Editor: Junyans
The banquet was going on, with lively music playing in the background, endless drinks and snacks to keep everyone going, and pretty NPCs weaving in and out of the seats. There were also many players ready to seize the time to have some fun.
It was still morning, which was not the conventional time for holding banquets, but the banquets in the Upper City had always been held around the clock. Here, it was always a good time to have fun.
The players had gathered together here, partly because the previous meeting had not yet ended, and also because the sky outside had already turned overcast.
The light was dim outside, not much brighter than when the white specters had been out haunting yesterday. So most players had decided to stay in the banquet hall, where the light was scintillating, and more people could give a hand in the event of a monster attack. Furthermore, it was not like they had to go back to their residences to watch the video to find the Avengers, not to mention the fact that Mr. Angus now looked like he was willing to guide everyone to find the Avengers at any time.
Moreover, everyone silently thought that no matter what the organizers had in mind, it would generally be safer to be around Mr. Angus. He was the spokesperson of the organizers in this game, responsible for developing the plot and controlling the rhythm. If the organizers wanted to have some fun with the players in the banquet hall, there was a risk of confusing him with them, compromising Mr. Angus’ safety.
The organizers portrayed it as a free arena, but that was not the case at all. Behind the scenes, significant amounts of money, power, meticulous planning, and careful considerations were in play. Consequently, when organizing a Killing Show, the organizers took a macro perspective on matters.
Xia Tian walked briskly. The cave was not too far from the main banquet hall.
When he entered the gate of the banquet hall’s building, the people inside hadn’t yet figured out what was going on. They heard gunshots first, which suggested that someone had clashed with the bouncer NPCs outside. But there should be no one here who would go make trouble with the bouncers. Their enemies were the mutant creatures, after all.
The gun only rang twice, and the exchange of fire was not fierce. It seemed that the battle had ended shortly after it had begun.
After a few moments, a man pushed open the door to the main banquet hall and came in.
It was Xia Tian.
He was alone and badly injured. He was bathed in blood. His right hand was particularly in bad shape; it was completely crippled. But he was holding a gun in his left hand, displaying a fierce momentum. He looked as if he was here to cause trouble.
The music lowered; it seemed to weaken in front of the man’s momentum. The people around him subconsciously touched their guns, but when they saw that it was Xia Tian, they released their hands.
Before he walked into the banquet hall, he must have had a hemostatic injection, but it was no longer effective. His wounds were oozing blood with his every step, leaving a long trail of red drops in his wake. But he had a clear target. He glanced around and cut his way forward toward the lawyer in charge.
Angus had seen Xia Tian the moment he had entered the hall.
The NPC lawyer in charge hastily reached for his gun. Xia Tian raised his hand, and the energy gun walloped the other person’s wrist, sending the gun flying out.
Angus grabbed his bloody arm. He had the habit of carrying guns like all the Killing Show players, but this time he had only carried one. He was the host of the ceremony and was safe here. He was no longer the target for killing. Monsters would move out of the way when they saw him.
Several bodyguards beside him quickly put their hands on the handles of their guns, but hesitated to take them out, as if attacking a lowly Killing Show player was an extremely difficult decision.
Xia Tian said, “I want the right of inheritance.”
“You’re crazy!” yelled Angus.
He turned toward the circle of bodyguards and added, “What are you looking at? Shoot already!”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
No one fired. Xia Tian kept walking, and Angus bent down to pick up his gun that had fallen on the ground.
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The kick was so savage that it sent Angus toppling backward and crashing into the corner of the table. His internal organs twisted together in pain. He hadn’t been so hurt since he had gotten the amnesty. Of course, he had never been in battle again.
He went to look for his gun again. Xia Tian caught up with him and gave him another kick. The force behind the kick made it seem as if the injuries on the kicker were merely a façade. Instantly, a sharp pain exploded, and Angus curled up in pain and could not get up again. It dawned upon him that Xia Tian knew street fighting and how to quickly render a person defenseless.
