Chapter Ch60.1 - Judgement Card
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
Third elimination match arena, at the end of the corridor.
Footsteps echoed in the open air corridor. Wu Jin stopped in front of the door leading to the first entrance and bent over to pick up the envelope.
The clue envelope with its imitation parchment pattern was sealed with sealing wax, and there was only a small line of text inside after it was opened––
“Use your cards to exchange your fate.”
The chatter of his three teammates came over the communication equipment. The messages they found were all identical. It was clear that this was a clue that was given to all players.
Wu Jin bowed his head slightly as thoughts turned quickly in his mind.
In the compet.i.tion, the ‘fate’ of the players was determined by the difficulty of the instance, the supplies they had on hand, and their opponents. Out of the three elements, only ‘supplies’ and the cards had the same unique attribute.
In other words, cards were very likely to be used to trade for supplies.
At the start of the compet.i.tion, the card drawing mechanism made it so that the players began the game in an unfair state. As the compet.i.tion progressed, the balance would inevitably shift gradually from ‘luck of the draw’ to the powerful players––
According to the clues, it was the cards, and not the players, who could ‘change’.
In other words, the cards could be s.n.a.t.c.hed.
The sound of a mechanism turning suddenly sounded out, and Wu Jin swiftly raised his gaze.
There was the sound of seemed to be a metallic impact and the noise of gears engaging from behind the door in front of him. The fragmented echo at the start gradually increased until finally, the entire door was creaking and shaking. The tightly closed door flaps gradually drew apart to reveal a gap, and strong light spread outwards from inside the room––
This seemed to indicate that the first instance was about to open.
In the team communication channel, everyone had already noticed the strangeness taking place in front of them.
Wu Jin’s heart beat faster and faster, and he couldn’t tell if it was more from nervousness or excitement. He narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to distinguish any barely-there clues from the rumbling sound of gears in operation––
“I can hear the sound of horns from where I’m standing––and overhead, it sounds as though there are rocks rolling around.” Wu Jin quickly reported, “The light is coming through from the right side of the corridor.”
Next came Wen Lin, “There are rocks rolling around here too, but I can’t hear the horns. The light is coming from the right.”
Zoe and Caesar could also hear the sound of stones, but neither of them mentioned the horns. However, Zoe could hear the singing of a choir.
Wu Jin nodded slightly.
The likelihood of the four of them being placed in the same instance was very low. If they wanted to meet up, they would have to rely on their developing an understanding of the map. This exchange of information provided another important cluek2013;k2013;
Above this Gothic altar were rolling stones, or some other moving mechanism that made a similar sound.
The roaring, rumbling sounds in front of Wu Jin gradually stopped, and the first door finally opened completely.
Before entering the instance, Wu Jin communicated with his teammates one last time, “Protect your card, and try to grab other cards if possible.”
On the other side of the communication channel, Zoe knocked lightly to indicate that he understood, then gave a final order, “Keep the communication channel open and fight carefully. Now––mics off.”
Wu Jin took a deep breath and stepped carefully into the instance.
Even though he’d prepared himself well, Wu Jin’s heart was still beating violently when he saw the source of light. The light was so strong it burned the eyes, and he couldn’t help but raise his line of sight to look towards the strange, spectacular scene in front of him––
This instance was several times larger than he’d imagined.
The area beneath the dome was wide and bright.
The light was a pure white, streaming in from the spires and stained gla.s.s windows into the interior like a gift from G.o.d, shining upon a sculpture six times a person’s height.
It was a blonde angel with a trumpet in his hand.
Its wings looked crimson, and the statue was suspended in the air by invisible wires. The white light landed on a marble face that appeared particularly solemn and majestic. The sound of horns from just now had come from the statue.
Against this almost holy image––the second half of the instance was particularly bizarre. Dozens of empty, open coffins were scattered on the ground, each one quite far away from the next.
Wu Jin instantly recognized this scene.
He’d been memorizing the 78 tarot cards for two weeks and was extremely familiar with the image on each card.
This combination of angels, trumpets, and coffins represented the penultimate card of the major arcana series––Judgement.
In his head, the words related to the judgement card reappeared.
“Angels blow their trumpets, and the dead shall rise up from their coffins. Let the dead who hear the trumpet be redeemed, let the trumpet evoke the rotten flesh and evoke the lost emotion. Even penitent sinners have hope of reaching heaven. The order of the original world is disrupted, and all evils are judged––the dead will eventually be reborn.”
It was just that, compared to the card in the deck, the scene in front of him was missing one crucial element.
There were angels, trumpets, coffins––but there were no dead in the coffins waiting for redemption.
At this time, the door behind Wu Jin closed with a ‘bang’.
The loud noise reverberated through the closed instance, along with the sound of over 20 other doors closing. The entrances that had originally been hidden throughout the instance were all exposed due to the loud noise.
The experienced players, including Wu Jin, had all quickly concealed themselves after coming through the door. At this time, when countless gazes followed the sources of sound and looked over, some of the doorways were empty, while others had moving figures––
A few rifles were quick to seize the opportunity and mercilessly sniped at the unfortunate, exposed contestants.
