Challenge 4

Thundering noises made by the shadow tendrils reverberated across the arena. Trex almost felt like closing his eyes as bullets of sweat kept pouring from his forehead, sometimes going for his eyes.

On the other hand, Zoe had a chilling expression as some of her body had been pierced through that one would be able to see the other side by peeking through the holes in her body. Even then, she maintained her casting, which was now halfway complete.

Trex didn't know what to do, as much as he wanted to change his spells and hex, which was only available for him during his character's rank up to silver, where he'd be able to add an additional twenty more skills for a total of thirty.

This was something he learned from one of the mercenary' memory as Viden also played this game a lot, which is why he was confused. From what he saw, Zoe had used five spells. Heat wave, Material: Metal Shards, Space Hive, Spatial Zone, and the current spell she's casting.

This knowledge was, of course, came from the mercenaries. However, for the last spell, she's casting, it was something that Viden and everyone else had never encountered.

Cold sweat trickled all over Trex's avatar TSunn even though Trex himself is perfectly fine.

Staring at his abnormally strong foe, Trex couldn't help but feel a little weird.

"Obviously, this was a bug. But… if I'm being honest… this is fun." Trex mumbled his assumptions and feelings.

TSunn and Zoe had reached a stalemate. Or rather, TSunn's attacks have been perfectly nullified by Zoe while Zoe continued to cast her tier two spell.

Seeing this, Trex decided to gamble one last time.

Injecting most of his mana towards his runic orb, an eight-runic spell circle appeared. Sparks of lightning flowed around the ten-meter spell circle as Trex began to cast his 'Lightning Field.'

After some quick calculations, if he really wanted to disrupt Zoe's casting, then lightning is the way to go.

Unless extremely trained, electricity would always cause a human's muscle to spasm. And since Trex was able to feel pain a little bit, that means that the game might be able to simulate being shocked. Even though the person wouldn't be affected that much, there was a chance that hitting someone with lightning may cause them to flinch and get their casting disrupted.

"My last hurrah," Trex mumbled as he began to focus on the spell.

It was then that the circle began to expand.

This was happening at the same time as Trex's TSunn maintained casting shadow tendrils that have now lessened dramatically due to the runic orb's focus shifting to another spell.

TSunn and Zoe are approximately 17 meters away from each other, but 'Lightning Field' only had 10 meters in diameter and could only be cast 5 meters away from him. With 2 meters gap to fill, Trex decided to inject all of his available mana into the runic orb.

*Crkk*

The once shiny and smooth orb was now filled with cracks as if it were a den of spiders. Even so, the lightning field's diameter had extended by at least half a meter.

This made the trembling boy crack a small smile.

"It might work!"

*Crakk*

The runic orb didn't even look like an orb anymore as it resembled more fragments of glass being glued together to form a sphere. In return, the spell circle enlarged once again, reaching 16.3m in diameter.

*Crash*

As the runic orb exploded into fragments, so did the spell circle. But the casting didn't fail.

The lightning field's spell circle had expanded to 17 meters, and Zoe is in the border, unable to move or risk her casting, causing a backlash.

"Yes!" Trex screamed inwardly as lightning crackled everywhere.

Zoe did not have anything earth-based spell that could counter lightning, so Trex felt confident.

However, from Zoe's silver runic orb appeared several metallic shards.

Swiftly, the metallic shards dug themselves into the ground. Some shards went above the other shards to conduct the lightning towards the other shards that are already grounded.

Sparks of lightning quickly flooded the shards, making them glow as if they were light bulbs. Some lightning managed to hit Zoe, but her spatial zone just made the spark pass through her.

At this moment, Zoe remained casting her tier two spell. Her golden runic orb maintained the spatial zone that is blocking both the stray lightning and shadow tendrils. Lastly, her silver runic orb is continuously casting Material: Metal Shards to ground the electricity running rampant.

Trex failed to analyze the critical points of Zoe's current set.

It wasn't because he failed to comprehend. Instead, he did not know this was possible from the start.

He knew that a runic orb could help double-casting specific spells. What he didn't know was that one could use more than one runic orb.

Not to mention, the runic orbs Zoe was using had multiple spells in them. Trex could also multicast, but his runic orb was made for flexibility. While he could use any spell he had in his repertoire, it took time to inscribe the spell inside the runic orb and actually cast it.

The main difference this had is that when the caster is channeling the spell, the orb wouldn't be able to cast more spell independently.

It wasn't a bad trade-off.

What decided this match was that this really was a bad match-up from the beginning.

It was then that the now three-dimensional spell circle formed into a tiny dot resting in Zoe's palm.

She then looked towards Trex, who was smiling wryly at his own failure. Clenching her hands, the space around Trex distorted and compressed.

Instantly, Trex's vision darkened as his avatar TSunn dispersed into particles.

[Time Remaining: 46s]

[Ghost Zoe Jenza wins!]

[0-2]

[Defeat]

[This match is not considered as an official match and wouldn't count as a loss.]

[TSunn: 1W 0L 0D - 100% WR (Does not count draws)]

[Continue?]

——

Staring confusedly at the prompt in front of him, the walls of the arena had finally turned transparent.

Just beside the main cabinet of the game, Trex saw Illana standing there with her mouth agape, a character card still being held in her hands.

That was just her expression since the start of round two, and Trex was only aware of it now.

Switching his eyes from Illana's expression and the card in her hands, Trex finally realized that the fight wasn't a bug.

Awkwardly, he pointed up towards Illana, who nodded in return.

"How did you do that?" Illana mouthed.

[User detected to be communicating outside, turning off quiet mode.]

Before Trex could ask anything, a prompt appears that cleared one of the things he was confused about. The game sounds were so loud it felt natural. How would the others be able to play with all of these sounds echoing around the large hall?

"What?" Trex asked back.

"I said how did you do that, the fog?" Illana continued.

"Oh, the ice bolt were made of nitrogen," Trex quickly explained.

"What's a nitrogen?" Illana queried once more.

Trex was stupefied.

The textbook definition of nitrogen appeared in his mind, but this sort of question being asked… Trex felt that something was wrong.

"What is it? Why did you freeze?" Illana quickly pointed out.

Illana wasn't around when Doctor Sherman and Eliza were examining Trex and his memories. Eliza also didn't have the time to explain what happened during the diagnostic, which is why she still found Trex's weirdness a little suspicious. Hearing a very alien word coming out from Trex only made her even more doubtful.

At this moment, Trex did not know what to do. It had been a dozen seconds since Illana asked, yet silence permeated the empty arcade hall.

[Get ready for the next challenge!]

"I don't know," Trex uttered as the quiet mode activated once again.

Illana nodded as she turned back, no one could tell what was on her mind.

[Time Remaining: 150s]

["Waiting for another player.']

[Elliot Neeson (Ghost) - Bronze]

[Cross fighters ready?]

[3]

[2]

[1]

[Fight!]

Trex got his head back in the game, trying to shove away his anxiety from Illana's questioning. There was nothing more challenging to an AI than lying.