Chapter 260 |
Killer Sequence Guild, Lounge.
The Judge of Defying Gods was slumped on the sofa, drinking water like a madman. The person next to him looked like he was about to turn into a dried fish, with a pile of drained bottles of mineral water, stamina restorers and sanity restorers at his feet.
“The dessert instance dungeon is so damn hot.” A man sitting on the far left had his cheeks red from being grilled by the heat, and his eyes were empty as he held a bottle to his chest, “The game pool has banned shops, you can’t even buy water, I thought I was going to die of thirst in this instance dungeon too.”
“We were careless.” The Judge of Defying Gods rubbed his brow, “I didn’t expect to be trapped, we didn’t work well enough together, and we mainly didn’t bring enough stuff.”
The man suddenly sat up straight, looked around and wondered, “What’s going on, why isn’t Spades back yet? He’s usually here in the lounge by the time we get out of the game, but where is he today?”
“Bought a whole bunch of strong acid fuel and went into an instance dungeon of Ice Age.” The Judge of Defying Gods said, smiling, “Playing the [true end] line.”
The man next to him instantly understood and went limp again, tilting his head with a long, inexplicable sigh: “How many times has it been? He hasn’t given up yet?”
The Judge of Defying Gods shook his head, seemingly amused, “I don’t know, quite a few times anyway. Every time we’d get a poster of Ice Age before entering the pool, Spades would glance at it a few more times, and it felt like if anyone zoned out and didn’t hold him back, Spades would have jumped in and left us behind.”
“He’s long since finished the [normal end] line of Ice Age.” The man was puzzled, “Doesn’t Spades not look at games he’s won?”
The Judge of Defying Gods tilted his head up and chugged another bottle of mineral water taking a long breath as if he had been nourished: “I remember that the Spades’ corpse collection mission in Ice Age was always missing one piece. I think the piece he lacked was the heart, which he searched for many times and still couldn’t find it.”
“Anyway, you know how that Spades guy is, he’ll keep looking if he can’t find it. Let him be, take it as a tempering of the mind.”
The man showed mixed feelings on his face as he chewed on the mouth of the bottle, he said in a muffled voice, “Even Spades needs refinement with that mentality of his, aren’t you just telling me to go back to the furnace and rebuild it?”
The Judge of Defying Gods gripped the bottle silently.
This man also fell silent.
This comment crossed the line a bit – The Judge of Defying Gods is the tactician who controls the whole situation, and a player is in no place to doubt his resolution.
Perhaps it is because he has been here for such a short time and his temperament is not very sharp, far less extreme than the other tacticians’ personalities and actions, blending in so well with the team that the players often forget the man’s identity as a tactician.
But a tactician is, after all, a tactician, and he does not allow his players to be this offensive.
The man opened his mouth nervously, “Sorry.”
“It’s nothing.” The Judge of Defying Gods waved a hand without much concern and smiled generously, skimming over the unpleasant subject, “You’ve been working with Spades for a year now, can you tell me what match he had impressed you the most?”
This wasn’t the first time that they had this conversation. The Judge of Defying Gods would occasionally pull other teammates in for a long talk and ask them what they thought of Spades after he didn’t manage to fit into the team smoothly.
The man held the bottle in his hand like Winnie the Pooh in contemplation, “Honestly, every game made quite an impression, but the one against Russell Cemetery was the most impressive.”
The Judge of Defying Gods recalled for a moment and quickly picked up, “Ah, that one, ah, it was a bad fight.”
The man nodded with lingering fear, “It wasn’t just horrible, it was the most miserable game of last year. I thought the team was going to be wiped out by the end of the game.”
The Russell Cemetery vs Killer Sequence game was a sixteen to eight.
By that time Spades’ strength had become apparent and all sides were asking around about the new player of unknown origins, but the most prominent of these inquiring guilds was Russell’s Cemetery – a guild that did everything it could to unearth Spades’ secrets and try to uncover his weaknesses.
