Chapter 215: Accidents Keep Coming One After Another

Accidents Keep Coming One After Another

When Ji Er was beheaded, the audience in the stands did not give Cheng Shi much applause or cheers.

Because this death-match final ended too quickly, and ended in a muddled fashion.

They only saw two prisoners tugging at each other, chasing and running for a long while, and then with a single flash of movement the victor was decided.

This level of sensory stimulation was far less satisfying than the other three matches; watching the other death-match convicts wrestle together with hands and feet, sparing no effort in unleashing their beastly instincts: cursing, roaring, biting...

That kind of scene was what they loved to watch, so the audience's gaze was always drawn to the other three fights, the cheers rising wave upon wave.

As for Cheng Shi, the only ones paying him any mind were the Iron Discipline Knights on standby.

The few Iron Discipline Knights waiting in the wings were clearly somewhat startled; they hadn't expected the No. 2 prisoner, who had just killed No. 3 so easily, to be cut down in a single stroke by No. 4 like that.

The men froze for a moment, then entered the arena to clean up the loser's corpse.

They walked over to Cheng Shi and pushed him aside, then each dragged one foot of the headless corpse—this one still hoping for dawn—as they hauled it away.

Another knight picked up Ji Er's head, and as he turned he casually glanced at Cheng Shi and said with a light laugh:

"You're very lucky. From here on you only need to face one more opponent, and you might just win the death-match final.

I'm starting to look at you differently, No. 4. If you really do win the death match and have nowhere to go, you can come find me.

My name is Grindel, Iron Discipline Knights Seventeenth Squad Vice Captain Grindel. I have... a bit of an interest in you."

With that, the mysteriously smiling vice captain walked off carrying the head.

Cheng Shi frowned slightly as he watched his retreating back, recalling the things Li Yi had said.

Death-match convicts sometimes get picked to become Punisher Knights—but those are Punisher Knights, what does that have to do with Iron Discipline Knights?

One must understand that the Iron Discipline Knights are not some combat force you can casually join. It requires not only that candidates have a clean background and faith in 【Order】, but also that they have certain connections within the Grand Tribunal, because the recruitment of Iron Discipline Knights is a dual system of recommendation plus selection—missing either one makes it impossible.

So why was this vice captain interested in him? What did he want from him?

Before the doubt could be resolved, a new opponent was dragged in.

Zhao Si, that trickery grandmaster who had used his 【Fraud】 illusion to fool the knights, after stalling for an entire match was finally dragged onto the arena.

Yet the moment Cheng Shi saw "him" enter the arena, the look on his entire face became extraordinarily colorful.

Because in his line of sight, the person being supported between the two approaching knights was not Zhao Si at all, but a Punisher Knight with a hideous face and blood-red eyes!

As for where Zhao Si had gone...

Cheng Shi didn't know. He only knew that these two Iron Discipline Knights dragging their colleague onto the stage hadn't noticed at all that the person under their hands had been swapped!

What a trickery grandmaster!

Cheng Shi looked at the opponent now standing before him and shook his head with a rueful laugh.

He saw through Zhao Si's method:

S-rank Fraud Faith Talent: Abstract Mimicry.

When you share five or more points of similarity with a target, you can either force the target to mimic you, or mimic the target yourself to confuse others.

The interesting point of this talent is that the "confusion" mentioned here is different from most 【Fraud】 deception; it's more like 【Chaos】's cognitive obfuscation.

Whichever target successfully mimics the other, within a certain period of time everyone else will regard that person as the one being mimicked.

Zhao Si clearly used this talent to escape scot-free, which was also why he refused to go onstage before Cheng Shi.

Because this talent's duration isn't that long!

If he had gone onstage early, he would have completely lost his chance to escape, and would have plunged himself into the deadly peril of the death-match final.

So the situation became what it was now: of the five 【Fraud】 teammates so far, four had already escaped; the only one left had died at Cheng Shi's hands.

Fortunately, Zhao Si didn't try to screw Cheng Shi over completely this time—at the very least, this dazed mimic would recover after a while, and when the audience, or rather the judges, realized something was wrong, he wouldn't have to continue this brutal death-match final.

So Cheng Shi watched the Punisher Knight thrown into the arena, slowly retreated, and quietly waited for him to wake up.

But life rarely goes as one wishes; when a story is co-written by enough people, you simply cannot control where it goes.

For example, right now—just as the dazed look in the mimicker's eyes before Cheng Shi was gradually clearing, and he was about to wake up...

"Boom—" Something exploded!

Cheng Shi was startled by the violent blast, and immediately felt the ground shaking beneath his feet.

The prison!

Cheng Shi's pupils contracted—the prison had exploded!

The prison beneath the arena suddenly exploded. "Boom—boom—boom—" the blasts came one after another without end, so intense that even the entire arena began to shake!

"Shit..."

Which son of a bitch did this now?

Did they have to make such a huge commotion to escape in the chaos? Couldn't they just leave quietly!

Cheng Shi half-knelt on the ground to steady himself, and at the first opportunity looked toward the judges in the VIP box.

Because he knew that whether or not he could legally receive a pardon right now depended entirely on how these judges would characterize this explosion, and how they would handle these interrupted death-match finals.

At the same time, the Punisher Knight opposite Cheng Shi regained consciousness—whether it was because the mimicry duration had expired or because the explosion had woken him, it was hard to say.

But in any case, the moment he came to, he noticed something was off, and then strode forward in a single step and pinned Cheng Shi down.

Cheng Shi didn't dare move rashly before he could see clearly how the situation was developing, so he obediently crouched on the ground, darting his little eyes around.

Watching the upheaval unfold as the entire arena began to shake, the citizens in the stands panicked at once; they screamed and wailed as they ran outward, the human flood so dense that even the Iron Discipline Knights guarding the perimeter couldn't stop them, and could only let the crowd scatter in all directions.

The entire scene plunged into utter chaos.

Its will had finally arrived.

But 【Order】 does not love 【Chaos】.

So at this moment, the Chief Judge seated at the highest point finally rose. His sharp eyes swept across the entire arena, and without so much as a furrow of his brow, he pronounced the death sentence upon every prisoner present. In a tone cold beyond measure, he spoke:

"【Order】 above, the judgment has come.

The death-match convicts, in attempting to escape the death match, schemed to blow up the Montelani Arena, committing an unforgivable crime. To ensure the safety of the citizens of Montelani, I shall exercise the authority granted to me by 【Order】 and issue the Supreme Judgment Order.

"Judgment for the death-match prisoners in the arena: the crime of blasphemy, sentence of death, execution to be carried out immediately."

"Iron Law Knights, take heed: all death-match prisoners, once discovered... shall be executed on the spot."

The moment the words fell, Cheng Shi's face turned as black as ink.