The first round of the qualifying competition officially began after Merlin's whistle. Many contestants still wore friendly smiles. For them, this was more like an outing rather than a life-and-death fight where they would put their lives on the gambling table.
Some smart people chose to lurk, waiting for the birth of the first drop of blood.
Merlin's rules were not fully explained, but many people had already guessed that this preliminary round brawl was not as simple as imagined.
First of all, the concept of the hourglass. This hourglass does not represent the end of the game, but is just a countdown for the scene change.
So, if we want to finish the first round of the competition, it is definitely not enough to just hide and fish in troubled waters.
Why not
That's because during these thirty minutes, all the contestants could not find any usable resources in this desert except for some dry food and water they carried with them.
Even if you are lucky enough to find a small water source, the supplies you carry with you will quickly run out in the hot weather.
This huge fight is not just a showdown of martial arts, but a comprehensive competition for resources.
Although the goal is to advance to the next round, it is difficult to survive for thirty minutes under the scorching sun without sufficient resources.
The contestants didn't know where they were, but they knew it was noon.
The temperature around us was nearly 40 degrees Celsius, and many weak contestants had begun to sweat profusely and their heartbeats accelerated.
Some runners couldn't help but give up the baggage they were carrying just to feel more relaxed on the journey.
One of the small groups was chatting intermittently.
In this barren desert, the scenery is the same, except for sand dunes.
Without talking, one would soon feel dizzy.
"Hey, why are you participating in this game, Darren?"
The man who asked the question was tall, about 1.8 meters tall. He carried a sword on his back and subconsciously protected the female companion behind him.
Darren, who answered, had a shifty look on his face and wore a leather suit on his short body.
"For credits, for grades. Only with grades can I have the same qualifications as you to have a female companion, right?"
Darren's eyes wandered over the female companion of the interrogator for a while, and then he smacked his lips.
His mouth was dry and he had already drunk all the water he had with him. He couldn't help but licking his lips to moisten his lips which were so dry that they were about to peel.
Darren didn't expect that his little action just now was seen by the weak and gentle girl.
The girl's name is Pasifala, which means passion fruit.
It was a bright flower, delicate and beautiful in appearance, exactly what Pasifala's family wanted her to be.
Passionflower is a climbing plant and cannot grow well without support; the same is true for Pasifala.
She relied on her male companion, Pons, the most handsome boy in the Department of Ancient Literature, to blend in with the crowd like a fish in water; of course, this was also due to her outstanding appearance and skills in acting coquettishly, as she firmly held Pons' heart in her hands.
Darren, who joined them temporarily at this time, looked disgusting to her.
Pasifala subjectively interpreted that small tongue-licking action as Darren's desire for her.
So Pasifala took the initiative to step back two steps, letting the two men walk in front and chat.
As long as she doesn't speak, her presence is extremely low.
Then, she quietly took out a protective dagger from her backpack and held it in her hand.
As the three carefully walked down the dune, Pasiphala suddenly exploded and stabbed Darren in the back with her dagger.
The blade of the dagger cut through the thin layer of leather, but did not penetrate deep enough.
The sudden injury instantly woke Darren up, his adrenaline surging.
His eyes widened, his breathing became heavier, and then he shouted,
"You guys! You actually want to kill me?!"
Pons turned around without knowing what was going on, and saw that the dagger in Pasiphala's hand was dripping with blood, and Darren's furious look also revealed the current situation.
"Don't be naive! If we don't eliminate you, we will be the ones eliminated!
Can't you see the true meaning of this big fight? !
Pons, hurry up! Grab the supplies from him, and we can go further!"
Pasifala immediately lost her temper and shouted to her male companion Pons to continue attacking the injured Darren.
On the other hand, Pons was stunned. He couldn't believe that the gentle and lovely Pasifala in his mind would do such a thing.
His pause gave Darren an opportunity.
Instead of running away, Darren gritted his teeth and pulled out two seemingly harmless darts from his belt.
He held one between his right index and middle fingers, and the other between his ring and little fingers.
In that split second, Darren threw the two darts.
His target was the vicious woman who attacked him from behind when he was defenseless.
The dart flew out of Darren's right hand. Due to his unique throwing technique, one dart flew in a straight line, while the other dart drew an arc close to the ground.
The violent throwing action made Darren grit his teeth, and he felt that he was losing a lot of blood from his back.
Pasifala twisted her body to avoid the dart that was flying straight at her, but the dart that was flying close to the ground was suddenly pulled up just before it flew under her, heading straight for her vulva.
Pons finally reacted after Darren threw the dart. He drew his sword and rushed towards Darren, who was bleeding from the back.
"No, stop your fighting!"
Pons shouted, but the sword in his hand was raised high, ready to chop down Darren's back.
Darren sneered, because he had heard Pasiphala's screams.
“Ahh! It hurts! It hurts!!”
The dart that was thrown low to the ground was not aimed at her vulva from the beginning, but at her femoral artery.
At this time, the dart was deeply stabbed into the inside of Pasifala's thigh. At the same time, the poison attached to the dart was spreading rapidly in Pasifala's body.
Pons, who was obsessed with Pasifala's love, forcibly withdrew his sword and moved towards the side of Pasifala who fell to the ground after being hit.
He knelt on one knee and just by looking at the blackened wound, he realized that Darren's dart was poisonous.
Pons shouted,
"Darren! Antidote!!"
Darren looked at Pons coldly and gave him a middle finger with disdain.
"Why didn't you think about this happening when you attacked me?"
After saying that, Darren turned around and walked in one direction alone, gritting his teeth in pain.
He had to get to a safe place so he could heal himself.
"These two people can no longer be trusted," Darren said to himself.
But when he turned around, he didn't see Pasiphala's little move.
