The first guy got torn into pieces, only his cuffed hands were left behind, but at least he died fast. The second one wasn't so lucky. His bulletproof vest backfired. The snakes bit down several times but couldn't tear through it, so they went lower, burrowing into his torso and ripping out chunks from the inside. His screams sent the entire arena into a frenzy. It was like that saying went—the louder you scream, the more excited they get.
Six men were strung together on one rope, each locked in a fixed position.
When the third man was dragged in, the second guy was already half gone, missing both legs and an arm. His upper body hung on the edge of the pit before being yanked across the floor again, leaving blood everywhere. He wasn't dead yet, and that was the worst part—being dragged back and forth on the ground, half-alive and screaming.
"Kill me! Just kill me already!"
The third man shouted in despair, struggling as hard as he could, but still got dragged into the pit. His cries turned shrill and desperate. He wore heavy armor, but the snake guarding the pit lunged up and bit his head clean off. Ironically, he was the fastest to die. Even after his head was gone, his body kept twitching, and no one could tell if he was really dead. Not that anyone cared enough to check.
The fifth and sixth men didn't wait for their turn. They killed themselves. As American soldiers, they knew there was no surviving this. They cursed loudly at the "despicable Asians," shouting that they weren't fighting fair, that they were hiding their true strength.
The audience, of course, thought the soldiers were just sore losers. They didn't realize what the soldiers meant—the Asians had been acting the whole time. Their real power was way beyond what they'd shown.
Only the fourth man somehow survived. When he was halfway to the pit, the two men behind him clung desperately to the rope, refusing to let go, making it stretch tight like a line of steel. Using every bit of experience from ten years of training, he flipped himself upside down on the rope and curled up, balancing perfectly. He wore the least gear and had the lightest weight, so with skill and agility, he dodged every strike from the snakes until Tank pulled him back to safety.
The nobles and spectators, used to nothing but bloody gore, suddenly found this "extreme escape" surprisingly refreshing. They even clapped for the lucky bastard.
The fifth and sixth men tried to copy him, but they didn't have the strength or balance. When they were dragged in, they fell straight into the pit. If the earlier deaths were slow, torn-apart horrors, these two became live meals—chased down and swallowed whole by the snakes, stored alive as future food.
Each man died differently, and the variety gave the nobles and spectators a twisted sense of satisfaction.
The arena erupted into another feast of carnage. By now, no one batted an eye at such cruelty. They were thrilled by it, living proof of a warped world.
Jing Shu's team won a complete victory! Xiao Hei burst into tears, overwhelmed by relief. He'd been sure he was a dead man. Looking at the bloody mess inside the pit, he trembled all over, nearly pissing himself. The first guy's remaining hands were taken as trophies, while the second man finally died of blood loss. His corpse, purple from venom, was stripped of its armor and tossed back into the pit.
Peggy raised her glass toward the nobles. "Well, what do you know? I bet against the odds this time, and I won everything! Looks like these Asians aren't so bad after all. I declare this team the winners! They'll get an extra 3,000 black market coins, along with all the mercenaries' property!"
They'd earned 4,500 black market coins from their first match—one big step closer to their goal. On top of that, the mercenaries' weapons and body armor fetched another 2,000 when sold to the black market. The best part? Those profits were private—they didn't have to turn them in for mission reports.
"So, my dear Asians," Peggy said, smiling wide, "will you take on the second challenge I've prepared?"
She was in an excellent mood. The team had made her tens of thousands of coins, finally washing away her reputation as a chronic loser.
After Xiao Hei translated, Tank nodded. "Ask her what the mission is." He wanted to strike while the iron was hot, aiming to hit S-rank fast. The sooner they finished, the sooner they could leave this filthy black market.
The noble, Peggy, spoke again, and Xiao Hei translated, his voice a flat echo of her playful cruelty.
"She says that before the apocalypse, there was a very popular game called PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. In your homeland, you called it 'Winner Winner Chicken Dinner'—'Eat Chicken.'" He paused, letting the grim irony sink in. "For the second round, we will have a live-action version. A real-life battle for survival.
The rules are simple. No one's allowed to bring any weapons, not even a toothpick. You'll change into the arena's designated gear, strap on a backpack, and get randomly dropped around the field. Then you'll scavenge for gun parts, ammo, axes, machetes, crossbows, even armor and shields. For fairness, hand-to-hand combat and martial arts are forbidden. Only weapons found inside the arena can be used to kill.
The last surviving team wins.
One more thing," she added. "Most of the gun parts inside aren't compatible. Aside from one complete gun, there are three that can be assembled, and about a hundred bullets in total. Everything else's cold weapons."
In other words, whoever was lucky enough to find a gun early would basically have the match in the bag.
"The setup's still a work in progress," Peggy said thoughtfully. "Ideally, I'd want a hundred-player free-for-all. That'd be amazing. But for now, we'll stick with two teams. Each kill's worth 500 coins, not counted toward your rank mission. The last team standing gets 8,000 coins."
Then she smirked, sipping her wine. "Of course, if there's only one survivor left, that one person still gets the full 8,000."
It was an open invitation to turn on each other, leaving only one alive.
For Jing Shu's team, it wasn't too tempting—they were more focused on the resources hidden in the black market. But for the other mercenaries who lived every day with a knife at their throat, the offer was irresistible.
Tank started counting on his fingers. "If we win this one, we'll hit A-rank. Risky, but worth it." Jing Shu couldn't understand why he had to count it out loud when it was simple math.
Xiao Hei suddenly dropped to his knees, trembling. "I-I'm out! I'm not joining this one! Oh no, damn it, I'll die the moment I go in! I can't even assemble a gun! Don't let the muscles fool you, I'm scared of chickens! Waaaah!" He meant Xiao Dou, their hen. Best not bring that up again—it'd only make Xiao Dou smug.
"Even if we can't fight bare-handed, we still know our way around guns," Tank said, glancing around the group. "What do you think? The sooner we reach S-rank, the sooner we're done with this."
"I'm in," Monkey said darkly. As an assassin, he had a natural edge in places like this. If he didn't start earning contribution points soon, he'd be screwed.