Dying In Real Life Is Another Way To Play - Chapter 35 Whos First?

When Zhang Shan, Titiana and Carnalia were nearing the location of the Pantheon, Titiana spoke.

“Although I haven’t met them before, I know them through the information stored in my conciousness…”

In front of them, Five Gods and Four Godessess in “metal” and “leather” armor were looking at them warily.

“The male leader with black hair holding a spear is named Alcyon, the guy with the daggers is Setos, the man with the large axe is Cruces, the young boy holding a broad sword is Marith and the old guy with a sword and shield is called Orthos…” Titiana added

“The female with the rod is Olivas, the young girl with the reaper scythe is Laria, the woman with the bow is Miriel and the muscular lady with the knuckle duster is Rene.” Titiana finished her introductions to the two

“How do we do this? We’re a bit out-numbered?” Carnalia asked

“I don’t think they know that we won’t die, so Carnalia you will support us from the back while we attack… Zhang Shan will take the lead, I’ll zip around to finish them off and Carnalia, you have to watch out for anyone trying to make sneak attacks or going to any advantageous position…”

The two nodded after hearing Titiana explain.

Once they landed, they retracted their wings except for Carnalia who couldn’t. Alcyon spoke as he looked at Zhang Shan.

“I have a message from the Masters…”

“Zhang Shan, Titiana, come with the Pantheon units, we’ll fix you back up the way it was, so you can play again” he added

Zhang Shan shook his head and said “No… Sorry but thanks for the offer!”

“Why, don’t you want to be back on earth?” Alcyon said with a curious look

Zhang Shan was silent for a while and said

“Do you know why I had to wait and prepare for One year before playing ARC?”

“No, please enlighten us…” Alcyon added

Zhang Shan paused for a while and then smiled from ear to ear as he said

“Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate!”

As soon as Zhang Shan finished his declaration, they vanished leaving sonic booms in their previous locations.

*BBBOOOOOOOMMMMMM*

*BBBOOOOOOOMMMMMM*

*BBBOOOOOOOMMMMMM*

Making the first move was always an effective way to start the tempo of a fight, you just need to make sure to get a good head start.

As soon as they moved Zhang Shans Vision went to super slow motion. Zhang Shan breathed with a sigh of relief as these people were moving slow, unlike with what happened with Lan Ranyan, at least these guys are following the rules. He went forward directly in front of Alcyon who has now lunged his spear towards him with his left hand

If we are to refer to their speed, the ratio is 1:3, where every one second of Zhang Shans concious movement is three seconds for the gods. Zhang Shan evaded the spear with not much effort and moved to the left and then grabbed Alcyon’s elbow and hand as he twisted their bodies in 180 degrees and released him towards the other gods.

Three gods were in Alcyons path and were hit like bowling pins as they started to spread out with momentum as well. It seemed that Zhang Shan won the first strike to open the battle. However he noticed that the five other gods were able to dodge and then head towards him as he seemed to get their aggression.
for visiting.

Titiana on the other hand, moved in a semi-circle to follow through with Zhang Shans first strike and readied her claws as she slashed towards Alcyon.

Alcyon was now on a recovery position after hitting the other three gods, he felt an attack aimed at him and he glowed a golden aura as he turned his spear to block Titianas claws.

When Titiana’s attack did not push further she tried to retract her hand, however, the three gods had already recovered and were about to lunge their weapons at her.

A sword, axe and broad sword were directed at Titiana, seeing this predicament Carnalia swooped in and tackled Orthos, the one with the sword attacking Titiana, to put him off balance, as Orthos tried to evade Carnalia, this created an opening for Titiana to step on Orthos shield and twist her body away from the other two attacks aimed at her.

After Carnalia made the succesful tackle, she slid to the sides to avoid any follow through attacks from their enemies as Titiana backed her up for safety, Zhang Shan on the other side was facing a dilemma as the five of the gods were aiming at him. As he evaded an arrow headed for his neck, he noticed a scythe slashing towards him from the left and a rod swinging its way from his right side.

