Chương 237: Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Thirty-Seven

Adam landed on his feet inside his half of the challenge arena. On the other half, standing atop fire given physical form, was Sarah, wearing the blood mage choker, blood fist and blood bolt rings, crimson shirt, deep-red pants, and on her hands were the Blood Mage sigils. What the fuck happened to her? She still had the Spellcaster staff with the same evolution as Adam had seen her use last time, but it was clearly no longer her main weapon.

From the sigils on her hands, Adam could tell she'd gone with the Red Priest evolution, which allowed her to understand the blood of anyone she put into herself. It had been the other option next to Red Prince after the Flesh Sculptor evolution. Sarah still ostensibly worshipped Morrligt, given how her part of the arena was all made of fire and her audience were various flame-based entities.

There were some creatures that looked humanoid apart from their heads, which depicted exploding stars or just balls of coloured fire. Alongside the flame creatures were also beings made of pure energy, and contained wind phenomena given shape. Adam recalled the Absolute being described as the ' Lord of Solar Flares and Flensing Wind' within the Forbidden Altar, and the audience seemed to embody that, more or less.

This time, the Tome Keeper did not show up on Adam's half of the arena, and the special booth was also missing. He'd likely only appeared out of curiosity last time.

"You'll pay for killing Melissa!" Sarah screamed at him, lifting her hands and immediately pulling the blood out of her rings and crimson shirt. She'd clearly prepared the shirt with blood ahead of time. She's been waiting for me…

"I don't know who that is, and I didn't kill them," Adam replied, which took the wind out of her sails a little. But only for a moment.

"Liar! She told me you would kill her!"

"Why would I do that?" he asked. The balls of blood coated Sarah's hands, and Adam held his Endless Hunt spear ready in his hand, while preparing the crossbow bracer on his left arm.

"She said you would eliminate her because we were in the same group next stage!" Adam paused, realising who she meant.

"She worshipped the Flayed Lady. She had to die," he then said.

"But I didn't kill her."

"She was my only friend! She helped me out of the last stage! And now she's dead because of you!" Sarah screamed, lifting her hands to fling her blood magic at him. Adam activated the barrage master's coat and ranger's lucky charm, before firing his scattershot skill and filling the air between them with over 700 obsidian darts. Sarah was immediately forced to defend herself against the barrage, expending all of her gathered blood and failing to deal with more than half of the darts.

Even her blood barrier from the choker didn't help her, since most of the spears pierced right through. Any projectiles that veered off course, Adam pulled back in to strike her from behind, using his mentalist's locket. Her body was ruined, but to Adam's surprise, she survived the attack, although just barely. She wasn't yet able to use her power over her own flesh and blood instinctively, and since she didn't worship the Flayed Lady, she did not possess the gift that made it effortless and free of pain.

So, she just stood there, dripping blood from countless tiny wounds that each pulsed with extremely weak bleed afflictions, but combined would kill her within moments.

"I didn't kill your friend," Adam said, "but only one of us can leave this arena." Then he released his powered-up spear. It zipped across the arena, striking Sarah in the middle of her body and simply vaporising most of her torso, killing her in an instant. The look on her face was one of surprise. It was as if she had thought she'd win the fight with ease. As if I wouldn't kill her.

< < Challenge Stone Deactivated > > < You have defeated Player Sarah Ayala in the arena > < < Victory Pearl Obtained > > Adam returned to his seat in the restaurant. Kat was standing, halfway to where he sat, with a panicked look on her face. Would she look like that if I don't survive the next stage? he wondered, feeling guilty that he might end up leaving her alone in this universe.

"I'm fine," he told her before she could ask.

"Sarah Ayala turned out to be friends with the Flayed Lady worshipper we killed. She had been warned in advance of what we might do, and it seems like she clearly planned to take her revenge on me, because she had a completely new Class and set of relics from last time I saw her." Kat frowned.

"I was too hasty yesterday. You should have talked to them first."

"I don't know if it would have helped. Besides, Melissa might've challenged me if I'd gone the diplomatic route. And you said it yourself, her build was made to counter mine."

