"Shining Phantom Strike?" Skybreaker's voice carried a hint of disbelief.
His mind was in complete chaos—what he had just witnessed was simply too absurd to comprehend.
Shining Phantom Strike. The legendary skill.
In Dark Scrolls, this ability was practically a myth, a god-tier technique whispered about in awe.
As the upgraded version of Everfall, Dark Scrolls had pushed its light-reflection algorithms to an insane level of realism—so much so that it bordered on the ridiculous.
Unlike in real life, weapons in the game didn't reflect light in a way that would create obvious glare. This was a deliberate design choice to prevent visual distractions from interfering with gameplay. But this also made the mechanics of light and shadow on weapons far more intricate.
Under this system, light reflecting off a weapon would scatter into billions of microscopic points, making it nearly impossible to focus into a single beam.
However, in rare and extreme circumstances, these scattered points could converge into a unique focal point—so blindingly bright that it could physically hurt the eyes of anyone looking directly at it.
If this focal point happened to align with a player's line of sight, their natural reaction would be to instinctively close their eyes.
In a static environment, a player might be able to experiment and figure out the exact position of this focal point. But in the chaos of high-speed combat? Controlling it with precision and using it to blind an opponent required an almost inhuman level of skill.
Across the entire game, with its billions of players, only a handful—perhaps a few dozen—had ever mastered this technique.
That's why Shining Phantom Strike was called a "god-tier skill." It wasn't just about blinding an opponent in the middle of a fight. When combined with other abilities, it created a combat rhythm so unpredictable that it was nearly impossible to counter.
In battles between top-tier players, even a split-second of blurred vision could decide the outcome.
What made it even more terrifying was its synergy with Phantom Step.
When used together, the player's movements would vanish entirely from their opponent's field of vision, as if they had turned into a ghost. All the opponent could see was a storm of flashing blades, with no way to lock onto the actual target.
Many players didn't even realize what was happening before they were instantly killed.
This overwhelming advantage made Shining Phantom Strike the ultimate dream skill for countless players.
But now, there was a problem—why the hell was a skeleton using Shining Phantom Strike?
"This is impossible!" Skybreaker was so furious he felt like he might cough up blood.
He couldn't make sense of what he was seeing.
"And how does this skeleton have such insane attack power? And an AoE Cleave effect on top of that?" His mind replayed the scene from moments ago: the Crimson Skull had swung its blade once, instantly obliterating ten Skeleton Warriors. The damage numbers were absurdly high.
That single strike had dealt over a thousand points of damage, turning the other skeletons into piles of shattered bones in an instant.
"What the hell?! This is a level 15 zone! How is there a level 50 hidden boss here?!" Skybreaker's face was pale with frustration.
He realized he had completely misjudged the situation. This was beyond embarrassing—it was humiliating.
"No, I can't let this slide. I have to tell my guild master about this!" He gritted his teeth and muttered under his breath, already planning his next move.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield…
"Player Skybreaker killed. Pillage effect triggered.
Skill acquired: Wind Walk."
Ethan's eyes lit up with surprise and delight.
He had only intended to test the strength of this hidden boss, but he hadn't expected that killing a player would also trigger the Pillage effect.
"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," he murmured, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
In Dark Scrolls, Pillage was Ethan's core ability. It allowed him to randomly steal a skill or attribute from an enemy after defeating them.
Up until now, he had assumed this ability only worked on monsters or NPCs. He hadn't realized it could also apply to players.
"Even though killing players doesn't grant evolution points, being able to steal their skills… now that's interesting." His mind began racing with possibilities.
"If I can steal core skills from players across all classes…" His thoughts grew more ambitious, and he could almost see a completely new combat system unfolding before him.
In Dark Scrolls, to maintain balance between classes, many powerful abilities were locked as class-exclusive and couldn't be learned by others.
But Pillage broke that rule.
Ethan realized that, theoretically, he could use this ability to collect and combine the strongest skills from every class, creating an unprecedented "ultimate skill set."
