The first man was torn into pieces; only his severed, cuffed hands were left behind on the rope, but at least he died fast. The second man wasn't so lucky. His bulletproof vest backfired in the worst possible way. The black mambas struck repeatedly, but their fangs couldn't tear through the heavy material, so they went lower. They burrowed into his soft torso and ripped out chunks of flesh from the inside. His high-pitched 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, inescapable position.
When the third man was dragged into the pit, the second man was already half gone. He was missing both legs and an arm. His upper body hung over the jagged edge of the pit before being yanked across the rough floor again, leaving thick streaks of 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 while the snakes continued their work.
"Kill me! Just kill me already!"
The third man shouted in pure despair, struggling as hard as he could against the metal cuffs, but he still got dragged into the pit. His cries turned shrill and desperate. He wore heavy armor, but the snake guarding the edge 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 on the rope, and no one could tell if he was really dead. Not that anyone in the crowd 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 kind of venom. They cursed loudly at the "despicable Asians," shouting that they weren't fighting fair and 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 had shown on the stage.
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 and making the line stretch tight like a rod of steel. Using every bit of experience from ten years of elite training, he flipped himself upside down on the rope and curled up, balancing perfectly in the air. 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 as he was pulled away from the edge.
The fifth and sixth men tried to copy his move, but they didn't have the strength or the balance. When they were finally dragged in, they fell straight into the dark pit. If the earlier deaths were slow, torn-apart horrors, these two became live meals. They were chased down and swallowed whole by the snakes, stored alive as future food in the reptiles' bellies.
Each man died differently, and the variety of their ends 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, broken world.
Jing Shu's team won a complete victory. Xiao Hei burst into tears, overwhelmed by sudden relief. He had been sure he was a dead man. Looking at the bloody mess inside the pit, he trembled all over, nearly pissing himself in front of the crowd. The first man's remaining hands were taken as trophies, while the second man finally died of blood loss. His corpse, purple and bloated from venom, was stripped of its armor and tossed back into the pit for the snakes.
Peggy raised her glass toward the other 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 will get an extra 3,000 black market coins, along with all the mercenaries' property!"
They had 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 back to the black market stalls. The best part? Those profits were private; they didn't have to turn them in for mission reports to Yang Yang.
"So, my dear Asians," Peggy said, smiling wide as she looked down at them, "will you take on the second challenge I have prepared?"
She was in an excellent mood. The team had made her tens of thousands of coins in bets, finally washing away her reputation as a chronic loser among her peers.
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 behind.
The noble, Peggy, spoke again, and Xiao Hei translated. His voice was a flat echo of her words.
"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 were simple. No one is allowed to bring any weapons, not even a toothpick. You will change into the arena's designated gear, strap on a backpack, and get randomly dropped around the field. Then you will 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 is cold weapons."
In other words, whoever was lucky enough to find a gun early would basically have the match in the bag.
"The setup is still a work in progress," Peggy said thoughtfully. "Ideally, I would want a hundred-player free-for-all. That would be amazing. But for now, we will stick with two teams. Each kill is 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 will 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'm out! I'm not joining this one! Oh no, damn it, I will 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. It was best not to bring that up again; it would 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 would be screwed.