Pasifala endured the pain and put her head close to Pons's ear.
"Kill him. He must have the antidote."
Pons looked at Pasifala, whose face turned pale due to blood loss, and nodded with concern.
"Every contestant has signed a life and death agreement. If they die here, it's just their bad luck."
Pons lied to his conscience like this.
Then, with red eyes, he chased after Darren, who was unable to leave due to injuries, like an angry bull.
Darren's eyes were full of surprise. He didn't expect Pons to abandon his lover and chase him.
"You crush her ID card! There's a medical team on the other side of the portal!"
Darren shouted, trying to get Pons to stop following him.
"No, if I kill you, she will naturally have the antidote!"
Pons stomped hard on the sand, making a big hole, but at the same time he jumped high and slashed at Darren's head with a sword from high above.
Darren's eyes were full of disbelief. He didn't expect that someone could be so crazy.
But it is already difficult to move on these sand dunes, and Darren's best solution at the moment is to use offense as defense.
He threw three darts at the leaping Pons at the same time. The three darts blocked Pons' jumping route from top to bottom. If Pons did not make an evasive move in the air, he would naturally be hit!
If Pons chose to dodge, the sword would not fall on him.
Pons, however, remained calm, allowing three hastily thrown darts to pierce his body, and the sword slashed down fiercely.
After Pons landed, he gasped and pulled out all three darts from his body.
And Darren just stood there.
A bloody streak began to appear in the center of Darren's head, and then Darren and his accessories were neatly cut in half.
Blood and internal organs flowed in the hot desert, making squeaking sounds.
The red sand is as dazzling as red soil.
Pons's anger faded, and he looked at his bloody hands in disbelief.
He didn't expect that he would actually do such a thing and become a murderer.
Although Merlin said that he would not pursue the matter afterwards, what about the condemnation in his heart
These complicated thoughts emerged in his mind one by one, but Pons shook his head violently and began to search among Darren's bloody body.
"Where's the antidote? Where's the antidote? Where's the antidote!!!"
Pons first rummaged through the supplies Darren was carrying, but apart from some blood-stained dry food and empty water bottles, he didn't find anything that looked like an antidote.
Pons' mentality changed. He kicked Darren's body with a cold face.
"Hey, where's the antidote?"
It was naturally impossible for Darren to respond.
"Where is the antidote?"
Pons asked again, reaching into the remains of Darren's body and stirring it.
Pons held the organs that still had some warmth in their hands, and he was muttering,
“Heart, no.
Large intestine, no.
Liver, no.
Gallbladder, no.”
Pons searched all the organs within his sight, even crushing them into pieces, but he could not find any trace of the antidote.
On the contrary, during the search, Pons began to experience hallucinations, and was even accompanied by symptoms such as dizziness and blurred vision.
The whole person entered a kind of trance and felt like his soul was about to leave his body.
Pons saw Darren's soul not far away from him, raising his middle finger at himself in disdain, as if mocking his own incompetence.
Pons felt a chill in his heart, he knew that this was the phenomenon of the toxin attached to the dart invading his body.
He had to speed up the process of finding an antidote.
He found it. It was a small bottle that he had broken into two halves.
The medicinal powder in the spelling, which was supposed to be turmeric-colored, was now stained with Darren's blood, and looked not much different from the blood-stained sand on the ground.
“Why are there so few!!!”
Pons growled in confusion.
In fact, Darren only had enough antidote for one person.
The antidote was strung together with a rope and hung around his neck.
If Pons had slashed at Darren's neck with his sword, this amount of antidote might have been preserved, but this hope was shattered by Pons' own sword.
Pasifala, who was not far away, had fainted. Pons walked towards her with difficulty, holding a handful of red mud that he was not sure whether it was sand or an antidote.
It was only about fifty meters away, but now it seemed as far away as the end of the world.
Under the effect of the poison, Pons' senses were slowed down. He tried hard to move his legs, but his legs only moved a little.
Pons didn't notice that the areas around the three wounds on his body had turned black.
He himself was poisoned more than Pasiphala.
As he walked, he saw Pasifala lying in front of him.
Twenty meters, ten meters, five meters.
These last five meters became an insurmountable river in the sky.
Pons fell down, along with the handful of antidote in his hand.
The toxin prepared by Darren is comparable to the venom of a king cobra, containing blood circulation toxins, neurotoxins, and cytotoxins.
The wounds pierced by darts will not heal naturally, but will continue to bleed.
This is the anticoagulant contained in the toxin doing its job.
Neurotoxins enter the blood vessels, quickly paralyze the surrounding pain nerves, and then invade the neurons;
Weakness, psychosis, and hallucinations are all effects of neurotoxins.
Organ failure, massive internal bleeding, and limb incoordination are naturally the results of cytotoxins.
The mixture of three toxins extracted from snake venom took effect in their bodies, and both Pons and Pasifala eventually died in the desert.
This small team of three was wiped out.
All three of them originally had a chance to survive, but they clung to false hope, were consumed by desire, and became victims of desire.
If they had only crushed their ID cards, the medical team would have been able to treat them, but they chose another path - a path of no return.
This temporary small team had internal strife for various reasons within just twenty minutes of the start of the game.
The small teams that were spontaneously organized without professional leadership became small arenas, and people took out weapons and attacked each other at the slightest disagreement.
Death is always with us.
There are very few players who are able to think clearly enough to voluntarily withdraw from the competition. Most of them are driven to kill in a moment of anger or other negative emotions.
The mechanism of exiting the game by smashing the identity card seems to have become a joke, but it is a deadly joke.
The audience started out yawning in boredom, and later became stunned. They had never imagined that events would become so shocking.
The ugliness of human nature and the impulse of desire are fully revealed.
This is the stage that Merlin set for Arthur.