Chapter 343 - The Game Begins

“Dong!”

A beam of light suddenly projected from the ceiling above. It was the supervisor of the cruise ship opening a hatch on the roof of the warehouse.

The utterly worn-out people packed together on the cold hard floor of the warehouse shot up almost instinctively when they saw the light penetrating the darkness. They rushed to the source of light like a bunch of hungry ghosts rushing through the gates of the afterlife, each one straining their eyes to look at the blinding source of light.

“Move out of the way, you want to get crushed?”

Someone in the crowd pulled another member of the crowd away from the source of light. The very next second, a deafening thump shook the warehouse. It was the sound of a huge cardboard box slamming against the cold hard floor.

However, before they had time to rush over, several cardboard boxes of similar size were thrown down. The weight of the boxes stacking on top of each other crushed the bottommost box, causing the food inside to burst and spill all over the floor.

It was grains of rice mixed with some vegetables.

The people rushing in front were hardly bothered by this as they pounced on the card boxes like hungry wolves. They grabbed sufficient portions for themselves before retreating to the corner and filled their stomach with their hard-earned loot.

The people behind continuously pushed forward, trying to earn their share as well.

Hidden in his corner, Fisher looked at the hounds fighting over food. A glimpse of dark hatred zipped past his eyes as he did this. To think that he would be reduced to this state…

“Mr. Fisher, this is your meal.”

Shortly after, his subordinates who swore unwavering loyalty to him approached with several containers filled with food, making sure to present the container in the best condition for Fisher. “Mr. Fisher, please eat it while it’s still hot.”

“Thanks…”

Fisher retracted the darkness in his eyes and smiled earnestly at this attentive subordinate of his. He picked up the food on the floor and simply took a couple of bites.

Fortunately, although he was captured along with his entire crew, it did not seem like their enemy was particularly keen on any torturing. His crew was well fed and even treated to some delicacies like fish and meat. Otherwise, they would soon starve to death over the next few days.

The two blonde-haired ladies beside him had received the same treatment as he did as well. They waited until after Fisher took his share before picking out of what was left. They made sure to treat themselves, taking large mouthfuls at a time while completely ignoring the unbearable stench inside the warehouse.

Over the last few days, Fisher and his crew ate, drank, and did their business all in this large warehouse space. There was a temporary toilet built in the corner of the warehouse, but it was only a dry toilet without plumbing. If not for the people above regularly spraying disinfectant down here, all sorts of diseases may have broken out among them a long time ago.

Fisher felt like he had returned to the dark middle-ages where they all played the role of the oppressed slaves. They were the slaves aboard a slave ship, heading toward an unknown land…

There were a few among them that could no longer bear this hopeless situation and chose to kill themselves by repeatedly bashing their heads against the wall.

The ones remaining were still holding on, but their eyes had become severely bloodshot. Their expression suggested they were bordering on insanity at this point. All of them were just waiting for the one straw to break the camel’s back…

“How many days has it been?”

Facing this utterly hopeless atmosphere, Fisher suddenly asked from his corner, “Does anyone of you have any idea how long we’ve been locked up here?”

“Maybe around ten days or maybe it’s been an entire month.”

One of the blonde-haired ladies named Jennifer asked in a whisper, “Fisher, are you sure they’re not doing this to torture us? I don’t know how much longer I can handle this…”

“Me too…”

The other blonde-haired lady said as well, slowly breaking into inconsolable sobs, “I want to go home. I know how much we have to pay to succeed in our dreams, but this is far too much. I might really die here, hic… hic…”

Before her tears could fall, Jennifer immediately put her hands over her mouth. Even Fisher and his subordinates suddenly perked up, alerted and began checking their surroundings.

In just an instant, everyone in the warehouse glared in this direction like brazen wolves stalking their prey. To be exact, their attention was fixed on the two blonde-haired ladies…

Even Fisher could not help but feel a relentless cold creeping across his body. He doubted he could keep these people grounded any longer.

It was at that moment when an abrupt but all-too-familiar sound was heard in the warehouse. Everyone turned toward the source at lightning speed and saw that the black sphere in the middle of the warehouse that had been sitting idle for some time was activated again!

