Chapter 103: The Loss of a Comrade

Xie Liu could no longer spare the pain of his two broken ribs. He forced himself to his feet, with no time to search the fallen for spoils, and shouted, “Everyone, toward the city. Charge at full speed.”

At his cry, everyone broke into a run. They crossed the streets without a word. Looking back, Xie Liu saw Lin Yang already vanish in a flash, taking the lead and racing to the edge of town.

Xie Liu would not be outdone. Enduring the agony, he let the steel wire from the mobility belt at his waist launch him through the packed buildings. In only a few rises and falls, he caught up to Lin Yang.

The two of them ran at the very front. Xie Liu shouted to Lin Yang, “Stay alert. Watch for attacks from the others!”

By now the battlefield had shrunk to only a quarter of the size it had at the start. The next contraction would likely reach the city’s outskirts. Xie Liu glanced at the open stretch ahead, nearly a kilometer across. Aside from a few scattered thickets, there was nothing there to hide behind.

But they had no choice. The luminous barrier behind them was drifting forward, and as the sky brightened, its pace would only grow faster.

“This is very bad.” Xie Liu stopped at the town’s edge. Seeing the light growing brighter, he gave a slight shake of his head. Ahead lay an abandoned city, its towering high-rises packed tightly together and overgrown with weeds and branches. Yet Xie Liu knew the city housed their greatest enemy: the Godslayer Team.

“No time for that. We go!” Lin Yang charged out first, leaving the town’s cover. After several rapid flickers, he was already more than a hundred meters away. Clenching his teeth, Xie Liu steeled himself and followed him out.

Gong Hou came after them, then the delayed Xu Xiong and Li Shizhu. None of them hesitated as they sprinted hard toward the city. At the same time, Ye Ling somehow found an off-road vehicle. With a roar of the engine, she shot ahead as fast as she could. But soon she seemed to lose control, barreling wildly along the road.

“That idiot!” Seeing Ye Ling overtake him in the vehicle, Xie Liu cursed loudly. “Get out of the car now!”

“I won’t!” Ye Ling gripped the wheel stubbornly. Xie Liu was ready to explode. “Get out, or you’ll get us killed!”

Just as Ye Ling tightened her hands on the steering wheel, she heard that and bristled at once. “How am I supposed to be—”

Before she could finish, she felt herself and the vehicle lurch into the air.

“Jump!” Xie Liu shouted.

Ye Ling reacted quickly enough. She kicked the door open and hurled herself out. The off-road vehicle, as if seized by an invisible force, was flung backward at high speed.

“What the hell is that?” Ye Ling landed face-first in the grass, then looked up at the returning vehicle in bewilderment.

Lin Yang appeared beside her and hauled her up, saying coldly, “Magnetic control from the Rage Team.”

Even as he spoke, the vehicle suddenly halted in midair, then spun around one hundred and eighty degrees and came hurtling toward Lin Yang and Ye Ling.

Lin Yang pulled Ye Ling away in a flash, reappearing several meters off. Ye Ling watched the vehicle streak past her and smash into pieces, then she burst out angrily, “Have they lost their minds? They’re attacking us when they should be running?”

“They can’t be blamed. We’ve seized the initiative. We’ll reach the next zone first, then attack them from within it. They’d have no chance. So they want to strike first.” Lin Yang wrapped an arm around Ye Ling’s slim waist and launched them forward again.

Gong Hou and the others were slightly slower and fell behind by a step. Li Shizhu was left in last place.

Xie Liu could already see from afar the two men running out from the town—the two from the Rage Team. He gave a cold laugh. “So you finally can’t hold back?”

He spun abruptly and stopped. The sniper rifle on his back came to bear on the two men behind him. One of them seemed to notice his movement and immediately halted, raising both hands toward the front as if trying to block Xie Liu’s bullets.

“You’re the magnetic controller, are you?” Xie Liu sneered, though he did not fire. Startled by his feint, the pair did not continue running. Xie Liu signaled his comrades to go on ahead.

