Chapter 172: The Art of Deception
The stadium erupted. The overwhelming volume of so much spectators screaming at once was a physical force, shaking whole stadium itself. The commentators went into an absolute, unhinged frenzy.
"HE’S HERE! Hide Volter HAS ARRIVED!" the male commentator bellowed, his voice completely raw from hyping the impossible entrance. "By the Gods, I have been calling this tournament for fifteen years, and I have NEVER seen an entrance like that! That was badass!"
The crowd, normally deeply partisan and fiercely loyal to their regional champions, completely flipped. Even the spectators who had been waving the bright red banners began chanting for the mysterious, silver-haired boy in the blue zone.
Hide however couldn’t hear them and he ignored the commentators. He stood still under the blue flag, his hands tucked casually into his pockets as his blue eyes, locked onto his opponent across the ruined cityscape.
The Red Side contestant was a massive, imposing figure. He was a mountain of a man, his skin deeply tanned, with a scarce, patchy beard and a very peculiar, almost comically large mustache that completely dominated the lower half of his face.
He was heavily armored with thick, corded muscles, but not so excessively expanded that it hindered his mobility. One could say he was the absolute textbook example of a perfectly optimized, desirable physical brawler.
He had short, spiky red hair, but the most distinctive, terrifying feature of his face was a deep, jagged scar under his lower lip that formed an indisputable ’V’ shape.
The large man cracked his thick neck, a wide, boisterous grin spreading beneath his massive mustache as he looked across the arena at Hide.
"So, you are that guy my captain told me about," the large man called out, his voice a rich, booming baritone that easily carried over. "You are young, and you look so strong! Haha!"
The guy genuinely praised Hide, letting out a loud, hearty laugh.
Hide tilted his head slightly, analyzing the man’s relaxed posture and open killing intent. "Thanks," Hide replied, his voice calm and level, offering a courteous, thin smile. "But you look much stronger, if I have to say."
The large man’s smile widened, but his eyes sharpened into dangerous, calculating slits. "Ah, but often what is on the outside is not the truth," the man emphasized, his tone dropping an octave.
BZZZZZZ!
The massive stadium buzzer finally went out, the electronic sound vibrating through the floorboards. The match had begun.
Hide didn’t waste a single second. The moment the buzzer dropped, Abyssal Scale Carapace activated instantly. Thick, pitch-black metal plates erupted from his skin, rapidly interlocking over his legs below knees and encasing his hands in razor-sharp, dark-steel talons.
He dug his armored boots into the cracked asphalt and pushed his body forward. He deliberately avoided using Phantom Step or Sonic Flight. Deep down, he knew his body had finally stabilized enough to process Petra’s high-speed flight skill—a breakthrough he had only managed to achieve a mere two hours ago after trying almost a hundred times. Before that, whenever he had tried to activate Petra’s skill, nothing would happen. But right now, revealing his fastest movement abilities this early in the tournament would be an error. He stuck to raw, biologically augmented speed.
Hide sprinted across the ruined cityscape, weaving through the shattered cars and collapsed concrete pillars.
But across the map, the large man didn’t charge to meet him. Instead, the man simply smiled, tapped his boot against the ground, and suddenly vanished from where he was standing. In his exact place, a large piece of concrete rubble materialized with a heavy thud.
"What an incredible display!" the female commentator shrieked, the camera feeds rapidly zooming in on the red zone. "Gerald has completely bypassed the frontline! He has instantly teleported!"
Hide skidded to a halt, his boots carving deep trenches into the asphalt. He was already close to the central Altar, preparing to intercept the brawler, when he heard a faint, distinct sound of shifting rubble not too far away from a partially collapsed skyscraper on his right flank.
Hide’s eyes narrowed. He snapped his head toward the ruined building. he looked to that side and activated the skill: Overseer’s Vision (Stroke 1).
It was the primary, terrifying sensory skill of the Doom Overseer. A talent that allowed the supreme beast to look completely through physical matter, mapping and overseeing the world as if every single object and living entity existed only within its own mind. It was if one would call it that, the ultimate Sight skill.