"What if… I could steal every crowd control skill from all the classes and create a combo that stuns enemies to death?" A spark of excitement flashed in Ethan's eyes.
"Or… what if I stole every summoning skill and built an unstoppable army of summons?" He couldn't help but laugh, already picturing his enemies trembling before him.
Wild ideas flooded Ethan's mind, each one like a seed quietly taking root, waiting to grow into something extraordinary.
[Wind Walk]
Skill Quality: Common
Current Level: 1
Effect: Consumes 50 mana to increase movement speed by 8% for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.
"This skill… is absolute trash," Ethan muttered under his breath, his tone dripping with disdain.
Wind Walk was a basic skill for the Swordsman class before their first job advancement.
Almost every player could learn it.
However, once players advanced their class, this skill was quickly replaced by more powerful abilities, becoming utterly useless. For most players, it was relegated to the forgotten corners of their skill bar, a relic of their early days.
But for Ethan, things were different.
"Maybe… if I max it out to level 10, it might actually be useful?" He stared at the skill interface, a glimmer of curiosity and expectation in his eyes.
Without hesitation, Ethan dispatched four stunned Necromancer players who had been too slow to react.
Although he was slightly disappointed that he hadn't managed to Pillage their skeleton summoning skill, he wasn't about to waste time dwelling on it.
He turned toward the unconscious DerpyKitty, gently pouring water from his waterskin onto her cracked lips. Then, he sat cross-legged beside her, upgrading his skills while waiting for her to wake up.
"Congratulations! You've spent 100 evolution points to upgrade Wind Walk. Current level: 2."
"Congratulations! You've spent 200 evolution points to upgrade Wind Walk. Current level: 3."
...
"Congratulations! You've spent 1,000 evolution points to upgrade Wind Walk. Current level: 10. Evolution breakthrough triggered. Skill breakthrough direction: Unknown. Requires 10,000 evolution points and 100 enhancement points to proceed."
"Breakthrough evolution?" Ethan's eyes lit up with excitement. He hadn't expected a basic skill to have the potential to break past its limits.
In Dark Scrolls, most common skills capped at level 10, epic-tier skills could go up to level 20, and supreme-tier skills maxed out at level 30. But this situation seemed to defy the game's established rules entirely.
"If I can keep leveling skills indefinitely…" Ethan's thoughts began to race. He realized this potential could allow him to completely rewrite the game's rules.
However, breakthroughs required enhancement points, which were far harder to obtain than evolution points.
"Looks like I'll need to figure out a way to farm enhancement points," he thought, feeling a slight sense of urgency. Without hesitation, he poured the rest of his evolution points into upgrading his other skills.
10th-Level Wind Walk: Movement speed increased from 8% to 80%.
10th-Level Quick Slash: Attack speed increased from 240% to 300%.
10th-Level Cleave Attack: AoE damage radius increased from 9% to 15%.
3rd-Level Morph Armor: Added a new weapon form—spear.
6th-Level Bloodlust Berserk: Attack and attack speed bonuses increased from 30% to 90%.
When the final skill upgrade was complete, Ethan still had 17,251 evolution points remaining. He glanced at his skill panel with satisfaction, a faint smile playing on his lips.
At that moment, Lily—DerpyKitty—finally stirred awake.
Her eyes fluttered open, still hazy with confusion. Her first instinct was to check her body. When she noticed her clothes were slightly disheveled, a faint blush crept across her face, her expression tinged with suspicion.
She glanced up at Ethan, who was standing guard near the cave entrance.
"This… Mr. Bones… could he have… while I was unconscious…" Her cheeks flushed deeper as her mind wandered to some rather peculiar scenarios.
However, Ethan seemed completely oblivious to her thoughts.
When he noticed she was awake, he raised his skeletal arm, the bones creaking and clattering as he gestured for her to follow him.
"Clack, clack, clack…" The sound of his bones echoed as he turned and walked toward the cave's exit.
His goal was clear—he needed to test his newly upgraded skills.