Yes, he had never intended to shoot. Against a superpower like magnetic control, firing a gun would be suicide. After stopping the Rage Team in their tracks, Xie Liu stuck out his tongue in a mocking face and turned to run.

This time the Rage Team truly raged. Xie Liu heard their captain’s furious roar from far behind, and then half the town behind them was ripped up and hurled skyward, crashing down toward Xie Liu and the others like a storm of ruin.

Xie Liu fled in panic with his head tucked down. Gong Hou abruptly stopped. “You want to compare strength with me, you damn fool?” He slammed his fist into the ground, and a faint ripple spread outward across the earth from his feet.

What followed was an earthquake centered on Gong Hou.

The ground flipped in an instant. With a sweep of his hand, countless stones and clods of earth rose before them, blocking the flying debris. Gong Hou stepped forward and stomped hard; the ground beneath him began to collapse in widening rings. “You want to compare strength with me? Are you worthy?”

His power was formidable indeed. Among all the people in Dream City, none surpassed him in pure strength.

“Don’t get careless!” Xie Liu dodged several stray projectiles and shouted to Gong Hou.

Gong Hou snorted. “It’s fine. Leave it to me.” He threw Xie Liu a dependable back, but in the next second that back became anything but dependable.

A figure suddenly burst out of the dust and smoke and drove a fist straight into Gong Hou’s face.

Caught off guard, Gong Hou was smashed several meters away, landing headfirst in the mud.

“I told you not to be careless!” Xie Liu cursed under his breath. Seeing the attacker still bearing down on them, he drew the blade from his waist. Yet the man was too fast. A flash of light passed through his hand, and a massive battle axe came swinging down.

Xie Liu hastily crossed his long blade before his chest. The moment it struck the axe, a tremendous force slammed into him and hurled him flying. He had no chance to fight back. He was sent sprawling more than ten meters, rolling several times before coming to a stop. The wound on his chest worsened again, and the pain nearly made him lose consciousness.

“Xie Liu!” A cry came from afar. Before he could tell who it was, he saw the enemy’s battle axe already sweeping in again, about to cleave him in two.

Then that earthshaking axe was knocked away by a flying red scythe. Gong Hou seized the opening and rushed in, placing himself before Xie Liu. “Dead-eyes, you’re still alive, right?”

“Fatso, I’ll still be fine even if you’re reduced to dust.” Xie Liu still found time to jab at Gong Hou. Gong Hou reached back and drew his own red scythe. “No time to argue with you. If you don’t want to die, get lost now.”

Xie Liu knew it was no time to quarrel. He struggled to his feet and hurried toward the city. Gong Hou was left alone to face the man before him. He could already glimpse the luminous barrier not far away; light spilled through the dust Gong Hou had kicked up, and it seemed the distance was nearly closed.

“What’s the point of what you’re doing now? You’ve already lost your chance. Just accept elimination obediently.”

At that moment, the sky brightened. The barrier trembled violently, and the rate of contraction increased noticeably.

“Yes, we’re done for. We can’t outrun that barrier. But if you think you can step over our team and keep going, that’s impossible.” The man with the battle axe roared, “I’m taking you all down with me!”

“You don’t have a chance. My comrades are almost here. At most you can leave me behind. No, maybe you can’t even do that.” Gong Hou’s scythe was a simple flying device; for this short a distance, he was still confident he could outrun the shrinking barrier.

“You really think you can get away?” The man with the axe sneered. He slapped the axe hard, and before Gong Hou’s eyes the weapon turned into a sheet of iron sand.

“My ability is force control. Unlike you, who only knows brute strength, I can precisely control every ounce of power. Even if I smash this weapon into powder, I can still send it out!” With that, the burly man thrust both hands forward. The iron sand in his grip turned into a burst of black mist and instantly caught up to Xie Liu’s fleeing group.

Gong Hou sneered. “And what’s the point of that?”