As he evaded by ducking in a swift sidewards motion to the left side just an inch away from the reaping slash. He felt that someone was coming from above, when he looked up, he saw a fist coming down wearing a knucle duster.

When he tried to block it using both of his hands he felt a stabbing pain on his chest, when he looked at it, three arrows made way to his heart. And then the impact from the fist came crashing down.

Although in pain, Zhang Shan was able to shake off the punch by redirecting it to the right side and then forcing his body to move to the left.

As he landed seven feet away, he noticed that the gods did not follow through with another attack. After which he kneeled down in pain as he felt his heart rupture.

When Carnalia saw this she wanted to rush to Zhang Shans side, worried at what happened to him, while Titiana held her back.

Zhang Shans vision returned to normal after this and said ” Wow, it’s truly a bit too much for a newbie to fight Gods…”

Alcyon smiled and said. “It seems you’re not used to fighting yet, especially in groups…” then he looked at Titiana “What are you planning? You know that his death could make your winning chances would drop to oblivion…”

“…..”

At the game monitoring room, everyone were smiling as they saw the wounded Zhang Shan fall to his knees.

Vice-chief Liu spoke to Yue Jing “Tell Alcyon to finish the fight and bring Zhang Shans corpse back, try to apprehend Titiana and Carnalia as well… Kill them if they resist, their bodies would still be worth something to research on.”

Yue Jing nodded and sent the commands to Alcyon.

“…..”

Alcyon recieved the command and said “Titiana, come with us or die in the process.”

Titiana looked at Alcyon and smiled as she said softly.

“Not today…”

Alcyon grimmed as he started to signal the other gods to attack as he spoke.

“Then die tryi-”

“Damn! This shit hurts like hell!” Zhang Shans voice cut Alcyon off and the latter looked at him in surprise

“Still alive I see? I wonder how you three really planned on fighting us without a protective gear on” Alcyon smirked as he looked back on Zhan Shang

Zhang Shan looked at him and replied as he grabbed the arrows with his hands.

“We don’t really need them to be frank…” after which he pulled up the arrows and stood up slowly.

The Gods all looked at him in shock as he did this, blood was still squirting out of the opened wounds caused by the arrow heads.

“…..”

Vice-chief Liu then remembered and asked “During the “Royal One” incident..when he was cut by “royal one”, he didn’t die immediately right? His friends even helped out in attacking him even when he is in pieces? Does he have a gene of a starfish or something?”

Suddenly, Wang Lie stood up and said “There was an incident that also happened that day in the City of Magic…. I remember looking at the database and an unknown gene appeared showing the Rank of SSS topping everything to be the 1st rank, it’s a regeneration type life essence gene!”

“What? Why has this not been reported?” Vice-chief Liu asked

“I thought it was an error since it has not been named for almost a week, So I removed all of details from the rankings.” Wang Lie said

“Then are you telling me that Zhang Shan has this gene?” Vice-chief Liu asked further

“T-that seems to be the case…” Wang Lie replied

“…”

As they were conversing, the video showed that the blood stopped spilling out and then returned back to Zhang Shan’s wound as it healed in a visible rate and the clothes were left with only puncture marks. The Gods were also stunned as this was the first time they noticed an insane recovery rate.

Zhang Shan then said “I’d love to play with you all but I’m still not ready… You see, I just started playing this real life game… So, I was hoping that we can go on our seperate ways…”

“I’ll train first and then build my Kingdom as you guys do the same… When I’m stronger, we can then fight it out, don’t worry that I won’t keeo my end of the bargain, since I’ll be the one knocking on your doors by then.” Zhang Shan added as he smiled shamelessly at Alcyon.

Alcyon replied “I dont think that would be possible… We will take you with us today!”

Zhang Shan answered “I don’t think so… Just like what Titiana said earlier… Sorry, but… Not today!” after saying this, Zhang Shan waved his hand in a farewell manner.

Alcyon said “What do you mean?”

