There were different types of game themes in the Arena. Ranging from combat theme to mystery|thriller to survival. Chima, forgetful Chima had forgotten to choose a theme and because of that, she was assigned to a random one by the system.
She was assigned to an elimination combat theme. Chima viewed this as luck on her side because if she was assigned to elimination horror|thriller theme, she couldn't imagine the horrific way she would die.
She was assigned to an elimination combat theme on layer 2. Chima had decided that playing on layer 3 would be too dangerous as although she was powerful enough to play on it, she wasn't well versed and experienced in playing in the Arena. She had played hundreds of games in her old world but had never made a distinction whatsoever. Also she had never played one such as this.
And playing on layer 1 would be too tiring and time devouring. So layer 2.
"Ahhhhh!!" Chima screamed as she found herself falling into a vast world of whiteness.
The side of her face first hit the smooth cold white floor and the rest of her body followed. She thought her neck would be broken. Chima stood up and looked around her. The entire place was white with tall thin stretches of black randomly dotting the entire place. It looked like black trees in an all white forest.
The white was so vast, she didn't have an idea of how wide the place was. And she seemed to be the only person here.
The only thing she was with was a small black backpack, which was strapped so closely to her back and was so light it seemed like there was nothing inside.
Suddenly the area a few steps ahead of her seemed to distort, the air parted away in a rumpus of small black spatial cubes and a player appeared as the distortion faded away. When he saw Kiran, he seemed shocked.
They suddenly heard a sound behind them, they turned to look, there was no one there. From her memories Chima knew there was someone there but there were corners blocking their views and the whiteness of the wall blended perfectly with the background making it a little difficult to move around as you could hit your head on a wall when you thought there was space to move. But most players in choosing layer 2 could differentiate between the background and the wall as their body level was above 5.
Suddenly from the area where the noise was heard, another player suddenly appeared from behind the wall which blended with the background.
Several seconds later, many more appeared on the field. Most of whom seemed shocked to see Kiran, but none dared approach her.
The system's mechanical voice boomed from the invisible speakers around. "All players complete, quest no 1..." As the voice boomed, the players were heading towards a direction. From the many times Kiran had played this level when she was a little weaker, Chima knew what to do and so did the other players whom seemed to want to get this level over with.
Chima joined them.
She knew what the first task would be: They somehow had to get to the edge of the field where there was a spatial indicator there, players needed to pass their hands over the indicator so it would be able to mark their scores.
This was only needed on the 1st and 2nd layer and not on the 3rd and 4th layer. Once they had been indicated, the players had to fight with each other to level up. Or you could hide from every other player avoiding harm and elimination. To eliminate a player, you had to knock them out completely and to go to the next level, you had to defeat ten other players. The last man standing in the level would receive a reward of course. Anyone eliminated would, needless to say, be restarted.
Chima, despite having several memories and 'how to pass level 1 for dummies's in her head from Kiran, was nervous. It was understandable, even though Kiran had played this level so much that it had turned into a muscle memory, Chima didn't have a manual or practical training to get through this. So unlike many reincarnation, weak to strong novels and movies she had read and watched, this would be a contrast to the usual 'can think it but can't do it' and it would instead 'may do it depending on the situation but can't think it'.
Still Chima would do what she does best, go with the flow.
The game would last for as long as the players played. Although the players whom played in this level were mostly middle level players, Chima knew that once the players had been indicated, a bloodbath would begin. So she calmed herself down and got serious.
The indicator was quickly found. It was a big round flat disk with a big red beam in the middle hovering a little above the floor.
Chima went towards it and slowly passed her palm over the red beam. The light was warm on her palm.
"Player 6212.....Indicated."
She passed her palm over the beam again and felt suddenly a strong hot painful sensation in the middle of her palm, before she could react the scene before her changed.
However before another player could come to be indicated, the red beam dimmed to an ominous shiny darkness then began glitching between the two colours, but as a player approached it, it stopped abruptly.
Chima was transported to a different location in the field.
