288 The Game Is In Full Swing

Although the Bard, who had just died, was removed from the game, his team were now playing even better than before; without the deadweight dragging them down, Team Cliche's performance improved a lot! Baiyi began to wonder how the Bard loser had managed to survive in the Void before Baiyi found and rescued him.

For the most part, the Voidwalkers proved themselves borne for this game. After successfully passing the second level, and arranging their mid-level stats modification and upgrades, the Voidwalkers' preferred powers and fighting styles were basically set in stone. After their upgrades, the basic firepower of every team had increased immensely, so Baiyi decided to jack up the game's difficulty, starting from the third level. In the third level, frightening bosses that had taken up a lot of his game-designing-effort were unveiled.

Unlike the previous matchstick-bosses, these new bosses were more fleshed out and detailed, with a massive improvement in their recognizability and graphics. They looked so real, it was almost as if they were not game characters.

The Shonen Shoguns — the team which now had four melee pros, who all had chiseled muscles to boot — rampaged through the lands occupied by the level's mobs, like a monkey snapping every branch it came across. As soon as the Shonen Shoguns' team members eradicated the last of the mobs, a gigantic silhouette appeared over their heads.

The main tank of the team, the Sorcerer Walker, whose primary duty was to tank the heaviest hits, raised his head in time to see a planet-sized sunflower grinning at them. The sunflower began to sway as though it was dancing, and then with one sudden swipe, the Sorcerer Walker was sent flying backward.

"I'll ambush this piece of shit from behind! You guys try to cover me!" The Hitman Walker ordered, without a shred of fear for the eccentric boss, and he went into stealth mode; however, he was soon sent flying and crashed into the ground, just beside the crater that contained the Sorcerer Walker.

"M-maybe the both of you should switch roles. Sir Hitman, tank the damage and cover Sir Sorcerer, who will try to deal damage," the Knight Walker suggested. He was the captain of the team, and he could not bear seeing his teammates being floored like that.

Both the Hitman Walker and the Sorcerer Walker nodded. The Hitman Walker received the heavy pavise from the Sorcerer Walker, and the two bravely charged forward. The Knight Walker and the Caveman Walker, too, raised and readied their weapons, positioning themselves around the Sunflower Boss. 

The second fastest team to finish the second level, the Axis of Evil, were also facing their own nightmare-looking boss. They braced themselves for their face-off against a goliath-sized Owl, which had a very round head — and presumably, a very round brain. The Lich Walker and the Devil Walker brainstormed on a strategy for a bit before raising their staves respectively.

The poor-designed-NPCs, who were unfortunate to be their teammates, quickly rushed forward mindlessly, attracting the Owl's aggro and attacks. The Axis of Evil then lured the monster into the NPCs' residential area. As soon as the Owl-boss began killing off poorly-designed-NPC civilians, the Axis of Evil began to deal it damage, using a variety of stealth attacks and calculated indirect-attacks. This caused the boss's HP to drop slowly but steadily.

The Support Team was fighting an uphill battle. Their boss — a gigantic fox — proved to be very tenacious. This team had always heavily relied on their poorly-designed-NPC teammates to deal attacks, while they provided the NPCs with support items and buffs. Even though the Support Team's members had focused on upgrading the effects of their support buffs, the huge Fox they were facing was one of the toughest bosses in the third level.

The battle was a massacre. Even with the Alchemist's impressive amount of potions, concoctions, and vulneraries, which was supposed to prevent his teammates from dying, had almost all been used.

The Connection Cronies team faced the 'best boss' of the third level. The boss was an adorable girl, who was wearing a short, youthful skirt and knee-length white socks. Her hair was tied into long twin tails. This boss's strongest attack was… her cuteness.

However, unfortunately for this boss, her charm failed to captivate the Warrior Walker and the Assassin Walker. They boldly rushed forward and spanked the boss as if she had been a bad child. They dealt with the boss so hard, the Boss ended assuming a fetal position and pleading for mercy.

