Fear kept spreading.
More and more players reported seeing the people beside them suddenly vanish like clouds of mist.
Even here, in the Boss room on the Fifty-fifth Floor, five people had already disappeared.
Panic seized them one after another. Everyone was terrified that the next life to be taken would be their own.
"H-Here it comes again!"
The trembling voice, thick with fear, came from the mouth of the player whose ID was Kibaou.
This time, his terror far surpassed anything before, because the person who had vanished was one of his own companions. The man had been right beside him, only to dissolve into mist.
Before he disappeared completely, before he evaporated from existence, that companion's soundless scream of horror burned itself deep into Kibaou's mind, snapping another thread of rationality in his brain.
"I'll kill you. I'll kill you! That'll definitely stop all of this!"
His face twisted beyond recognition as he drew his weapon again. His eyes, full of hatred and madness, locked onto one person.
Among the players standing between him and his target, more people fell silent this time as he advanced.
Part of it was because some of them could tell Kibaou had already been crushed. He was one step away from becoming a madman.
Trying to stop that kind of lunatic might cost them their own lives if they were careless for even a second.
The other reason was that more and more people were disappearing. Fear continued to expand and take root, and even those who had still been able to remain rational were gradually losing their composure. A thought began to rise in their minds: perhaps Kibaou was right.
Those shaken players did not dare make a move themselves, so they could only step aside and stop interfering with him.
"Die!"
He charged forward, raising his cleaver high and bringing it down.
Clang!
The guild leader of the Army still stepped forward to stop him.
"Get out of my way!"
The crazed Kibaou was forced back several steps. Thinker was about to step forward again, but several people suddenly intervened and blocked him, allowing Kibaou to rush around him.
When he was only five meters away, Kibaou stomped hard against the floor and shot forward like a projectile, his weapon slashing viciously toward the girl in front of him.
Bang!
A shield blocked the attack. The one who stopped him was Agil, who had also yet to log out.
"Move! Or I'll kill you too!"
Faced with that frenzied roar, Agil did not answer. He simply continued blocking the way.
"Asuna!"
The scream made Agil's expression change. He looked back and saw that one of the Knights of the Blood members who had originally been assigned to guard Asuna had suddenly "betrayed" them as well.
This time, the attack successfully struck Asuna.
"W-What the hell?"
The Knights of the Blood member spoke in disbelief.
He had clearly hit her, yet Asuna's HP bar had not changed at all.
"Do you understand now? Everything you're doing is meaningless."
Only then did Lisbeth, who had just screamed, react.
The players who had gained the ability to log out in the previous round seemed to have had their HP values locked by the system. That meant no attack could reduce their HP. In other words, they were invincible.
After realizing that, she spoke in a slightly mocking tone.
Come to think of it, Asuna must have assumed the same thing. That was why she had ignored Kibaou's attack and had not dodged, keeping her eyes fixed on the live broadcast the whole time.
That was a little reckless. If the attack had actually dealt damage, it would have been a problem.
"No!" two voices said at once.
The sudden statement made Lisbeth freeze for a moment, because Asuna and Argo had spoken in unison.
Were they saying her attitude was wrong?
No. It did not seem like they were talking about her.
Ah. They were referring to the fact that someone else had suddenly disappeared. Lisbeth happened to see it too.
"Asuna, tell me what you noticed," Argo said gravely.
"It looks like no matter who hits whom, someone disappears."
That was what Asuna had noticed.
Among everyone here on the Fifty-fifth Floor, she had noticed six disappearances. She had missed the first two, but among the four afterward, she had seen two vanish at the exact same time Mr. Kain struck Kayaba Akihiko.
At first, she had thought there had been a delay of a second or two, and that Kayaba Akihiko must have struck Mr. Kain again right afterward—though in truth, she had not actually seen Kayaba land a solid hit on him.
What she had clearly seen were several moments when Kayaba himself was struck and briefly staggered.
At the time, she had simply assumed the disappearances were delayed.
But now, when the seventh person in the room vanished, she noticed the same thing again. The disappearance happened at the same moment Kayaba Akihiko was visibly wounded.
"I contacted people on the other floors just now," Argo said. "So far, people have only been disappearing. No one has reported seeing their Log Out option appear."
Once their pieces of information were put together, both of their expressions grew even heavier.
"What are you talking about?" Lisbeth asked, still not understanding.
However, she noticed that quite a few people present had gone deathly pale.
"What they're probably saying," Agil replied in a heavy voice, answering Lisbeth's confusion, "is that Kayaba Akihiko lied to all of us. It doesn't matter whether he hits Mr. Lance or Mr. Lance hits him. Every time one point is deducted, one player disappears."
Those words made everyone's faces turn even uglier.
"Isn't that just Kayaba Akihiko cheating?" Lisbeth said, her face going pale as well.
That meant whenever either of them landed an attack, regardless of who struck whom, one player was directly erased. There had never been any intention of letting anyone out.
"Of course, there is another possibility," Thinker said. "Players who received the right to log out might have been ejected directly."
But that explanation did not comfort anyone.
The first group had been allowed to choose to log out on their own. Why was the second group being handled like this?
Besides, if the system was going to kick people out without giving them any choice, then why were Asuna and the others from the first group—including Thinker—still here watching?
Why had they not been forced offline too?
"No. We have to make them stop fighting."
"How? They're on the Hundredth Floor. By the time we get there, it'll be too late."
The person who said that seemed to give up on everything. He sat down weakly, no longer struggling, because no matter how he looked at it, there was no way to stop this.
"That's why we have to kill Asuna! If we kill her, maybe it'll stop!"
Kibaou made the suggestion again, roaring in fury.
"What are you hesitating for? If this woman hadn't triggered this plotline, would we have ended up in this situation?"
Kibaou's words made a few people's faces twist slightly.
Yes. That was it. Be angry. Hate her with him.
"Even if killing her can't stop it, we should at least drag her down with us. Are you really fine with letting her survive after getting so many people killed?"
Those inflammatory words did not come from Kibaou, but from someone else.
That person had once been a member of the Knights of the Blood, but Asuna had discovered his poor character and expelled him.
His words were like the final straw that broke the camel's back.
Some people finally began to move. They gripped their weapons.
At that moment, the players were on the verge of slaughtering one another.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]