She looked around to visualise her current location, it seemed like she was in a corner and a black talk tree was in front of her. The tree might have looked bare but it actually had thick branches of white leaves that could hide a person completely. She quickly climbed it to get an advantage view over the rest players and there she got ready and waited.
From where she was she could hear the mechanical voice signifying indicated players.
"Player 3416....Indicated."
"Player 6923....Indicated."
"Player..."
The voice went on and stopped when all players had been indicated.
From the many players being indicated, Roots estimated the number of players in layer two to be around two hundred.
"All players indicated.....Let the game begin in 30...29...28...27...26..."
After being indicated all players would be transported to a random spot on the field. Once the count down was over....Level one had begun.
Chima's heart was beating fastly as the countdown went on. Every second towards zero was like the hangman's footsteps to a death sentenced criminal. Still she braced up herself for the worse, after all, she wouldn't really die but just be restarted.
Chima readied her blaster and it opened as the hot red golden light shone on her face between the shards of space opened. The blaster vibrated violently, reacting to Chima's nervousness but it gave off no sound, thankfully.
She pushed the button on her chest under her uniform and a thin invisible layer cover her skin. It was a gear four armour. A high quality one.
"9...8...7...6...5..."
She steadied her heart and prepped herself knowing that she'd have to kill someone now.
"3...2...1"
The short silence was as deafening as the calm before the storm.
Then came a loud bang far behind the tree where she was and a manic scream.
"Player 3124...Eliminated."
Then she heard the sound of a loud 'whoosh!' and the sound combat between a group of persons could be heard. From what Chima was hearing, it was brutal.
The system announced several players' elimination in very quick successions.
Chima could only see the view infront of her from where she was. She heard footsteps coming towards the tree and stiffened.
A person heavily injured with blood trailing behind him came into her view. As he ran, a blue fire ball rushed behind him and blasted his back. He fell and coughed out blood. The blood on the white floor looked crystalline.
Another heavy footstep was heard and the injured player crawled backwards whilst begging.
"Please, I can still hel..." He coughed our blood again as he couldn't finish his sentence.
"You've outlived your usefulness, you only had one job,"
Saying that a larger fire ball was shot at his chest. The player face was plastered with helplessness and dread as the fire consumed his body, feeding relentlessly on his flesh till only the dry black skeleton was left.
"Player 2314...Eliminated."
The other player walked towards it while chuckling darkly. She had a tall and lanky physique and had short bouncy brown hair. She squatted in front of the bones and started salvaging through it.
She brought out a large teal crystal from the bones and looked at it in wonder.
"Wonder how much I could sell this beauty for," she said and then kissed it, stood up and left the scene.
Chima stared in shock at the power and ruthlessness of the player....That one was definitely not supposed to be here, just like her predecessor.
Chima's plan was originally to jump out and attack the weakest and defeat ten of them before going to the next level. That was an encouragement of stepping out of her comfort zone, her comfort zone of low competitive spirit, her comfort zone of her home and her comfort zone of the tree where she was currently. But now she thought it was probably a better idea to stay hidden until everyone had wiped themselves out.
'I mean.....How hard can that be??'
As if responding to her thoughts, a medium sized squirrel-like purple beast with black stripes came to the spot where the player died. It had a black heavy looking horn in the middle of its head and it's eyes were a gentle blue. On it's fur were fresh thick red liquid that was most likely blood.
It crawled on the blood and seemed to be sniffing for something then as if it had sensed Chima staring at it, it's fur stood on it's end in cautiousness as it turned towards the tree. Although Chima was sure that she was well hidden, the creature's blue eyes seemed to be staring straight at her, and for just that moment alone, only the creature and she knew where she was.
The horn on the beast started to glow a deep blue and Chima felt a chill down her spine and jumped down from the tree. As soon as she did that, a fire ball hit the tree branches and it immediately caught the heavy blue flames.
The leaves on the tree were not ordinary leaves as they were made of veleton, an almost indestructible material, crystalline and yet metallic. Although it was just grade two veleton, it was still hard and at most a level nine player could be able to do some harm to it.
Chima stared at the tree full of blue flames and gulped. Her cover had been uncovered.
TBC
M.R