Lady Cecilia reached out.
Her hand clamped onto Chen Shi's.
RIP.
The fabric strained. She lifted him off the floor with one arm.
He dangled in the air like a helpless chick.
She carried him across the gym. Her heavy footsteps shook the floorboards.
THUD. THUD.
She reached Rack 3.
She slammed him against the concrete wall.
BANG.
Dust fell from the ceiling. Chen Shi grunted, the breath knocked out of his lungs.
Cecilia leaned in, pinning him with her body.
The rose scent wrapped around his throat.
She lowered her lips to his ear. Her breath was hot.
"Perform well for me, little cutie."
"If you survive this..."
"I will give you a special reward."
She pulled back. Then, her hand swung down.
SMACK!
She slapped his butt. Hard.
The sharp sound echoed across the silent gym.
Chen Shi's face flushed red. He covered his backside, sliding down the wall.
Holy! I have never been treated like this in my life!
It feels...kinda good.
Elena stood ten feet away. Her mouth was dry.
She watched the wall-pin.
Her face burned. Her breathing grew shallow.
It's so erotic. She thought, biting her lower lip.
She owns him completely.
Amy stood beside Elena, but she was looking at something else.
She was staring at Lady Cecilia's backside.
The curves were mountainous.
The sheer width of her hips and the projection of her rear defied human anatomy.
Amy's mouth fell open. Her eyes went wide.
"Wow..."
"No wonder Big Brother Chen could hide under her skirt."
"There is a whole parking garage under there!"
Elena quickly covered Amy's mouth.
"Shhhhh"
"Player Elena. Player Amy."
The System voice chimed. "Draw your partners."
Elena walked to the bloody box. She reached in.
She pulled out a tag. [Swamp Loach].
A black, eel-like ghost materialized next to her.
It dropped to the floor with a wet SQUELCH.
It smelled of rotting algae and stagnant mud.
It wasn't heavy, but the slime dripping from its skin made Elena gag.
Luckily, I can generate a shield protect me from that smell.
Elena thought.
Amy walked up next. She reached her hand into the box.
She pulled out a tag. [Weeping Specter].
A translucent, glowing white sheet floated down from the ceiling.
It hovered behind Amy, crying softly.
It had zero physical mass.
A muscular player slammed his fist against a barbell.
"FUCK!"
His voice echoed.
"Why does the shorty get a zero-weight ghost?!"
"We have to bench press bears and iron golems! She gets air?!"
"Is the System discriminating against us?!"
[Dragon Country Live Stream Chat]
[Are you kidding me?]
[A 200-pound grown man is jealous of a 20-year-old loli?!]
[Have you no shame, Foreign Alliance?!]
[She is a child! Of course the System scales the difficulty!]
[Foreign Live Stream Chat]
[Cry about fairness all you want, Dragon Country.]
[The kid's luck doesn't matter.]
[Look at the bigger picture.]
[Chen Shi is about to do push-ups with a 250kg S-Rank monster on his back.]
[He will die. His spine will snap in half.]
[And when he dies... the hot woman and the kid lose their meat shield.]
[This gym is full of angry, desperate men. Some of them have already lost their minds.]
[Once Chen Shi is a bloody stain on the floor,
what do you think those men will do to two unprotected girls?]
[Heh. The real horror show starts after the timer ends.]
Ten minutes later.
"ROUND THREE. BEGIN."
The System Voice shattered the silence.
Red lights flared across the ceiling.
Around the gym, men and women dropped to the floorboards.
Hands flat. Backs straight. Cores tight.
The ghosts moved.
A rotting Giant Wolf leapt onto a player from the Foreign Alliance.
CRUNCH.
The man's elbows bowed inward.
His chin slammed into the floor.
He pushed back up, screaming through his teeth.
The wolf's jaws slavered right next to his ear.
Hot breath smelling of digested corpses washed over his neck.
He didn't just carry physical weight.
He carried the primal terror of being eaten alive the second his triceps gave out.
Every rep was a fight against his own panic.
A few feet away, a woman with the Viscous Slime sobbed.
The slime oozed onto her spine.
SQUELCH.
It was freezing. It dripped down her ribs.
It slid past her collarbone. The smell of raw sewage filled her nose.
She gagged. Her stomach heaved.
A stream of vomit hit the floor between her hands.
To complete the push-up, she had to lower her face inches away from her own bile.
One. She pushed up. Her arms shook like leaves.
Bones popped. Muscles tore.
The gym sounded like an abattoir. Grunts. Cries. The wet tearing of spectral flesh against human skin.
Viper dropped to the floorboards.
A Lead Skeleton materialized above him. 150 kilograms of dense, cursed metal.
It dropped onto his back.
CLANG.
Viper's elbows buckled. The sharp metal ribs dug into his spine, piercing his skin.
He pushed up. His triceps burned. Sweat poured into his eyes.
He was an Agility type. He did not have pure pushing power.
Every rep felt like tearing his pectoral muscles off the bone.
Next to him, HeavyTank groaned.
A Spectral Gorilla sat on his shoulders.
Normally, Tank could bench press a lot more than this.
But his mana was completely empty.
He had burned every drop trying to sabotage Chen Shi with the Seismic Stomp.
Now, his muscles were running on fumes.
The gorilla pounded its chest.
THUD. THUD.
Shockwaves traveled down Tank's arms.
Crack. Tank's wrists popped under the sudden force.
He ground his teeth, blood leaking from his gums,
forcing his massive body up inch by bloody inch.
Elena dropped to her hands and toes.
The Swamp Loach hovered above her. Its skin was covered in black mucus.
She closed her eyes.
VMMMM.
A faint light bloomed from her skin.
A millimeter-thin energy shield formed over her uniform.
The loach dropped onto her back.
SLAP.
The shield blocked the foul liquid. It neutralized the stench of dead fish.
But the shield could not block the mass.
The writhing weight of the giant eel forced her shoulders down.
It squirmed constantly, throwing off her center of gravity.
She gritted her teeth, locking her core to stabilize the shifting load.
Down. Up. One.
[Dragon Country Live Stream Chat]
[This is hell.]
[It isn't just a physical test. It's psychological torture.]
[Imagine doing push-ups while a corpse breathes on your neck. Or dipping your face in vomit.]
[The System doesn't just want to kill them. It wants to break their minds completely.]
[I feel sick just watching.]
[Foreign Live Stream Chat]
[Cry more, Dragon Country weaklings!]
[This is what separates the men from the boys!]
[Our Awakened warriors are forged in this exact hell! They eat pain for breakfast!]
[Look at Viper! Look at Tank! Their bodies are breaking, but they are pushing through the agony!]
[Your 'Pretty Boy' Chen Shi only knows how to hide under a woman's skirt!]
[Our guys are a thousand times stronger! A million times tougher!]
[Let's see your gigolo survive actual combat pressure!]
[Dragon Country Live Stream Chat]
[Pretty boy? Our 'Pretty Boy' squatted 300kg without breaking a sweat
while your warriors gave him a foot massage!]
[Your 'warriors' had to cheat using items and still couldn't take him down!
Tank is bleeding from his gums because he wasted his mana on us!]
[So Chen Shi can do the push up with ezzz!]
[Foreign Live Stream Chat]
[Lift a 250kg S-Rank monster? With his arms?! In a plank position?!]
[You people are delusional!]
[Biology is biology! Leverage is leverage!]
[His arms will snap backwards on the first rep!]
[We are going to clip his death and play it on loop!]