Infinite Game - Start With SSS Rank Class

Chapter 242: Next time...

Rover clenched his fist.

The light gathered in his palm wasn’t large. Only fist-sized, quiet, producing no sound, radiating no heat. But the moment it appeared, the Zombie Angel pinned beneath the Titan hand abruptly stopped struggling.

Even a monster that couldn’t tell friend from foe had finally recognized one thing.

What was approaching it wasn’t prey.

It was a predator.

Rover said nothing. He only brought his closed fist close to the Angel’s eyeless head, and—

"Rover!"

Morie’s voice rang out from inside, more urgent than at any point since the trial began.

"On the grandstands! Defense towers!"

Rover looked up.

And he saw it.

On the rows of high-rise buildings surrounding the courtyard, on balconies that had previously looked like just spectator positions, lights were now flickering on one by one. Not lamp light. But the cold glow of weapon barrels.

Defense towers.

Not one.

Dozens of them.

The high-level Survivors on the grandstands, the ones who had gone silent since the Zombie Angel appeared, were now finally revealing their true hand. They hadn’t intended to use abilities to break room 2705. They had brought their own defense towers, installed them on the grandstands in advance, waiting for exactly this moment.

The moment room 2705’s suppression field had just been drained completely into the Titan hand.

The moment Rover was standing outside the door.

On the trial’s chat panel, a line of text scrolled past.

XXX: Now. Its suppression field is down.

XXX: Target the door. Once the door breaks, the monsters will pour in.

XXX: Don’t give him a chance to reactivate the towers.

The crowd wasn’t as foolish as Rover had assumed.

At least, not all of them.

Someone had been planning from the beginning. They let Vance be the bait. They let the noisy crowd demanding fairness be the bait. They even let the Zombie Angel be the bait. The real purpose was only one thing, force room 2705 to drain its defenses, then strike at its weakest moment.

Dozens of weapon barrels on the grandstands simultaneously aimed at room 2705’s main door.

Then they fired.

A barrage of energy bolts poured down.

Nothing like the chaotic first wave from the crowd. This time, all barrels were aimed at a single point. The main door. The room’s only weak point.

Inside, Morie slammed her hand on the control panel.

"The suppression field hasn’t recovered! All the energy just went into the Titan hand! I need at least ten seconds!"

Ten seconds.

During those ten seconds, nothing was protecting the door.

Selina launched out from the threshold.

"I’ll block it!"

But there were too many shots. She cut down a few, but couldn’t stop a barrage coming from dozens of different directions. Several got through, striking directly into the main door.

[Main door durability: 91% → 84%.]

[84% → 79%.]

[79% → 71%.]

The number plummeted dizzily.

Rilia charged out, using her body to shield the door, but the energy bolts went through her anyway, leaving burn marks across her skin. She gritted her teeth and held her ground, but even with the Garden of Eden’s amplification, she couldn’t cover an entire door.

[71% → 64%.]

Sunako screamed: "The door! The door can’t hold much longer!"

Rover was still standing in the middle of the courtyard.

More than thirty meters from the main door.

He watched the barrage raining down on his room, watched Selina and Rilia desperately trying to intercept, watched the durability number dropping.

And right beneath his feet, the Zombie Angel was starting to stir.

Its few seconds of stunned state were almost spent.

Rover was caught between two choices.

If he killed the Angel now, it would cost a few seconds, and in those seconds the main door might break.

If he went back to save the door, the Angel would recover, and all the effort funneling it into the center of the courtyard would be for nothing.

Inside the room, Nanoe watched the screen. For the first time, her eyes sharpened slightly.

She understood the situation.

She also understood this was exactly what the person behind all of this wanted.

Force Rover to choose.

"Rover." She said through the link, voice still calm. "Don’t come back. The door is ours to handle."

Rover paused for half a second.

"You can hold it?"

"Trust me."

Just two words.

But Rover didn’t ask further.

He turned back to look at the Zombie Angel, and in the moment the monster had just managed to open one tentacle-eye, his fist full of gathered light came driving straight down onto its eyeless head.

Inside room 2705, Nanoe turned to Morie.

"Morie. No need for the suppression field. I have another way."

Morie looked up.

"What way?"

Nanoe smiled.

