He lightly licked the tip of his tooth; every cell in Qiyu’s body shuddered at the sight. 

It was as if he had returned to the end of the world, when a person had accidentally stumbled into the lair of a cleft-mouth monster.

But things were different now.

He now had a healthy body, magic at his disposal, and powerful gear and items.

Moreover, swifts were not some disgusting, useless cleft-mouth monster. They were a source of points.

He had been calculating the distance the whole time.

He could stay here for no more than two hours. After two hours, no matter how enticing the place might be, he would have to head back at full speed—otherwise, he wouldn’t make it back to the shelter before dark. 

Qiyu wasted no time.

He raised the Heart of the Great Tree Staff, and magic surged forth like a raging waterfall. 

The rain falling from the sky gave birth to swifts, which could also become blades in the mage’s hands. 

【Killed Level 1 swifts x100……】

 【Killed Level 1 swifts x68……】

The Survival Panel kept issuing alerts.

On the leaderboard, the score for “I Love Survival Game” began to climb at a terrifying pace.

11,200, 12,361, 12,999, 13,878…

It quickly surpassed “My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens,” jumping to second place, and continued to widen the gap, closing in on the leader.

Server 01 Regional Channel:

【The More I Involution The Bitterer My Life Becomes: ??? Can someone tell me what’s going on here?】 

【Liver Emperor: Holy crap, did someone mess with the Swift’s Nest?】 

【Little Old Me: @I Love Survival Game, could you game pros share your strategies? Since there are no rewards for the rankings anyway, there’s no competition among us—if we gain points, let’s all share them.】

【Reaching for the Moon in the Heavens: He’s so strong—I can’t beat either of them. You’re tagging him, but he’s too busy to respond. Haven’t you seen how fast his points are rising?  He’s too busy killing swifts.】

……

What a thrill! 

The mage’s area-of-effect attack was perfectly effective in this situation. With every wave of attacks, he reaped a huge haul of points.

There were simply too many Swifts; occasionally, a few stragglers would break through the magical defenses and charge right at Qiyu.

At first, Qiyu quickly eliminated them, until he realized that the damage dealt by these swifts—most of which were Level 1 mutated creatures—wasn’t even enough to breach the defense of the Guardian Mage Robe.

With no worries about his safety now, Qiyu fully transformed himself into a ruthless point-harvesting machine.

In the Server 01 regional chat, one after another, usernames that rarely appeared were suddenly popping up: 

【Azure Sea Rises: ?】

【I Am Lily: Please tell me that cheats don’t exist in survival games.】 

【Where’s My Hair?: Awesome.】 

【Liver Emperor: I’d like to know, too. At this scoring speed, it can’t be that there are tens of thousands of swifts just standing still for him to kill, right?】 7

【A Stray By The Road: Even if there were tens of thousands of swifts standing still, waiting for me to kill them, I couldn’t kill them that fast.】

【Cockroach Taste Is So Weird: Wow, this has brought up so many top-ranked players who rarely show up.】

Event Leaderboard.

1st Place: I Love Survival Game. Points: 43,309. 

2nd Place: Reaching for the Moon in the Heavens. Points: 17,000.

3rd Place: “My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens.” Points: 12,180.

Having just scored a wave of double points, “My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens” confidently opened the leaderboard. 

At first glance, he thought he’d been so focused on slaying monsters that he was seeing things. Unsure, he exited and checked again.

He clicked back in.

1st place: “I Love Survival Game.” Points: 43,900. 

That’s even 600 points more than before. 

What the heck?

He opened the zone chat—everyone was talking about it.

【My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens: @I Love Survival Game???】 

There was more than one person doing this, and Qiyu, of course, treated everyone the same—he didn’t have time to deal with them. My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens stared at the absurd score and just thought it was ridiculous.

【My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens: @I Am Domineering, where are you? Why haven’t you shown up yet?】

【The group member you’re currently @ing is no longer in the group.】 

My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens：？？？

Glancing at the group member list, “I Am Domineering’s” ID had vanished. “My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens” felt a wave of dizziness wash over him.

He scrolled through his friends list from top to bottom but didn’t see “I Am Domineering.” 

What the heck?

“My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens.” searched for his ID to add him, but found that he couldn’t.

In this situation, there’s only one possibility: he’s been blocked by “I Am Domineering.”

Region 01 Channel:

【My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens: @I Am Domineering  Get out here! You bastard, what do you mean by that?】

The players who had just been heatedly discussing how “I Love Survival Game” actually pulled it off got excited all over again the moment they saw this. 

For the new event—when there are no Swifts attacking—it’s naturally time to sit back and rest, letting the intensity refresh the leaderboard.

Even if “My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens” were to fall from grace, he’d still be one of the most influential figures in Server 01.

I Am Domineering

What’s going on here? Is there infighting within the Hall of Gods?

There’s a scandal brewing—the players are really on the ball.

“What’s this supposed to mean? You don’t treat me like a human being—why should I risk my life for you?”

