Chapter 265 - A Spiteful Retaliation?
"The US team has successfully eliminated five teams at once without losing a single hair strand!" Janna commentated in excitement, "What a marvelous strategy and synergy!"
Her excitement was being shared by the millions of live viewers, who were spamming in the stream chat 'Pog' and 'Wow' emojis in a frenzy, making it impossible to read the actual written sentences.
"Sigh, if only the drones' vision wasn't hindered as well by the fog, the battles would be more thrilling to watch."
Dejected, Micheal sighed while looking at the stream screen showing everything in black and green, giving them a somewhat clear overview of what's happening within the fog.
Alas, they could forget about seeing the thrill of abilities clashing together and such, as they couldn't even differentiate between the teams.
If the two drones weren't programmed to follow only the US team, they would have already lost them and started watching another team unbeknownst to them.
Thus, the viewers never actually saw the abilities used by Felix's team! This left them guessing if they used anything new in their battles or not.
...
Meanwhile, Felix and the rest immediately started moving towards the package position, following Johnson, who started showing exhaustion signs.
'John, energy?' Felix asked.
'30% and declining rapidly.' Johnson replied.
'Alright, don't puff out any more fog, just try to sustain the created one for five minutes or so.' Felix said while gazing at two teams, one to his left and the other to his right.
They were walking slowly in the same direction as them.
He decided to ignore them for now since the three nearest teams to the package had already made it to the center of the fog, where the package was stuck on a tree.
Before long, one of them would climb the tree and find it. Then, he could open it up right there and see that the tracker was still inside.
Felix was certain that they would take it and escape instead of securing the entire package since it was heavy and bulky.
He didn't want to be forced into chasing them down, as more variables would come up the further they stray from the plan.
But in reality, he was just lazy to put in such an extra effort.
...
'We are here.' Johnson sent a message while narrowing his eyes at three bloodliners climbing up a tree each.
Meanwhile, their teammates were guarding them underneath, turning their heads back and forth akin to radars.
Since his vision was left intact, he watched them from twenty meters or so behind a tree.
He wasn't about getting found out by bloodliners with vision abilities since the known range for the best rare tier 1 vision ability was merely 10 meters.
'Damn it! It's the Canadian team.' John knitted his eyebrows in annoyance after seeing the red maple flag of Canada in their outfits.
He knew that it would be problematic for them to make a move since the US and Canada were close allies!
And they were explicitly given orders by George to avoid battles with them since it wouldn't bore suitable for the country to have its team eliminating its oldest and closest ally.
Obviously, this applied to only close allies and not everyone.
That being said, Johnson didn't give a shit as it was the captain's problem to handle, not his. He gave out his report and tried his best to hold himself from sitting due to exhaustion.
'Canada? So bothersome.' Felix scratched his nose in vexation.
He wanted to send a message by the Queen, warning them to leave. But, communication between teams was blocked.
He didn't want to shout his threat out loud since it was stupid as he would be giving off the team's position plus their identity.
Besides, shouting would be disrespectful and humiliating as the Canadian team would absolutely not retreat while under their citizen's watch!
By Felix shouting threat, he would be actually giving them no choice but to battle him.
If they did, he would f*ck them up pretty badly. This would embarrass the country even more.
He truly wanted to avoid the political storm that would rise after so. He could already envision the shitty news about it.
'F*ck it, just go around them.' Felix waved his hand dismissively, 'After we take care of the other two and the fog clears out, both the team and their countrymen will see the aftermath. And they are not stupid to not realize the price of fighting us.'
Upon hearing so, Johnson turned left and carried on moving, thoroughly ignoring the Canadian team, who were wasting time searching empty trees.
Boom! Bam!!...Argh!...
However, just as he took the first step, the sounds of explosions and people groaning resounded thunderously from the direction he was heading to.
The team didn't need to ask Johnson to see what's going on as the wind produced from those massive explosions had hurled the fog in every direction, clearing out an entire area!
This led the team to see with their own eyes, two teams going at it.
The ones on the left had an infuriated expression, while the others on the right were either shaking their heads in disappointment or had an annoyed expression.
And in the middle of their battle, there was a silver metallic box that was at least a 1-meter cubic size.
Its surface was still l.u.s.trous and unaffected by the fire, ice, and acidic mist surrounding it.
If it wasn't for the parachute burning next to it, anyone would have assumed that this chest was a bank safe and not the package!
Felix and the rest instantly hid behind the closest thing to them. They started watching the battle in intrigue.
They had not a single thought of intervening before they understood the entire situation.
'Should I hold the fog to keep the area visible?' Johnson asked swiftly after seeing that his fog was coming back again.
