He grabbed the panther and pulled its flesh apart bit by bit. Then he created spikes from his body that he uses to impale the panther.
Flesh flew everywhere and blood flowed around him while the panther cried out in pain. It was as if he was tearing a ball of cotton apart, not flesh.
Both its bones and flesh were destroyed by him. There was no difference between them to him.
He eviscerated the panther. Then he crushed the panther's neck and killed it.
In just five seconds, he managed to destroy the first obstacle and was already moving on to the next obstacle.
The black crow watching above the arena cawed and said, "Spectacular. It has just been 20 seconds, and the first obstacle has been cleared. It is a wonderful performance by Augustus."
It asked the audience in excitement, "And did you see what he shape-shifted into? It looks like Augustus has gained some sort of inorganic shifting ability. He has become a tougher nut to crack."
"Not only that, his attack power had gone through the roof too. Give it up for Augustus, everybody."
Most the audience didn't clap but the crowa ctually stopped to clap. Then it shifted its attention to the other participants and said, "The tenth to clear the first obstacle is Evil Eye. It took her 10 seconds. Not great performance, but not too shabby."
"Coming in fifteenth is Butcher. Poor performance on her part. She killed the panther in 30 seconds."
Both Butcher and Evil Eye have B-rank power ratings. But they are psychic class supers who have put the bulk of their power into their minds. So they were slow in terms of speed.
Many others overtook them to reach the first obstacle before them, but they still overtook many people because of the speed with which they cleared the first obstacle.
All Butcher needed to do was touch the white panther. But the panther was too fast for her to touch.
It was as if it knew her ability. It didn't want to touch her and was constantly avoiding her. It only died because it couldn't hold back from trying to eliminate her.
The panther had the same speed as her, so she couldn't catch it. But it approached her to kill her, which granted her the opportunity to touch it.
After she did so, the panther fell apart in just two seconds. It shows how deadly her touch is. But it took her almost 30 seconds to touch the panther, which delayed her.
As for Evil Eye, she too had some problems with the panther's speed, but she was able to keep her eye on it most of the time.
If she hadn't needed to dodge and roll around to avoid the attacks of the panther, she would have killed it earlier.
The black crow didn't mention Charmer's performance because it was disappointing. Her ability only works on humans, not beasts. So she was helpless against the white panther.
The best that Charmer could do was barely escape from the panther in order to pass the first obstacle. What's worse is that she took longer to achieve this than those who fought the panther head-on.
Despite how powerful Charmer, Evil Eye, and Butcher were and how many hopes people had for them, their performance in the first obstacle was not great.
Many people had passed the first, and two people had even passed the second obstacle before they passed the first obstacle.
Their performance was not the worst because many people didn't pass the first obstacle, and of those who did, not every one of them killed the white panther.
Two people died in the fight with the panther. More than ten people were injured, and half of the 40 who passed the first obstacle only barely avoided it. These 20 players didn't kill the first obstacle.
As for the remaining 36 players, they quit the game right from the start. They quit because the game was too dangerous for them or they didn't have any interest in becoming demigods anymore.
Players can quit a game in the professional league. They just need to shout the surrender and remain motionless for ten seconds.
If they move at all, they will have to repeat the whole process of surrendering again. So these 36 didn't move when the game started. They remained where they were after shouting surrender and left the game ten seconds after.
When they left, their track collapsed and disappeared. So only 38 tracks remained after two players died and 36 surrendered.
All of these 38 players were standing side by side on their tracks. Their position on their tracks was the same since the track was moving.
It created a weird sight because even though the players appeared to be in the same position, what was going on on each track was different.
While some players had just finished the first obstacle, some other players were already fighting the second obstacle or were not fighting anything because they were yet to reach the second obstacle or they were already done fighting the second obstacle.
Arthur was one of the few who weren't doing anything on their track because he was done with the second obstacle.
He was also the first one to finish the second obstacle. He wasn't doing anything because he was rushing towards the third obstacle.
The second obstacle was also a white panther. This white panther was faster than him by 10%.
This increase in speed didn't save it either because its speed didn't matter. Even if the white panther was twice as fast as him, one use of Mind Overseer to stun it would ground it to a halt. Then he would have easily killed it.
However, he didn't need to resort to Mind Overseer because the white panther pounced on him. Once he got his hands on it, its fate was sealed.
The only thing that had changed about the panther was its speed. It was still weak and soft. So he was able to tear it apart just the same.
If anything, the white panther died earlier because it approached him sooner.
Even though the panther was able to attack faster, it couldn't get past the defense of his body. He was done with it in less than five seconds.
For his troubles, he earned 6 game points. It was twice as much as the amount of game points he earned for defeating the first obstacle.
So now he has gained 9 game points. He has the choice to use it on someone else's obstacle in order to eliminate them.
The formula for the effects of his tampering on other people's obstacles is D = (X)/(Y + X) × 100. Y is the normal reward that will be gained if that obstacle is destroyed, while X is the amount of game points he is willing to invest, and D is the increase in difficulty.
He wasn't given this formula, but he managed to work it out when he saw the options for how much increase in difficulty he could get and how many game points it would cost.
He looked at the track beside him and thought about increasing the difficulty of the second obstacle. So a screen appeared in front of him with the options for increased difficulty.
He was given the option of 14.28%, 25%, 33%, 50%, and 99%. They cost 1, 2, 3, 6, and 600 game points, respectively.
From the looks of things, each incremental increase in difficulty of the obstacles costs more and more game points, as seen by the jump between the increase in difficulty of 50% to 99%.
It is also not possible to increase the difficulty by 100%. Even if he has 1,200 game points to increase the difficulty of the 6-game-point obstacle, the best he will get is a 99.5% increase in difficulty.
He had doubled the cost of game points required for an increase in difficulty of 99%. But all he got for it was just an extra 0.5%.
So the optimal increase in difficulty for him is 50%. Any more than that and the cost of game points won't be worth it.
If he invests 6 game points to increase the difficulty and the person loses, what he will gain is the amount of game points that the person has. Since they have only cleared the first obstacle, all that he can earn is 3 game points.
As for the other player, if they don't get eliminated by the second obstacle and instead manage to destroy it even after its difficulty has been increased, they will earn X (invested game points) + Y (normal game points), which in this case is 12 game points.
He, on the other hand, will earn nothing. Investing 6 game points to earn 3 game points is clearly not worth it. So he decided to simply move on.
There is a distance of 1 kilometer between each obstacle. The third obstacle is still a white panther. But this time the white panther has the ability to turn invisible.