[The safe zone is shrinking]
As soon as the two hours were up, the voice of the Fire Thief rang out in the minds of all Ascendants still on Holy Grail Island.
Everyone looked towards the distance in unison, only to see several ring-shaped black walls descending from the horizon without any warning.
These black walls slowly pressed inward towards the island, and soon the edges on all four sides of the island were swallowed by the black walls.
If anyone was still within that area at this moment, they would probably be swallowed by the black walls along with the island—no one would want to experience what that would feel like.
Guan Tong had originally been following the bright yellow light path, visible only to him, rushing towards the location of the Holy Grail Secret Realm.
But after seeing where the black walls appeared, his heart immediately sank.
Because according to the light path on the ground, the Holy Grail Secret Realm was located on the western side of the island, a considerable distance from the island's center.
Based on his visual estimation, if the black wall on the west side advanced another four or five more times later, it would likely swallow the location of the Holy Grail Secret Realm.
This meant that no one would be able to obtain the Holy Grail anymore!
"The black walls advance every 2 hours, which means, if I want to get the Holy Grail, I might only have 8 hours at most."
Compared to the challenge tournament's 24 hours, this was shortened by a full two-thirds.
If that's the case, then the threat behind him must be eliminated first, and he must reach the Holy Grail Secret Realm as quickly as possible.
Guan Tong turned his head to look behind him. He knew that squad was still hot on his heels.
After crossing over from the town, Guan Tong decided to find a good place to deal with them.
Right now, not far ahead was a dense forest, which perfectly fit his requirements.
He had just ducked into the woods when Gu Fei arrived with his three team members.
"Captain, that guy went into the forest. Should we still pursue?"
"What do you think?" Gu Fei said coldly. "If we want to get a good ranking, we must seize that guy's points."
"Crap!" another person in the team said. "The scout drones show they're being jammed, failed to deploy. He must have a Jammer he got from a supply crate."
After two hours, the surviving teams had more or less opened a few supply crates.
The Jammer was one of the items with the highest drop rate from the crates, followed by things like "Energy Replenishment Water" for restoring stamina and "Healing Capsules" for quickly curing injuries.
"Captain, what should we do? Wait for the Jammer's effect to end before going in?"
"How can we wait until it ends!" Gu Fei frowned. "Three minutes is enough time to run too far. And who knows how many Jammers he has? We can't just keep waiting."
"Captain, I'm worried this person might set up an ambush for us," the female team member said hesitantly. "If he could kill Jianming, he can kill us. Are we really going to take this risk?"
"Am I the captain or are you? Maintain combat formation, let's go in!"
"Yes!"
With Gu Fei saying that, the three team members naturally had nothing more to say. They could only acknowledge and then cautiously enter the forest.
The composition of their small team was deliberate: Gu Fei was the strongest melee damage dealer, Jianming was the ranged shooter. The other three team members possessed support items, sustain items, and items specialized in defense, respectively.
Such a complementary team possessed considerable combat strength. However, with the loss of Jianming now, their ranged attack capabilities became lacking, and they could only use disposable items from their Storage Boxes as substitutes.
The four of them, maintaining their formation, entered the dense forest and immediately sensed a faint aura of murderous intent within the woods. It was as if the enemy had already set a trap, just waiting for them to walk right into it.
Just as they ventured deeper in, they suddenly heard a sound like a bottle cap popping.
Pop—
All four of them looked towards the source of the sound and saw a round, spherical object flying out from among the leaves.
"Watch out!"
The team member specializing in defense immediately used his item. Instantly, a circle of rotating small shields appeared around all four of them. It looked somewhat comical, but it did have a defense-boosting effect.
However, the next moment, when they heard a "hiss—" sound and saw a large amount of white mist billowing forth, they realized this wasn't an attack.
"It's a smoke grenade!" Gu Fei shouted. "Stand back-to-back, stick together, don't move around!"
A large amount of smoke spread out. The four stood back-to-back, vigilantly watching their surroundings.
"The smoke is thick enough now."
Guan Tong was currently standing on a branch of a tree over ten meters high, looking down from his vantage point at the thick column of smoke.
He was able to get up to such a high place, naturally, by using the Grappling hook for a rapid ascent.
Right now, he adjusted the Silver Hunt's ammunition to Type 3 and continuously pulled the trigger, firing at the smoke's location.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Guan Tong opened with a five-shot volley. Against these guys with lots of items, he couldn't afford to be complacent.
Then, watching as bursts of explosive flames flickered within the smoke, he had the Shadow hidden in his clothes slip into the tree trunk, traveling all the way down, slithering towards the center of the smoke.
At this moment, within the smoke, even with prior protection and defensive items used, having five consecutive high-explosive rounds explode nearby still caused two of them to suffer minor injuries.
But what shocked them was that the enemy actually possessed such powerful Thermal Weapons, which was extremely rare even among Ascendants.
"Alright, the explosions have stopped, and the smoke has been blown apart by the blasts," Gu Fei said. "Everyone get ready, charge out with me on my count. Three, two...! What's wrong with you?!"
As Gu Fei counted down the final second, he suddenly noticed his three teammates had frozen in place, unmoving.
Then, they all let out muffled grunts in unison, blood overflowing from their mouths before they collapsed.
This scene sent a shiver down Gu Fei's entire body. He watched as the team roster instantly showed only him alive, completely baffled about what had happened! Why did all three teammates die in an instant?! And why was he himself unharmed?!
Due to the strong winds generated by the explosions dispersing the smoke, Guan Tong, positioned high up, was able to remotely manipulate the Shadow to complete his "performance of killing the enemy."
That's right, the three instant deaths were all the Shadow's handiwork. Guan Tong manipulated the incorporeal Shadow to sneak in under the cover of the smoke, then split its tip into four segments.