Russell Cemetery was the 12th ranked guild the year before, but unlike other notorious teams, this team has no star players and is not strong. With a major turnover of team members every year, and new faces that seem to be timid on the field year after year, nothing seems to stick out.
The only memorable feature of the Russell Cemetery team was their penchant for forfeiting in both single and double matches, hence the Russell Cemetery’s other name, ‘Double Cannon Team’, which means that they went into the ring and did nothing but surrender twice to blow up the field.
But this team has a surprisingly solid style of team play, always hitting the ground running in certain games, winning with one hit and even beating star teams.
Last year’s killer sequence nearly got folded by Russell Cemetery.
Spades almost died in that game – Russell Cemetery tailored Spades’ style of play to find a player with skills that could limit him and gave him a temporary role as tactician for the game against Killer Sequence.
–This was a skill that was used in a rather brutal way.
As soon as the game started, Russell’s team exploded into action, grabbing one of their own players and killing him forcibly as a sacrifice.
Through this sacrifice, Russell’s tactician forced his skill, turning the ground beneath Spades’ feet into a large mud puddle – that was his skill.
The mire can nullify all of a player’s attacks and slowly kill them by devouring them, making it a tried-and-true skill with the only drawback being that it is too expensive to use – it requires sacrificing one of your teammates to activate the skill.
The stronger the ability of the player being swallowed, the more time it takes for the mire to swallow.
Spades lasted seven days in the game with the debuff of not being able to attack in the mud puddle, shifting his status from [Attack] to [Defend], grinding his opponent into submission, and trapping them in a game shock map.
But at last, the time has come for the mire to swallow Spades whole.
Half of Spades’ face was sunken in the mud and his teammates did everything they could to get him out, kneeling beside the crisis-ridden puddle and digging for him with their bare hands desperately, fighting off adversaries who came to attack them as they did so.
At that time, the look on the faces of everyone in the Killer Sequence was twisted into an unrecognisable face, it was unforgettable to the audience at the time.
Ferocity, fury, fear and dread intermingled, filling the room with an intense emotion that could not be expressed with words. Muddy tears streaked their twisted faces, and a low, maddening hiss erupted from the knot of their throats – a pure, unadulterated fear of [death] looming over them.
Every single one of them knew beyond doubt that if Spades died here, they would definitely die in this game.
And Spades had no such fear; he simply looked serenely at the men, the mire swallowing him up bit by bit, and he said, “You may run now.”
Still, no one ran. Some howled like they were tearing their hearts out as they fought madly against their opponents with tears and blood.
Spades still won that game.
The team’s collective dread made their strength explode and helped them resist Russell’s incoming attacks, and after one of them burst and severed the opposite tactician’s arms, disarming him and rendering him unable to use his staff, the mire skill that had trapped Spades lifted.
Spades who is able to attack is invincible, and victory came as a matter of course.
The crowd was in an uproar as Spades climbed out of the bottomless swamp, with a whip in hand, bathed in mud and blood. They jumped on their feet screaming and cheering for Spades, the demon who had climbed out of the abyss.
He was covered from top to bottom in mud, and the seven-day tug-of-war had left Spades with a striking array of filth and horrific wounds. Several broken bones exposed and sticking out sharply from his skin, mud and water mixed with blood clots hanging on the bones and solidifying.
Even with such a woeful appearance, no one doubted that the final victory would go to this woeful fellow.
Ten minutes later, Spades stood in front of the kneeling team, he had a nonchalant expression as he held his bloodied whip in his hand that was lowered. The central prop of the game, a symbol of victory, was held in his right hand, mud dripping from his jaw and knuckles.
The Russell Cemetery team trembled before him, these rookies that went to the field for the first time begged for mercy and cried out incoherently.
Spades, also a newcomer, watched them without a word. Separating them was the distance between the winner and the loser, the gap between life and death.
It was a game of life and death, and they had done everything they could to plot against Spades, who was perfectly capable of killing them out of spite.