Stray bullets flew everywhere, and Wu Jin, who had been hiding behind a bunker, was in a much more difficult situation than he’d expected.
It seemed that his luck had never improved in these elimination matches.
This instance was about 100 meters long and wide, with over 20 entrances distributed along the four sides. Judging from the sounds just now, every door was at least ten meters away from the next, except for his own––
The entrance of the big guy closest to him was less than ten meters away from him.
There was only one wall nearby that could barely pa.s.s as a shield. They couldn’t see each other, which meant that there was only one possibility––
His first opponent after entering this game was lurking on the other side of the wall.
Wu Jin bent his waist slightly and silently plastered his back against the wall. He quickly turned off the safety on his gun and checked his ammunition. Across the wall, he could even vaguely hear the sharp heartbeat of his opponent on the other side.
Low wall, light, ambush.
Memories rolled over him like the tide, everything coinciding vaguely with the Azure Cosmos underground survival arena and linking together.
The youth captured by the camera paused slightly, his eyes covered by soft curls. His pupils reflected a cold light when he looked up, the ancient a.s.sault rifle that was his starting weapon held precisely in his arms. The b.u.t.t of the gun was against his clavicle, and he walked towards the other end of the low wall without hesitation––then came to a stop a second before triggering an encounter.
Crosson Show director’s studio.
The director in charge of the monitoring cameras suddenly made a gesture. Blood Pigeon had just finished explaining Qin Jinbao’s violent clearing of the scene, and when the camera changed to Wu Jin’s perspective, he paused for a moment in surprise.
In the live broadcast studio, the scrolling comments were instantly full of excitement––
“Little Witch, mama is here!! Mama came to kindergarten to watch Little Witch play with other little children!!! Wa-ow, Little Witch, when did you secretly become so handsome?!”
“Wait a minute––an, an encounter? Begging for a bird’s eye perspective ahhhh, rejecting the player perspective! This old person’s heart isn’t too good!”
The program producer was delighted, “Quick, quick, quick, let’s put out the sponsored advertis.e.m.e.nt for geriatric health care products––”
“……” Blood Pigeon silently clicked open the advertis.e.m.e.nt, then continued to explain what was happening on the screen.
In the live broadcast, the youth stood against the wall in the cold posture of a sniper, his body upright, but not stuck to the wall.
A standing sniper position was the most difficult one to control of all shooting postures. There was almost no support for their center of gravity, and the shooter needed to restrain the movements of their entire body, making the aiming requirements extremely high. Even Blood Pigeon hadn’t expected that Wu Jin would be able to control this position so stably.
The b.u.t.t of the gun was set against his shoulder, and the fluctuation of his breathing didn’t affect the gun in the slightest.
The audience watching this scene even had a strange illusion that Wu Jin’s consciousness wasn’t in his mind, but rather completely immersed into the cold metal components of the gun.
Ying Xiangxiang: “His current position––”
“Shadows.” Blood Pigeon explained, “It’s a very beautiful decision. Another step forward would have exposed his shadow to the other side.”
At this time, the scene on screen suddenly changed!
Shadows flashed by beneath the blazing lights. The two people tilted to the side, aimed, and shot at the same time, and almost every action was performed at the limits of reaction time.
The bullets missed and pa.s.sed each other.
Shock showed on his opponent’s face the moment he could see Wu Jin clearly. He’d guessed that the person on the other side of the low wall was Thin Fire or Zoe from White Moonlight, but he had never guessed that it would be Wu Jin, the one with a dynamic target shooting accuracy of seven rings.
This––how could this be?!
Their gazes met, and Wu Jin also recognized the other party. Ming Yao, an A-level trainee from Jingyi Entertainment.
Wu Jin was shorter than the other party, but his momentum was in no way inferior and was actually slightly higher. While the other party was still speculating about his strength, he didn’t hesitate to take another shot––
His opponent escaped precisely, but retreated and withdrew from the low wall completely.
“Scene cleared!” Ying Xiangxiang blurted out without thinking. After presiding over several seasons of the Crosson Show, her vision was also quite experienced, “If the two of them were to have a direct gun confrontation, the two should be at similar levels––however, Little Witch’s momentum is surging.”
One step ahead meant being constantly ahead.
Ying Xiangxiang suddenly discovered that it was very difficult to pick out an adjective to describe the present Wu Jin. It had been a mere two weeks, but he seemed completely different from the previous elimination match.
The starting gun only had 40 bullets, but in Wu Jin’s hands, it didn’t seem to be a single shot a.s.sault rifle at all. Rather, it was more like a machine gun that was fired to suppress others. The youth was still leaning against his starting position. To one side was the edge of the instance, while the other side was the bunker. He was like a fierce beast guarding his narrow territory while devouring his opponent’s s.p.a.ce.
Blood Pigeon suddenly instructed, “Give him the main camera perspective.”