Chapter 5

It's common knowledge that the members of the Order team have great personal relationships. Even if they trash-talk each other during a match, nobody would find it strange.

But this duel before them was different…

Against opponents like [The Gods], no team could afford to hold back. Every match, every player, had to give it their all. Moreover, the unexpected loss in the prior vanguard battle had put Sashimi and Barcode, the mid-tier players, in a "must-win" situation… Under such circumstances, how could two old dogs like them have internal conflicts during the match?

Therefore… their earlier "argument" was nothing more than – acting; a complete deception and trap.

Before this trap, Garuda paid the price for his youth…

Of course, Garuda wasn't a fool either. He must have considered the possibility that the opponents were "faking an argument to lure an attack." The reason he still chose to launch a surprise attack was naturally because he had considerable confidence in this action.

Garuda judged that even under the influence of double gravity, he still had a slight advantage in speed compared to Sashimi and Barcode. Even if the two were acting, trying to lure an enemy in for a counterattack… he could still immediately withdraw and retreat completely if he was prepared.

And if the two were really arguing? Wouldn't he have succeeded?

With this calculation, it was a worthwhile gamble.

Unfortunately… Garuda overlooked one thing.

Although the effective radius of [Bass District] was, as Sashimi said, only about twenty meters, and he didn't lie about the weakness… the limit of the "gravity suppression" ability was not just what he had shown earlier. The "double gravity" that Vishnu and Garuda felt earlier was actually the level after Sashimi deliberately reduced the ability. If it was the full-power version of "gravity suppression," it could inflict at least six times the gravity on the enemy.

This ability, which Sashimi didn't mention in his words but deliberately created an illusion about in his actions… was the key to the entire "performance."

When Garuda rushed towards Barcode, who was "conveniently" standing with his back to the edge of the Bass District, he was not affected by gravity suppression during the approach because he chose the most reasonable route around the side and rear.

It wasn't until the moment he launched the attack that Garuda stepped into the Bass District. At this time, he had stopped moving and concentrated his power on the hand holding the knife… Even if he realized the gravity issue at this moment, it was too late. The action of wielding the knife had already begun. Even though he was prepared to withdraw his hand at any time, the unexpected gravity slowed him down by more than fifty percent, leaving him in a dilemma.

At the same time, Barcode, who had been waiting for this attack… at this moment when both sides were "prepared," his hand was obviously faster, and his mentality was more stable than his opponent who had encountered an unexpected situation.

Barcode didn't even turn his head. He simply reached his right hand through his left armpit, straightened his index finger and thumb to form a "right angle," made a "gun" gesture, and pointed it behind him through the cloak on his back.

Instantly, a bowl-sized hole was torn open in the cloak printed with the two characters "Order." Immediately afterward, that invisible shock that passed through the clothing hit Garuda's body squarely.

This silent, invisible, and intangible ultimate skill was one of Barcode's signature moves, named [Handgun] – a truly literal "hand" gun; he only needed to make the gesture of a "gun" with his hand to "shoot." There were no bullets or gunshots… but the effect of the shot was all there.

After Garuda was hit by the "nonexistent bullet" at close range, his survival value was directly reduced by more than half, and a mouthful of hot blood spurted out. But that wasn't the end… the subsequent effect of the enormous impact caused him to fly backward into the air and temporarily unable to move his body freely.

Sashimi and Barcode, one using "hearing" and the other using "sight," confirmed in a split second that their opponent was now in a state of prolonged "stiffness (referring to the continuous process in action games where an action cannot be controlled after it occurs)." How could these two miss such a great opportunity to attack? Immediately, they launched a combined attack of [Subsonic Finger] and rapid-fire golden guns, turning Garuda into a sieve.

In this way, with the Order team's two members suffering almost no damage, [The Gods] had already lost one member.

All of this happened extremely quickly. From Garuda's arrow-like rush to his being shot to death, it only took six or seven seconds. Vishnu simply didn't have time to do anything… After witnessing his teammate being schemed against and killed, he could only sigh and mutter to himself, "Ah… If I had known this would happen, I should have told him to use all his ultimate moves as soon as the fight started in the spectator space… At least it would have caused some damage."

"Making arrangements when it's almost time to go on stage… a little late, isn't it?" Sashimi's ears were quite sharp. Even though the other party's words were very soft, he heard them and replied, "Your little kid lacks experience, not to mention his vigilance and reaction to sudden situations. It's obvious that you don't train hard enough…"

"I don't think… making them any harsher would have helped them deal with your kind of 'performance'," Vishnu replied. "Besides, your 'scheme' was also the result of discussion during the break, wasn't it?"

