Chapter A way out
Hel didn"t like the look the players are giving her.
It insulted her status as a G.o.d and she started raising the pressure. He didn"t give a s.h.i.t about the compet.i.tion now. She is now completely focused on dealing with these players as if they are her archenemies.
Players didn"t budge though. Of course not all of them are like that.
For example, Dayus. He caved in after two minutes and just started begging for his life as he scolded Sam"s impudence along with the rest of the players" ignorance to ever even thinking of defying her like this.
Of course, Hel didn"t give a c.r.a.p about one prideless punk. Rather she is irked by the rest of the players even more after watching this display. Because she got reminded of what she has forgotten a long time.
She was reminded of how the players should have treated her, which didn"t happen since Sam"s incident. Her anger is obviously reflected on the players. The players also had enough of this and were ready to attack.
They didn"t know if her presence here is real, but since she can effect them with this pressure, they might have a chance of disrupting it. As for the difference of strength, they didn"t care much. It would be fine as long as they can land a hit.
But right before they made a move, they sensed different energies appearing out of nowhere and enveloping the players. Sam felt some kind of weird energy that he has never seen before which surprised him.
It circled around and allievated the pressure that hew as feeling just a moment ago.
Similar things happened to the rest of the players, except for two people.
Dayus and Arkiv.
Sam frowned at this. He moved towards Arkiv to see what happened and tried to use his own energy to shield him. He wasn"t able to negate the whole pressure, but he did relieve it a bit.
As he was thinking of why this happened, a few more projections appeared on the dais.
"What did I tell you Hel? Not to mess up this normal announcement. But you went and did it anyway. I should really come and visit your territory again. Don"t I?"
Gambler"s voice was heard loud and clear. He appeared right next to Hel and she appeared to be freaked out.
Sam could feel that the energy that saved him belonged to Gambler. He looked at Karthikeya, Sun Wukong and rest of the G.o.ds that are related to the other players. They all stood there with their energies shielding their respective players.
Hou Yi and Zeus are the only exceptions. They didn"t shield their players.
Sam could understand why Hou Yi did it. Arkiv fell out with him after the stunt pulled by Hou Yi during the Palace of Inheritance. But Sam didn"t understand why Zeus didn"t do that. After all, unlike Arkiv, Dayus religiously followed whatever Zeus wanted him to follow.
In fact, he believed Dayus" behavior is very similar to that of Zeus.
As he thought to this point, he got a faint idea on why Zeus behaved like this.
Dayus who felt the full pressure of Hel for quite a while looked miserable. But he didn"t get up even after Hel"s pressure was gone. Because Zeus started pressuring him and looking at him acting like that, even Hou Yi started doing the same.
Sam who was blocking Arkiv looked at Hou Yi coldly and helped Arkiv shield the energy. k.u.mar and Noah also joined in a.s.sisting them which made it easier for Arkiv to go through the pain while Dayus endured it all on his own.
Looking at this scene Gamble chuckled slightly as he waved his hand.
"Stop this nonsense. We are here to guide our players for the last time in a while. Are you sure you want to waste all of that like this? Try to put it to some good use, alright."
As he spoke, he waved his hand.
He disappeared along with Sam from the spot and both of them appeared in an isolated s.p.a.ce with a table and two chairs on either side of it.
Gambler took a seat on one side and gestured Sam to do the same.
"So, what is that you want to guide me in?"
Sam asked directly.
"How are you doing? We can talk business later. Tell me how your experience has been? I mean staying in another body and all, it must definitely be something unique and once in a life time experience. So, you should tell me how you felt about that."
"I have nothing to say about that. My body was stolen and I was locked in a crippled body. I utilized it to the best of my ability and got my body back. There is nothing more to it."
"Really? Such a unique experience and that is all you can think of? Can you be a little more open to me. After all, we are linked to each other whether you like it or not and even though you are playing for my pleasure, your welfare is of some importance to me."
"If you want to care for me, finish this interaction as soon as possible and let me go from here. I don"t really want to spend my time here. My friends are waiting for me."
"Yeah, your friends. How are they doing? From the looks of it, you guys are all having some really good time. I am honestly jealous of your situation a bit.
Boozing, roaming around in beaches, hundreds of subordinates making billions every day. You are living some really great life. I doubt you will be disappointed if you stay like this forever. With your cultivation level and the way you are going at it, you will be able to live for at least a couple of thousand of years.
What do you think? Do you want to stop here and live your life like this?"
"Is it a real offer or is this another one of your useless talks?"
"As real as it can be. I am asking you seriously. Sam, will you stop now if you are given a choice. I and the other G.o.ds will not bother you anymore if you wish to stop here. All the things that you have built, all the achievements you have, the life you have made yourself, none of them will be disturbed.
You will be safe, happy and free. You can live your life as you wanted without any restrictions, obligations and particularly any necessity to fulfil certain tasks at all. You will be a free man.
You don"t have to feel like a puppet and play the game that you were playing since the day you came here. Will you take this chance or not?"
"Why are you offering me this?"
"Is that all you have to ask? There is not even a change of expression. Are you not even a little bit excited? Isn"t it what you always wanted? To be free of everything. You will have all the freedom you want."
"Just answer my question." Sam asked with a deadpan expression. There is not even a single twitch in his facial muscles when Gambler asked this.
"Okay, as you wish.
This offer is me giving you a way out. The next rounds of this compet.i.tion are going to be really messy and dangerous and the moment you leave this place, the compet.i.tion will start.
Hel might have said that you wouldn"t be doing next task until you reach the peak stage of Astral Plane consummation, but that doesn"t mean the compet.i.tion has stopped.
The only thing that stopped is the pre-determined and tailored tasks. You will be compet.i.ting with each other and to a great extent."
"Don"t beat around the bush. Just tell me what it is. I have no patience for this bulls.h.i.t."
"Alright, as you wish.
At this point of the game all of the G.o.ds are giving their candidate a way out, because in the next task, there is a great chance that all of you will die and if by any chance that any one of you survived, the later the person staysin the test, the harsher it will become for them.
The level of struggle each person has to go through will be immense to the point that you will really wish you were just dead instead of going through all of this.
Even though we kind of forced our hand in this situation, you guys still entertained us to a great deal. Going through all of the torture we have put you through, we really do wish to give you a way out after this.
One ticket to get out of this loop once and for all. You will be free, truly free devoid all of our influence over you."
Sam stayed silent for exactly ten seconds.
"If that is all about this free ticket, can we move on to the details of the next task? Is there any information you can give me about it?"