1828 Factions
The players disappeared from the grey space and are randomly dropped in different spots of the forest.
Sam looked around and sighed.
He is kind of sick of these tasks. In the past few months, he had to fight people stronger than him, scheme, work with other players to work against them, try to maneuver traps, save people, kill people. He had done so many things that he is now sick of it.
But at least now, the task is a bit more straightforward.
The only problem is that he doesn’t know who he is going to kill. The only reason he had is that they are going to end up in his list.
As he thought up to this point, a virtual screen appeared over his wrist. He looked at it and noticed that the whole forest map is visible there and within that, his location is marked as a green mark.
At that moment, a beep sound was heard with a red mark appearing on the map.
He clicked on the red map and it showed a few things, the face of the target, their cultivation strength as well as a time that is counting down from fifteen minutes.
“Peak of Astral Plane, One mile away and fifteen minutes.”
…..
Sam muttered and he disappeared in a puff of black smoke as he used the shadow element.
Meanwhile a mile away.
A middle-aged man is looking at his own screen as he pointed out his target.
“This is great. Only half a mile away. Maybe I can take a shot from here.”
He looked at his surroundings and is very much in glee. He is in the middle of a thick forest with very large trees, which provides him perfect vantage point to the target he has for a proper spear strike.
He checked out the map and finalized the position of the other party. For some reason that guy is not moving, so he didn’t want to waste his time.
He picked out his spear and applied some poison just in case and got onto a tree as he aimed it at the target.
At this moment, a black shadow appeared out of nowhere and before he could realize it, a kick landed on the back of his neck and the leg just went through the neck without stopping there.
Sam kicked his head off literally.
He then kicked the tree along with the recoil, he kicked on the head.
The head glowed with dark elemental energy as it moved through the forest like a cannonball. In a flash, it traveled hundreds of meters and hit a tree.
At the spot where it hit, a humanoid shape came out and a person was revealed.
A person is in camouflage hiding in the tree and he happened to be the person targeting Sam.
The head exploded with a bunch of curses attached to it. The curses hit the person and killed him within a second.
Sam landed on the ground softly as he adjusted his coat. He looked at the screen and there are two points added, one to the kill and another to the counter kill.
The screen flashed before a new target is shown. This time also the target is of the same strength as him.
He picked up the spear that his first target dropped off. Fire elemental energy encircled the spear as he aimed it at a certain distance.
The spear flew threw the thick forest as the golden flames flashily burned through it.
It is almost was liked a meteor strike.
Far away a woman is in the middle of a fierce battle with her target. Both of them sensed the spear coming towards them and visually they could see the forest fiercely burning.
Both of them broke the fight and barely managed to dodge the spear.
“Which sick fucker is this?”
The woman looked towards the burning forest through which Sam just walked in casually.
“I think I am a bit rusty with the throws. How could I miss that?”
Sam said in a melancholic tone.
The woman and her target looked at Sam and both of them exchanged a glance.
“Which faction do you belong to? I have never seen you before. You are not even at the entrance ceremony.”
Sam looked stunned for a moment.
But he didn’t speak.
The woman sized him up a bit and spoke.
“I don’t care which faction you belong to anyway, but you better ask your faction seniors if it is a good idea to antagonize me. Just because you got me as a target, how dare you even think of attacking me?
You fucking low life.”
Sam frowned as he looked at her. He doesn’t know what the exact situation is, but now he definitely understood that there is way more to this than just the final task.
These gods seemed to have thrown them somewhere they don’t really belong.
“I should have taken the memories of the previous target. Maybe I can do it now.”
He muttered slightly as he looked at the woman in the front.
“Thanks for the information.”
He turned into partial shadow fusion and covered the distance between them in a flash before he caught hold of her by her throat and… snapped it.
*CRACK*
His specter moved and caught hold of the soul that was escaping and absorbed all the memories.
The woman’s target was horrified when he saw the scene.
“Do you know who you killed?”
Sam closed his eyes as he got the information he needed.
“I know now.”
He spoke and just looked at the screen. For his next target, he only has three minutes.
“Assholes.”
He muttered under his breath running in a different direction.
While Sam and the other players are killing people, somewhere near this vast forest inside a city, there is a grand formation projecting everything that is happening inside the forest.
Around the projection, there are a bunch of people sitting on some grand stages looking at the projection.
Among them, there is one woman who is looking coldly at the projection and her eyes are stuck on the scene where Sam’s previous target was lying down dead.
“Who is that bastard? Where did he come from? I want to know everything about him. Which faction does he belong to? Which city did he come from? The name of his grandfather’s second mistress. Everything.”
The assistant beside that woman nodded and left to find out more details.
Not just her, but some of the other people who are sitting just like she did the same thing as they talked to their own assistants.
But after ten minutes in which time Sam finished a kill and a counter-kill, the assistants came back and reported to their respective masters.
“Madam, there is no information in the entries. Nothing came up about him no matter how much we searched. It is almost like he miraculously ended up inside the forest.”
“How is that possible? Did you search properly? How can someone just enter the forest of the faction competition just like that?”
“Not just that Madam, just to clarify, we did the candidate check with the formation, it seems there are seven people who didn’t register with any faction that ended up inside this formation.
We don’t know where they came from and how they came here. But not only did they just come indirectly, they are also connected to our targeting system.
They are getting our candidates as targets and they are also being targeted by others. They are just like any other candidates.”
“How are they just like any other candidates? Didn’t you see? They killed one of our seeds. Even if she didn’t end up in the top ten, she would have been pretty close and she would have quit as we planned.
We lost a seeded candidate with such potential.
Find out how they came here and send the other faction masters this message. I want to capture them first since my disciple is the one that died in their hands.”
“Okay, Madam.”
The assistant left and went to meet with the other people on the remaining stages, she passed the messages to their assistants and soon everyone in the important seats got the message that she sent.
Meanwhile, they are also looking into the matter of these people coming out of nowhere.
Back in the forest oblivious to the fact that these people are looking into him, Sam is looking deep into the memories of the targets he killed and also came across the faces of the people outside.
Soon, he figured out all the information that gave him a proper idea of what kind of situation he is in.
And as soon as the realization hit him, he sat down on the spot and looked at the sky.
“You bloody fuckers. I should have guessed that you will not be as straightforward as you said you would be.”