Vishnu had much more experience than Garuda. His teammate's sacrifice provided him with a lot of information that he didn't know before the match. He had also realized that the cooperation between Sashimi and Barcode just now was not an impromptu performance, but a premeditated plan…

When Sashimi first launched "gravity suppression," the layout had already begun… He predicted that his opponent would definitely leave the Bass District when encountering "gravity suppression." Once that happened, he would immediately "argue" with Barcode according to the plan, using language to distract the opponent's attention, while Barcode took the opportunity to slowly move and stand in a specific position on the edge of the Bass District, turning into a state of facing the inside of the Bass District with his back to the outside, in order to lure the enemy to attack… For him, a shooting expert, the sense of distance was life. As long as Sashimi told him the core point and effective radius of the Bass District in advance, he should be able to stand in the correct position based on visual estimation alone.

In short, although this strategy was not very complicated, it definitely required prior communication before execution. The real difficulty was not in the "argument" (of course, they both gave a true performance in the argument, and the completion was very high), but in how to complete the other links of inducement and deception without attracting attention.

"No." Unexpectedly, Sashimi actually denied Vishnu's words and replied, "We didn't discuss this strategy during the 'break'."

"That's right…" Barcode said, "The kind of 'performance' just now can only be used on your team's rookies… It's meaningless if you encounter your 'Four Heavenly Kings.' But before the teleportation, we didn't know who you would send on this match, so… how could we arrange that kind of strategy in the spectator space in advance?"

"That's right!" Vishnu couldn't help but think to himself, "Before being teleported into the battlefield, no one knows who the other party will send on the next match, unless they believe that Garuda will definitely be on this match, otherwise there is no reason to agree in advance to use this trick…"

Yes, this matter seemed unreasonable at first glance, but… the truth was actually very simple – they discussed it after entering the battlefield, in front of the two members of the Gods team.

During the thirty seconds of "preparation time" right after the teleportation ended and before the fight started, Sashimi turned his back to the two members of the Gods team, and used the action of taking things out of his backpack as cover, and told Barcode this strategy using [Voice Transmission into the Secret].

And Barcode, although he didn't know the skill [Voice Transmission into the Secret], he only needed to reply in a very light voice, so light that even he couldn't hear it clearly. Anyway, Sashimi could hear that frequency of speech.

So, these two old foxes, as soon as they saw that the other side had a young man (actually only six or seven years younger than them), they started to think crookedly.

Of course, this was also related to pressure… If it were normal times, Sashimi and Barcode might not have used this kind of almost insidious tactic, but in order to avoid being poisoned by Ye Zhi, they were also desperate…

"Heh… fine." Vishnu thought about that question for a while, and didn't come to a conclusion, so he simply dismissed the relevant thoughts; he didn't want to affect the upcoming match by dwelling on things that had already passed.

On the other side, the two members of the Order team would definitely not take the initiative to expose the method of "secret communication"… They might use it in future matches.

"No matter how you did it, congratulations on getting a two-on-one situation…" Two seconds later, Vishnu continued, "However, you should also be clear that I… am not that easy to deal with."

"We know that kind of thing even if you don't say it…" Barcode took over the opponent's words, and at the same time put away the golden revolver in his hand, and took out a shotgun that looked very much like a Remington m870, except that it had a lot of tentacles on the barrel, from his backpack.

The verbal exchange ended here.

This seemingly peaceful dialogue was actually a brief game…

When Garuda was killed in battle, Vishnu, who was caught in a one-on-two situation due to his teammate's death, as the weaker party, would naturally not rush forward immediately.

The two members of the Order team, who had control of the battlefield, also wanted to buy some time to let their skills cool down and recover their stamina.

Therefore, Sashimi seized the opportunity to take the initiative to talk to the other party.

When he heard this, Vishnu already understood the opponent's intention, so he responded while doing some probing… until he felt that he couldn't get anything out of it, he changed his tone.

At this moment, when Sashimi and the others heard Vishnu's sentence "not easy to deal with," they knew that the other party didn't want to talk any more, so as the advantaged side, he would strike first.

So, Barcode launched an attack again. The destructive power of this [Ancient God's Finger] in his hand was quite amazing in the short and medium range. It seemed that… after the attack power of the golden dual guns was declared invalid, he was still prepared to break Vishnu's orichalcum arm defense head-on.

At this time, whether it was the players on the field or the audience off the field, probably no one would have thought that… the subsequent battle would be a fierce battle for the two-on-one Order team.