The Innkeeper

It was as if armageddon was raining down upon the humans. An overwhelming evil was crashing against a small army, one that had gripped the entire universe with fear and hate. Yet even as fire and fury rained upon the humans, like a scene depicting the end times in many religions, the humans stood firm. Against steel and bone, against bloody maws and spiked claws, against the full strength of this suicide squad, not a single soldier fell.

Shoulder to shoulder, the front line dug in and stood their ground, protecting their brothers and sisters behind them. Death could not scare them and a maelstrom of attacks could not make them stumble. Wielding shields that grew into massive, eight feet tall and three feet wide versions of themselves, these soldiers were the pride of an Empire. Known only as the Bulwark team, they were the dedicated protectors of each Jotun army.

Finally, the zombies reached the soldiers and crashed against the makeshift wall of shields. The beasts rammed their bodies as the zombies used their unusual limbs and claws to cut through the barricade. The very ground shook from the force of the collision, and even the viewers back at the Inn trembled unconsciously as they saw the sight, but true to their prestige, the Bulwark team’s defense remained unpenetrated._.

From the time the game had started, not even a minute had passed. Yet the moment the zombies crashed against the shields, their momentum was interrupted. This was the opportunity that the Jotun soldiers had been waiting for.

“Squads three and five, circle around and attack from behind. Bulwark team, hold them down!” Crawford-41 commanded. In a calm yet quick way, the soldiers started moving, acting according to their orders.

The purpose of this suicide squad of zombies was to hold the soldiers in place as the rest of the zombies retreated to meet with their main force. Tier 3 zombies, equivalent to Foundation cultivators, started to attain intelligence, but it was still in a very primitive form. They could understand their instinctual desires to feed, and to a degree plan how to get what they wanted, but the concept of teamwork or long-term planning escaped them. The Jotun forces did not know how big the main force of zombies would be, but under the command of a proper leader such as Pramod, their lethality would increase exponentially.

Pramod wanted to get to the main force while maintaining his initial number of zombies, while the Jotun soldiers wanted to stop him, no matter what. While the soldiers fought, Pramod and his mounted units had already gained a huge lead. Soon, a chase would begin that would determine how the rest of the games went.

As strong as the army was, dealing with suicidal enemies was not easy. It took an entire thirty minutes before the zombies were dealt with – with no Jotun casualties or injuries, of course.

Once the suicide zombies had been eliminated, Crawford-41 checked on his soldiers as well as the fallen corpses. After running a quick scan, they realized that these zombies had been poisoned with a deadly, fact acting virus. Had even a single soldier been injured, within minutes he would have died, and then subsequently turned into a zombie. It was unknown if only the 2500 zombies were poisoned, or if all of them were. Depending on the answer, this could be even more dangerous. Furthermore, none of the zombies dropped cores. This was because the devils had attached a collection formation to each node to automatically collect all zombie cores within a certain area. Since they knew a battle was upcoming, there was no reason to leave such a boon to their enemies.

“According to preliminary scans, the chances of this battlefield being sector 776 are incredibly high,” a technician informed Crawford-41. “As we move, I’ll continue to scan the terrain, which should confirm our location. Once the location has been determined, we can crossmatch our location with a scan of the planet to get a detailed map of the area.”

“Good. Once the location has been determined, forward the map to me. Everyone, assume pursuit formation and immediately begin chasing after target 1, but keep an eye out for ambushes. They will not let us catch up easily, but we cannot let them meet up with their main force!”

Needing no further instructions, the soldiers reorganized themselves to facilitate a chase and immediately began. As expected, Pramod had left behind various traps and ambushes to slow them down. The good news was the Jotun soldiers suffered no casualties. The bad news was that Pramod and his army, atop their mounts, were gaining the lead.

While Crawford-41 and his soldiers gave chase, and Alexander and his soldiers made a beeline to cut Pramod off, the rest of the human soldiers had set up a temporary camp and started scouting the area using drones. Their first objective was locating the enemies and understanding the terrain before making a plan of action. It was not as simple as simply fighting the zombies as the Innkeeper had said unexpected things may happen during the games. Since their objective was to get as many points as possible to prove their worth, they had to act accordingly.

Unlike the humans, who all moved with clear purpose, the beasts divided themselves into three different groups, each with their own plans. The largest group was formed of wolves who were originally from Blood Fangs territory. They wasted no time whatsoever and ran off on their own. They were searching for their prey, and would decide what to do once they found them. The second largest group was one made of elephants.

The elephants all boasted a natural advantage in brute strength and defense. They had been forced by the sloth to participate, and behaved begrudgingly. They knew that if they did nothing, there would be hell to pay once the game was over, yet at the same time, they did not want to be too proactive. The sloth might have been a little more lenient had any of the elephants inherited the Fiery Mammoth bloodline, but none of them had. It was not so far as to say that the elephants were disposable, but forcing them to participate in the games, at least, would not get the sloth in trouble.

The third and smallest group was a random collection of strong beasts. Some of them came willingly for the promised rewards by their territory leaders, some of them had been threatened, all of them were uninformed about what they should be doing. Reaching an unspoken consensus, they decided to simply follow the elephants from a distance.

Only thirty minutes had passed and another eleven and a half hours remained, yet even while most were still planning their moves, the crowd at the Inn was going wild!

Everyone was expecting a clash right at the start due to the presence of the zombies, but the ferocity of the fight had taken them by surprise. The humans hooted and chanted for the valiant soldiers, and the five Nascants looked on with the utmost seriousness at the soldiers that surpassed anything they could have imagined. Not a single soldier had died so far, despite the onslaught! It let them know firmly what their place in the universe was.

Lex was especially amazed, this being the first time he’d properly seen cultivators fight. It was a shame that he had to maintain his distant image as the Innkeeper, otherwise he would be chanting with the crowds as well.

Even he did not know what surprises were in store for the participants, so he, too, was watching on in suspense.

Besides the various screens showing what was happening to the participants, another screen depicting the points received a lot of attention. The Jotun Empire had 200 points for killing 100 zombies and 100 of their mounts, but the distribution for the individuals was what attracted the most attention. While most of the names on the list so far had one or two kills to their name, a single name stood out: Cara Deathsworn – V2001.

Cara Deathsworn was her name and V2001 was her registration number. The V let people know that she was from Vegus Minima. The reason why her name attracted so much attention was because of the number of points she had accumulated: 29. While each of the soldiers had one or two kills, she had 29. A lot of the guests found themselves turning their screens to her and watching replays of her fight.

Maybe a lot of them were expecting to see some beautiful warrior, cutting through the zombies like a valiant hero. Unfortunately, they could not see her face under her helmet, and armor was not designed with visual appeal as a priority, so it did not look too flattering. What they were able to catch was a moment when her armor was damaged around her arm. Before the armor stretched itself to cover the damaged area, the guests were able to catch a glimpse of rock-hard, extremely lean muscles. It woke many of the viewers up to the truth that Deathsworn was not a fairy warrior out of an anime. She was a soldier, and she was built like a killer. For some reason, that only increased her number of fans.