The surface of the sphere glittered as the crooked face of a puppet emerged from it and started to laugh using an uncanny, unnaturally low voice. “Glad to see all of you again. I’m sure that you lot have come up with many strategies over the last few days. Well, now it’s time to put them to use.

“So, now… The game begins!”

The black sphere completely ignored the questions they threw at it again and immediately announced the commencement of the game. When Fisher charged forward and tried to ask a question, he suddenly felt his belly heating up like he was hit by sunlight!

When he looked down subconsciously, he saw that his belly had vanished into thin air!

Fisher first felt a pang of shock before quickly realizing that he did not feel any pain coming from his belly. On top of that, the portion of his body that had disappeared constantly emitted blue rays.

The blue ray rapidly spread out across his body. In just three to four seconds, Fisher had vanished into thin air to the choir of bewildered gasps and shock of his subordinates!

“There’s no mistaking it, this is the teleportation mechanism in the anime Gantz. We’re being teleported out here!”

Someone in the group suddenly shouted. The very next second, most of them noticed the same phenomenon occurring to their bodies as well. One after another, they vanished into thin air, only accompanied by the sorrowful screams and cries for help.

When Fisher opened his eyes again, his eyes were immediately hit by blinding lights. He immediately put his arm up to protect himself from being blinded by the fierce light.

“Where in the world am I, am I in the outdoors?”

Although Fisher had his eyes closed, he could feel the damp, dark walls of the cruise ship warehouse pulling away to make space for the outside world. He felt his skin being scorched by the burning sun, the ground under his feet was boiling and soft. It was the beach.

The sound of splashing waves filled his ears. His nose was no longer assaulted by the previous awful stench as it was replaced by the salty scent of seawater.

It may not be the most pleasant smell in the world, but it was heavenly compared to what he had to deal with previously…

While he still had his eyes covered, he began to hear crying and wailing coming from behind him. Surely enough, the others have got here as well.

Knowing this helped Fisher maintain his composure.

“Parker? Where are you, Parker?”

“F***, I got out of that cursed place? I can’t be dreaming, can I?”

“Thank God…”

…

There was a slowly building up commotion of celebration, having come out alive of their predicament. It was then when Fisher heard his subordinate calling out for him. He quickly perked up, also noticing that his eyes had slowly grown accustomed to the brightness of the outside world.

It was then when Fisher saw that they had been transported to an unfamiliar beach. In front of them was a lush, thick jungle that seemed to stretch on forever while behind them was the vast blue ocean.

Just several kilometers away from the coast, there was an unbelievably huge black cruise ship parked idly, casting its enormous shadow over the sea. Several seagulls could be seen hovering on top of the cruise ship…

Several large characters were written on the black monstrosity — Blacklight Cruise.

“I knew it, Blackwatch is behind all of this…”

The chilling sensation seeped deeper into Fisher’s heart.

This was not the time to occupy his mind with these thoughts. When he was about to head toward his subordinates, he suddenly felt something inside his pocket that was not there before.

Fisher reached out for his pocket and scooped up a strip of what seemed to be a device the size of a regular palm.

This device looked like one of those consoles made by Nintendo. Fisher habitually flipped open the cover to reveal a small panel of liquid crystal display. The display was filled with countless blue dots packed together.

The blue dots all merged with one another and in the middle of the arrangement was a tiny green dot.

When Fisher tapped the display, the map on the display automatically zoomed in and turned into an image of an irregular outline of an island. It went without saying that this was the map of the island and the blue pixels around it were the ocean surrounding the island.

Apart from the terrain details, there were also plenty of blue color icons that looked like signal towers scattered all over the island. With just a glance, Fisher figured out that these were the signal towers of “Gantz”.

This device was not just any common device. It was the individual communication device previously mentioned by the black sphere.

“Not only can these communication devices be used to determine the location of everyone, but there’s also an electronic code map inside each one of these devices…”

This was what Gantz previously mentioned.

These words were imprinted into Fisher’s mind, almost latching into his DNA.

“There are five unique inhabitants on this island and let’s just say that they are aggressive in nature… Please believe me, without access to thermal weapons, even a troop of a hundred people cannot defeat them…”

Fisher suddenly recalled this sentence. He immediately checked around himself and saw that nearly everyone was already gathered at the beach.

