Chapter 142 - Was He Faking it or Not?
"Thank you for the chest Mr. Landlord!"
Bewildered, the spectators who were in a heated argument, suddenly lifted their heads and gazed at the screen after hearing that sarcastic comment. The only ones who didn't bother lifting their heads were Mastermania's fan club.
Heck, their eyes were roaming everywhere except landing on the screen to watch their idol. One could only wonder what the hell happened before, for them to react like this.
Meanwhile, Felix's fans were guffawing and chortling at the sight of Mastermania exiting from the shadows with arms behind his back in an aloof manner.
The others near them kept giving them weird glances, not knowing if they were really Landlord's fans. After all, it was clear for everyone that Mastermania wasn't coming in peace. So, why the hell weren't they worried?!
"Sigh, Mastermania truly struck at the worst possible timing for Landlord." Zoe zoomed the replay on Mastermania's facial features, showcasing a few throbbing veins on his forehead. No matter how much he tried to act aloof and remain calm, his body was giving him away.
However, this time it appeared like he didn't plan to control his emotions anymore. He was going for the kill and he wanted to make sure that it was streamed and captured properly, so no other moron dared to humiliate him in public again.
"Nothing personal." He said.
It would have sounded more believable if he wasn't smirking slightly as he approached Felix, who was still on a frenzy trance, bashing the floor with blood dripping from every inch of his body. The sound of his punches was loud enough it was heard on the other side of the wall.
Spooked out from this horrifying sight, Mastermania stopped advancing after putting 10 meters between them. The image of Felix soloing the Terror Serpent was still playing on his mind vividly.
Thus, he wasn't planning to underestimate him.
Although it was clear that Felix was a free target to his *Shadow Spikes*. He still planned to think this out before committing.
After all, his ability maximum range was 5 meters! This meant, he had to enter Felix's aura zone if he wanted to attack.
'I should use shadowlings cloak as an escape route.'
As an idol, survival was everything to him. So, before he made a move he always had to leave a way out, and the *Shadowlings Cloak* was the best technique he bought from his clan for this scenario.
Without delay, he created 50 small shadowlings and ordered them to hold hands, forming a long chain connected with the shadow in the wall and his shadow!
No wonder it was named as such. It turned out, the basic idea of the technique was to keep the user always connected with a shadow away from him. So, when things get ugly, he could just submerge in his shadow and reach the wall within a blink of an eye!
This technique was clearly a combination of his passive ability *Shadow Cloak* and active ability *Shadowlings*.
Despite its sophistication, the spectators who never saw this technique before didn't know whether to laugh or cry, as the chain somewhat resembled a safety rope in their eyes.
What made the sight even funnier was the fact that Mastermania was taking such an extreme measurement against a mindless player!
"He is finally making a move! He must be quick, Landlord would wake up from his trance in just a few more seconds!"
Zoe wasn't kidding around, as Felix was truly showing signs of regaining consciousness. His punching speed slowing down made it quite obvious.
Mastermania also didn't miss those signs and decided to stop worrying and just go for it.
He narrowed his eyes and held his breath as a precaution. Then he suddenly dashed forward with his palm extended towards Felix.
He reached 5 meters instantly!
"Tsk."
However, before he could activate his *Shadow Spikes*, he saw Felix pause his madness in a calm manner and snap his finger.
Whoosh!
An acid colored aura erupted out of Felix's pores and engulfed both of them in a split second.
"ahhhh!!!"
Mastermania face couldn't help but twist, as he screamed out loud from having his entire skin being melted.
Too bad, he shouldn't have opened his mouth, as Felix threw a light yellow bomb next to his face, forcing him to breathe in the inducement.
His face froze in an even uglier look than the time he got humiliated by Felix during the interviews. This time, his mouth was wide open with his facial skin melting down, resembling the mask worn in the movie 'Scream'.
Dumbstruck, Zoe, and the spectators' eyes widened at how fast things derailed from their expectations.
They honestly didn't know if Felix faked his trance to bait Mastermania or simply he was lucky to wake up right before he got ambushed!
"Let him go!!!"
Felix couldn't help but jump backward after seeing an incoming large-sized fireball. His forceful dodge, helped Mastermania leave the range of his acidic aura, as he was merely three meters away from its limits.
'Withdrew!!'
Mortified and anguished, Mastermania submerged himself in his shadow, reaching the wall in an instant after traveling through his shadowling's chain.
Although he was paralyzed, he only needed a clear thought to activate his escape ability, and the immense pain he was feeling before was ruining his focus and concentration constantly.
"Sigh, Why did you have to intervene?" Felix dusted his ripped open outfit and stared coldly at Miss. Sissy right in her eyes. "You saved him, but who is going to save you?"
He created two acidic bombs and approached the petrified girl, who only realized that she shouldn't have provoked this humanoid walking beast after the deed was already done.