"Those towers on the grandstands all have to lock onto the door to target it. Which means their projectile paths all cross through the middle of the courtyard."

Morie understood immediately.

"The Zombie Angel."

"Right." Nanoe said. "Elith, do you have silk left?"

Elith, standing at the threshold, answered softly: "Yes."

"Spread a net. Not to trap anything. Just create a flat surface directly in front of the door. I need those projectiles to deflect, even if only by a few degrees."

Elith understood immediately.

Thin silk strands stretched out, not wrapping around monsters, not forming a trap, but weaving into a transparent curtain directly in front of the main door. When the next volley poured down, the shots struck the silk curtain, and their trajectories shifted.

Not much.

Only a few degrees.

But a few degrees was enough.

The deflected shots veered away from the door and struck room 2705’s walls.

And the walls were unharmed.

Because the basic rules were still in place.

Only the main door could be breached. Walls, floor, ceiling, all were inviolable. The Survivors on the grandstands had been concentrating fire on the door because it was the only weak point. But once the projectile paths were bent even a few degrees, they struck walls and dissipated harmlessly.

[Main door durability: 64% → 63%.]

The number stopped falling.

On the grandstands, expressions changed.

"The shots are deflecting!"

"Something is blocking in front of the door!"

"Re-aim! Re-aim!"

But re-aiming was useless.

Because Elith only needed to adjust the silk curtain to match their new angle, and every time a grandstand barrel changed direction, she tilted the curtain a little further, keeping the entire barrage perpetually deflected into the walls instead of the door.

An entire attack system of dozens of defense towers, elaborately positioned and waiting for exactly the right moment, was neutralized by a thin silk curtain.

Inside, Nanoe watched the durability number stabilize, and breathed out softly.

She turned to the screen where Rover was standing in the courtyard.

"Our part is done." She said softly. "Your turn."

And in the middle of the ruined courtyard, Rover’s fist touched the Zombie Angel’s head.

Light blazed outward.

No explosion.

That was what made everyone on the grandstands shudder.

A monster that enormous, that powerful, a Zombie Angel with its thousand-hand wings and hundreds of tentacles, should have died in an earth-shattering explosion. But no. When Rover’s fist contacted its eyeless head, that light only quietly spread outward, soaking into the monster’s body like ink diffusing through water.

And the Zombie Angel began to dissolve.

Not burning. Not shattering. But dissolving.

The thousand-hand wings drooped, each hand releasing its grip one by one, then falling away, turning to ash before reaching the ground. The hundreds of writhing tentacles contracted, dried out, crumbled to pieces. Its torn-open chest closed, then caved inward, like a building with its foundation suddenly pulled out.

The eyeless head tilted toward the sky.

The torn-open mouth parted, but no sound came out.

Then its entire three-meter body collapsed, turning into a pile of gray ash that the fog’s cold wind carried away.

The Zombie Angel was gone.

The courtyard sank into silence.

No one spoke. No one dared speak. The surviving Survivors on the grandstands stood frozen, looking down at the spot where the battlefield’s most powerful monster had just stood, which was now nothing but a smear of ash.

And standing in the very center of that courtyard, a young man stood straight, hand still palm-up, the light in his palm slowly fading.

Rover.

He didn’t look at the ash beneath his feet.

He raised his head and looked straight up at the grandstands, where dozens of Survivor defense towers were still pointing their barrels at his room.

His gaze swept slowly across each row of buildings.

Slowly.

Calmly.

But wherever that gaze swept, those standing there involuntarily stepped back one pace.

Because they had just realized one thing.

From beginning to end, Rover had never used his full strength.

He had let his women fight. Let the defense towers operate. Let Nanoe coordinate. And when the most powerful monster finally appeared, he only walked out, placed one hand on it, and it vanished.

Not a battle.

But a disposal.

On the chat panel, no one typed anything.

No one called for fairness.

No one mentioned resources.

Rover pulled back his hand and began walking toward the main door. He crossed the cracked courtyard, stepping over the ash of hundreds of monsters, and every footfall rang out clearly in the deadly silence.

Halfway back, he stopped.

He turned his head and looked up at a specific grandstand, where a group of high-level Survivors was standing behind their broken towers. They were the ones who had arranged this entire trap, who had waited for the exact moment the suppression field drained to open fire.