Just a lowly gangster in the Lower City, a loser eliminated by the social system, a pawn for entertainment—
Next to him, a bouncer finally raised his gun hesitantly and pointed it at Xia Tian.
But the next moment, sounds of bullets loading came from the banquet hall.
A voice said, “Try shooting.”
A deadly silence fell on the banquet hall. Directly across from them, a brown-haired man had his gun raised and pointed at the bodyguard.
He was very tall, and even the formal clothes he was wearing could not suppress the aura of a powerful hoodlum emanating from him. He was holding the heavy Predator gun in his hand, which was deadly and black like a beast of steel. The way he held the gun was very skillful. He was someone who could kill people in a split second.
His action finally made the bodyguards react. Several of them picked up their guns and pointed at the man who dared to challenge the lawyer in charge.
And the next second, Angus heard the sound of countless gun safeties being pulled in the banquet hall.
No one spoke. The scene was stifling. The players in the banquet hall had looked like they were drunk a moment ago, but now all the guns were ready to shoot, aimed in Angus’ direction. The light music couldn’t cover the murderous air that had enveloped the hall.
Angus made a decision in a breath’s time. He reached out to grab a bodyguard’s gun, pulled out the safety, and aimed at Xia Tian.
But as soon as the barrel of the gun was lifted, the man shot him in the right hand again.
He let out a cry of pain and the gun fell to the ground, again. Xia Tian took a step forward and looked down at him from above.
At this moment, Angus became acutely aware of where he had gone wrong—he hadn’t done anything right from the moment Xia Tian had pushed open the door and walked toward him. He had taken an unconscious step back.
He shouldn’t have retreated, shouldn’t have picked up that gun, and definitely shouldn’t have tried to snatch the bodyguard’s weapon. His movements were too urgent, too obvious. He had completely lost his composure and judgment in front of this man—
“There’s no way I’m giving you the right to inherit! The show has rules—” He screamed at Xia Tian.
“I don’t care!” Xia Tian yelled, and once again kicked him in the belly.
It was so vicious that Angus couldn’t even cry out in pain.
This was what Bai Jingan saw when he walked in.
The banquet was very lavish and grand. The bodyguards and the players were confronting each other. Different types of guns were taken out, each more ferocious-looking than the other. But in essence, it was a street brawl.
Angus was shouting about the rules of inheritance when Xia Tian said icily, “I don’t like torture, Mr. Angus, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it if I had to.”
Everyone was gloating at the scene. Bai Jingan walked up to Xia Tian and looked down at the lawyer in charge, with his cold gray eyes that had no hint of emotions.
Angus saw him and called out, “Bai Jingan, if you don’t want to die, calm him—”
Before he could finish speaking, Xia Tian kicked him again.
Bai Jingan watched as Xia Tian stomped on Angus’ shoulder and flipped him over. He couldn’t use his right hand well, so Bai Jingan took Xia Tian’s gun, set it to the incinerate function, and handed it back.
Xia Tian’s gun was pointed at Angus’ knee. He was familiar with the procedure of torture.
In this world built by the TV stations, everyone had endured countless hardships and excelled as first-class masters of torture. Angus had experienced it many times, he himself was one of these people.
He had spared no expense to get his ticket to leave this nightmare, to stand higher, and to become the spokesperson of “destiny.” He would never return to this arena of endless carnage again.
“You can’t do this!” He shouted at Xia Tian.
Then, he suddenly turned his head and shouted to everyone in the room, “It’s him! Xia Tian is the Avenger! Kill him and the game will end!”
No one said anything. The only sound was from the music that was still playing in the background. Everyone looked at him expressionlessly. Bai Jingan seemed to think that he was funny, and even curled the corners of his mouth. But the smile didn’t have even the slightest hint of gentleness. It was a devilishly cold, hostile, schadenfreude smile.
The whole hall looked at him with the same expression—a cold and mocking expression.