'Do it.' Felix agreed.
After he received a confirmation, Johnson manually forced the fog to freeze.
Alas, before Olivia and the rest could appreciate having their visibility back, the battle had ended just as it began!
No one was attacking anymore as both teams retreated further from each other, leaving the package all alone in the center of the area, appearing like a trophy begging to be taken.
However, those two teams merely sent two bloodliners in the direction of the package.
The moment they reached five meters away from it, they stopped and started staring at each other with opposite expressions.
The man on the right side of the package had an afro-like hairstyle and was wearing a red and black outfit.
He was looking nonchalantly at a petite girl with short braided caramel hair.
Upon seeing that she was giving him an unfriendly vibe, he clicked his tongue in irritation, 'I guess we can only split the package now.'
"I apologize on behalf of the team for striking first." Unlike his hidden irritation, the afro man bowed his head politely and added, "But the moment my teammate noticed the noisy footsteps of your team approaching us rapidly, we had no choice but to send a warning shot."
"Warning Shot?" The girl snorted in derision at the man's apology.
She glanced at four of her teammates, who were passed out with scorched black skin or frozen in ice, and gritted her teeth in resentment.
"Angola Captain, do you take me for a fool?" She yelled, "Who the f*ck fires a warning shot with tens of elemental abilities all at once! If my shields weren't strong enough to handle your 'warning shot', my entire team would have been wiped out!"
She was not mad that he was aiming for the kill since that was to be expected in this competition. But from the fact that he tried to play it differently after his attempt failed.
She knew that he wanted to silence them by one single attack and escape with the entire package under cover of what remained from the fog.
However, now that he failed, he clearly didn't want to enter a battle with them anymore.
He knew that other teams wouldn't take long before reaching here and collapse on both of their teams after they notice the sealed package.
The Angola captain merely scratched his cheek carelessly, "Didn't I already apologize? It was an honest mistake. Now, how about we talk this out peaceful.."
"F*ck off!"
The braided girl didn't wait for him to finish off his bullshit as she flipped him the finger and retreated to her teammates.
Then, she did the unexpected as she shouted at the top of her voice, "THE PACKAGE IS HERE WITH THE ANGOLA CAPTAIN!"
Her voice was loud enough; it traveled far and beyond, reaching even the disqualified teams who regained their consciousness and retreated outside of the fog.
"Good luck sending warning shots to all of the teams at once, you f*cker."
Spitful and somewhat frustrated, She glared at him one last time before turning around and bolting with her team in the opposite direction.
It was clear that she already informed her team about her sudden outburst as her teammates piggybacked those four heavily injured bloodliners.
Meanwhile, the Angola captain just kept looking at them retreating into the fog with mouth agape, not knowing how did things derail from his expectation so fast.
He knew that any smart and reliable captain would never do what she did, even if they were offended and insulted.
Why? Simple actually!
They were f*cking representing their entire country and given massive responsibility to bring them as many flags as possible.
Those flags translate to representative slots, which translate to having votes in the World Council. Having those votes meant actually influencing the decision making!
Yet! The girl under the public watch of her country had just given up on a chance to get the tracker to spite him?
He didn't think for a second that was even possible!
He wasn't the only one shocked by the girl's irresponsible retaliation, as even the viewers from each country's stream were left in disbelief.
Micheal swiftly broke out of his daze and swiped his finger at the Malaysian's stream, wanting to check if the citizen of Malaysia were barraging their captain with insults or not.
However, when he looked at the chat and saw that the viewers were actually spamming applause emoji for their captain, he was left bewildered.
Since this was a foreign stream, the Malaysian team's language and the viewers sounded like gibberish to him.
Therefore, he requested from the all-knowing Queen to translate. After reading the chat this time, his confusion was cleared out instantly.
He couldn't help but commentate it out loud for the American viewers, "Their Healer was part of the four heavily wounded bloodliners!"
The moment Janna and the viewers heard this, they immediately recognized that the Malaysian captain did the right thing!
After all, if their healer was unconscious and heavily wounded, there was no way that the captain was going to carry on remaining next to the Angola captain.
He was bound to see that her teammates weren't getting healed back in shape and figure out that he had luckily managed to take down the healer in the previous elemental salvo!
By then? He wouldn't bother to waste his time talking as he would straightway carry on the battle!
Thus, the package was already lost for the Malaysian team, which explains the girl's frustration.
However, Instead of just running away, she wanted to ruin the Angola team's chances of getting the package.
Alas, she made it difficult for all of the teams, Felix's included.
'So bothersome.' His annoyed expression as he looked at the fast-approaching two teams from the back said it all.