Due to the appearances of stronger bosses, the third level saw a few more casualties occur among the players. The Merchant, who had no actual battle experiences, had chosen to take up the role of a psychic — a class that possessed no combat prowess — but he got killed by the huge fox's sharp claws.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen team also lost a member. The boss that this team encountered was a dark-skinned maid with short white hair, donning a maid outfit and a cat-ear headband. When the boss appeared, the entire team was hit by a Slow status effect, and their response became much slower…

After crying out "I heart dark chocolate," the Astrologer Walker leaped straight at the boss. In response to his sudden attack, the boss produced a red lightsaber out of nowhere and met the Voidwalker with her blade, slicing him neatly in half.

With one of its member lost, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen found themselves in peril. Its remaining three members had to admit that this boss was way out of their league, making them doubt their chances of winning. They frantically dodged the boss' attacks, resulting in reoccurring scenes of near misses and near deaths. The team kept darting in and out of the possibility of a complete genocide!

This could not be helped, though. A boss with real combat prowess and a high moe-coefficient was the perfect executioner for this team of extraordinary gentlemen. Even though the Paladin Walker and the Cleric Walker were exceptional bruisers, they would have no chance of surviving the fight if their gazes continued to wander to the area below the boss's skirt!

In the end, their will to live proved stronger as they held off the boss off long enough to reach the time limit of the level, and that was how they passed the level. However, they still suffered serious loses: one of their teammates had been pwned, their tools were exhausted, and the reward points they gained in this third level was too pitiful to cover their cost.

Regardless of all that, the Cleric Walker beamed contentedly, without a sign of grievance. "Everything is alright! I don't mind; after all, she was moe."

Only three deaths were recorded in the third level. The slain Voidwalkers were the Merchant, the Astrologer,Walker and… the main character of the game, the Archmage!

What an unexpected twist...

In the third level, the Connection Cronies were overpowering their boss — who was a tiny-framed, innocent-looking girl sporting a twin tail and white socks — and when the girl had only one-third of her original HP left, she suddenly burst into very loud sobs. While crying, she screamed something unintelligible, and a black meatball monster appeared out of thin air.

The strange black meatball monster wore a blue headband and held a dazzling gold formation on its palm. As soon as the black meatball monster appeared, it made a fist, squeezing the golden formation. With a loud 'whoosh', the NPCs in the Connection Cronies team all bust into black flames and turned into ashes.

The Archmage soon found himself the target of the black meatball monster's relentless pursuit. The Scholar and the Assassin Walker tried to dive in and help, but the monster was more powerful than they had expected. They almost died, even! The Meatball was much stronger than the actual boss who summoned it!

Only the Warrior Walker remained level-headed enough to quickly formulate a plan; she tasked the Archmage with distracting the black meatball monster with every magic he could throw, while the rest focused their damage on the main boss.

Finally, before the black meatball monster could gain an edge over them, the main boss died, and the Connection Cronies passed the trial terrified, but alive...

The Archmage, however, had let his guard down as soon as it was over. The black meatball monster sent out one last black flame attack before vanishing completely, which struck the old man square in the face — instantly killing him.

The shame of losing like that was in itself the sickest burn anyone could ever get.

"...S-sir Archmage has died, girls. We did not manage to protect him properly… Hope must be very upset now, isn't he? What should we do?" The Assassin Walker asked worriedly during their break.

"No worries. We can revive him," the Warrior Walker replied in her usual steady voice, which seemed to ooze confidence.

There was, of course, a revive option in the game. It was because of this option that the Voidwalkers who had died were kept in a dark waiting hall, instead of instantly exiting the game to spectate from the Void. The Archmage was fortunate that his teammates had the desire to revive him; on the other hand, none of the Bard's teammates even considered reviving him…

At the end of the third level, the teams that had managed to slay their boss were poised to earn a tremendous amount of rewards. In the third level, the team who had finished the second level the fastest, the Shonen Shoguns, had exhausted too many resources on their boss fight, so the Axis of Evil ended up being the fastest team to finish the third level. This was because of their consistent teamkilling strategy. Thus, the previous champions, the Shonen Shoguns, was demoted to second place, finishing the third level the second fastest.

This showed that pathetic strategies, such as the strategy employed by the Axis of Evil, was always beneficial in the first few battles.