Rover said nothing to them.

He only raised his hand and pointed at those defense towers.

Inside room 2705, Morie immediately understood his meaning.

She looked at the control panel. The suppression field had partially recovered. The Titan hand needed time to recharge. But the other two towers.

"Marble Launcher. Crossbow Shooter." She said. "Full power."

Both of room 2705’s towers swiveled their barrels toward the grandstands.

Silver-gray marbles fired outward, trajectories strange, bouncing off walls, ricocheting off railings, then precisely striking each of the Survivor defense towers. Every marble impact created a layer of gray frost, locking the barrels solid and causing them to explode from the inside.

The Crossbow was quieter. But every black arrow fired pierced straight through a tower’s energy core, shutting it down immediately.

Room 2705 had two towers.

The Survivors had dozens.

But in under twenty seconds, every defense tower on the grandstands had either gone dark, exploded, or frozen solid.

Because room 2705’s towers weren’t like their towers.

Just as room 2705’s people weren’t like their people.

When the last tower on the grandstands exploded, the entire courtyard sank into silence again.

Rover lowered his hand.

He looked at the high-level Survivors standing frozen behind their ruined towers, his expression as calm as it had been from the very beginning.

Then he said one sentence, not loudly, but the entire courtyard heard it clearly.

"Next time, bring something better."

Then he turned, pushed the door open, and stepped into room 2705.

The door closed behind him.

Inside, Selina was sitting on the sofa, sword resting across her thighs, the corner of her lips curved up. Rilia leaned against the wall, the burn marks on her skin healing under the Garden of Eden’s effect. Elith drew her silk back, eyes half-closed. Thunder Dragon slithered to its spot and lay down. Monica picked up the cursed doll. Sunako breathed out one very long sigh of relief.

Morie stood before the control panel, watching the door durability number slowly recovering.

Nanoe stood in the middle of the room, waiting for him.

Rover walked over and sat on the sofa, leaning back.

The entire room had just been through a battle involving hundreds of monsters, one Zombie Angel, an entire crowd of Survivors, and an elaborate trap built with dozens of defense towers.

But no one was seriously injured.

The main door was still intact.

The room was unbroken.

And all of them were still here.

Rover looked around once, then said quietly: "Well done."

Sunako immediately gave a thumbs up.

"Great Lord Rover, you were incredibly cool just now. One touch of your hand and that enormous monster just dissolved. I must record this in room 2705’s history books."

Rover glanced at her.

Sunako immediately corrected herself: "What I mean is, record this glorious achievement under your wise leadership."

Selina burst out laughing.

Nanoe sat down beside Rover and lightly leaned against his shoulder.

"It’s over." She said softly.

"Not yet." Rover answered.

Nanoe looked up at him.

Rover looked toward the screen, where the ruined courtyard was still visible, where the fog was slowly sweeping away what remained of the battle.

"This trial didn’t appear on its own." He said. "Someone arranged it. The same someone who pushed Vance to the door. The same someone who had those towers waiting for exactly the moment the suppression field drained."

Nanoe was quiet for a few seconds.

"You think it’s him?"

"I don’t know who he is." Rover said. "But I know he’s watching."

Deep in the fog curtain, in a place no trial camera could reach, the man in the tall top hat slowly put his silver-tipped cane down.

He had just witnessed everything.

The Zombie Angel handled with a single touch. The tower trap neutralized by a silk curtain. Dozens of grandstand towers crushed in twenty seconds.

He should have been disappointed.

Because this battle hadn’t pushed Rover anywhere near his limits.

But beneath the thin layer of fog obscuring his face, he was smiling.

A very faint smile.

Very satisfied.

"Yes." He said softly, voice as mild as someone chatting with an old friend. "Just as I thought."

He lifted the tall top hat, revealing a shadowed area beneath that the fog still wouldn’t let anyone see through.

"The young one hasn’t even been serious yet."

He turned, stepping toward the dense fog.

"The son of that person... truly not ordinary."

The silver-tipped cane tapped the stone floor one last time.

Clink.

And as that sound dissolved into the fog, his silhouette also vanished, leaving behind only an empty courtyard filled with ash, and one sentence still lingering in the cold air.

"Next time, I hope you’ll show me a little more."