Chapter 266 : Pay To Win and Champions

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Four Five Six.

That’s how his brothers called Four Hundred Fifty-Six.

He stood away from the main skirmishes, conserving his energy as much as possible. Just like several other alter egos who had survived so far.

However, unlike the others, he was actively participating in the fights. All thanks to a rather unique skill.

[Interrupt] [Ultimate – 2★]

[Description: Using your vitality, forcefully interrupt your target’s skill usage. you can not recover this vitality until the target dies or an hour passes. Efficiency increases with mastery.]

Four Five Six had tested and trained his skill in secret after acquiring it, making sure that none of the brothers involved in the general melee were aware of it.

‘With my current mastery level, I lose 1% of vitality per use… And since I’ve been spamming it on Seventy and other fighters, I’m down to just 10% left. If those guys don’t die soon, the others will start noticing my weakness…’

Feeling his limit approaching, he could feel the pressure building.

He focused on Seventy, the alter ego now surrounded by six others. The latter was still resisting the repeated assaults of Hundred-Thirty, manipulating him with [Master Of Puppets], forcing him to fight other players, lose control, and repeat the cycle with someone new.

‘He’s forced me to activate [Interrupt] too many times already… But if he dies, I’ll recover 30% of my vitality…’

Watching his brother fight what was clearly a losing battle—yet with a smile, even throwing occasional glances his way—Four Five Six was getting irritated.

Against all odds, after a few seconds, Seventy even managed to eliminate one of the players rotating in to attack him.

However, just as Seventy delivered the finishing blow to Six Hundred Twelve, Hundred-Thirty positioned himself behind Six Hundred Twelve and pierced both of them with his sword.

Four Five Six’s face lit up as he saw how things were turning around.

But before he could fully enjoy it, Seventy’s voice echoed across the battlefield.

“If you’re wondering who’s been interrupting your skills at the worst possible times—he’s right over there.”

A massive mana-made arrow pointed directly at Four Five Six, and he was stunned to see that all fighting had stopped—every gaze now fixed on him…

Watching Seventy vanish from the battlefield with a grin on his face, Four Five Six did his best to suppress his frustration.

‘Goddammit…’ What he feared the most had finally happened.

Before his vitality could regenerate, he felt a searing pain in his skull—and the world drained of all color…

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Fifty-Two was among the players staying away from the fighting, but he didn’t hesitate for a second when Seventy’s message appeared in the sky.

He immediately activated [Remote Bomb] and eliminated Four Five Six the moment he sensed he his vitality was low…

‘[Remote Bomb] consumes way too much energy… Even targeting the brain of someone weakened still cost me 25% of my mana.’ Despite that, he wore a smile and began drawing from the 10,000 [Soul Pearls] to restore the energy he had spent.

Once the energy was converted into mana, he started condensing it in preparation for his next attack.

‘I don’t know by what miracle I’m still alive, but this mutual assured destruction strategy seems to be working… Maybe I can win?’

As he observed the battles across the field, he shook his head.

‘No… Not a chance.’

The chaos of the general melee had subsided, and everything was now easier to follow.

At the edges of the combat zone, weakened brothers were calmly watching the fights, ready to intervene if they spotted an opportunity or if they felt threatened.

Scattered in the center of the area, about ten battles were happening simultaneously.

One of them was quite eye-catching.

‘Two versus Eighty…’

Focusing on that fight, Fifty-Two was impressed by the intensity of their clash.

Both fighters had pushed their bodies to the extreme and specialized in physical damage…

But their unique skills set them apart.

Two extended his left hand toward Eighty, and the latter flew toward him like a cannonball, as if he’d been hooked through the gut.

Two was prepared for the impact and greeted his brother with an extremely powerful punch…

The collision was so intense that a shockwave rippled across the battlefield—knocking even one distracted onlooker outside the boundaries.

‘Two’s got two terrifying powers… [Attract] and [Outbid]. But he’s wasting his time on Eighty.’

Indeed, despite the massive force behind the punch, Eighty didn’t look hurt—or even impressed.

As he flew at high speed, propelled by his opponent, he communicated using mana.