"The Flayed Lady is truly a schemer," Kat remarked with a disgusted look.

"It's not entirely her fault," Adam admitted.

"In Alepheria's Tower where I was grouped with her, someone who worshipped the Masked Courtesan brainwashed me into killing another player in front of her. She was already distrustful of me from that point, and if I understand the situation correctly, the blonde vampire you killed was her friend, who, thanks to the Flayed Lady, must've known I'd target her. From that point, it's not hard to spin the story in a way that would prime Sarah to want to kill me.

I think the hope was that I'd want to spare her and thereby leave myself open." Kat frowned. Adam got up from his seat.

"I'm gonna go beat up the target dummy for a bit." She watched him go, understanding that he needed to be alone with his thoughts for a bit. Later, when the day was bleeding into evening, Kat, Beck, Lasse, and Adam were talking in the tavern. Beck had gone to Lasse's dimension, since he'd accurately predicted that Kat would stay in Adam's, but he seemed to be regretting it somewhat after hearing about Adam's new build.

"Who else should we eliminate?" Adam asked Beck. Lasse clearly didn't like the question, but he was also the only one amongst them who didn't have a challenge stone. And even though he clearly didn't like the topic, he understood the necessity.

"Since Kat's question about punishing future crimes really didn't sit well with me, I've decided that we take out players who, in the last four stages, betrayed and eliminated their entire team," Beck announced.

"But, ehh, there's… quite a few of them." Adam asked his cube to show him everyone who matched the query. 27 players appeared as a result.

"That's a lot of people…" Lasse remarked.

"Who do we go for?" Kat asked.

"I recognise a few of them, actually," Beck said.

"The Asian woman with the high cheek bones and narrow glasses ends up leading a large group of players in stage fifteen." If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Adam focused on the person in question as the many people cycled through, and was surprised to find that she looked just like a normal business woman, albeit one with a perpetual scowl on her face. The Trials do make people change drastically in order to survive, he mused.

"There's also the bald black woman with the Cloudmaker staff who ends up saving quite a few people in Avaricia, though who can say if she'll end up doing that again," Beck muttered.

"Given everything that's changed, many of their redeeming actions may never come to pass." As Adam saw the woman in question, he realised he'd seen her before. That's the person who showed up alongside Seo-Yoon when I asked about how to use the Cloudmaker.

"We don't have time to go through all the ones that deserve to live," Adam said, letting his irritation enter his voice. Beck cast him a glance. He'd already heard what had happened with Sarah Ayala, and he seemed to understand Adam's frustrations.

"Well, I'd say that amongst these many lovely people, the black guy with the eyepatch definitely has to go, since he forms a group of player-killers in stage fifteen and manages to take out a few people before he dies himself," Beck said.

"Why does he have an eyepatch?" Lasse asked, as they all looked at the guy in question. He was tall and skinny, and his eyepatch was black and had a white Jolly Roger on it.

"Who knows?" Beck replied with a shrug.

"But he's a big fan of pirate history, if I remember correctly. His name was something weird."

"I'll deal with him," Adam said, after noticing that one of his weapons was the tainted bulwark. If he can fuse that with defender, he might become incredibly strong. The guy already had the body of sloth and scarf of the fleetfooted, so he was clearly working towards a powerful speed build. Adam couldn't see his other weapon, but he guessed it would be something that benefitted from going fast.

"Who else?" Kat asked, rubbing her clawed beast hands together.

"I'm pretty sure that fat guy with the offensive tattoos is another one of those who eats players," Beck said, indicating a mountain of a man, whose large naked torso was inked so densely with colourful tattoos that it was hard to tell what his original skin colour was supposed to be. Some of the tattoos featured scenes of torture, others were horny depictions of women and animals, and the rest were a mix of phrases in Latin, interspersed with slurs. What an inviting appearance… Kat sighed.

"I suppose I will deal with him."

