Terra Nova Online : Rise Of The Strongest Player

(A few minutes later, Leo's POV)

A few minutes later, as the official gaming hours ended, Leo let out a huge sigh of relief, thinking that he had finally made it!

"Wooo—, nothing can stop me now!" He muttered under his breath, walking happily towards the boundary, when suddenly he sensed danger.

There was an unmistakable whistling noise behind him, like the whirring of a weapon through the wind, causing his pupils to dilate.

'Incoming….' he thought, managing to turn his head ever so slightly out of reflex, as an arrow zoomed past his face, grazing just the tip of his ears.

-120.

A stream of blood streaked down his ear, as he turned to face the enemy, who to his surprise was nowhere in sight.

"The hell?" Leo muttered, becoming extremely alert, as he scanned his surroundings with extreme caution.

"Who's there? Who dares shoot at me?" He asked, however, there was no response.

The archer who shot the arrow at Leo had now expertly concealed themself, making it nearly impossible for Leo to pinpoint his/her location.

*Shot*

A stinging sensation arose in his shoulder, followed by a searing pain that spread rapidly through his arm.

Leo staggered backward, his breath hitching as the world momentarily blurred around him.

His left shoulder had been impaled completely by a foreign object and as he tried to remove it with his right palm, he realized that it felt like the smooth shaft of an arrow.

"Argh!" he gritted his teeth, feeling his knees weaken, as when he tried to pull the arrow out, the pain he felt was too excruciating to beat.

He had been impaled through his shoulders just a few hours ago today, however, this time, the pain wasn't just surface-deep; it radiated through his entire arm, sending sharp, nerve-wracking jolts into his shoulder and chest.

His left palm, which was clutching a dagger that he had pulled out for protection, trembled uncontrollably as he felt his grip falter.

The arrow hadn't just pierced him—it had struck a critical nerve cluster in his left arm, disrupting his ability to control his hand entirely.

The dagger slipped from his grasp, clattering uselessly to the ground as Leo felt his fingers going numb.

Panic swirled in his chest as he tried and failed to flex his palm, as even the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain shooting through his arm, making it nearly impossible to steady himself.

'This… isn't just an arrow,' Leo thought, a cold realization dawning on him, as the precision of the shot and the unrelenting agony it caused were unlike anything he had experienced before.

To make matters worse, the attack had come out of nowhere—completely silent and invisible, giving Leo no chance at defending himself.

'Where?' Leo thought, struggling back to his feet as he tried to detect the enemy desperately.

He strained his senses to the limit, trying to pinpoint the direction of the shot, but there was nothing to grasp on.

In the open surroundings around him, there was no rustle of movement, no glint of light reflecting off a weapon.

The arrow seemed to have materialized from thin air, bypassing every instinct and defense he had.

"How... how the hell did the enemy do that?" he whispered, his voice shaking with frustration and pain.

The invisibility and soundlessness of the attack made it all the more terrifying. It was as if his assailant were a phantom, striking from the shadows with supernatural precision.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck…. I'm so close to safety too–" Leo thought, as he felt his instincts screaming at him to move, to find cover and hide, but his body felt sluggish, as if it were weighed down by the injury.

"Can't die here…" He muttered eventually, as using all the tricks he had up his sleeve at once, he used [Vanish] followed by [Mirror World] to create countless clones of himself, that scattered away in all directions, while he himself ran towards safety in a separate direction, with two clones acting as a body shield for him, running in front and behind.

*Shot*

An arrow whizzed through the air, silent and swift, embedding itself into the neck of the clone trailing behind Leo.

The clone didn't even falter—it simply disintegrated into shimmering fragments, vanishing like smoke in the wind, as Leo stumbled on the path he ran.

'The enemy is behind me', he thought, as his heart raced.

Turning, he faced the direction where the enemy was at, and waited for any incoming attacks while still remaining invisible to the naked eye, as he tried to figure out how the enemy pin-pointed his exact location.

Out of all the clones scattered in every direction, the enemy had pinpointed him, the real him, with terrifying accuracy, and this baffled Leo.

The clones were meant to confuse, to scatter his enemy's focus and attacks, but somehow, the enemy had seen through his strategy with ease.

"How?" He muttered under his breath, until he noticed the faint crimson trail on the road leading up to his position.

Blood.

Leo's breath hitched as he realized the horrifying truth. His wound. The arrow in his shoulder had left him bleeding heavily, and the trail of blood was like a beacon, guiding his enemy directly to him.

"Damn it!" he hissed, feeling a wave of dread wash over him, as no amount of clones or misdirection could ever mask the glaring evidence he was leaving behind with every step.

"Fuck me…" he muttered, as he could feel his strength ebbing as blood loss began to take its toll, making his movements slightly sluggish and unsteady.

He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to think through the pain, but with the enemy still undetectable to him, he could not come up with many viable solutions.

'I need to find the enemy and somehow confront him… with the enemy being an Archer, unless I can close-in the range advantage, I'm going to be a dead man' Leo thought, as he understood that without locating the enemy and closing down, he had no chance for survival.