“Big brother Two, leave me alone, please… You know you can’t hurt me. I used [Ignore] on you. You can’t deal me any damage.”

Even Fifty-Two didn’t understand why Two was so fixated on fighting Eighty.

‘With [Attract], he can tag any opponent he punches and pull them toward him at will… With [Outbid], he could be stacking power by hitting the same spots repeatedly. And yet, he keeps going after the only one who can’t take damage from him?’

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Sora turned to Newtons. “You said you had everyone’s skill list?”

Newtons nodded, and Sora continued, “Show me the skills Two is using, please.”

Newtons smiled and conjured up two sheets of floating paper in front of Sora. “You figured out what that bastard’s up to?”

Sora ignored Newtons and read the descriptions.

[Attract] [Ultimate – 2★]

[Description: Using your left hand, mark a target. Once a target is selected, it can be forcefully attracted to your left hand. Increase your control over the attraction and its force by increasing your mastery.]

[Outbid] [Ultimate – 2★]

[Description: Each successful physical hit on the same target, in the same area, increases your Strength by a fixed amount for thirty seconds after the last hit. The delay before reset, the increment per hit, and the maximum increase all scale with mastery.]

Sora’s mouth dropped open as he read the second description...

“So he’s going to stack [Outbid] to the limit just because Eighty completely ignores his damage? And Eighty can’t even escape because of [Attract]… What kind of broken combo is that? How is that even possible for him to have both skills?”

Newtons conjured one more floating sheet, and Sora began to read it.

[Target: Two]
Status: The Brawler
Threat Level: S+
[No Supreme Skill, Two 2★ skills, and Nineteen 1★ skills]
Comment: Highly aggressive and revengeful. Combat ability is exceptional.
Winning Odds: Top 100 – 99.99% | Top 10 – 99% | Top 4 – 97%

Seeing how many skills Two had mastered, Sora was struggling to make sense of it.

Newtons answered before he could even ask, “The lucky bastard got [Outbid] as his first ultimate at 1★. And since he understood its potential right away, he got a bunch of our brothers to invest in him and help him upgrade it to 2★…”

“And as you know, it takes ten 1★ skills to unlock a 2★ skill, and twenty 1★ skills to upgrade a specific one. And guess what our friend pulled out of the pool of twenty sacrifices for [Outbid]?”

Sora caught on quickly. “He got [Attract]?”

Newtons nodded. “Exactly. That’s when a lot of them chipped in to pay for his 2★ upgrade…”

“A lot happened while I was gone, I see. You guys started forming groups and investing in each other?”

Newtons smiled. “They did form little clans, with their champions up there. I'm aware of all of this because I'm in all groups at the same time...”

“Why does he have nineteen 1★ skills on top of his two 2★ skills? Wasn’t that enough?”
Sora asked one of the questions that had been burning in his mind since reading Two’s file.

“Having just those wasn’t enough to cover his weaknesses. He had no strong mental defenses, and his body couldn’t handle the force he was building… We had to improvise and make him draw new skills just to give him a shot today.” Newtons explained.

Still skeptical, Sora asked, “So you guys burned four million [Soul Pearls] to get him to his current level? So Two is what gamers would call Pay to Win? Why go so far? He’s not even being threatened.”

Newtons looked a little uncomfortable at the term “Pay to Win.”
“I’ll admit, it’s not exactly glorious—and yeah, kind of shameful to rely on way more resources than everyone else and a lot of luck to get here—but everyone did the same!”

Seeing the surprise on Sora’s face, he added, “They did the same!! Haven’t you seen the other three champions?!”

Sora looked up at the fighters once more and pointed toward two of them.

“Two Hundred Twenty-Two and Ninety-Five! Are they part of those champions?”

Newtons nodded. “Yeah. They’ve already wiped out over a hundred players, so it’s pretty obvious. They both have a Supreme Skill and some solid level two skills…”

Sora commented, “So that’s why those two were so monstrous? You mentioned four champions including Two earlier. Where’s the last one?”

Newtons, hesitating, scratched his cheek before answering,
“He… is invisible.”

Sora was caught off guard by the response.
“You’re kidding me, right?”

Seeing Newtons shake his head, he said, "That's so lame..."

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