Strolling through the tunnel, Reever moved at a steady pace, his steps echoing faintly against the rough stone walls. His eyes searched carefully for any sign of the king's presence. He was certain that during the earlier explosion, the king had been spared. The blast had been powerful, enough to crush and scatter countless enemies, but something about the way the battle had unfolded left him convinced that the king had not fallen there.
"Come to think about it," he thought as he walked, his gaze fixed ahead, "the system stole some of my points. I am sure that there were a lot of soldier spider ants. Well, it's not that I am complaining. Never mind."
His thoughts lingered on that small loss for only a moment. Points could be earned again. Surviving was what mattered. And he had survived far worse.
Suddenly, his communicator beeped, cutting through the quiet of the tunnel.
"Bot 067, I have managed to subdue eight hundred players from the hand of a king. We were previously fifteen hundred, but the 700 were sacrificed to kill the king and his followers. The king was powerful, but we managed to kill him," Conner reported, his tone carrying a trace of pride mixed with exhaustion.
"Continue," Reever sighed as his vision came across another mauled person lying against the tunnel wall, barely breathing. The body was torn in several places, the armor cracked, and the breathing shallow and uneven. It was clear the man wouldn't last long.
"We have received a way to stop them. It was inside the king's body. For now, I have around 900,000 points," Conner bragged. His voice held confidence at first, but then it shifted slightly as if he had suddenly remembered something. He had not forgotten that Reever had 20,000,000 points. The call ended soon afterward.
On Conner's side, the air was thick with the smell of blood and dust.
Conner looked at the condition of his men. They were his to control, and they were not that weak. To make it better, he didn't strain his mind to control them at all. They moved as he wanted, steady and obedient, almost as if it was natural.
The truth was that though he had 700 men alive, fifty of them were severely injured and couldn't fight. The rest had various degrees of injury. No one was unscathed, not even Conner himself. His body ached in places he didn't want to think about, and there were small wounds scattered across his arms and shoulders.
Still, with his powerful background, healing was easier than breathing. After all, which mythical player would lose face by allowing their kids to die in a simple rookie match due to lack of healing potions?
He couldn't use the potions on his army. Though he had enough, more than enough to be precise, why should he use them on strangers?
Looking at his men, he wondered where the fifteen hundred people had come from. The match only had 300 participants. But who were these people? All of them had masks on them, and it was impossible to remove them off their faces. He had tried before, more than once. No matter the strength used, no matter the command given, the masks stayed firmly attached.
It was strange. These people had to come from somewhere.
He stood still for a while, staring at them as they moved and gathered themselves. Their movements were stiff but obedient. Silent. Faceless.
He thought for a while before coming up with several conclusions.
The first one was that they were players trapped in previous games and were unable to get free. They could have been controlled for a long time. Who knew, maybe they had stayed there for years, forgotten and used as tools by the system itself.
The second option was the scary one.
He was from a mythical family, and he knew secrets the world had yet to know. Realizing that he couldn't open their masks, even when ordered to, made the second choice a bit more acceptable. Something about them didn't feel human anymore.
Conner had also assumed that Reever was one of them. But after staying with him for a while, and asking him some questions, he realized that he was just a random player obsessed with masks.
He knew that after one ranked up to Master, things were not the same as to how lower ranked players were. And to make it even worse, no one was allowed to wear masks in world communities due to the assumptions he had come up with over the years.
Players from Master rank were dangerous to others. Their presence alone changed things. But remembering what his father once told him, he knew that they were nothing compared to the peak.
The main reason why his dad had refused to acknowledge his sword fights was because of this. Swords were limited in a way. They required skill, closeness, precision. They couldn't be compared to firearms, which had more damage and could kill an army from a distance.
Conner knew that his dad wanted the best for him, as he was the only son. From what he had told Reever, he might have exaggerated a bit, but it was still close to the truth. His father was only disappointed, nothing else. He still supported him in many ways.
The weapon he was holding was a mystique ranked weapon. It was strong, far stronger than what most rookies could ever hope to get. His father could give him a higher ranked one, even a mythical one, but due to restrictions, he couldn't.
Players could use a weapon of the same rank with ninety to a hundred percent efficiency. Using weapons of higher rank reduced efficiency by half for the first two ranks. After that, it dropped by ninety percent in the higher ranks.
So the highest rank a rookie could use was a mystique ranked weapon, with only a five percent efficiency. That was still better than nothing.
Reever's rare weapons and armor could be utilized at sixty percent efficiency. It was still good, as he had survived many ordeals because of it. What Reever was sure of was that when he ranked up to Veteran rank, he would maximize his use. That would increase both his defense and attack power greatly.
Conner stood up from a broken slab of stone. He had rested enough for the day. His body felt better, the pain now dull and manageable. His men were mostly healed. Some of them had potions to use, and he ordered them to take them and share them with those who didn't have.
They moved quickly to obey, passing the potions around without hesitation.
He didn't even bother to loot them. They were poor. Very poor. There was nothing worth taking from them.
Plus, as a child of a mythical ranked player, how could he be poor?