Bai Jingan said to him, “We want the right to inherit.”
Jakowski felt that this moment was a milestone in his career.
But when you reached the peak, everything after that was a milestone.
After Xia Tian started the fire, Qiao Ge came to the planning department in panic, bringing a slew of bad ideas about how to “put their new star on track.” They had the power to use the players’ punishment chips and intervene forcibly. After that, all they had to do was put some effort into the editing.
It was Jakowski who made Qiao Ge stop having such ideas.
He pulled up the consumption trend chart for the third sub-arena since the start of the tournament and enlarged it to the maximum. Each section of that rising curve represented uncountable amounts of money. In the last three days, the rise had simply crossed the stratosphere.
They all knew what this meant. The company had analyzed it many times. It meant that even if the competition in the third sub-arena ended within a week, it would earn more than the other sub-arenas combined.
Because compared to the third sub-arena, events in the other sub-arenas seemed to be bland. People were tired of the game-like fights in the arena and wanted the “real thing.” The audience’s appetite was always growing, just like a wolf that had tasted blood.
“I believe the most important point isn’t the rise in ratings on the last day,” Jakowski said to Qiao Ge, “but this part here—”
Under the holographic simulation, he pointed to the money curve that had inclined upwards a day ago, dragging a bright red tail.
“Xia Tian slept for three days, and we didn’t do anything major, but the ratings for the third sub-arena were still high, 25 percentage points higher than all the previous rounds of the Killing Show.” Jakowski asked, “Do you know what that means?”
“What?”
“Audience don’t care about the content,” Jakowski said, “They just want to see Xia Tian.”
Qiao Ge stared at the analysis chart and didn’t say anything. Jakowski knew what he was thinking. For a new chief planner, being able to attend a board of directors meeting was considered a fairly good fresh start.
These days, some people didn’t need to worry too much. After getting their job done, they could have fun to their heart’s content, spending some energy on beautiful bedmates and focusing on their bank accounts—that was enough.
It was not hard to convince people like that.
“We are trying to make a God,” Jakowski said to his boss, “because as long as a ‘God’ exists there, money will come running. But gods are not easy to make.”
Jakowski looked him straight in the eyes. There were few moments in his life when he seemed so fully sober.
“There is only one God, and all things on Earth should be subservient at his feet.”
The main screen showed Xia Tian standing under the light of the firearms, dazzling everyone with his brilliance.
Jakowski said, “We are certainly no exception.”
The chief director of the Killing Show had singlehandedly presided over the production of the show.
In the fourth round, he had placed the entire planning team at the feet of the God he had created, like offerings.
People in Xia Tian’s planning team had been trying to get the plot back to normal, back on the course the Killing Show had been on for the last two centuries. They had poured torrential rain and tried to kill the network logistician as a punishment, trying to give back some dignity to the organizers.
Jakowski had remained silent. Bottle in hand, he had dutifully performed reviewing, approving, or refuting the plans sent from below, selecting the most reasonable ones and abandoning the overly mild or extremely perverted ones.
It was no news that creating a God was extremely demanding and required the most robust foundation—a foundation made up of real bones and pain. And even a shred of compassion or mercy would only make the foundation weak.
He was always alone. Always half-drunk, half-sober. In this crazy and secular backstage, only he could see the path. A treacherous, grand, bloody path.
He was perched on his trash-like throne. On the surface, his eyes were always the bleary, bloodshot eyes of a drunkard, but deep within them was a bottomless abyss, watching everything coldly.
In the main scene, the gang of thugs following Xia Tian had arrived, each of them bruised and battered, but still capable of going on a killing spree.
They didn’t communicate, but seemed to instinctively know what to do next.
They all looked at Xia Tian.
Angus succumbed.
Everyone would succumb to Xia Tian.
Translator’s Corner
We are halfway through the novel! Here’s a fanart to ogle!
Damn I love that fanart. Also I hope they don’t force Xia Tian into something bad as backlash for ignoring the plans…