(A/N: This chapter is not suited for people with weak stomachs, so read with caution and feel free to skip some parts. Your health is the most important thing, so make sure to take good care of it. <3)
The center of the map was a large clearing with white flowers everywhere.
A frail white flower slowly swayed in the wind, looking like it would get uprooted by it and fly away, but no matter how hard the wind blew, the flower remained standing.
DRIP DROP
A scarlet-red liquid suddenly tainted its gorgeous white color as more and more of the liquid continued to drip down on the previously white flower.
The flower was powerless against the drops of blood, so it didn't have a choice but to be colored red.
Its pure color slowly disappeared, only to be replaced by a deep red that made the flower appear sinister.
This flower endured numerous hardships, and it would continue to grow no matter what color the world would give it next.
STOMP
Alas, an iron boot stomped right on the flower, ending its short life filled with struggles like pushing through the dirt or enduring the harsh wind every day.
What was once a lovely small flower was now but a destroyed plant lying in a puddle of blood.
"Huff… Huff…"
A blonde-haired female knight breathed heavily.
Her armor was riddled with cuts, and some of them even penetrated it, making her blood drip down to the ground onto the white flowers that grew all around her.
She was fighting a player wielding a sword and was slowly getting tired after she had already disposed of four players who had all tried to make her lose in the tournament.
"You attacked me with five people… Teaming isn't allowed, you know…"
She looked at the man in front of her with her thin eyebrows furrowed.
Her previous easy-going smile was nowhere to be seen, and it was now replaced by a frown.
"Haha! What do you mean by "teaming"? Just because you had to fight a group of players doesn't mean we were on a team. We all just wanted to get you out of the tournament, but all of us are playing individually. It's your bad luck that our objective is the same!"
The player in front of her chuckled as he continued oggling her body.
Olivia was already popular before the tournament even began because she liked to upload videos of her gameplay on the internet.
She was beautiful, strong, and most importantly, undefeated, so she acquired a large following.
This tournament was not only streamed live but was also watched by millions, and a lot of people were focused on this fight because Olivia was the one fighting.
The players that attacked her knew this and wanted to get popular by killing her.
As the player in front of her said, they all had the same goal but didn't know each other, so it wasn't considered "teaming."
If five people gang up on one player, then it would only be counted as teaming if one of those players thought of at least one of those players as their ally.
The five players that ganged up on Olivia all wanted to gain popularity, but they didn't think of the others as their teammates.
On the contrary, they thought of them as their rivals since only one person would get famous after she was killed, and it would be the one who would get the kill.
"It doesn't matter how many of you there are. In the end, you will all get cut by my blade."
While maintaining her battle pose, she glared at the player.
She used the time when the player was cockily explaining how teaming worked to replenish some of her stamina.
"Then here I come!"
TWANG
But before the player could jump on Olivia, who was holding her shield in front of her, both Olivia and the player heard the sound of an arrow being released.
SWISH SPLURT
Both of them quickly tried to dodge it, but the arrow, which was aimed at Olivia, penetrated her armor and pierced her shoulder.
She didn't wince in pain, as if she were already used to it, and used this moment where the player next to her was still warily looking for the archer to stab his chest.
SPLURT
The player noticed Olivia's movement, but it was too late for him to dodge, so he at least shifted his body, making the strike narrowly miss his heart.
But it still penetrated his left lung, so he knew that he didn't have a lot of time left.
"Urghh… You bitch! You will pay for that!"
He groaned and jumped back while holding his bleeding chest, but Olivia didn't let him rest because she wasn't sure when the archer would shoot again.
She rushed towards the bleeding player with her shield held up in front of her.
CLANG
He tried to fight back, but with a swift movement of the shield, Olivia parried his strike and then slashed horizontally, separating his head from his body.
THUD
As soon as his head hit the ground, his body turned into light particles and disappeared.
The fight wasn't over yet, though, so Olivia rushed towards the part of the forest where the arrow came from.
SWISH CLANG
Another arrow came flying towards her, but this time she expected it, so she easily blocked it with her shield.
When the archer saw Olivia rushing towards him with her shield up, he almost pissed himself since she looked like a rhinoceros running towards him.
"Time out! I give up! Wai-"
BANG THUD
He tried throwing his bow away, but Olivia didn't stop, and she ran into him with full force.
His ribcage broke, and one of the ribs pierced his heart, killing him instantly.
After taking care of the archer, Olivia didn't let her guard down because she knew that there was still one player left.
"Where are you! Come out and fight me! Stop hiding like a rat and come out!"
She kept shouting, trying to bait the last player into attacking her, but no matter how loud she shouted, nobody appeared, so she kept warily looking around, expecting to be attacked the moment she let her guard down.
---
Meanwhile, Finn was still walking through the forest while looking at the map, which only showed his and the gas' location.
"I can't believe we are lost… How did we even get lost when all we had to do was walk in one direction?"
He kept shaking his head and looking around to see where he was supposed to go.
'We? We are not lost. You are. If you had listened to me, we would have already arrived in the center.'
A bored voice sounded inside Finn's head because Loki was getting tired of all the walking around and no action.
"Huh?! What do you mean listen to you?! You were the one who told me to fight any monsters I come across to better my skills, and because I kept taking detours to fight, we are now lost!"
While Olivia was looking for Finn, he kept arguing with Loki while being lost somewhere in the forest.
He was whispering to not make it seem like he was talking to himself, but the way his expression kept changing made him look like a schizophrenia patient.
"Well, it doesn't matter… I wasn't planning to face Olivia in a head-on fight anyway, so I might as well just go together with the gas."
Finn calmed down after a few minutes and waited for the gas to catch up to him. Then he always walked one step in front of it, just enough to not get devoured by it.