The man before him let out a triumphant laugh. “Who said there’s no point? We’ll all be eliminated together.” As he spoke, the dust behind him dispersed, revealing a second person. He extended both palms, and countless grains of iron sand whirled within them.

Gong Hou suddenly understood. He whirled around and shouted, “Everyone! Down!”

But it was too late.

The moment the iron sand cast by the burly man enveloped Xie Liu and the others, the magnetic controller behind them activated his power. Every grain of iron sand was pulled back at once, taking with it everyone of the Doom Team who stood within the cloud of fine metal.

In that instant, everyone felt their bodies seize as though out of control, dragged by an unseen force and hurled backward at speed.

No one had time to react. They were torn away and flung back in reverse.

“You will all be buried with us!” the burly man laughed wildly.

Gong Hou flew into a rage. He swung his scythe and smashed it hard into the man’s face, sending him flying. The burly man was knocked directly into the rapidly advancing barrier and shattered into fragments. Then the man behind him, the one using magnetic control, dropped to one knee and was swallowed as well.

“The seventh place has been decided. The Rage Team is eliminated!”

Everyone heard those words.

Xie Liu and the others picked themselves up from the ground and erupted into curses.

“Damn it, seventh place? If we get eliminated now, wouldn’t we be sixth?”

They had to preserve their position as a direct-affiliation team. First, they had to secure a top-five finish.

“Forget all that. Run!” Gong Hou roared. He grabbed Xu Xiong, who had just risen from the ground, and hurled him away. Xu Xiong grunted and was tossed dozens of meters like a sandbag by Gong Hou. After rolling a few times along the ground, he sprang up and ran for his life.

“כולם, don’t worry about anything else. Run—one survives, that’s one!” Xie Liu looked back at the world collapsing behind them. With less than ten meters left, he endured the searing pain in his chest and sprinted with everything he had.

Lin Yang took the lead and rushed out first. At this point no one could spare a thought for anyone else. The end of the world was behind them; if they wanted to live and continue the match, they had only one choice: keep running.

Gong Hou rode his flying device over everyone’s heads and was the first to reach the city’s outskirts. Relying on his speed and his ability, Lin Yang also entered the suburbs not long after. Because of Gong Hou’s throw, Xu Xiong somehow managed to escape there as well. But none of them dared assume the barrier would stop, so they did not slow down and kept racing toward the city.

The pain in Xie Liu’s chest had severely affected his speed. He even felt he could no longer breathe. The barrier behind them had already caught up; he could feel the ground under his feet beginning to tremble, as if it might shatter at any moment.

“Ahhhhh—” Xie Liu roared, he did not know from where he found the strength, but he suddenly sped up, and then spotted a watchtower in the city’s outskirts not far ahead. Gathering the last of his strength, he fired the mobility belt around his waist. Just before the barrier swallowed him, he shot outward—only to lose control and tumble from the air.

He crashed into the grass ahead.

Yet the barrier behind him was still closing in.

Xie Liu struggled up and spun around. Seeing the barrier racing toward him, he tried to stand, but it was too late. Behind him were Ye Ling and Li Shizhu, and they were about to be swallowed as well.

“It’s over!”

Xie Liu felt cold within.

Then at that very moment, Li Shizhu suddenly seized Ye Ling and shoved her hard. Ye Ling cried out in shock as Li Shizhu sent her flying straight over the suburban fence and crashing down beside Xie Liu.

“Li Shizhu!”

Xie Liu cried out.

The moment he pushed Ye Ling away, Li Shizhu lost his footing and fell to the ground. When he looked up and saw Xie Liu again, he gave a slight shake of his head, signaling Xie Liu not to save him.

The barrier did not stop. In the next instant it swallowed Li Shizhu whole. In a single breath, this usually taciturn man was reduced to ash.

Then the barrier stopped.

It stopped right before Xie Liu and Ye Ling.

The two of them sat dumbly on the ground, staring at the shattered world beyond the barrier. Less than a meter separated them from it: heaven on one side, hell on the other.