Scared shitless, she kept creating firebombs and throwing them in Felix's direction, hoping to scare him off. Unfortunately for her, Felix easily dodged them by sidestepping continuously.
Abilities like those that needed to be thrown were better accompanied by larger strength. Otherwise, no matter how strong the ability, if it couldn't hit the target then it was as useless as a knitted condom.
"Mastermania help me!" She yelled out loud while heading towards the shadow in the wall, where Mastermania was last seen. However, not a single sound responded to her cry for help.
Agitated, she kept touching the shadow, hoping that Mastermania was merely acting dead to ambush Landlord.
"You can stop." Felix cracked his bloodied knuckles and said, "I saw him leave the moment you saved him." He chuckled mockingly, "He didn't even turn his head while doing so."
"No! You lying!" She leaned against the wall with her legs shaking and murmured, "We agreed to combine our strengths if he couldn't win against you alone."
Nonchalant, Felix cleaned his ear with a finger and said, "I don't care about your plan with your lover. The only thing I care about now is to compensate myself for losing 200 GP."
"Please don't kill me! I can partner up with you."
Miss. Sassy immediately chose plan C after seeing that her situation was getting dire. She didn't want to believe what he said about Mastermania, but the fact that her crush and partner didn't even bother to make his presence heard was clear proof that he truly ditched her to die.
Heck, she even had to give up on plan B, as she understood clearly that escape against Felix was impossible after she saw his inhuman speed during his battle with the serpent.
She truly regretted saving Mastermania in the first place. If only she kept acting invisible like before, Felix would have probably not targeted her. But now, she could only hope that her pitiful look touches Felix's heart and spare her.
Too bad, one acidic bomb exploding next to her face, removed those wishful thoughts from her mind.
"Aurgh!!!" She shrieked as she held her face between her palms. Yet, even her hands' skin was corroding as well.
The acid bomb was truly the deadliest inducement Felix had shown so far. But Felix could only rely on it against targets who saw his bloodline since they could easily counter his other inducements by holding their breaths.
Meanwhile, Acid inducement affected the skin, uncaring about getting absorbed directly into the body system.
Plus, it gave another bonus, which was forcing the affected to stop holding his breath due to the pain!
Just like what happened against Mastermania. Felix knew that Mastermania was 100% going to hold his breath, even if he saw him with his guards down. Thus, any other inducement would have been ineffective in his ambush.
The only downside about it was the unnecessary pain caused for the affected. Felix wasn't that psycho to torture any player he met without a bone to pick with him.
Thus, he sprinted towards Miss. Sassy and immediately penetrated her brain with his index finger, getting her out of that misery.
"You could only blame yourself for trusting a full-fledged idol." He shook his head while closing her eyelids, hiding her dull eyes.
Felix wasn't trying to offset the guilt of killing her by switching the blame or anything. He killed so many times in his previous life, he was already past the stage of feeling guilty after killing strangers in the games.
He truly meant what he said to Miss. Sissy and for a good reason as well.
It was a known fact that idols were split into two types. Idols like Felix, who simply play to the best of their abilities, and fans embrace it. Those fans create a fan club on their own and take everything related to their idols on their own shoulders without getting a single cent in the process.
On the other hand, there were idols like Mastermania, who had their own public agencies. Those agencies were responsible for creating fan clubs, taking care of their social media accounts, helping them gain popularity by spreading their previous highlights, and more of such marketing gimmicks.
All of this just to increase the streaming revenue percentage on each game.
So for agencies like those, it was impossible for them to invest in a player that had zero sense of safety, or in other words, a reckless honorable player who wouldn't hesitate to put himself in harm way for his partner.
No sir!
What they want was simply a cowardly player, who would do anything to survive without a hint of hesitation, and Mastermania fit the bill perfectly!
He was handsome, charming, had cool looking abilities that allow him to kill, track, and even escape! Not to mention, his serious take on his safety that was on borders of utter cowardness.
All of this made him the perfect example of how a full-fledged idol should be and behave.
The only downside about this was the fact that it was nigh impossible for those idols to find strong partners to ally with them inside the games.
After all, there were absolutely no benefits in doing so for them!
First, The Idols always had a big fat target on their head in every single game, making it hell for anyone who desired to lay low, when partnering with them.
Second, if the MC decided to focus the camera on them, the spectators' interest target would always be the idol. The last, and most important reason, the idols were f*cking untrustworthy!!
If partnering with other players had a 50/50 chance of getting betrayed and stabbed in the back, then partnering with idols literary had 100%, no questions asked. The moment shit gets real, they would be the first to bail without bothering to hide their intentions.
So who in his right mind would want to put himself in that position?
Miss. Sassy might have been charmed by Mastermania into forgetting all of this or she was simply disinterested in researching tips and tricks on Supremacy Games.
Whatever it was, she paid for that mistake with her life!