POV ???:
A player ran down an abandoned street submerged in darkness, with only a few bumbling drunkards cheering in the tall surrounding buildings.
The dark stone that the street and the buildings along it were built made the night look even darker than it really was. The player ran faster and faster, occasionally glancing over his shoulder with fear in his eyes.
He wanted to shout and cry for help, yet the spell forcing his mouth shut didn’t even budge, no matter how much he tried.
“Here you are… Sorry, but you will be late for your match.” Figures in bland, dark clothes with hoods over their faces jumped from the roofs, landing all around him, their blades slightly glowing in the darkness.
“Hhgh!” He let out a muffled voice, his eyes wide in panic.
‘Why? Why is this happening? Who is this doing?’
The next moment the weapons glinted and pierced through his body in multiple places, evil energy flowing through their blades, seeping into his muscles and veins.
Ding!
//
You were killed by the ???
You were afflicted with the curse of death. You can’t resurrect for the next 48 hours.
//
‘Fuck!’
The next morning:
POV BoobaFet and his gang:
A trio of players rested in a small, simple, yet well-lit chamber, two sitting on a leather couch, facing a table filled with cards and papers. They were a tall-horned human and a fat-horned dwarf.
“Just as I feared… this tournament will not go peacefully.” The dwarf stared at a paper on a table with a frown while his friend stared at the cards.
They were knights and had their duty to keep the kingdom’s capital safe, yet someone was murdering right on their watch.
Lili nervously walked in circles with her hand under her chin, deeply submerged in her thoughts while quietly murmuring, “This is not good… Murder… But why? Is it to make us look bad, or is it to manipulate match results.”
She felt like something was hidden behind a veil, something she was missing, and that was frustrating her.
“Boooh! Cheaters!” shouts were constantly coming in through the large windows, accompanied by the morning sunlight.
She stopped walking when she reached a window and leaned out, spotting a small mob of players angrily shouting under the windows of the local barracks, “Probably the first one… The rumors and news about it spread too fast.”
“Boooh! Fuckers, I bet you are too scared that someone that is not evil and edgy will win!” The shouts were getting louder and louder as more and more players gathered in the square.
Booba just shrugged his shoulders, turning his gaze back to his cards, “Does it matter? Let them think what….”
Lili stared at her dumb friend, making him shrink deep into his couch, “No, it matters. How will this look if we are shown as incompetent fraudsters? It will make it much harder for the kingdom to deal with anyone.”
Suddenly the doors into the chamber flew wide open, and the two players lazing on the couch jumped up like experienced soldiers caught sleeping on duty.
“His Majesty ordered us to hurry the contingency plan number five. All knights are sent on duty.” A wyvern knight stormed inside, covered in black armor with glowing red runes.
“Did we find the culprit?” Booba summoned his spear out of his pouch, his eyes brightly shining after seeing the fully equipped knight.
“No, you are wrong! We are going to place some bets!” The knight dropped pouches filled to the brim with coins on the table, the golden, silver, and bronze coins spilling out, loudly clanging.
“Bet everything on participant number seventy-five! Bet that they will win the next round of the tournament within the first thirty seconds. The bets for the final winner are already closed, but we can still make money in this round. It is a gift from his majesty.”
‘Really, there was a murder, yet the people that should work on solving it are preparing some betting scam?!’ She quietly sighed, realizing that it was the nature of dragons.
However, she couldn’t stop herself from questioning it, “But what about the murder?”
The kobold froze, looking at her with its golden eyes, with visible confusion, “How would it look if a single murder caused a whole kingdom to move? We are a powerful kingdom. One murder is inconsequential on a large scale, especially a murder of an immortal. If we overreact, it will look bad. However, we will still bolster our patrols to prevent any further problems.”
‘Was it just me who was turning this matter into something big? It makes sense… murders are happening everywhere, and there is no way that it could affect a whole country… But this one was special, a participant in a tournament was assassinated… Nah, some higher-up must know what are they doing.’
“You see, I told you. It doesn’t matter, but you have doubted my genius again.” Her annoying friend with the spear looked at her with a smug face and smile that made her want to punch him.
POV ???:
A single woman with long aqua-colored hair stood in the middle of the bridge, holding a long spear in her hand. She looked nervous, looking towards the other end of the bridge. It was empty, and there was no trace of her opponent.