The only backlash to this god-tier ability was that Hide’s human brain couldn’t process the volume of sensory data for extended periods. For now, he could only maintain the vision for exactly five seconds, and immediately after deactivating it, the neural overload rendered him completely, physically blind for three to four agonizing seconds.
The moment he activated the skill, the world in front of him fundamentally changed. The solid concrete walls, the steel girders, the dust, and the shadows—everything turned into a highly detailed, translucent wireframe construct. He could see each and every single atom separately. He could see right through the dense materials and into the hollow spaces within them.
Upon focusing his mind, he immediately spotted the large man, Gerald. The red-haired brawler was standing completely still inside the dark lobby of the fallen skyscraper, looking around the empty building in mild confusion.
Hide’s analytical mind processed the data in a fraction of a second. He realized exactly what the guy’s ability was. It wasn’t pure spatial teleportation. Gerald couldn’t just move anywhere he wanted. He could only switch places with objects that were identical, or highly similar, to his own mass.
’That is a terrifying ability to have in a map filled with heavy rubble,’ Hide thought, his heart beating a steady, calm rhythm. ’And overall, as well. You could drop a man off a building just by throwing a rock.’
But as the seconds ticked by in his Overseer’s Vision, Hide noticed a critical flaw. There seemed to be a problem with the activation rate. Gerald had not used his ability again after that first initial switch to the building. He was manually walking toward the windows to peek out.
’He has a cooldown,’ Hide realized, a cold, predatory smirk appearing on his face beneath the shadows of his silver hair. ’He can’t spam it.’
With exactly one second left on his vision timer, Hide abruptly changed his course. Instead of running straight toward the central Altar to secure the flag placement, he pivoted sharply and jumped directly through the shattered glass window of the closest building to his right, mirroring Gerald’s position.
The second his boots hit the carpet of the office building, the five-second timer ran out.
Hide’s Overseer’s Vision violently snapped off. The neural backlash hit him like a physical blow. The world didn’t just blur; it turned into pitch-black darkness. He had become completely blind!
But Hide didn’t panic. A small puff of dark mana escaped his body and took the shape of the small dragon.
"There is a wall to your right my Liege, and a broken surface to your left." Drogon told him and continued to describe the surroundings to him and under his guidance, Hide kept moving forward through the darkness, navigating the debris with flawless precision, closing the distance toward where Gerald was hiding.
Up in the broadcasting booth, the commentators were losing their minds, hyping each and every micro-movement as this had quickly become one of their most anticipated matches.
"Twenty seconds have passed since the start!" the male commentator announced, his voice echoing with genuine bewilderment. "And Hide Volter has completely abandoned the pursuit of the flag! He’s currently navigating the ruined buildings on the eastern flank!"
"Does he not want the 500-point speed bonus?!" the female commentator asked, equally confused. "If he doesn’t secure the flag soon, Gerald could easily switch his way to victory!"
Suddenly, the male anchor gasped, his voice cracking with shock as the main camera feed violently jerked back to the center of the arena.
"Wait! Look at the Red Side!" the commentator screamed, completely flabbergasted. "The red flag has just been yanked off the post! It... it’s being taken away by a massive, black lizard!"
Down on the arena floor, the four seconds of neural blindness finally faded. Hide blinked rapidly, his normal vision returning as he stepped out of the shadows of the building and onto the broken street. He had reached the exact skyscraper where he had seen Gerald hiding.
But when Hide stepped through the ruined doorway, the larger man was already standing in the center of the lobby, waiting for him. Gerald looked at Hide, his hands resting casually on his hips, and smiled a wide, victorious grin beneath his mustache.
"You indeed are late, young man," Gerald chuckled.
Snap.
The larger man snapped a single finger. The air violently warped. In the blink of an eye, a small, heavy piece of broken concrete fell exactly where Gerald had been standing.
Hide’s blue eyes widened in genuine surprise. He had been completely fooled. The man didn’t have a long cooldown nor was he limited to switching to only equal mass objects.
Hide spun around, looking up through the shattered glass ceiling of the skyscraper. High above the arena, standing triumphantly on top of the Blue Flag Pole, was Gerald.
