BMD 458

Ero, whose face had turned pale in an instant, stopped flailing. Simultaneous with the broadcast voice, the survivor count displayed on the crystal board began decreasing at a frightening speed. Starting from 500, it plummeted straight into the 480s.

The lenses of the camera crews distributed around the stadium turned in one direction. Ero, who had been hanging limply like laundry on a line, also suddenly lifted his head.

Before he could even recover from the dizzying thought that he would have been hit if he’d stayed still, an overwhelming shockwave, too vast to pinpoint its origin, surged from all directions. Along with it, a scene similar to what he’d just witnessed unfolded before Ero’s eyes.

Kwaaaahng—!

Half-destroyed Floating Stones and participants were pushed outside the Ether’s trajectory, falling like autumn leaves.

At its center was a figure moving too fast for the eye to follow. A woman like a corpse, slaughtering participants as she crossed through the light.

“Asher.”

Ero’s main voice came out like a sigh. She was a participant whose rumors were already buzzing before the league even started. While she wasn’t literally dismembering limbs, wherever her afterimage passed, participants who had been floating in the air flew in all directions, their bodies bent like fragments from a grenade. Overwhelmed by that sheer power, many were terrified out of their wits and scattered toward the stadium’s edges.

The woman who had positioned herself at the center of the light beams drove her fist, raised like a mace, down into a Floating Stone. In that instant, the shattered boulder became sharp rock blades that scattered, and the severed Floating Stone was pushed outward in all directions, causing chain collisions and creating sharp, clanging destruction sounds.

Aided by Ether’s expansive properties, the thunderous sound echoed frighteningly through the stadium. The wave swept over skin, raising goosebumps. Just as Ero’s body began to tremble violently, the tip of his foot brushed a Floating Stone, and then he was dragged backward again as if his hair had been grabbed.

“B-Brother—!”

Leonardo stepped on the fragments floating in the chaos and silently ascended upward. A high vantage point was suitable for grasping the situation at a glance.

‘Asher?’

Amidst it all, hearing the alias the broadcast team was shouting, he recalled white, burnt ash. Even without turning to look, he could guess who they were talking about.

‘It’s a game where you just need to be in the top 200, is there a need to go that far?’

The strategy of eliminating the footholds first was unexpected. To make oneself the target of everyone by removing the very space to stand on—it was quite a declaration of war.

Around that time, five participants who had been exchanging glances gradually narrowed the gap. Soon, as if on cue, they rushed toward Asher, who displayed a uniquely overwhelming presence.

Each held lethal blades and binding weapons in their hands. With the intent to eliminate the powerful competitor first, Asher, her eyes bloodshot, instinctively jumped from her spot to avoid the simultaneous attack.

Contrary to everyone’s expectation that she would flee, she instead turned in the opposite direction. Her two feet, wrapped tightly in bandages, touched the underside of a Floating Stone floating above. As soon as she pushed off the uneven surface with all her might, the boulder cracked and fissured with a crunching sound. The moment her feet, having gained propulsion, left, the Floating Stone split in half.

She charged, targeting only one of the five who had rushed at her. She grabbed the opponent’s shoulder and wrist respectively, and using only brute strength, twisted them to dislocate the joints. It took less than 3 seconds, until the participant’s arm dangled weirdly as if pulled out.

“Uwaaaahk!”

A chilling scream spread widely through the Ether. The mental state of some participants who had come up expecting only test match levels was already chaos.

“What kind of monster is that…?”

“There’s no safe zone this time?”

“Instead of talking, run!”

Gillian, who couldn’t help but stand out due to his large build, had also become a target and was facing off against quite a number of people. When he swung his fist once, with a whoosh of wind, the Ether filling the space pushed the competitors out beyond the Floating Stones. Some barely grabbed onto the edges, hanging from the precipice.

“Belle!”

As Gillian, who was holding off five or six people alone, shouted, Beatrice, who had lifted her skirt hem and extended her foot, gently stepped on the fingers of those clinging to hope with her platform soles, sending them falling down the cliff.

“Oof, it’s chaotic—. Everyone’s so violent!”

As she frowned, chattering and trembling, a gun muzzle was aimed at her from not far away. One participant equipped with a musket was carefully aiming at Beatrice’s flamboyant hat from atop a Floating Stone at the 10 o’clock direction.

Just as they were about to pull the trigger, Beatrice’s head turned that way.

Taang—!

“Uak!”

The bullet missed, and the shooter’s scream erupted. Morbuang, holding a pistol from who-knows-where he picked it up from an eliminated participant, had shot the shooter’s wrist. He made a motion as if blowing smoke from the barrel, then lightly tipped his hat like a gentleman.

Beatrice, who had been watching the performance of that attached doll-like figure, smiled sweetly and blew him a loving hand heart.

Just then, Leonardo, having reached the upper part of the stadium, fully planted both feet on an unoccupied Floating Stone. Ero, who had similarly barely caught his breath, knelt on the ground and then immediately lost strength, collapsing forward. He panted repeatedly, first letting out an unsightly cough.

“Uek, kholok, kholok—.”

“Stop exaggerating and get up quickly. I told you to prepare earlier.”

“When did you tell me to prepare!?”

Ero, coughing and with tears half-forming in his eyes, timidly protested. But as Leonardo’s eyebrows rose, he immediately cowered.

“No, I definitely heard it, but I didn’t have time to prepare…”

Ero, trailing off his words, scrambled to get up. However, Leonardo, his gaze having cooled, strode clomp-clomp right up in front of him.

Ero, sensing a chilly aura, stealthily stepped backward. Just as he was bracing himself, thinking he might get hit—

“B-Brother. Uwak!”

Leonardo swiftly pushed Ero aside, then in one motion grabbed the collar of a participant who was charging right behind him. Using the recoil, he twisted his body’s direction and flung them to the opposite side. The participant, caught in his grip and thrown into the air, collided directly with a Floating Stone behind them without even managing a single scream.

Kwaaaahng—!

As the person slammed into the boulder, shattered fragments scattered along with dust. The audience beyond let out surprised exclamations mixed with awe as they witnessed the situation in real-time.

Leonardo, who had been staring that way, rotated his sore wrist, then picked up Ero’s pistol that had fallen to the ground and lightly tossed it to him.

“Don’t get distracted. Let’s each pull our own weight, at minimum.”

Ero, flapping his hands, barely caught it and gulped. Soon after, loading bullets, he nodded his head desperately.

The two now stood back-to-back, looking in opposite directions. The remaining survivor count on the board was 430, and the footholds to stand on were decreasing at an even faster rate.