Sam ran in the woods like crazy.
He jumped around the trees covering the forest. He even used the shadow element to increase his speed to the maximum. He really wished he could use the space element right now. But it was not possible.
Because the things that are following him right now are very sensitive to the spatial element for some reason.
No matter what spot he picked and he blinked to, the creatures are catching up to it. The shadow element is the best shot he has for now, unless, and of course, he brings up the light element. If this shadow element is not useful, that is all he has for now.
As for the creatures that are chasing him, they are wolves.
They are definitely not all same, they are different kinds of wolves. Some of them are even created in labs in his past life, to bring back some extinct species. But currently, all these wolves formed a single pack and they are all hunting down Sam.
It seems like their senses are heightened beyond imagination. To the point they are being able to sense his location whenever he is using spatial blink.
The spatial blink covers a lot of distance, but it is not immediate enough. Between one blink to another, he has to wait for three seconds at least.
But the wolves are catching up to him in an instant. He should be able to move immediately. So, he picked this element. The shadow element is flexible enough for him to dodge instantly at any attacks that might come at him.
The wolves all seemed to have been blessed with the wind element. As they are running around trying to catch Sam, the wind surrounding them started cutting down the grass and the trees.
It is like a hurricane concentrated into a slash.
He looked at the dozens of wolves coming at him and took out his hand gun.
*BANG*
*BANG*
The bullets exploded at the targets, but the wolves escaped. Not even barely, they are completely out of the blast zone.
“Why can’t I find beasts like you for my organization? Instead, you are in hell trying to torture me.”
Sam muttered to himself as he halted in his tracks. He has no hopes on tiring them out. He has been running for over half an hour and they didn’t show any signs of stopping until now. They are not running out of energy.
He could only grit his teeth and face them head-on. Of course, that doesn’t mean, he is actually thinking of brute forcing it. He figured out a method to deal with them.
First, he shifted back to the spatial element once again. He blinked from the spot.
The wolves also stopped and changed their direction as they pounced towards a spot while throwing some hard wind blades. Sam appeared on the spot and had to defend against the wind blades with an energy barrier.
The barrier didn’t hold the attacks perfectly, but it did buy him some time. A wolf already reached him which he made a move against. Spatial energy gathered at the tip of his fingers as he shot an energy beam at the wolf that opened its mouth at him to take a bit.
The beam was shot right into the mouth.
The wolf of course died as it took the full brunt of the attack with its innards. But Sam was bitten by another wolf on the side.
But when it was biting, his body changed a bit. He has activated partial poison fusion and he used the poison he gathered from the snakes here along with the hydra poison.
The wolf took a bite, but it wasn’t able to tear it apart. Sam’s flesh is also tough after all. He wrestled with the wolf to get out of the bite while defending against other wolves.
Meanwhile, the poison secreted is being released into the wolf that bit him. It is a bit dangerous as he needs to take a certain brunt of the attack for this method to work, but it is working at least.
The wolf soon saw the effects of the poison and Sam used the spatial blink to disappear from the spot.
Three minutes, one wolf bit his arm, two wolves. That is the current exchange he had.
And that is the only working exchange until now at least.
The injury recovered quickly as he used light elemental energy to keep on dodging the attacks that are coming at him.
Sam kept on fighting the wolves in this manner and he felt lucky that there are no other creatures within his surroundings.
And while he is doing that, in the other areas of hell, the other players are also fighting to clear the tower floors.
The few candidates who came before Sam already finished their first floors just like him and they are fighting in their second floors as well.
There are some people that came after Sam and they are also almost done with the first floor.
Everyone had different types of challenges, different opponents, and different experiences on the first floor of the tower.
But there is one thing in common for all of them though. They all hate this whole experience in hell.
The person who is monitoring this is enjoying it though and ironically it is Hel who is doing that.
At this moment, she is sitting along with the rest of the gods as they watched the endeavors of all the players.
They are all amused and entertained by this. Even the gods that lost their candidates are among them and they are even more entertained.
Zeus looked at the rest of the gods with a blank face and said.
“I propose that we start the first task as soon as all the players clear their first floor. They got used to the operation of the hell and the tower. So, it is time for them to get introduced to the tasks as well.
Also, getting a break from the hell’s corruption and suppression on them at the early stage could be useful for them.”
“I think it is a bit too soon. We can wait for some more time. Our initial idea was to put the task when everyone finished their first two floors. That way, they will also have similar power levels. The competition would also be on even grounds.” Kartikeya replied.
“As you have already seen, every person has a different number of floors in their towers. It was never an even ground. You also know that the towers are basically farming grounds. The strength that they can increase through these towers is completely dependent on the people themselves.
It is not going to be fair and equal competition. So, I don’t see any point in keeping that balance at the start.” Zeus retorted without any expression.
“I don’t understand. Why are you so eager to let this competition begin? Is it because your candidate is in the lead and he has gained the most strength from the tower until now?
You just want to make him take a lead in the score while he still has the chance.” Sun Wukong picked his ear as he lazily spoke.
Zeus looked at him coldly, but there is no reaction from Sun Wukong at all.
But as the glare intensified, he spoke.
“What are you looking at? Do you want to have a go right now? I am not Hou Yi, to be intimidated by you that easily.”
Hou Yi who sat on the side without any intention of participating in the conversation couldn’t help but grit his teeth.
Zeus frowned and his aura changed slightly. But he restrained it pretty quickly and looked away.
“That is good. It is not like I am one of your wives, to be intimidated by such glare and aura.”
“One of these days, I will lodge my spear into your monkey face. You better keep your damn mouth shut.”
“Yeah, I already told you. I am not one of your wives. I know you really like stabbing. You stabbed everything that is female with your penis. Half of Olympus’ population is the result of your ‘stabbing’ only. So you better keep your habit in check.”
Zeus gritted his teeth. He wanted to fight Sun Wukong there and then, but he knew that the consequences are not something he can bear currently.
He shook his head and came back to the topic at hand.
“As I told you guys. The competition is not going to be even no matter what. So, we are going to put up the first task right away. As soon as everyone cleared the first floor of their towers.”
Zeus adamantly stuck to his case.
Hel who has been sitting on the side spoke up.
“In a way, what Zeus said is actually as fair as this could be. The strength each player could draw from their own tower is different and also the strength each player could draw from each floor is also different.
If you really want the first task to be fair, it is better to do it now. I am in complete support of this idea.”
