Chapter 104: Chapter 84: Arena and Grand Melee
After everyone had challenged their mirror images, Lin Yu stood before the crowd and began his summary.
"Our combat skills still need improvement!"
"In previous battles, we relied on our superior numbers and skill counters to achieve great results."
"Through teamwork, we’ve successfully defeated many powerful enemies. However, we’ve neglected our individual combat proficiency as heroes of the territory."
"In the future, you may very well have to operate separately from the team, carrying out decapitation strikes and facing enemies of equal or greater strength on your own. When that time comes, individual combat prowess will be extremely important."
"Therefore, I’ve decided that starting tomorrow, all heroes in the territory must come here to challenge their mirror images."
"For now, go try out the arena duels and the battle royale. First, get a clear understanding of the rules and see if you can figure out a way to farm some points."
...
The territory’s heroes dispersed, each heading off to participate in the arena duels and the grand battle royale.
Lin Yu, on the other hand, took Lin Chenxi and Yuan Xiaobo to the arenas.
In the center of the area designated for the second stage of competition for the lords of Cuiwei Star, a vast expanse of arenas stood. Each arena was 100 meters long and 100 meters wide, covering an area of 10,000 square meters.
Heroes constantly went up to issue challenges. Some champions successfully defended their titles, while others were knocked off their platforms.
Since all the arenas were open to the public, large crowds gathered around the ones with the most intense fights to watch the spectacle.
"Whoa, so many people!" Lin Yu looked up and saw a sea of heads (of all different races, but predominantly the Human Race).
"My Lord, it looks like there are no empty arenas. Let’s find one and challenge the champion." Lin Chenxi had to shout. The crowd was so large and noisy that she wouldn’t have been heard otherwise.
"Alright, let’s just pick one at random."
...
The three of them picked a random direction and came to an arena with only a few spectators. The platform was empty, but the display indicated it had a champion.
Puzzled, Lin Yu took out his competition information card and looked up the detailed rules for the arena duels, finding one that applied to the situation.
[If unchallenged for 30 minutes, the champion may move about freely.]
[If a challenger appears, the champion will be teleported back to the arena to accept the challenge.]
[Note: Do not leave the Cosmic Arena during the event. If a hero issues a challenge during this time, it will be considered a forfeit, and the challenger will automatically win.]
[Note: Do not participate in other competitions during the event, or you will be considered to have automatically forfeited your position as arena champion, and the arena will become vacant.]
Lin Yu shared this information with Lin Chenxi and Yuan Xiaobo, who were both delighted. They had initially been worried they would have to stand bored on the platform for twelve straight hours.
It wasn’t that they were arrogant, but rather that once their tiers were revealed, it was highly unlikely anyone would challenge them.
Just like this current arena—because no one had challenged him, the champion had run off to have some fun.
Lin Chenxi and Yuan Xiaobo wanted to go up and challenge the champion of this unguarded arena, but Lin Yu glanced at the arena’s information and pulled them away.
The champion of this arena was a Legendary-tier hero. Moreover, he was less than an hour away from a successful defense. ’Knocking him off now would just earn us his resentment, wouldn’t it?’
In the end, Lin Yu led the two of them to an arena where the defending champion was of a lower tier.
The champion was an Epic-tier human Blade and Shield Soldier. With a long blade in one hand and a shield in the other, he fought with a good balance of offense and defense. It was clear he was a skilled combatant.
However, because his tier wasn’t high, many heroes below the stage were eager to try their luck.
"Let’s go with this one. If the Blade and Shield Soldier can’t hold on and gets knocked off, you go up. If he successfully defeats one hundred challengers and vacates the arena, you go up then too."
Lin Yu stopped and spoke to Yuan Xiaobo. He wanted to test if they could still obtain a Cosmic Arena Second Level Ticket and competition points even after already having Cosmic Arena Second Level Teleportation Access.
The three of them didn’t have to wait long. The Blade and Shield Soldier was soon knocked off the platform by a Caster, losing his champion status amidst the cheers of the crowd.
The Caster’s celebration was short-lived, however, as Yuan Xiaobo immediately leaped onto the platform.
The Caster could tell Yuan Xiaobo was bad news. Without waiting for him to speak, the Caster covered the ground in a thin layer of ice and unleashed a powerful gust of wind, trying to blow Yuan Xiaobo off the platform.
The previous Blade and Shield Soldier had been caught off guard and blown right off the platform by that same wind. This time, the Caster had even laid down a layer of ice, hoping to take down Yuan Xiaobo in one move.
Unfortunately for him, the trick was useless against Yuan Xiaobo. With a light stomp, the thin ice on the ground shattered into dust. The oncoming gale felt like a gentle breeze, unable to move him an inch.
"You’ve had your shot. Get down. You can’t beat me." Yuan Xiaobo was a little bored. An attack like that couldn’t even trigger a forced health reduction on him.
The Caster refused to accept it. He gathered all his energy, wanting to try again.
Just then, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, "He’s a Legendary-tier hero!!"
It turned out someone had seen the arena’s display and discovered Yuan Xiaobo’s tier.