Hours went by, and he could finally see the center of the map, which consisted of a clearing.
There was a female knight sitting in the middle of the clearing with her sword and shield by her side.
Olivia had looked for the last player, but after an hour of waiting, she just gave up and went to sit in the middle of the map.
It was almost time for the gas to swallow the entire map, so she looked around, but she still couldn't see the last player.
"Where are you? Come out!"
She shouted, but Finn, who was hidden in the shadow of a tree, didn't plan to come out and fight her.
'Hm? What's happening? Is it possible that there is a bug and I'm the only one left alive in the game? ...No, it says two players… but where is the last player?'
Olivia tried to think of the reason the game didn't end as she kept looking around, but no matter where she looked, she couldn't see anyone.
Finn had his black coat made out of a monster that specialized in using dark places to hide, so he was confident in not being seen.
The gas kept advancing, and it was only seconds away from swallowing the map.
Since Finn was closer to the gas because he hid behind a tree that was closest to the clearing, the gas would swallow him first. So before it did, he took a deep breath of fresh air and waited.
He didn't have to remain inside the gas alone for long as the gas slowly crept up towards Olivia, who now finally understood that the last player must be somehow hidden in the gas.
"That's cheating! He has a skill to survive in the gas!"
She shouted, refusing to accept her defeat after she had overpowered six players in a one-versus-six fight.
[Checking for any breach of rules…]
[Both players left alive didn't break any rules, and the game will continue.]
The system immediately checked all remaining players after hearing her shout and gave her the result.
When she read this, her eyes widened in disbelief, and she started to feel nervous.
Olivia was trained to keep calm in any situation, but how was she supposed to act calm when she was about to be swallowed by a poisonous gas that looked like green death.
'He has been in there longer than me, so as long as I protect myself against ambushes, I will come out victorious.'
She took her final deep breath of fresh air as the poisonous gas swallowed her whole.
Olivia kept her eyes tightly shut and made sure not to breathe at all.
One minute went by, then two minutes, and soon it was five minutes from the moment she was swallowed, but there was no system message of her winning.
'How?! Is this person a professional in holding his breath or what?!'
Olivia trained her lung capacity in her stamina training, and five minutes was her limit. Hell, it was even her record.
Being scared of breathing in the gas, she forced herself to hold on longer than normally, but no matter how hard she tried, there was no victory message.
But as she continued to hold on, her lungs started to hurt, and she knew that her body had to breathe or she would suffocate.
Refusing to lose, she covered her mouth and nose with a piece of cloth and breathed in only a little bit to be able to keep going.
"Fuu... K! KKKGGHH!!!"
But as soon as the gas entered her system, her lungs felt like they were on fire.
Seconds later, she felt her lungs decompose and the gas enter her insides.
"*COUGH*!"
She got on all fours and tried to cough the gas out, but the only thing that came out was spit, blood, and pieces of her insides.
Olivia felt like there were thousands of bugs crawling inside her and they were trying to bite themselves out of her body.
Her body was signaling to her that something was very wrong with every nerve she had in her body, and the pain was so bad that she started to claw at her own throat.
Huge, bloody gashes appeared, but the pain she felt from those was nothing compared to the pain of her insides being attacked by the gas.
"KKKRGGHH!!!"
Olivia tried to scream, but with no lungs in her body, only a terrifying screech came out that sounded like a cat being tortured.
She continued vomiting as her body was doing its best to get the gas out.
Slowly she vomited all of her insides out, but the gas or the pain wouldn't go away.
Tears, snot, saliva, and blood were everywhere, but her body refused to die. This was the first time she was cursing her trained body, which had a lot of endurance.
"EEUUURGGG!"
With a retching sound, she vomited blood one last time, and the game finally allowed her to die.
She fell face-first into her own blood and vomit as her body started to disappear.
The game ended and the gas quickly cleared up, revealing Finn standing there, and if he wasn't wearing a mask, everyone would see a carefree smile on his face.
[The champion of the 34th battle royale is Chained_Trickster]
---
An arena that had holographic screens showing the different tournaments was filled with players who logged into the game to watch the tournament.
The 34th tournament, or the one that Finn was in, was the last one to finish, so every viewer in the arena and in real life was watching it.
Normally the arena would be filled with noise, but it was deathly silent.
The screens were showing the situation in the arena while having the gas removed from their view so that the spectators could see what was happening in the gas.
But at this moment, all of the viewers were wishing to not be able to see inside the gas.
Olivia was the only person to breathe in the gas during the entire tournament, and everyone saw how she slowly vomited her insides out.
Her previous beautiful appearance was nowhere to be seen as she laid face down in her own blood, tears, snot, and saliva.
She was then released from her suffering and quickly teleported outside, but even when the system announced Finn's victory, the arena remained silent.
The viewers had to commend Finn for his smart thinking and how he used the metal flask that he had found to store air.
As was written in its description, the metal flask could store any simple element, including air.
The tactic Finn used was to make a person go through that torture while he breathed the air in the flask.
He always made sure to lift up the bottom of his mask in a way where he could breathe the air in, but his face wouldn't be revealed.
There was a player who used this tactic in Finn's previous life, but what Finn didn't know was that Leo, who didn't play Second Life in Finn's previous life, eliminated this player in his battle royale match before he could attempt to use this tactic.
The viewers could excuse this cowardly tactic, but when it was used against the beautiful and popular Olivia, it was bound to cause an uproar.
"Boo!"
One person started booing, and like an avalanche, everyone around him followed after him, and it spread like a virus until everyone was shouting boos.
"BOOOO!"
"You coward! You don't deserve to win!"
"Kick him out of this tournament!"
"BOOOOO!"
Finn, who couldn't hear the audience, was happy that he got into the bracket tournament, but once he got teleported, he would be in for a huge surprise.