Chapter 277 - An Upcoming Ambush!
"Let's carry on moving." Felix said as he walked through the passed-out juniors, who were lying on the ground.
Olivia took out a brand new tracker from her backpack and turned it on.
"Heheh." She couldn't help but chuckle after seeing some red dots moving in every direction randomly.
She knew that all of them had their tracker's batteries run out!
If it wasn't for so, they would have escaped the moment they noticed the twelve stacked dots near them.
The only reason she was still holding into an operating tracker was due to robbing a team yesterday, who managed to get the tracker from a brand new package.
After all, ten packages never stopped dropping every 24 hours. However, Felix and the rest never dared to approach one again even if it landed nearby.
They had no intentions to put themselves near tens of teams lest they ignore the package and switch their aggro on them after realizing the number of flags in their possession.
Thankfully, they always found refills for their energy and food in the backpacks of the teams they hunted.
"Olivia, directions?" Felix asked with a lazy tone.
"No one is in front of us!" Olivia informed them.
After hearing so, the team carried on moving forward without any intentions to change paths. They just kept walking and walking until they end up meeting a team without a flag.
Then, they fight it out with them, rob them clean out of their stuff, and carry on moving.
Hours went by just like this. The sun was slowly heading west, entailing the approaching inevitable end of the competition.
By now, most teams had already given up as they had no energy nor will to carry on this meaningless goose chase.
On the other hand, those with two or three flags were in a heated argument about the flag's ownership.
While it was easy to deal with one flag since it was obvious that the captain would take it, but when there were two or three flags?
No one was a pushover to give away a chance into making it to the earthling's team!
The instructors of those teams weren't retarded to not anticipate this. That's why they decided on the order after the gathering.
The captain was always first, and no one dared to complain about it since that was a privilege of being the strongest in the team.
However, from 2nd to 10th, it was based on either lot or the instructor's personal choice.
To not make the others feel upset after putting a hellish effort and end up with nothing, the instructors had promised those without flags a quite few astonishing rewards on their return.
At that point in time, everyone could only nod their heads in agreement at the arrangement no matter if it was beneficial to them or not.
Plus, there was always that self-confidence that made them believe in their strength and luck to secure a flag for themselves.
But now? After reaching the last hour of the competition, those beliefs were already wilted.
This left behind ugly husks that had no issues going back on the arrangements and trying to take a flag for themselves!
In their eyes, the national team was already broken apart the moment two or three of their teammates got a flag while they could only look at them enjoying the fruits of their labor.
Who could understand going through seven days of constant stress, waking up in the middle of the night scared shitless that someone might ambush them?
Who could understand being on the move for at least 16 hours every god damn day so they wouldn't get caught by team hunters like Felix's?
Who could understand the pain of doing all of this just to get a 'participation reward' after they get back to their country?
Only they could feel those emotions. Some painted a smile on their faces as they congratulated their teammates for making it to the next stage.
While the majority just weren't that selfless to smile at others and let them have it like that.
Thus, dramas had risen between teams.
Most American viewers had already bailed out on their team's stream after getting bored out of watching Felix and the rest bully a team after another.
They were currently spread out on other countries' streams watching the noisy arguments, juniors holding each other back from making a scene by entering a fistfight, and more of such juicy dramas.
Yet, most of them had invaded the Russian team's stream and the Chinese team's stream, who were also dealing with those embarrassing scenes under the eyes of the world.
After all, one had 8 flags and the other had 6. The rest without flags definitely weren't going to stay silent. Especially when every one of them was a proud elite of their country.
In the Russian stream...
Slyvia could be seen leaning with her side against a tree. She was putting her entire attention on a turned-off tracker. She kept hitting it in the back and pressing the turn-on button over and over again.
Alas, no response. The screen was still black.
The sight would have appeared normal if it wasn't for her teammate throwing a tantrum while being held by two boys nearby.
"It was me who healed your asses back to peak form in every god damn battle!! IT WAS ME!" A man with a long pony-tail kept shouting while poking his chest roughly, "I did the most work and I deserve a flag as well! I don't give a shit about prior arrangements!"
Before the others could argue back, the pony-tailed man pointed at a silent girl, who was sitting in the corner, and carried on throwing a fit, "Belka did absolutely nothing! F*cking nothing! YET SHE IS GETTING A FLAG DUE TO LUCK! How is this fair?? Please, someone please tell me in what world is this fair?"
Some teammates went quiet after hearing so. Although they had gotten their flag, they still sympathize with their healer and understood his frustration.
They knew that he was absolutely right. As the only healer on the team, he indeed showed a praiseworthy performance in comparison to some of them.
However, based on the arrangement made, he ended up drawing the last lot. This meant unless the team somehow found two more flags, he was pretty much screwed.
