If you have spent more than a couple of rounds on Astra Malorum, you already know the pain of burning through points at the Mystery Box, praying for a Ray Gun and getting the same useless sniper three times in a row while your mate brags about his CoD BO7 Bot Lobby setup. The nice twist on this map is that you do not actually have to rely on luck to get the Ray Gun at all. There is a guaranteed, totally free method built around the wisp system and a weird little Easter egg linked to the Zarya Cosmodrome Rocket, and once you understand it, the Box becomes way less important.

Finding And Charging The Lanterns

Early on, instead of sprinting straight to the Box, slow down and start checking the lanterns dotted around the map. Most of them look dead, just empty glass. You want the one with a faint glow inside, almost like it is flickering. When you see that, line up on it, ADS, and keep your sights locked on that light for about five seconds. It feels way longer when you have zombies groaning behind you, so it is usually smarter to leave a crawler or have a friend kite the last few. If you hold steady long enough, a wisp pops out and latches onto your character like a little floating follower.

Managing Wisps Without Wasting Them

This is the point where most people mess up. The game lets you throw your stored wisp with a melee attack, and it is strong. You can insta-kill a zombie, chain a bit of crowd control or even use it to light other lanterns for free perk rewards. It feels great in a panic. The problem is, if you chuck every wisp the second you get it, you will never have one when it really matters. You can hold up to five at once, and a new wisp spawns each round, so the smart move is to grab one early and just pretend your melee button does not exist for a while. It is awkward, you will instinctively want to knife a zombie that gets too close, but that one stored wisp is the key to the Ray Gun.

Watching The Sky For The Rocket

Once you are carrying at least one wisp, the game shifts into a waiting game. Instead of staring at wall weapons, you want to keep glancing out past the map boundaries, up toward the horizon. You are hunting for the Ashes of the Damned main quest rocket, the huge Zarya Cosmodrome Rocket that eventually cuts across the sky. It does not show up early at all. From test runs and casual games, it usually starts appearing somewhere around Round 16, sometimes a bit later if your pace is slow. Miss it the first time and it is not the end of the world, because it loops back roughly every 15 minutes or so, but that wait can feel brutal when you know a free Wonder Weapon is on the line.

Landing The Wisp Throw And Claiming The Ray Gun

When the rocket finally roars across the sky, that is your window. You have to melee to launch your stored wisp at the moving target, and it is not some instant, perfect beam. There is travel time, so you need to lead the rocket a bit, like you would with a slow projectile in multiplayer. People often aim right at the nose and watch the wisp trail behind uselessly. Try throwing slightly ahead of its path and a touch above its flight line. If the wisp connects with the rocket hull, you will see the effect pop and a free Ray Gun drops into the map, ready for you to grab and carry into the later rounds without spending a single point. Nailing that throw feels like pulling off a clutch trick shot, and once you have done it a few times, it becomes one more reason to load up Astra Malorum instead of grinding another random CoD BO7 Bot Lobbies for sale in U4gm session.