【I Am Domineering: It’s my bad luck to have a leader like you. You didn’t even care when Xiao Shuai died under mysterious circumstances, and even though I’ve done so much for you, you completely ignored my wishes and forced me to go to your sanctuary to help you farm points.】

【I Am Domineering: My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens—and who do you think you are, anyway?】

【Cockroach Taste Is So Weird: Whoa, that’s intense!】

【Reaching for the Moon in the Heavens: 6】

【My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens: I already told you—when the time comes, you’ll get plenty of items in exchange for your points, and there’ll be extra compensation too.】

【My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens: If you don’t want to, just say so. Why pretend to agree just to trick me out of my teleportation scrolls and items?】

【I Am Domineering: Screw you. Are you still playing games? You just sent the teleportation scroll, then said, “Come back in half an hour.” Is that supposed to give me a chance to refuse?】

【I Am Domineering: Weren’t you acting all cocky when you were private messaging me? Why don’t you dare use that tone in the zone chat?】

【I Am Domineering: And as for “tricking you out of your teleportation scrolls and supplies”—didn’t you give them to me yourself? You’re so stupid!】

He was clearly ready to burn all bridges.

“My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens” was practically about to explode with rage. Ever since his rebirth, who in this survival game hadn’t been fawning over him?

This was the first time someone had called him out by name and insulted him to his face in the regional channel.

What he found most unbearable was that this person was actually one of his former followers.

【My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens: You’re Doomed @I Am Domineering.】 

When I Am Domineering read this line, his heart skipped a beat.

But when he recalled the news he’d overheard, he felt a little calmer.

【I Am Domineering: What’s the matter? Still trying to kill me to silence me?】

【I Am Domineering: I know you have an item that can attack players from a distance. If you’ve got the guts, come after me! Everyone, if my ID ever goes gray, “My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens” is the prime suspect!】

An item that can attack players from a distance?

This sent a shock through everyone’s minds, and they were astonished by “I Am Domineering”’s audacity—knowing full well that the other player had something lethal in their possession, yet daring to provoke them so recklessly.

Moreover, he was willing to take such a huge risk just to completely burn bridges with him—this big shot must be pretty mean behind the scenes, right?

“My Fate is Determined By Me, Not The Heavens” was grinding his teeth in rage. If he could appear before “I Am Domineering” right now, he’d tear him to pieces and make him regret every word he’d said.

【I Am Domineering: Oh, I forgot. Haven’t you already used your item? If you could kill him to silence him, you’d definitely choose “I Love Survival Game” first—after all, you hate him so much your eyes are practically bleeding.】 

【I Am Domineering: You curse him every day in the small group chat, but unfortunately, he’s just that good. He snatched the top spot on the leaderboard from you—it must’ve driven you crazy.】

【Irritable Brother: Wow.】

【The More I Involution The Bitterer My Life Becomes: Holy crap!】

【Cockroach Taste Is So Weird: Is it even okay to say that?】 

【Reaching for the Moon in the Heavens: Brilliant.】

【A Stray By The Road: Does the top player even know how much people hate him?】

【Liver Emperor: Maybe you should take a look—the gaming expert already has over 60,000 points.】

【Liver Emperor: If I were the Gaming Expert, I’d be grinning from ear to ear. Points can be traded for good stuff—as for other people’s petty hatred? Love or hate, what difference does it make?】

So even swift gets scared.

Qiyu had already downed several bottles of magic potions. Calculating the time, he was actually pondering how to make a retreat.

Unexpectedly, the swarm of Swifts had the exact same idea. 

It’s a mystery how this vast forest could hide so many swifts—they seemed endless.

But no matter how endless they might be, being used as points by a mage capable of casting area-of-effect spells and downing potions—tens of thousands of them—was enough to scare them. Vast swaths of snow-white points… oh, wait, swifts—flapped their wings and fled the area. 

Qiyu let out a slight sigh of relief.

If the swifts hadn’t retreated, he would have been the one forced to retreat.

If this kept up, he might even end up losing the magic scrolls in his backpack.

He opened the Survival Panel’s event page.

He was startled by the points himself.

First Place: I Love Survival Game. Points: 69,998.

Qiyu stared at that number for a few seconds.

A wind blade shot out, cutting through the last few swifts.

Points: 70,001

That feels good. 

Collect all loot into your backpack with a single click.

Just as Qiyu was about to leave, his gaze fell upon the massive black tree standing quietly in the rain. A curious idea took root in his mind.

Swifts love to nest in this mysterious black tree.

So, what if he dug up a few of them and placed them in the shelter? Wouldn’t that be like having an all-you-can-eat buffet? 

No time to waste.

Once his magical energy had recovered a bit, he walked straight to one of the trees, placed his palm against the trunk, and an earthy-yellow glow surged forth. His mental energy flowed along the earth element into the ground, and Qiyu could clearly see the tree’s roots beneath the surface.

He couldn’t help but marvel: despite having long since lost its vitality—and who knows how long ago it had died—the root system of this giant tree was still so remarkably intact. 

Since he was moving the tree—even if it was dead—Qiyu still did his best to preserve the integrity of the trunk. 

【Obtained a mysterious ancient tree that has lost its life ×1.】

He could still dig more. 

Qiyu looked at the black tree icon in his backpack and got back to work, digging up five more trees.

It was about time; six should be more than enough. 

Before leaving, he thoughtfully used earth magic to fill in the huge hole left by digging up the trees. 

Then, he cast a Wind Magic spell to grant himself Lightness and hurried on his way. 

Time to go home!