‘Where are they? The match will start in a minute, and they are still not here. Maybe my opponent just gave up.’𝑶𝔳𝗅xt.𝒸𝑶𝐌
She pushed back all of her nervosity, realizing that her opponent was just nobody, ‘It is probably just some random casual who wanted some fun and a moment on the stage, but in the end, they chickened out.’
The next moment a sound of the wings flapping came from above her, but she paid no mind to it as the sky above the city was full of flying monsters.
However, the crowd’s cheers exploded as the commentator’s voice resonated throughout the arena, “And here comes our second duelist, participant number seventy-five, Venenumius.”
The flapping got even closer, and a black shadow covered her. She felt shivers run down her spine as her body reacted to a presence of a terrifying predator. Her body screamed for her to run away.
However, she collected her resolve and stared up in sheer terror and confusion.
An elegant wyrm hovered high above the volcano, its whole body covered in shiny silver metal armor overgrown with pulsing and glowing, venomous veins. A thin film of water flowed around it, giving it an ethereal look as the light from the veins refracted in it.
Pristine and pure, transparent crystals, looking like solidified water and mana, grew out of the armor in beautiful patterns that made the whole wyrm look like a knight in the armor of silver and diamonds.
The crystals were transparent, allowing one to see through them without almost any distortion. Their innards were filled with pulsing and glowing vein-like lines with toxic-looking green and dark purple colors.
Its head was crowned with three long horns made of the same transparent crystal. Two horns grew from the sides, with the last growing straight from its snout. Its whole skull was covered in a single large, flat piece of crystal that looked like a mask, the lights of the wyrm’s golden eyes brightly glowing through it.
Its wings were large and beautiful, their skeletal structures made of the same silver-like metal with their leathery membranes replaced by stacked, miniature, and fragile-looking water-clear crystals with glowing veins growing within them.
Each of their flaps sent waves of humid and refreshing wind down through the arena, pushing back the blazing inferno of the volcano underneath it.
Ding!
// New Quest
Objective: Defeat the boss Venonumius
Reward: You will win the round; ???
//
“This is not fair!” she shouted out of her lungs, but the audience cheered even more, their eyes shining with the desire for violence.
“Kill her!” someone shouted in the distance.
And more and more voices joined in, “Kill her!”
She straightened her back, knowing it wasn’t lost cause, ‘Even if I lose this round, I can still advance if I win the following matches.’
She didn’t even dare to think about defeating the wyrm before her. It was a wyrm, and all wyrms were raid bosses, requiring multiple parties to collaborate to win. And even then, it needed dozens of attempts and luck to pull it off.
‘This is broken! How am I supposed to solo a raid boss?!’
The wyrm landed on the opposite end of the bridge with a loud thud, its long crystalline claws digging deep into the bridge’s stone. The whole arena turned silent, everyone watching with wide eyes.
She even partially understood them, ‘It is a rare opportunity to see a wyrm fight without any danger. If I was the one watching, I would also cheer.’
She raised her spear, refusing to let herself get humiliated before such a large audience. She would rather die in a battle than surrender like a coward.
“Fight!”
A shockwave exploded from under her feet, winds enveloping her whole body, her hair flowing behind her as she shot like an arrow toward the wyrm.
‘This is my chance. We are both starting from the same position!’ She grinned after seeing the horns on the wyrm’s head flare up in bright light.
‘Wyrms are casters. If I get there in time, I will win!’ She realized that she was wrong, ‘The wyrms are powerful, but not in such a controlled situation like this!’
A long blade of wind expanded out the tip of her spear, turning it into a massive windy cleaver-like weapon that loudly shrieked and howled as it cut forwards.
The wyrm was getting closer and closer with each of her steps, her heart beating with all of the adrenaline flooding it.
The next moment she stumbled towards the ground, her legs giving up under her weight as she landed with her face straight against the hard stone.
Her head was spinning, and her vision was becoming blurry and distorted. She looked at her hands.
Her veins expanded and turned black, contrasting with the rest of her deadly pale skin, ‘So you have poison affinity.’
For the first time, she noticed the haze of the tiny droplets drifting through the air, enveloping the wyrm in the faint, almost invisible barrier.
‘And water on top of that… probably even wind to distribute it. How many affinities this wyrm has?!’
Her vision finally faded.
Ding!
//
You were killed by the boss, adult dracowyrm Venenumius
//
She died, but she was still happy, ‘I can sell the information that I learned for a good price. Even if I lose this tournament, I will still profit!’