As per custom, the first three levels could only be considered 'grinding levels'. The next level, the fourth level, was set to be a battle royale between all the teams. They were to try their hardest to eliminate and rip each other apart, in this cruel and deadly war. In this round, the death of an entire team would be highly plausible and almost inevitable…

The Shonen Shoguns were thrown onto a field that already contained the Raw Rangers — which was led by the Monster and the Dragon — and the Explorer Walker's Team Cliche. That field stood as the location for a skin-crawling, soul-shackling three-way battle.

On the other hand, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came face-to-face with their sworn enemies, the Axis of Evil. Their faces glowed with a determination to exterminate the Axis of Evil completely, their confident expressions began to look like pure malice.

Baiyi feared for the survival of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so he deliberately dropped the weaker Support Team in between the skirmish between them and the Axis of Evil, hoping that the Support Team ends up drawing the ire of the Axis of Evil.

The only team that did not participate in the battle royale was the Connection Cronies. When they were transported to the third level, they found themselves in a place that seemed like the deserts of Egypt, They went on to excavate a pyramid, searching for the revival artifact to bring the Archmage back to life. By the time they succeeded, the two ongoing battles were drawing to an end.

The Axis of Evil, who was now supposed to be the best in terms of actual prowess, suffered a heavy blow in the fight. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Support Team had worked together, increasing their chances of victory and unwittingly causing in-fighting within the Axis!

In the end, the Lich Walker and the Shadow Walker ate the carcasses of their fallen teammates, which helped them absorb the EXP and powers. After that, they became the two strongest players in the entire game. With their newfound powers, they dealt a brutal retaliation and almost wiped out the other two teams completely. They would have succeeded if the Paladin and the Charlatan had died.

The Lich was once a human in the past, and the Shadow is still a human, yet they managed to be more vicious than monsters and demons, who humans considered more daring than the lowest scums could ever be…

In the other battle, the three competing teams were too close in terms of damage and power, and none of them had worked together. Their battle was a chaotic three-way war, decorating the battlefield with gory carnage. Team Cliche was massacred completely, and with no one to revive them, the team was automatically ejected out of the game to become spectators.

The most impressive team was the Shonen Shoguns, who had lost the Caveman and the Hitman in the battle. For some reasons, they could not plunder loot from their dead, so they were unable to offset their heavy losses.

The only team that did not lose any member was the Connection Cronies, the Archmage's team. Since they missed the battle royale selection, they were thrown into another third level to grind and grow, while the other teams were losing their friends in battle. Furthermore, the Connection Cronies arguably had the best team management. At this point, the winner of the game seemed obvious..

"Ahahahhahahaha! Now, this is the game just right for me!" The Archmage beamed proudly as he received his team's 'Mission Report Stats' from the Game's King of Gods, Baiyi.

"Do not get overconfident," the Warrior Walker warned. "We were just lucky."

"That's of-bloody-course! My luck has always been heavenly!" The Archmage retorted smugly.

After a long break for upgrades, modification and rest, Baiyi decided to have the game end by dawn. Thus, he pulled the surviving players into one map and waited for them to start another round of massacre.And then they jumped towards the boss at the same time in triumphant music as the game title leaped onto the screen right when they were about to hit: Teacher Destress: Hitting Your Students Brutally Because You Can't In Real Life… Ladies and gentlemen, and everyone in between? This is what Gigguk's new 2018 Anime Fan Guidebook would classify as "Cancer". Go watch that video on YouTube if you wanna know about the habits and observed behaviors of Cancers, or if you wanna learn about other anime fans such as the Lifestylist and the Memer.Ooh! The Cronies fought the Biggest Crony of Them All, who managed to turn the tide only because of her Connection! … What a poetic irony! Hee hee.And that sort of "low, honorless means" was how I survived most of the games I otherwise had no business winning when I was a kid! Don't worry, I was never an online player, neither was I even keen on two-player games, so no important relationships were damaged, really. It's the NPCs who died— NPCs who were too ugly, NPCs who were too buttf*cking idiotic, NPCs who raised my ire; or, well, NPCs who happened to be my sister's favorites.