The audience erupted in an uproar. The Caster heard the shout as well and could only helplessly dissipate the energy he had gathered before turning and jumping off the platform.
He understood that even with all his energy gathered, he most likely couldn’t even injure his opponent. The difference in stats between the Epic and Legendary tiers was just too vast.
After the Caster stepped down, Yuan Xiaobo became the new champion of the arena. And so, he stood there alone, bored, waiting for challengers.
"Should we find another spot?"
"What else can we do? We couldn’t beat him even if we all went up."
"I don’t wanna move. We’ve already moved several times today."
"I don’t want to move either, but what choice do we have?"
"All the surrounding arenas are Epic-tier. Why did he have to pick ours?"
"How about we... ’send him off’?"
"Send him off? More like he’ll send *us* off!"
"No, I mean, don’t you need to beat 100 challengers to win the defense? We can just go up one by one and feed him the wins. I think I just saw them doing that at that arena over there. Otherwise, why would all the nearby arenas still have Epic-tier champions?"
"We can do that?"
"Why not?"
"Then... let’s try it?"
"Let’s do it!"
The heroes below the stage whispered among themselves for a moment and decided to just feed Yuan Xiaobo his win streak to get him off the platform quickly.
In the moments that followed, Yuan Xiaobo didn’t even have to move. The heroes would get on the platform, launch a few pathetic attacks at him, and after "completing" their attack, turn around and jump off.
Before long, Yuan Xiaobo’s record had reached a 100-win streak.
He was straightforward about it too, jumping right off the platform after his 100th win.
"My Lord, it works."
Yuan Xiaobo said, pulling a golden card from his person. This was the Cosmic Arena Second Level Ticket. Possessing it would allow entry into the second level of the Cosmic Arena during the third stage.
However, the card was bound to Yuan Xiaobo, foiling Lin Yu’s plan to sell the tickets.
Fortunately, the 1000 competition points still went into Lin Yu’s pocket as expected.
Next, Lin Chenxi got on a nearby platform. When the heroes below saw that she was also a Legendary-tier hero, they didn’t even put up a fight. A large group simply went up in succession to feed her a win streak, successfully sending her off the platform.
She also received a Cosmic Arena Second Level Ticket and earned Lin Yu another 1000 competition points.
"Let’s go. We’ll check out the battle royale zone."
The arena duels actually had another title, "King of the Same Tier," which required consecutively defeating one hundred heroes of the same tier.
Neither Yuan Xiaobo nor Lin Chenxi had a chance of obtaining this title. According to the chat channels, among the 788,211 participating lords in the second stage on Cuiwei Star, there were fewer than 30 Legendary-tier heroes. They couldn’t even gather 100 of them, so there was no point in even thinking about the title.
***
Unlike the arena duels, each battlefield in the battle royale zone was a clipped-out piece of a scenic space.
They were divided into: grasslands, forests, hills, mountains, underground caves, lava fields, oceans, lakes, islands, rivers... and even included zero-gravity and outer space environments.
The wide variety of environments could meet the needs of different races; one only had to sign up for the battle royale in the environment that best suited their race’s advantages.
Above each battlefield, spectator stands were arranged. Anyone who wished to could teleport to the stands above a corresponding field to watch the battle royale.
Lin Yu took Lin Chenxi and Yuan Xiaobo and teleported to the spectator stands above a Gobi Desert battlefield to watch for a while.
"My Lord, isn’t this supposed to be a battle royale? Why do I see so many heroes teaming up in there?" Yuan Xiaobo asked, confused.
Lin Yu smiled and replied, "Everyone present is a lord from this season’s competition. Although we haven’t interacted much with the other lords, there’s been plenty of communication among them."
"Where there’s communication, there will be friends and enemies."
"It’s only natural for friends to help each other and team up to attack their enemies."
"But that doesn’t look like a fight between friends and enemies," Yuan Xiaobo said, pointing to the battle on the field.
At that moment, in the Gobi Desert, over 200 heroes had teamed up to besiege a few other heroes. However, the ones being besieged weren’t cooperating with each other at all; they were each fighting their own battles, with no sign of an alliance.
"It’s simple. The weak huddle together for warmth, while the strong walk alone."
"They’re just trying to eliminate the stronger heroes first. Then they’ll fight amongst themselves to determine the final winner."
"Then... if we go in, won’t we get ganged up on too?" Yuan Xiaobo was shocked. He hadn’t expected that this grand battle royale might turn into him fighting 499 other heroes all by himself.
"Hahaha~" Lin Yu burst out laughing. "Chenxi, Xiaobo, are you two afraid of being besieged by heroes below Legendary tier? Even 499 of them?"
"No!" the two said in unison.
"There you have it. As long as you’re strong enough, you don’t have to worry about that kind of thing."
"I estimate that as soon as you two reveal your strength, not only will these heroes not team up to attack you, they’ll actively avoid you."
"Don’t worry, it’ll be a piece of cake."
"You two go find a battlefield and sign up. Once you’ve gotten your rewards, we’ll go take a look at the Tower of Slaughter."
"Yes, my Lord!"