In his plan, the Shadow, divided into four, would each burrow into the chests of the four, aiming for the heart's location. Then, they would all solidify simultaneously, instantly destroying all four hearts.
In practice, it succeeded on three, but failed when used on Gu Fei. Guan Tong didn't know why, but the Shadow couldn't enter Gu Fei's body, as if blocked by some kind of transparent barrier.
Did this guy have some special protective item on him?
As Guan Tong pondered this, perhaps due to excessive stimulation or something, Gu Fei started continuously deploying scout drones while roaring, "Come out! You come out!"
The Jammer's three-minute duration had now passed. A large number of drones locked onto Guan Tong's position. Gu Fei suddenly looked up and finally spotted Guan Tong standing high up in the trees.
"Die!"
He let out a loud shout and charged forward violently, brandishing his Curved Blade. A faint halo glowed on the blade's surface, and something akin to a blade aura instantly sliced through the trunk of the tree Guan Tong was standing on!
Seeing this, Guan Tong immediately used the Grappling hook to move to another tree. Gu Fei was not about to let him go. While continuously destroying the trees Guan Tong was on, he also started pulling items out of his Storage Box.
Gu Fei first took out two potion bottles and drank them, immediately increasing his speed significantly. Then he pulled out a handful of black throwing darts. With a flick of his wrist, the darts seemed to possess a homing function, flying straight towards Guan Tong.
Guan Tong immediately had the Shadow remaining on his body materialize, transforming into Shadow Armor.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Those auto-tracking darts embedded themselves in his Shadow Armor, and then actually leaked out some corrosive liquid. Fortunately, it didn't affect the Shadow much.
Guan Tong wasn't idle either. The next time he used the Grappling hook to move, he fired two smoke grenades while in mid-air. Using the heavy smoke as cover, he blew the Corpse Whistle. Living dead crawled out from the ground and, following his command, swarmed to attack Gu Fei.
"Kill! Kill!"
Gu Fei's Curved Blade had astonishing attack power. Combined with his drug-enhanced, incredibly fast speed, he sliced two living dead in half with a single slash each, an instant kill.
But Guan Tong didn't care. He was just using the living dead to distract Gu Fei. The moment the latter was distracted, he raised the Silver Hunt and unleashed a furious barrage.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
Type 3 and Type 2 ammunition, over twenty or thirty shots fired in one go. Gu Fei might have been able to defend against the Shadow's invasion, but facing this kind of saturation firepower, Guan Tong didn't think Gu Fei could withstand it.
After a wild bombardment, the world fell silent.
As the smoke cleared, Guan Tong saw Gu Fei lying on the ground, gasping for breath and on the verge of death. He was somewhat surprised that Gu Fei was still alive.
"Dare to tell... me who... you are... your number ID..."
On the verge of being eliminated, Gu Fei still stared fixedly at Guan Tong, wanting to settle the score with him after the challenge tournament ended.
Guan Tong found this utterly ridiculous. With one shot, he sent Gu Fei back to his maker.
[Points
254]
Guan Tong was astonished at the number of points added.
In just 2 hours, this guy had already taken out 253 people?
"What a shame. In the face of absolute firepower, it still wasn't quite enough. And... at least at this stage, even with official resource allocation and training, they can't create some kind of 'superhuman' within just a few rules."
Resource allocation just means they can buy more items. But the vast majority of items require the consumption of Mind Power to use. Currently, limited by the Upper Limit of Mind Power, having more items doesn't necessarily mean they can be used to their full effect. Perhaps after a few more rounds of rules, Ascendants heavily invested in with resources might be able to create a larger gap compared to civilian Ascendants.
Moreover, compared to his "Shadow," these items still weren't impressive enough.
The Shadow's versatility was simply too overpowered. In his eyes, the current Shadow could only be considered a "juvenile form." When it reached its "complete form" or "ultimate form," its strength and breadth of application would probably be unimaginable.
"Alright, need to hurry and get the Holy Grail now. These guys wasted a lot of my time."
After finishing the fight, Guan Tong continued following the guiding path forward.
Due to the limited time, for the rest of the journey, he didn't engage in combat with any other squads. Even when a few squads saw him alone and tried to bully him with numbers, he quickly disengaged and left, not wanting to delay getting the Holy Grail.
Thus, after experiencing two more safe zone contractions, Guan Tong finally reached the end of the guiding path.
The building before him appeared to be a dilapidated church. He entered and found two opened supply crates, indicating that other participants had already been here.
"Did they not find the Holy Grail?"
Guan Tong found it strange. Inside the church, apart from a statue, there was only a large pool in front of the statue, filled with dry cracks.
He observed carefully and noticed what seemed to be a line of small characters carved on the statue's pedestal, reading: "Feed blood to summon the cup to life."
"Feed blood... is that meant literally?"
Guan Tong was half-convinced, half-doubting, but since he was already here, he certainly couldn't just leave.
He picked up a stone shard from the ground, cut the back of his hand, and let the blood drip into the large pool in front of the statue.
The next moment, the originally dry pool instantly transformed! Numerous bubbles began to emerge from the cracks. As those bubbles burst, each released a large amount of water, quickly almost filling the entire pool.
Just as Guan Tong was marveling at this, a golden cup inlaid with gemstones slowly rose from the bottom of the pool.
Is this the Holy Grail?
Guan Tong's heart stirred. He reached out and lifted the golden cup from the pool.
At that instant, the voice of the Fire Thief sounded.
[You have obtained the Holy Grail]
[For the next 30 minutes, your location will be made public to all participants on Holy Grail Island. If you can maintain possession for 30 minutes, you will obtain ownership of the Holy Grail for this competition]
[While holding the Holy Grail, you will possess unlimited Mind Power]
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