, forcing the thought deeper until it stuck. 'No point thinking too much about things like this. I need the cash, that's all that matters. If killing every single recruit in this simulation is what it takes… then so be it.'
For a brief moment, silence swallowed everything. The simulated wind blew gently across the cracked earth, tugging lightly at Aria's hair.
Bruce turned away. The moment his back faced her, the faint emotion that had flickered in his eyes was gone, sealed away behind that same cold, unshakable calm.
His body relaxed, his mind refocused.
In an instant, he was back to himself.
Efficient. Controlled. Detached.
"As long as I win," he muttered under his breath, walking forward, "nothing else matters."
And just like that,
He got his shit back together.
Then sighing, Bruce brought up his map. The faint blue screen flickered into view before his eyes, dots pulsing softly across the digital terrain. Then he checked the ranking next, but as his gaze swept through the cluster of glowing names, his brows furrowed.
[BRUCE ACKERMAN — Points: 160,022]
[JEAN FROST — Points: 72,800]
[DOMINIC SAVIOR — Points: 43,473]
[LUKE DROT — Points: 36,321]
[FRISCA FOX — Points: 35,677]
[BALE LAS — Points: 33,720]
[CLAIRE REDWYN — Points: 31,655]
[IVAN BLACKTHORN — Points: 29,999]
[RAVEN NIGHTFALL — Points: 29,432]
[RAEL SILVERSHARD — Points: 28,321]
[KAI STORMBLADE — Points: 28,312]
[LUNA GRAYMANTLE — Points: 28,123]
…
The list went on and on.
"Damn…" Bruce muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing. "They've all racked up this much already? On the fourth day?"
For a brief moment, he was honestly impressed. The average points were higher than he expected.
Still, he knew the reason. Everyone here was at least A-Rank, powerful enough to hold their own, making progress relatively even across the board. But among them, there were outliers, monsters who didn't just participate in the trial. They dominated it.
Jean Frost. Aria Stormheart. Donn Chit. A few more recruits and himself. Each of them was different, carriers of exceptional classes, broken abilities, or unnatural instincts and skills that made them stand far above the rest.
But of them all, there was one name that had already begun to spread through every corner of the VR trial like wildfire, the monster of monsters, the slayer of everything that breathed, slayer of recruits, slayers of slayers!
The recruit whose name alone sent others running!
Bruce Ackerman!
Ever since he'd killed two top rankers, Donn Chit and Aria Stormheart in quick succession, his name had become synonymous with death. Recruits now treated the map like a lifeline, checking it constantly, scanning for the one glowing dot that meant certain doom.
And whenever that dot moved closer,
they ran.
No hesitation. No second thoughts. They simply scattered like prey before a predator, clearing out whole territories the moment they noticed his approach.
It was almost amusing at first, watching the dots scatter the instant he made a move. But soon, it became annoying.
'Tch… they're adapting,' Bruce thought, eyes cold. 'Every time I move in on someone, they run before I even get close. The map's ruining the hunt.'
He could still close the distance easily if he pushed his speed to the limit, but it didn't make things any less tedious. Chasing ghosts that constantly fled before he could reach them wasn't much of a challenge, it was a chore.
Still, not everyone was lucky, or smart, enough to keep checking their map every few minutes.
And those who forgot?
They didn't live long enough to regret it.
Each time Bruce came across one of those unfortunate few, it ended the same way. A clean kill. A flash of motion. A new set of points added to his name.
One of them had carried a pair of short daggers, sleek, well-balanced, clearly looted from an early raid chest. Bruce had taken them without hesitation.
After Aria's fight, he had no intention of using his fists for every kill anymore. Too messy. Too limiting.
He liked the sight of blood, the clean slice, the warm splatter, the undeniable finality of it, but there were limits to such indulgence. Even with his class skills, Bruce still preferred using a pair of daggers most of the time.
"Not bad," Bruce said, examining the edge. The weapons gleamed faintly under the artificial sunlight.
"Let's keep things cleaner this time…" he muttered, spinning one of the daggers in his hand before slipping it into a reverse grip.
His lips curved faintly. "…for now."
Now, with his new weapons, he moved like a shadow. A hunter among hunters. Cutting down both beasts and recruits alike with precise, efficient strikes.
No wasted movement. No unnecessary emotion.
Just the steady rhythm of death echoing through the wilds.
And as the sun dipped lower across the simulated sky, the name Bruce Ackerman glowed brighter than ever on every recruit's map, a silent warning that death was on the move again.