There was a chorus of excited leaps from the audience, with some screaming at the top of their voices, “Kill them!”
“Kill them!”
The Russell Cemetery’s team closed their eyes in despair, having paid for victory with the lives of others, only to end up paying for defeat with their own lives.
They thought they were bound to die, everyone else also thought they were bound to die.
Finally, Spades asked them a question.
With his eyes covered by his muddy bangs, he opened his mouth: “You inflicted death upon your teammates, and my teammates did everything to keep me away from death, both out of fear of death.”
“But when you place your lives on the backs of others,” Spades looked down at the group, not a single hint of emotion was in his eyes that was hidden beneath his hair, “Can’t you see that the fate of your death is equally bound together?”
The group stared up at Spades in disbelief.
Spades waited quietly for an answer.
So, the tactician with both arms chopped off tilted his head arduously and replied, “…… that’s not it, one death and we can all survive, it’s our tactic and it works, didn’t you get stuck in at the beginning?”
“This was done to protect the other teammates! One death could save so many!” He droned on, tearfully and emotionally explaining, not sure if it was to convince others or to convince himself.
When he had finished, Spades nodded calmly as if he had received an answer: “I see, you cannot see your own destiny.”
“I will not kill you; you have your fate, death will not befall you here, nor is it bestowed by me.” Spades went on without a ripple, “You will die in your own muck.”
The tactician looked at Spades in shock who had turned away, there were still tears in his eyes.
Spades ended up sparing them.
But shortly afterwards, Russell Cemetery was about to repeat the same trick of sacrificing a teammate in their next league match, but they were killed by the enemy Team Fang Wood before they could do that.
The tactician drowned in the mire skill he was about to unleash.
The man recalled the match and sighed, “I couldn’t figure out what was going on in Spades’ head from that point on, I would have just killed those guys in a fit of rage.”
“But I think it’s because of this,” the man looked to The Judge of Defying Gods and said from the bottom of his heart, “Spades has finally realised the importance of the team and that’s why he’s poached you this year.”
The Judge of Defying Gods pondered upon his words, and he suddenly said, “I actually asked Spades why he chose me to be your tactician.”
The man asked curiously, “How did he answer that?”
The Judge of Defying Gods smiled, “He said that I saw that your fate was to work for me as a tactician and then to die on the field.”
The guy spit out his water, “He said that directly in front of you?! That’s too ……”
Threatening death in front of a prophet like that …… As expected from you, Spades!
“Correction, my skill is not prophecy, it’s called [Listening to God’s Words].” The Judge of Defying Gods shrugged, “Sometimes I can barely tell if he’s a prophet or I’m a prophet, this guy’s intuition is amazingly accurate, it’s almost better than a prophecy.”
“Like the instance dungeon of [Ice Age], we’ve actually all been there, and that unknown creature X’s derivative in there that turns into a human is actually quite troublesome. Even I have a hard time telling who’s actually a real person and who’s a monster, even though we’re quite capable, it’s really hard to make it through this instance dungeon -because we can’t find the target to attack.”
The Judge of Defying Gods looked to the team member sitting across from him, “But do you remember how Spades fought his way through this instance dungeon when he was with us?”
The team member muttered, “He killed all the replicas except for us once he got in……”
The Judge of Defying Gods nodded, “That’s right, once Spades was inside, he quickly found Edmond hiding in Fang Xiaoxiao’s body, killed him, stopped his plot to use the particle device to affect the global climate, and was able to reach the main global warming quest and pass the level.”
“That’s the [NORMAL END] of this game.” The Judge of Defying Gods spreads his hands, “From the moment we entered the game until we found Spades next to a pile of replicants’ corpses, he cleared it in less than thirty minutes.”
“Aren’t you curious? How is it that this guy can identify who’s human and who’s a monster so easily? The monster anthropomorphism in this game is to the point where we would wonder if we were real or not.”
The man also rubbed his chin in contemplation and wondered, “Oh yeah, how did Spades identify it?”
