PFC Chapter 4293 Heroes Strike! (25)
Chapter 4293 Heroes Strike! (25)
Chapter 4293 Heroes Strike! (Twenty-Five)
Next came the voting. Greed sat idly in the waiting area, thinking it should be his turn now. After all, he was more famous than Arrogance, and there should be quite a few people looking forward to his performance.
Little did he know, people in his own universe were already campaigning for votes. "Vote for the other one, vote for the other one, don't vote for the Doctor!" Peter pulled one person and dragged another, urging them to vote for Pride, shouting loudly, "If you vote for the Doctor and the arena gets blown up, we won't be able to watch the next match!"
Upon hearing this, the hesitant crowd immediately voted for Arrogance. They reasoned that Schiller, always in his white coat, was clearly more capable of causing trouble. He was either using underhanded tactics to skip levels and accelerate the plot, or he'd blow up everyone in his path to defeat an opponent—nothing that fell into his hands was ever safe. If they were to let their group compete first, and he pulled another stunt, causing the entire arena to explode, they wouldn't be able to watch the rest of the matches. They'd come all this way; this couldn't be allowed.
Therefore, because of his notorious greed, no one voted for him, and they planned to save him for last. So, the next match was between the Magneto duo and the Pride duo.
Magneto took a deep breath. Charles from their universe had previously visited the universe where Greed resided and even worked at the hospital there. He had heard of Schiller's great reputation from Charles, so he was a little nervous about the upcoming showdown.
“What skills do you think he has?” young Eric asked Charles. “Can you read his mind?”
"Not now, but it will be possible once you're on the field. However, I don't think mind reading will be useful; it will probably depend on your performance. We only obtained your key item, so we can only hope that his skills won't counter you."
Eric didn't have much to say. They had carefully searched for Charles's key items during the area battle, but couldn't find them, which resulted in many of Charles's skills being insufficiently powerful. The Batman vs. Superman battle just now clearly showed how important key items are. Superman's stats are so high, and his skills are not weak either, yet he still lost to the Batman duo—that's the importance of key items.
However, obtaining the key item isn't entirely a matter of luck. Eric admitted that their team's planning during the regional duel was somewhat flawed; they didn't focus on finding the item early on, concentrating only on fighting, and by the time they wanted to find it, it was too late. Fortunately, they were lucky enough to acquire Magneto's key item from someone else during the early battles. His skill deck had transformed from a giant magnet resembling Magneto from the movie into a true Magneto, allowing him to use the fundamental forces of the universe.
Even so, Eric wasn't entirely confident. Besides the renowned Schiller, there was also the mysterious Nyarlathotep. Because he could observe various phenomena in the universe and had heard some of the legends deep within the stars, these Outer Gods were never easy to deal with. Together with Schiller, they would be a powerful alliance.
So he said, "You'd better not try to read his mind yet. If Nyarlathotep uses his mind-poisoning abilities, it'll be troublesome."
Charles remained silent, clearly wanting to try again. That's how they were; younger Charles was more radical than Eric. Eric paused, then continued, "Or how about I test them first before you make your move?"
Charles reluctantly agreed. However, neither of them expected that they wouldn't even have a chance to test the waters.
Arrogance walked into the arena alone, a black umbrella in his hand. Eric was about to say a few polite words when he saw Arrogance throw the umbrella. The umbrella flew into the air, then opened, and a dense darkness engulfed the entire dueling arena, after which the two disappeared together.
A wave of questioning naturally arose in the audience. "Wait, we came to watch the game, where's the game?"
Some of the more hot-tempered viewers had already started cursing. Rocket Raccoon, perched on Drax's shoulders, jumped high to look inside, shouting, "What's the director doing?! How could the screen go black?! Refunds!!!"
Star-Lord quickly pulled him down and said, "You talk like you paid for the ticket. If you hadn't been holding onto his arm so tightly, we wouldn't have gotten this beating."
Yes, the area around their seats was a mess. Apparently, a female agent came over and had a friendly chat with them, eventually getting Bucky's arm back.
“I didn’t steal it,” Rocket Raccoon said. “Superman threw it at me; it should have been mine. His arm isn’t like the Winter Soldier’s in our universe; it’s new and shiny, and looks really good. Sigh…”
Everyone in the audience was whispering about what was going on. The Transcendent, of course, wasn't going to sit idly by; he plunged into the black mist and disappeared. Immediately afterward, Lucifer flapped his wings and appeared above the arena, his appearance eliciting cheers from the crowd. He waved to the left, nodded to the right, and then flew into the darkness as well.
Strangely, he didn't come out either. This caused even more commotion, with everyone speculating about what had happened inside. Why had the administrator disappeared? Could Schiller have really blown up the dueling arena?
Some people were already looking towards the escape route, hesitantly preparing to leave. Otherwise, if a large explosion occurred, although they wouldn't actually die, the pain of dying would still be considerable. However, there were also those who weren't afraid of death, more curious about what was happening inside than whether there would be an explosion. And there were even more daring ones who went directly to Greed's side to ask, like Stark.
