Chapter 97 - Reaching The Lava Sea
"Landlord!!"..."Landlord!!"..."Landlord!!"...
Exhilarated and feverish, the spectators chanted Felix's game name with their fists raised above their heads, flushed cheeks, and above all, standing from their seats.
One bomb, one whiff.
That's all it took for an alliance made of three players to be brought down to their knees. Such an optimal use of energy and wits made them feel like they paid to watch a high silver or gold game, instead of a bronze game that was supposed to be packed with newbies and garbage players.
Even though there were some silver ranked players, they weren't really that good, since their losses must have been more than their wins to end up in this game.
Now, Felix was showing how a real peak tier gold player acts and plays. In his previous life, he never managed to get out of gold rank, but still, that was enough to walk over those scrubs.
"One bomb to break down an entire alliance. He didn't even need to do anything!" Marlion put a close up on Felix's serpent-like car and said in a thrilled manner, "I bet my left mouth that the red bomb was a hallucination inducement! There no other explanation to what just happened."
Marlion guess was pinpoint, as Felix truly used a hallucination inducement. It was one of the few cost-free options. Anyone who absorbed the inducement would have his most recent worry and fear resurface in flesh.
For Warshock, it was the sight of his two allies combining their strengths to kill one player within an instant.
Since the moment he saw that, worry began to eat him up from inside, that he would be their next target. Hallucination inducement just made that appear in reality. The rest was history.
Felix knew that individual alliances were fragile and filled with holes. Especially in bronze rank where newbies still didn't know that contracts were allowed within the game!
That's right, players could sign an alliance contract, forbidding them from acting against each other until their purpose was achieved. Sometimes it would be until they kill their target successfully, while at other times, it would be until everyone died except for them.
Whatever purpose or target was, the moment it was achieved the alliances fall apart, leaving everyone to fend for themselves solo.
To sum it up, if the alliance Felix just destroyed signed a contract with each other, this would have never happened, or at least Warshock would have taken a couple of seconds to think of his decision until the inducement duration runs out.
After all, breaking a contract meant that the Queen would destroy his consciousness, killing him straightway.
...
"Fascinating, just pure skill and wits." Delighted, the elder in the VIP room clapped his hands in praise.
"Told you he deserves to be within the inner circle." The elderly woman chuckled while watching Felix's outplay again on the highlighted large screen.
"Indeed, He is the whole package, smart, ruthless, talented." He nodded in agreement. Suddenly he let out a helpless sigh. "But now other clans will fight with us for him. So we need to entice him with more than just an invitation."
"Hmm, how about we promise him with consciousness cleanse substance?" She suggested.
"Alright, I doubt others will be able to top it even further." he agreed and added, "But he still needs to win the game. That's the minimum requirement to join us."
She nodded and continued to watch Felix's car that was speeding almost reach the volcanoes' tunnels.
...
"This is a moment of fate for this game darling, Landlord. Is he going to pick the right tunnel or chooses the wrong one?"
Marlion completely ignored the other players after Felix's last witty display. Now the entire audience already started focusing only on Felix, and he must abide by their wishes and showcase his face on the large screen.
With Felix hoodie that only showed darkness, this added extra bonus points on Felix's entire persona. The majority of the crowd loved the mysterious vibe he was emitting. Plus with his seemingly endless poison inducements, this only further enhanced that feeling.
"How many did he use so far?!" A random spectator asked.
"He currently used 4 unique inducements. white for sleepiness, acid green for corrosion, light yellow for paralyzes, and finally red for hallucination I assume." The one near him answered his question while reading from a small note.
"I can't wait to see other ones!"
"Sigh, truly legendary bloodlines are on their own league."
"No shit, epic rank tier 1 can be sold for 5 million, meanwhile legendary rank can reach even 200 million for just tier 1."
"And even then, you can only get them from renowned auctions houses."