Right now, he might look like he was venting his frustration but he was trying to influence Slyvia into giving him the flag instead of Belka!
He knew that as the captain she still could bypass the arrangements and take it upon herself to give the flags to the worthy!
However, Slyvia never bothered to address their argument since the moment it started.
She simply was pressing on the turn on the button of the tracker over and over again, hoping that it might turn on for just a second.
That's all she needed and wanted.
She understood that the competition might be at its last stretch but it also gave them two opportunities that they never had before.
First, the majority of trackers must have run out of battery, letting the teams defenseless to their team's advancement.
Second, she understood that the majority of the teams were dealing with the same situation as them.
This would lower their guards to the bare minimum, allowing her team to make a quick and successful ambush.
Too bad, the tracker's battery was utterly dead. In the end, she gave up on it after noticing that time was running short.
"What about me? I also took care of mo.."
"Enough!" Slyvia glanced at them coldly and said, "Stop wasting our time with needless arguments."
"But..."
"Don't make me repeat myself."
The healer immediately swallowed his words back after seeing Slyvia narrowing her eyes dangerously at him.
He knew that he couldn't talk up to Slyvia as neither he nor his business family could afford the consequence of offending the only daughter of the president of Russia!
Heck, he was asked specifically by his family to either build a close relationship with Slyvia or keep it natural. Since the moment he met her, he was doing his best to tread on those two thin lines.
He didn't want to ruin everything at the finish line. Thus, he buried his frustration deep within and didn't bring the flag subject again.
"I will be taking another chance at scouting from the air." She informed them coldly, "You better behave while I am gone."
Immediately after, Slyvia walked a couple of meters away from the tree and unfolded her grey butterfly-like wings widely!
Some American viewers were left in awe at the wing's large size, which spanned at least a meter and a half on each side.
But they were most affected by the mesmerizing image of two blue circles in the center of each wing, which had tens of blue lines originated from them.
Those lines were spreading all over the wings, creating a bewitching design that only mother nature could create!
Whoosh!
Alas, their enthralment was disturbed after those wings started fluttering rapidly, lifting Slyvia up in the air.
After she reached a hundred meters or so, she picked a direction and swiftly flew in it.
Upon seeing so, the supervisor responsible for the Russian team made one of the drones follow her closely.
The viewers interested in watching her only switched to the 2nd drone.
The moment they did so, they noticed that Slyvia was flying slowly while narrowing her eyes at the woods, surveying everything like a radar.
It didn't take her even a couple of minutes to notice a team walking while arguing with suppressed tones like they were inside a sealed room.
However, just as she noticed them, they also didn't miss spotting her flying above their heads.
"Run!" Scared shitless, no one bothered to bicker any further as they bolted in the opposite direction of Slyvia.
They didn't know if her team was near or not, and they weren't planning on staying to find out.
Upon seeing so, Slyvia just sighed and carried on her scouting journey.
She already knew that by using her wings, there was a minuscule chance of locating a team without getting seen first.
In most cases, she was actually getting spotted beforehand since the woods were somewhat hiding the teams but also allowing them to look at the sky clearly.
The moment she gets spotted, every team bolts without questions asked. Slyvia's team couldn't catch up while there was such a massive distance between them.
If it wasn't for those lackl.u.s.ter results, Slyvia wouldn't have been trying her best to turn on the tracker.
She knew that her scouting wasn't even 1% as effective as relying on trackers.
Right now? She was just flying like a headless butterfly, scaring the teams away.
Just as she was planning on returning to her team after those tragic results, her ears picked up muffed noises of explosions coming from her left side.
'An ongoing battle?' With hope regained, Slyvia swiftly flew in that direction.
Sure enough, she noticed two teams trading elemental abilities between them while the front-liners were going at it up close.
The moment her eyes landed on Adam using lava-based abilities and Noah smashing his foe's arm into a paste by his Ice Mace, she immediately knitted her eyebrows in concern.
She knew that the US team wasn't an easy target to deal with and she wasn't that c.o.c.ky to believe that her team could demolish them as they did with the majority.
However, she recognized that her options were limited.
Either she takes advantage of their battle and swiftly returns to bring her team here, or she could give up on the other two flags.
If she did so, she better steel herself and watch her teammates rip each other with unsavory words due to her failure of securing a flag for each member.
Slyvia wasn't going to give up on this heaven-sent opportunity even if she knew that the battle wasn't going to be pretty.
She gave one last glance at the fight and quickly took off. The faster they make it here the better their chances at ambushing the US team!
Meanwhile, the American viewers already went back to their team's stream and relayed the information in the chat.
Everyone was left speechless, not knowing how to react to the upcoming battle.
Some were deep down excited and some were feeling worried for the team. This was an ambush from the Russian team in the last 30 minutes of the competition.
If something went wrong, there was no coming back anymore!