“Crap…”

Fisher seemed to have recalled something. He cast all these thoughts aside and quickly sprinted toward one of his subordinates and had the subordinate follow him as they started to gather the rest of his remaining forces.

After approximately ten minutes, all eight of them including the two blonde-haired ladies were reunited.

“Mr. Fisher, what do you do next?’

Jennifer asked in a whisper, “Should we mobilize this group of people now and establish a leadership?”

“No, we have to retreat over there immediately!”

Fisher looked around himself and pointed at the coast. “Save your questions for later, we have to retreat into the ocean immediately. We need to use the number of people here for our advantage!”

Although they could not quite catch his meaning, they still faithfully obeyed Fisher’s orders. The eight of them promptly retreated by the coast and stood in the seawater.

It was at this moment when an uncanny screech came from deep inside the jungle at the end of the beach. It was so loud that it completely swept over the sound of the crashing waves.

It was an unplaceable screech. It had some bare resemblance to the voice of a human but did not quite sound humane at the same time. It was closer to the howl of a beast never seen or heard before…

“What is that?”

Jennifer subconsciously turned to Fisher and asked. She saw that Fisher was staring intently at the jungle where the sound came from. His expression turned extremely grim as he did this.

At the same time, many others on the beach had noticed the same voice as well. Some of them sensed that something was off and began to retreat into the crowd while some of the brave ones ran into the deeper parts of the jungle.

It was at that moment when everyone saw it. Just as a large, muscular man made his way to the edge of the jungle, a large and pale arm shot out from the wilderness and immediately latched itself around the man’s waist!

The pale arm could only be described as humongous, just its palms alone were nearly half a meter in size. Decorating its fingers were fingernails so sharp they were like the tips of blades. With what seemed like just a gentle touch, its finger pierced through that man and came out of his back!

The man barely had time to produce a horrifying scream. His spine and internal organs were destroyed. He instantly vomited and experienced convulsion, spewing out an unfathomable amount of blood!

This horrific sight was witnessed by everyone on the beach at the moment. They were stupefied by what they had just seen.

“I’ll be d*mned, just what is that thing?”

“That’s a Tyrant, a monster from Resident Evil!”

“Isn’t that supposed to be a monster from a game? How is it showing up in real life?”

There were constant shouts and screams emanating from the crowd, many of them were on the brink of collapse or had already given up entirely.

The owner of the gigantic palm seemed to show little interest in making a formal introduction. After taking care of its unfortunate victim, it withdrew its hand and shuffled back into the depths of the jungle.

At this point, the people gathered on the beach were already wailing uncontrollably.

When Fisher saw his crew were slowly becoming unsettled as well, he gently reminded them. “Don’t worry about it, remember what the black sphere Gantz said? These creatures are supposed to only kill one person at a time. This means that even if all five of them get here, they will only kill five at most…”

“Can we try to get rid of these monsters?”

One of Fisher’s subordinates could not resist the urge to ask.

“If we manage to survive on this island for some time and create some weapons, there might be a small chance.”

Fisher shook his head. “But as it is, there’s zero chance that we’d be a match for the monster’s sheer strength and size…”

A wave of silence swept over them.

Although someone had already fallen prey to a tyrant right off the bat, there was still a great number of brave people who ran into the jungle. When Fisher saw this, he advised again, “Alright, the threat is minimized for now. We should get out of here now and head for the central hill on the island…”

“Understood!”

The group quickly separated themselves from the other restless survivors and hurried into the jungle.

When they went into the jungle, the looming shadows of the trees quickly swept over them, quickly accompanied by a damp and moldy smell that replaced the salty scent of the sea. This made them immediately think of the five terrifying monsters lurking somewhere in the jungle. They shivered at the mere thought of that.

However, their mental physique had been bolstered over the last five days. Despite the looming threat, not a single one of them backed down but instead continued marching through the thorns of the jungle.

They very quickly covered around five hundred meters of ground and arrived in a flat terrain where they saw a five meters tall tower that looked like a transmission tower.

At the top of the tower was a white lamp that was shut off at the moment.

The group collectively caught a glimmer of hope when they saw the tower. Surely enough, this tower was the source of hope for their survival.

According to the black sphere Gantz, the communication device in their hands could be used to light up the tower. Once all two hundred signal towers on the island were lit up, they would have won the game and could leave the island.