"He dual-wields two-handed swords," Adam pointed out when he noticed his weapons. Kat nodded, remembering the evolution from when Adam had evolved the Warrior in the market.

"It should not be an issue," she remarked.

"Are there a lot of cannibals?" Lasse asked.

"You'd be surprised," Beck replied with a sour face.

"I honestly feel like those who didn't fit in super well in the real world end up thriving in the Trials. I've seen enough insane people for it to feel like the only reasonable explanation. But yes, amongst them, cannibals are quite prevalent. A lot of them don't even have relics or evolutions that benefit from eating people." Kat flexed her clawed hands. She was antsy, just like Adam.

"Lastly, there's the giggling rainbow of sunshine, who also has a Cloudmaker staff," Beck said and Adam's heart sank as he realised who it was. He hadn't noticed her at first, because she wore the horsemen mask.

"That's Seo-Yoon," he replied.

"She kills quite a lot of people after finding the next cloud-based staff in stage thirteen," Beck explained.

"I don't think we should get rid of her," Adam said.

"She was in my group in the last stage, and though she had many chances to kill me and the others, she never did. She did have some tendencies that were a bit worrisome, but I think overall she's a good person, albeit somewhat callous to the death of others." Beck scratched his chin.

"Let's have a chat with her afterwards," he decided.

"I'll pick the guy with the cursed daggers instead." The person in question was a young and tan muscular guy with a scar down the left side of his mouth and shock-white hair pulled back like he was an edgy anime protagonist. Adam couldn't see his relics, but he saw Red Rian's daggers in his hands, since he was playing with them while grinning.

"Has anyone survived this far with the golden sword from the Floating Sea?" Adam asked. Beck shook his head.

"It's not that strong, since the madness it induces makes it easy to bait its wielder into traps and counter-attacks."

"What about Red Rian's butcher blades?" Adam asked.

"They make the wielder more like everybody's favourite skin-thieving Absolute," he replied.

"I can't wait for the public stages," Lasse remarked sarcastically.

"Alright, we've all got our targets," Adam said.

"See you back here in a moment."

"If any of you die, I'll make fun of you in my next loop," Beck joked. Kat paused for a moment at his words, but then she pulled out her challenge stone and disappeared alongside the fat tatted-up man. Beck did the same, vanishing with the dagger-wielding edgelord.

"See you in a moment," Adam told Lasse and challenged the black guy with the eyepatch. < < Challenge Stone Activated > > < You have forced Player Legendary Pirate King Warsame into fighting you > What a name, Adam thought as he landed on his side of the arena. Once again, the Tome Keeper was absent. Adam doubted he'd return to watch any of his future fights, unless there was something particularly interesting about his opponent.

Adam couldn't immediately tell which Absolute Warsame worshipped, until suddenly his part of the arena, which had been a forest with humans and fairies spectating, blinked and was replaced with the surface of some pockmarked moon. It blinked again and changed to something new, and this pattern continued every few seconds, all the while the spectators on his side changed to match the new scenery every time. It's gotta be Nharlla.

"Oho, another challenger!" Warsame exclaimed, gripping his blade handle and waving the shield of his tainted bulwark. He carried the Spear Dancer weapon on his back, and along with his fleetfooted scarf and body of sloth, he also had the slothling spring boots. His left hand gripping the shield was made of stone, which Adam recognised as the ' Wizard's Stone Hand' relic, and his right had the shapeshifter's claw.

Strangely, he didn't have any helmet or trouser relics, and the eyepatch was clearly not part of the Trials. He can fling his stone hand at me and charge up his sword with a lot of power, but the biggest threat is his speed-stacking relics. I've gotta finish him off immediately.

"Not a talkative fella, are you?" Warsame prodded.

"Well, then, our blades will just have to do the talking!" They were finally able to move, and Warsame shot himself across the arena with his spring boots, leading the movement into an activation of the bulwark's ramming skill. Adam fired himself straight up into the air with his own spring boots, activating his barrage coat and lucky charm as he went high above Warsame's opening attack. Then he fired his scattershot down, following it up with the crossbow bracer's explosive bolt.