The spectators conversed and argued with each other out loud with varied emotions; adoration, envy, greed, and indifference.
The only unarguable idea was that Felix's bloodline was Legendary. The mere thought that it could be above never crossed their minds.
At the end of the day, legendary rank beasts were at the peak of rarity and potential without questions asked. This had been a dead debate since long ago.
This was the reason Felix never cared or bothered about hiding his bloodline abilities. Since even if he used tens of inducements no one would question him on it.
The only thing that must be hidden no matter what was the number of abilities he owned!
After all, if he used 6 active abilities while being in the bronze and silver, it signified only two things, either the system was bugged and a peak 6th stage bloodliner somehow managed to sneak inside, or Felix had a way to awaken more abilities while being at the bottom of integration.
That's what was going to create true chaos. As humans at the top of the pyramid would use everything they had in their possession to find his identity in the real world or at least harass anyone who used the same abilities as he had.
Before long, they would find him in real life and invite him for a cup of tea.
.....
Felix tapped on his wheel with his fingers while humming a tune softly. From time to time he glanced at the ranking and the eliminated players list that was on his car's dashboard.
"Oh, another one eliminated at the front." A bit surprised, he exclaimed after seeing his rank bump up to 5th while the player base got lowered from 20 to 19.
"Let's see who the lucky one is." He clicked on the eliminated list and all the names who died were displayed in front of him.
"Nooo!! Mystifying Beauty, how can you die before I play with you?" Felix lightly punched his wheel in vexation after seeing the busty chick he groped in the hall gets eliminated.
"Oh well, we were not fated." His vexation was quickly replaced with focus after finally reaching the tunnels leading to the volcanoes.
"Lady Luck, I never begged you for anything. But please just for once show me the way." Felix prayed piously while driving through a tunnel he chose randomly.
After a while, Felix's curses resounded in the tunnel.
"F*ck you! I will never beg from you again." He huffed in anger after seeing a dead-end in the one he chose.
Without wasting any more time, he made a sharp turn, leaving the tunnel and drifting into the 2nd one to his right.
Thankfully, the hateful lava he saw before was not there, as only a wide mouth showing crimson sky was unveiled as soon as he stepped inside the tunnel.
Felix immediately accelerated while spinning his hovercar to nullify some air resistance. He didn't like using this technique as it gave him motion sickness, and he couldn't afford to have one next to other players.
A few seconds later, His car rushed out of the volcano mouth into an orange cloud. It kept going up and up until it lost its momentum. Then, it dropped rapidly towards the lave sea. Gravity was pulling it down to its rightful height, which was 100 meters above the surface.
Felix did not let this free drop go to waste, as he directed his car towards the red desert and accelerated even further while dropping.
BOOOM!
The sound barrier was broken, as Felix's car speed exceeded the speed of sound. But he remained composed even when he was nosediving towards the raging lava sea with that kind of speed.
He squinted his eyes in focus while glancing from time to time at the meterage in his car's dashboard to see his altitude.
5400...4700m...3988m....2680m.....1500m
"Now!!"
Felix bit his lip as hard as he could while pulling the wheel to himself and simultaneously pushing the brakes to the limit.
His car kept trying to uplift itself to be vertical to the sea.
500m..300...220...90m!!
Phew!
Felix's car glided exactly 90 meters above the lava sea and zoomed with at least triple the normal speed.
Felix let go of his bottom lip and gave a pleased smirk that sent the spectators wild after seeing such a risky maneuver that no one before attempted to do.
Felix just kept giving and giving. There wasn't a single boring moment with him, even when he was flying alone.
Well, Felix did this dangerous movement not to entertain them but to catch up to the frontrunners. And it was totally worth it, as Felix finally saw the tail of two cars in front of him.
"Heh, another partnership?" He grinned, "Don't mind me breaking your honeymoon."
Even though he said so, he did not rush into them but kept his distance and observed silently their cars, like a predator waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.