Zhang Shan didn’t respond as he started tapping his foot

Zhang Shan crossed his arms and then looked at Titiana and asked “How many minutes has it been?”

“15 minutes or so… more or less” as she shrugged.

“Damn he’s a bit late…” Zhang Shan murmured

“….”

Vice-chief Liu signaled Yue Jing and said “move-in, he’s just wasting time…”

Yue Jing nodded and send the commands

“….”

When Alcyon received it he started to move towards Zhang Shan

Seeing this, Zhang Shan raised his hands and said as he panicked “Wait! Wait! Wait!… What do you call a God who can’t move?”

Titiana and Carnalia:”…:

“….”

Vice-chief Liu signaled again “Ignore him, he’s taking too much time”

Yue Jing nodded and sent the command

As they saw Alcyon move forward again and was about to grab Zhang Shan, the video turned black and showed “No Signal”

“….”

Zhang Shan was about to dodge when he noticed Alcyons eyes seemed to turn blank and close as he fell with his right hands stretched forward roughly two inches away from Zhang Shans feet.

Zhang Shan was surprised then he composed himself as he said “It’s too bad you can’t hear the end of the joke…”

Looking around, the other Gods also started doing the same. They fell on the ground and seemed ti be sleeping.

“Damn that Leito, he almost made me loose my composure… Good thing my plan worked! Ha!Ha!Ha!” Zhang Shan laughed loudly as he placed his hands on his waist.

Titiana whispered to Carnalia “Ignore him, he’s just full of himself.”

Carnalia whispered back “But milady, he’s kind of cute even in this way.”

“….”

Leito crushed the “Signal Thrower” as he spoke to himself.

“Whew, it’s kind of hard back tracking were the other ones are. I hope I can get them all… Hopefully, Ye Qian and the rest have successfully installed their chips.”

He then placed the broken “Signal Thrower” back into his bag as he went back to Hal Toria

“The rest is up to Division head…” he murmured

“….”

“What happened?” Vice-chief Liu asked

“Vice-chief Liu, it seems that the signal connecting to our dispatched units have been cut off.” Yang Sun replied

“What?” he asked

Suddenly Vice-chief Liu’s smart phone rang.

“Hello? Yes… Sorry sir… I see… I will take care of this… No sir… I will check on Hal Toria…”

After hanging up on the phone, Vice-chief Liu ordered.

“Connect me with the GM units of Hal Toria”

Fan Gou Xing replied after a while and said, “Vice-chief Liu, Sir… I can’t connect with the GM units… It seems they were killed… They are currently offline.”

“What?”

“…..”

Ye Qing asked Lan Ranyan “Did you feel that?”

“Yes, it felt like my heart stopped for a moment and then resumed afterwards…” she replied

Ye Qian asked “Since Zhang Shan’s gamble seemed to work out fine, do you think we can still log-out? or Did we die in real life after the signal has been broken?”

Ye Qing said “Wait… I’ll check… It still here… let me try to log-out first… remember, what ever happens don’t act rashly.”

The two nodded in return as they waited for Ye Qing to fall asleep.

After a while Ye Qing woke up again and said. “I can log-out but I only end up with a black screen and a continue option”

Lan Ranyan was silent for a bit and then said “Does that mean we have to die in-game first before the process is completed?”

Ye Qian followed up and said “Then that means we’re still alive on Earth?”

“Not for long… the nutrient bag can only provide sustenance for sometime… I’m not worried about that since there’s a chance we can live even if we die there or here… Our predecessor, Zhang Shan’s was tranferred here after a fire went off at his home and when he also died in game…”

“My concern is, what happens if someone were to try and wake us up or remove us from the capsule while were in this state… Do we wake up, or do we lose our conciousness in that black screen forever?” Lan Ranyan Finished of her thoughts

Ye Qing said answered “In that case ,do you mean that dying first would be out best bet?”

Lan Ranyan nodded and said “Yes…”

“Uhm… I h-have one q-question…” Ye Qian added

The two looked at her as she was holding herself in fear and uncertainty.

“W-who d-dies first?”