Chapter 97: Friendly Fire

"Heh heh."

After dozens of rounds of exchanges, the few players on the sandy court were nearly running on fumes.

Leonardo was bleeding from a head wound, his eye corners and cheeks battered and badly swollen, the skin on his right arm scraped away to reveal the mechanical prosthetic beneath. He had to lean on the TV screen beside the mechanical arm to rest, gasping for breath.

Will was covered in blood, the enhanced glands in his body working hard to release healing factors, scabbing over his wounds.

Both sides' tenacity exceeded the other's expectations; now they were in too deep to back out.

'Next is the final ball.'

Will, whose vote count was still the lowest, muttered to himself. His swollen, aching eyes swept once more over the electronic scoreboard and TV screen hanging on the wall.

Overall score one to one, third-set game score 16:15, forty seconds left before this round of the reality show ended.

This situation was actually the result of both sides colluding—the team that won the match would, in theory, go on to face Master Pi Fu and Little Red Riding Hood, who had been watching from the sidelines the whole time at full strength.

Therefore, once Will and the others on the court confirmed they couldn't finish each other off quickly, they deliberately dragged the match out, stretching it until this round was almost over.

That way, even if Master Pi Fu harbored ill intentions, he couldn't use the beach volleyball segment's rule that "players may openly attack each other" to eliminate his rivals.

"You okay?"

Leonardo straightened up and glanced back at Annie behind him. She too was covered in wounds, the sand beneath her feet soaked through with fresh blood.

"Won't die from it." Annie, missing a large patch of scalp and with a disfigured face, spat a mouthful of bloody water onto the ground, her gaze vicious and venomous.

"At first I thought you were just a woman useless at everything except being selfish enough. I was wrong. If I make it out of here alive, let me buy you a drink?"

Leonardo laughed, finding levity in misery: "Or grab a meal, catch a movie, whatever works."

"Cut the crap," Annie pressed her lips together, something stirring inexplicably in her heart.

Because the player community had an absurdly high death rate and crushing survival pressure, plenty of them would, while training and strengthening themselves, find time to indulge their desires. Certain small guilds even held regular gatherings reminiscent of the meet-ups in the American show *The Boys*.

Of course, true love did exist among players too—people clinging to each other for warmth, struggling to survive together through the death spiral of the killing grounds. Just that the numbers were rare, like a protected species.

"You two really do make a fine pair. One shamelessly thick-skinned, the other sly and underhanded."

Will taunted, drew in a deep breath, and every kind of gland in his body kicked into gear at once.

Adrenaline, released.

Central analgesic, injected.

Sympathomimetic amines, administered.

Behind him, Jin Huiying likewise unleashed a buff skill, layering physical enhancement onto him, turning his chaotic heartbeat into a surging, powerful rhythm that thrummed like a car engine.

Will hefted the volleyball and slammed it with every ounce of strength in his body.

Bang!

The force of the strike was so tremendous that the skin on Will's right arm burst open, exposing the ghastly white bone beneath. The volleyball itself shot toward Leonardo like a cannonball.

No way to dodge, no way to retreat, yet the corner of Leonardo's mouth curved up slightly as he released his skill.

【Skill Name: Shift and Swap】

【Type: Psionic】

【Grade: Fine】

【Activation: Active】

【Effect: Friendly Displacement. After a one-second delay, swap positions with a friendly target whose body is stained with fresh blood from the skill's caster, reducing damage they take over the next three seconds. The friendly target must be a living creature, must have a friendliness rating of Friendly or higher, and must be within plus or minus 20% of the caster's body weight.】

【Cost: At least 200 Psionic Power. Exact amount depends on teleportation distance, both parties' body weight, both parties' friendliness rating, and both parties' current spiritual energy.】

【Cooldown: 10 minutes】

【Note: When a friend is in peril, stand firm as a mountain. When the enemy attacks, retreat swift as the wind.】

This skill was Leonardo's most important life-saver. Earlier he had already secretly splashed his own blood onto the ground, and Annie had stepped right in it.

After that, he used words, helped with healing, and other means to build up friendliness, so that he could cast the skill on his "friendly" Annie.

Whoosh—

A breath of clean wind swept past, and Leonardo and Annie instantly swapped places.

Watching the volleyball grow larger and larger in her line of sight, Annie had no time at all to react.

Bang!

The volleyball slammed squarely into her chest, caving her entire ribcage inward; the crackling snap of ribs breaking sounded like popping beans.

Annie spat out a huge mouthful of blood, her face contorting into a hideous grimace as she flew backward and crashed to the ground. Thanks to the damage-reduction effect of Shift and Swap, she didn't die on the spot. She simply stared at Leonardo, her eyes brimming with venomous resentment and unwillingness.

This sudden turn of events left even Will across from her momentarily stunned.

Leonardo, however, reacted in a flash, pulling the volleyball—steaming hot and slick with shredded flesh—from out of Annie's chest cavity,

then scooped Annie up and carried her off the court, weeping and shouting: "Annie, my Annie, why did you do this?! Why did you sacrifice yourself to protect me?! The match only had two minutes left!"

"What two minutes? Didn't this round already end?"

Little Red Riding Hood was at a loss, but Li Cheng saw through it. He walked up to the TV screen and peeled off a thin, flexible soft display stuck to the corner of it.

This soft display had been surreptitiously pasted on by Leonardo earlier, under the pretense of resting. It showed numbers that exactly replaced the countdown on the screen, without obstructing the scrolling comments.

Drawing on the technological spoils harvested from the killing grounds, the technological level of European Heavy Industries was no less than that of the Demon Scientist Alliance; a soft display as thin as a cicada's wing was child's play to them.

Of course, to avoid the time discrepancy being too obvious, Leonardo had only sped the countdown up slightly.

Two minutes was more than enough for Master Pi Fu and Little Red Riding Hood, who hadn't lifted a finger and whose stamina and spiritual energy were flush, to crush the spent Will and Jin Huiying.

Leonardo cradled Annie and wept, pretending to wipe his tears while, in a spot the cameras couldn't see, shooting Li Cheng an intense look.

He wasn't worried at all that Master Pi Fu would hold back; for them, this was a guaranteed win, no way to lose.

Annie was grievously wounded and on the brink of death. If they could also kill Will and Jin Huiying, it would basically amount to announcing the game was about to end.

As for Leonardo himself, the audience didn't know he was the one who had cast 【Shift and Swap】. They thought Annie had swapped places on her own, sacrificing herself to protect her lover. When the time came, that would only earn him more sympathy votes.

Leonardo bowed his head in grief, covering his face with one hand as he sobbed, the corner of his mouth curling up uncontrollably. Everything was going exactly according to his plan.

"Heh heh heh hahahaha."

Will was quick-witted; the instant he saw that flexible screen, he had a vague idea of what was going on. Furious, he forced a laugh, stared at Leonardo and said, "Brilliant! Scheming against enemies, scheming against teammates, even scheming yourself into the bargain. Your title 【Blood Diamond】 must have come about that way, right?"

"I don't understand what you're saying." Leonardo shook his head, while desperately signaling Li Cheng with his eyes to act as quickly as possible.

(End of chapter)