Warsame was pierced through by almost all of the obsidian darts, many of them passing through his raised shield thanks to the phantom trait created by the duplicated barrage glove. Then the explosive bolts landed, empowered by Adam's Endless Hunt and silver armlet. The entire arena below Adam was covered in a flaming explosion, pushing him even higher into the air with the massive cushion of heat it produced, and leaving behind so much smoke that he couldn't tell what had happened to his opponent.

But he didn't have to worry about it for long. < < Challenge Stone Deactivated > > < You have defeated Player Legendary Pirate King Warsame in the arena > < < Victory Pearl Obtained > > Before Adam could land on his feet in the arena below him, he was deposited back into his chair in the basement restaurant, which felt incredibly jarring. He was the first to arrive out of the three of them, which made him feel pretty good about his build. Lasse half-choked on his beer in surprise.

"Welcome back," he said between coughs. A few moments later, Kat returned, crushing the chair underneath her massive matriarch form. She reverted back to human and looked pretty unhappy, which was understandable, since she was covered in blood from head to toe.

"The fat guy exploded all over me when I killed him… I need a wash." Kat went upstairs to clean herself while Adam and Lasse waited for Beck to return. After nearly eight minutes, the old guy's hologram finally reappeared in his chair.

"Don't look at me like that," Beck said immediately.

"What happened?" Lasse asked.

"His secondary weapon was the blue shard from stage six and he had the mage aspirant's cowl, so he kept stealing my invisibility and going invisible himself. Then I would steal it back, he'd grab it again, and before I knew it, five minutes had passed by without either of us attacking or dealing damage, thanks to playing hot potato with the invisibility. When I finally got serious, he just started running away." Beck sighed.

"I thought it would be easy, since cursed weapons make people predictable in some ways, but this guy was just being annoying for the sake of it. Pisses me off." He looked around and didn't spot Kat anywhere, which seemed to brighten his mood, as he said, "Well, at least I'm not the last one here."

"She's upstairs taking a bath," Adam said.

"The guy exploded on her when he died, apparently."

"She was back almost as fast as Adam," Lasse added, really rubbing salt in the wound. Beck sighed.

"Alright, whatever. Important thing is, none of us died." Adam nodded.

"We got worried for a moment there, though."

"Bite my entire ass," Beck retorted.

"Anyway, let's talk to this new player-killer you befriended. It's quite a worrisome pattern you're developing. I'd say whatever rows your boat, but as your friend, I have to admit you need help."

"Very funny," Adam replied. Seo-Yoon joined the conversation a moment later when Adam invited her, and Kat returned from the player house above the restaurant to listen in, clean as could be. After some introductions, and her thanking Adam for saving her life, Beck asked some very poignant questions, and Seo-Yoon quickly explained the whole situation. She had indeed killed everyone in her team, even the friend who she'd told Adam that the others had killed after assaulting her.

According to Seo-Yoon, the friend had lost her mind following the incident, even after Seo-Yoon had killed the two men. Not knowing what else to do, Seo-Yoon had killed her friend to protect herself, and then she'd hunted down the last person who'd fled, before that guy was struck by dream magic and turned against her. In short, her Moonport stage had been horrific.

Adam understood why she hadn't been completely honest with him the first time, but he still wondered if this new version of events was the complete truth.

"You know, it's hard to trust anything you say when you smile like that," Beck pointed out.

"Crying is a waste of time," Seo-Yoon replied coldly.

"Adam told me you were doing a bet. I want in on it."

"You'll have to wait until after stage ten," Adam told her.

"Do you know what will happen in stage ten?" Seo-Yoon asked him. Adam glanced over to Beck. He just shrugged.

"I guess I'll tell her."

"Can I invite Natalia too?" Seo-Yoon asked.

"I also had some people I wanted to invite," Lasse said.

"I already gave them the broad strokes yesterday, but it's not the same."

"Me too," Kat added.

"Fuck it, bring everyone then," Beck said.

"The more people who survive, the better off we'll all be."