“What’s Hydra up to?” Stark patted Greed on the shoulder and said, “They’re not really going to blow up the dueling arena, are they?”
“It shouldn’t be that bad,” Greed shook his head and said. “Pride doesn’t like making such a fuss. The fact that they haven’t come out is probably because…”
Actually, Greed didn't know what was wrong with him. He wanted to check the memory bank, but he felt it was cheating. After all, knowing the opponent's skill set beforehand would be a huge informational advantage. If either of them was eliminated, it would be fine, but if they made it to the finals, it would inevitably raise suspicions of spying.
But if you only guess without looking, you really don't know what Greed is. He'd been curious about Pride's skill before, and now it seems he's got the key item. The item's effect seems to be able to trap people inside the umbrella. Silver Horn King, right?
After waiting for ages, no one came out; instead, a white light flashed. The audience erupted in chaos, everyone speculating about who would die first, or if they would all perish together. Then, two administrators appeared, both looking agitated, as if arguing about something. Finally, Lucifer flew away, leaving the Beyonder stomping his feet in anger.
Others were even more curious. Although these two people worked for different companies and had different job levels, they had been colleagues in the DouJie community for a long time and had never been heard to have any conflicts. How could they have started arguing?
Could it be that the code was corrupted, and they disagreed on how to fix it? But isn't the point of this kind of thing to fix it? Whoever is better should do it, why argue about it? And it seems like the Transcender is quite angry, as if he lost the argument to Lucifer. Although Lucifer is the son of the big boss there, and his technical skills might be higher, the Transcender is the host of this event. Since he's the host, it means that the idea for this final was mostly his. How can he be outdone on his own turf?
There were simply too many mysteries. But before they could figure them out one by one, the darkness had already dissipated. The arrogant figure, holding an umbrella, appeared in the center of the dueling arena. The Beyonder picked up the microphone and said, "Let us congratulate Schiller on his victory in this duel!"
A chorus of boos erupted from below, with some throwing corn cobs, popcorn, and even ice cream at the center of the arena. Luckily, Arrogance had an umbrella, so these things didn't hit him. But Overtaker was unlucky; someone threw an ice cream right in his face, smearing it all over him.
While wiping his face, the Superman said, "Don't worry, don't worry!! That was a special skill that caused the broadcast system to malfunction. We rewrote the broadcast program, so it won't happen in the next match. We'll replay this one after all the matches are over. Don't throw it away, don't throw it away!"
The viewers were naturally dissatisfied, but there was nothing they could do. They were also curious, though. Logically, these skills were written by the administrators, so they should know what they were. How could they conflict with the broadcasting system?
The Overlord didn't explain, but hurriedly started the next match. Greed finally got its chance to play.
"Doctor, please go easy on him." Wanda winked at Greed.
Greed smiled at her too. He wasn't entirely confident he could beat Wanda, but maybe it was a good thing, because then he wouldn't have to suffer at the hands of Pride, whose skills seemed rather strange.
After he took to the stage, the crowd cheered politely, but soon someone shouted, "Doctor! Don't blow up the arena! We want to see the replay!"
"Yeah, take it easy. We'd like to know how that skill works!"
"Don't worry, don't worry," Greed waved at them. This time he really didn't intend to blow up the dueling arena. After all, he also wanted to know what kind of skill Pride had come up with, which was so mysterious.
Wanda first took to the air, crimson power spreading around her. Greed didn't immediately materialize into gray mist; he intended to try and catch Wanda off guard by continuing his channeling.
When he stood there pulling out his medical record, Wanda didn't react immediately and thought she might be seeing things. But Jarvis reacted quickly and said, "That's a casting spell, interrupt him!"
Wanda immediately attacked, unleashing a crimson burst of energy towards Greed's face. Greed remained calm, dodging to the side and taking another second to cast a spell. Knowing this wouldn't work, Wanda unleashed a wide-area attack.
The crimson power began to spread across the arena, and the entire duel area emitted a rich red light. Everything within the duel area began to lose health every second, including Greed.
The problem is that the frequency of health loss is faster than the frequency of Greed's casting bar. Greed can apply a status effect in one second, but health loss occurs approximately every 0.8 seconds, which is obviously due to the boost from certain items. This means that he can't even finish casting the entire bar before being interrupted, making the skill almost completely unusable.
Greed sighed. Don't be fooled by the impressive numbers that pop up when he uses his settlement skill. It's all based on the fact that he can cast the skill. If he can't cast it, all his skills are useless.
However, just as he predicted, Scarlet Witch's skills are mainly area-of-effect attacks, so the stats aren't very high. Despite the 0.8-second tick time, her health bar barely moves.
Greed took a deep breath and decided to change tactics, going straight for a strong attack with the gray fog.
(End of this chapter)