“I asked him.” A resigned look was shown on the face of The Judge of Defying Gods, “Do you know what he told me?”
The man asked, “What did he say?”
The Judge of Defying Gods let out a long, deep sigh, “Intuition – he recognises it purely by intuition.”
“As much as I hate to admit that his instincts are so good, Spades never lies.” The Judge of Defying Gods held his forehead and sighed, “But that makes it even more problematic, Spades will have to trust my tactics over his instincts if he’s to fit in with the team.”
“But if his instincts are really so accurate, I simply don’t have the means or the confidence to convince Spades to give up acting on his instincts and get him to comply with my tactical arrangements.”
The man also wrinkled his brow as he listened, “Is there a way for us to go along with Spades’ instincts?”
“I thought about it,” The Judge of Defying Gods took a deep breath, “but it’s no use, Spades simply has no way of properly articulating his instincts to us. His instincts are usually a split-second feeling to capture, and by the time we react, he’ll be running eight hundred miles away from us.”
The man also seemed to recall the excruciating period of his life of chasing Spades around in the game and slumped on the table in a miserable tone: “—–leaving us to search in the same place over and over again. “
“The main problem is communication. Spades can’t say more than a few words to us before he starts to wander off, and I can’t even get his attention by banging on a gong.” The Judge of Defying God’s features frowned sadly as he propped his head on his hands and his eyes glazed over, “- can someone enlighten Spades so he can learn how to communicate with people……”
——
Inside the game, by the Ross Ice Shelf.
Spades gathered his things and strapped his walking gear to his sled board, tying the safety rope around his own waist and dragging it forward. He looked down and removed the map, which was crumpled by the fierce wind, from the lining of his jacket, confirming with his eyes the next location to be visited on the map.
After visiting the buoy point in the Ross Sea, Spades went to dozens more spots, and he had finally cleared most of the map’s spots, only leaving a handful of locations.
Eventually, his eyes skimmed over the map, landing on the inland point of the South Pole, before slowly exhaling a foggy, white breath.
Edmond Observatory.
He remembered that this seemed to be the location where he and the player called Bai Liu had logged in together.
Having identified his target, Spades drew his whip from behind his waist, adjusted the skis fixed to his feet, and then leaned forward with his knees slightly bent. He gazed across the unrelenting blizzard, then locked on to a certain direction and simply flung his arms left and right down the snow surface.
The whip slammed onto the ground; a thick layer of snow flew past him. Spades used the whip as a ski pole, using the tremendous reaction force of a quick swing on the ground to glide across the snow, almost turning into an orange-red bolt of lightning on the blanket of snow.
If The Judge of Defying Gods was here, he would have yelled at Spades again to not use such an expensive whip like a sled dog, to lend a hand and instead pull the sled with the force of the whip!
But he wasn’t here.
So Spades, with his black goggles on, bowed and swung his whip from side to side, glided smoothly and soon disappeared into the sweeping snow and roaring wind.
Tarzan Station.
Bai Liu only stopped briefly at Tarzan station before they zipped out without a warning, snatching a helicopter parked outside and flying off in it before the Tarzan station crowd noticed.
The wind was howling outside the helicopter, and flying in such weather with visibility of no more than 30 metres was like pole dancing on the scythe of death, with the possibility of the helicopter crashing at any moment.
But Tang Erda, as the pilot, couldn’t disobey Bai Liu – their tactician’s eyes were now glowing with excitement like he was about to obtain a billion dollars and even his breathing was slightly quicker. His slender fingers tightened and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the backrest of his pilot’s seat.
“Where are we flying to?!” Tang Erda asked with a hiss.
Bai Liu replied, “Edmond’s Observatory.”
EN1: I absolutely despised editing this chapter (¬_¬”)
EN2: i cried because of The Judge of Defying Gods name changing why was this so painful
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Batata Anisia 🥔
<time datetime="2023-10-10T02:08:28+02:00">October 10, 2023</time>
Thanks for the chapter!!
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