[Congratulations, player has drawn a Tier 19 Reward—Talent Modification XII.]

Allows modification of any talent skill up to SSS level by adding, changing, or removing 1–5 characters. To change a number, roll a die to determine which number will be altered.

Rita had drawn four Talent Modification XII rewards, along with three Tier 18 rewards—Talent Modification XI.

The difference between the two was simple. The XI version used a six-sided die with values between -3 and +3. The XII version, however, used a twelve-sided die, with results ranging up to +6.

Rita glanced over all the divine talents she currently possessed:

Midnight Exile, One-Person Party, God of Food, Immortal, Sharpshooter.

And a few other divine talents obtained separately—

Backstage, from Pine Bloom; Summer Snowman, Wrong Season, and Gift of Nature from the Card Swap game.

She rolled all seven dice at once.

+3, +6, +2, +1, -4, -3, -6.

She applied the +6 and +3 to increase the stack limit of her critical effect in Midnight Exile.

The +2 and +1 went toward boosting the critical damage multiplier.

Midnight Exile (Passive): When you kill a target, your next attack will automatically trigger triple critical damage. If you fail to one-shot your target, your next strike will deal eight times the previous attack's damage. This critical effect can now stack up to twelve times.

The -4, -3, and -6 she threw directly onto Bedtime Tale.

Skill 3: Bedtime Tale (Passive): You can never be one-shotted. Any attack that hits you can take no more than 17% of your total HP. That's the sweetest Bedtime Tale of all.

With that, all her talent modification rewards were spent.

She had chosen not to waste any on her lower-tier talents and instead pushed her strongest ones to their absolute limit.

The rest of her rewards, while not related to skill evolution or modification, were still immensely valuable—all Tier 18 and 19 rewards:

30 star-sea years of Combat Training, 20 star-sea years of Specialized Study, 3,000 Attribute Points, and Item Evolution X.

And finally, as the effect of Let It Die began to fade, she drew her one and only Tier 20 reward—a pure black rune.

[Invasion Protocol]: Once activated, it will connect BlueStar to a world of lower star rank, initiating an invasion. If BlueStar successfully absorbs the other world's server, BlueStar players' current level cap will increase proportionally based on the invaded world's power and rank, and BlueStar's own star rank will rise.

The rune's description continued with a dozen invasion regulations:

Since BlueStar currently has no star rank, it will be matched with a new, uninvaded world.

Consuming three Invasion Protocols at once allows a targeted invasion.

A world already at war cannot be invaded by others.

Worlds will be matched with opponents whose rank differs by no more than one star.

Rita held the palm-sized rune in silence for a long time.

She had thought about this countless times—back when she fought to the death above BlueStar's skies, when she was hunted through the Divine Game by Maple Syrup, Mistblade, and Wither Monarch.

She had always wondered: what could an invasion truly bring to a world like Lania Kaia? Why did there have to be war?

Now she understood—at least a little.

And she finally realized why, after she reached level 40 on the battlefield, her experience bar stopped moving. Chances were, every player on BlueStar had hit the same cap.

So this was what it meant: wars between worlds were a game that, once started, could never end.

Her own level didn't matter much to her.

She poured all her unallocated attribute points and rewards into her stats.

Rita — Level 40 (Tier 12: Nightmare)

HP: 498,875 / 498,875

MP: 589,575 / 589,575

Strength: 7,649

Constitution: 7,675

Intelligence: 7,861

Agility: 8,852

Luck: 10 (+99)

Charm: 10 (Max)

As BlueStar's Judgment, she now earned 20 attribute points every day, plus random advanced bonuses.

Even if she used Backstage to drop back to level 1, she could still crush any other player with ease.

But for the vast majority of BlueStar's players, the level cap was everything.

Few had talents that granted extra attribute points. For most, leveling up was the only way to grow stronger, and their stats—and by extension, their gear quality—depended on it.

And then there were resources.

As the war dragged on and Shadow.Q gathered more intel, she sent Rita a list of materials—common herbs and minerals on BlueStar, but rare and precious commodities in Lania Kaia, where they went by completely different names.

These were only the material benefits that invasion could bring. If it were just about profit, many peace-loving worlds might still refuse to take part.

But beyond profit, there was something far more terrifying: the unpredictable, inevitable invasions from other worlds.

A sword hanging over every world's head.

There was no such thing as peace.

No world could guarantee it wouldn't be matched against another.

The solution to this problem was already written into the Invasion Protocol's rules:

[When a world is at war, it cannot be invaded by others.]

If you invade a weaker world, not only do you protect yourself from stronger ones, but you also gain the other world's resources to strengthen your own.

Rita closed her eyes and pressed her palms to her face.

She would never forgive Lania Kaia for what they had done. Why should victims ever have to understand their oppressors?

And yet, she could already see it—the future where BlueStar walked the same path.

If BlueStar truly triumphed in its war against Lania Kaia, that day would come.

The choice was simple, brutal, and inevitable:

Wait to be invaded by a stronger world and be shattered,

or strike first—invade a weaker one to protect your own.

It was the kind of decision anyone could make without hesitation.

Why did such a cruel "game" have to exist?

But one more line from the rulebook lingered in her mind:

[When matching worlds, the rank difference will not exceed one star.]

The protocol did not define what determined a world's star rank, but as BlueStar's Judgment, she could access the relevant data directly.

Lania Kaia—Six-Star World.

And yet, such a world had invaded BlueStar, which didn't even have a star rank at the time.

That could only mean one thing: Lania Kaia's invasion had not been random matchmaking at all.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.