"In other words, like many battle royale mangas, the masterminds are selecting people with a specific mental attribute—or, like in 'As the Gods Will,' they're selecting 'gods.' If someone possesses that attribute and survives to the end, they're employable. But if someone survives without having the desired trait, I suspect the outcome is no survivors at all. After all, to an advanced civilization, killing us would be no harder than squashing bugs."
"So where's the benefit of an alliance?" Lucas finally spoke again.
"Haven't you noticed this game has no termination timer? It's driven entirely by human desire. Unlike battle royale games, there's no shrinking zone, no forced self-destruct. Which means I could subdue all the participants rather than kill each other. If we unite and refuse to fight, then when the puppeteer comes to check on their experiment, we have a chance to demand answers—or..."
"Replace them." Lucas licked his cracked lips. The proposal clearly tempted him.
"Hahaha, exactly. If the conditions allow, why not slay gods?"
Both men released their Abandoned powers at the same time, and like all buddies who start with a scuffle, two hands clasped together in a handshake.
The alliance sealed, Lucas departed for Hangzhou per Warren's instructions to locate Axel Zhou's girlfriend, Chloe Chen. Based on Warren's analysis, she was the seventh competitor, and if an alliance was to work, they needed to find her first.
Warren, meanwhile, stayed at Xingfuli Residences to continue trying to win over Axel Zhou.
What neither of them knew was that as they discussed their alliance, every word, every syllable, was displayed on a screen somewhere, crystal clear, down to the finest detail.
The puppeteer lounged back, munching on potato chips, took a huge swig of ice-cold cola, and let out a loud belch. He noticed this video was number 425, but didn't press the red termination button on the dashboard.
"Fascinating creatures, humans." He narrowed his eyes, savoring the word.
---
Thirteen
Chaoyang District, Zhonghai Fengdan Mansion. On a massive elk-hide rug spanning a 400-square-meter full-floor penthouse, Warren was on a video call with a friend.
"So you're telling me that during last night's full moon, when the comet passed, you gained some kind of superpower?" The friend spoke fluent Mandarin, but on the screen was clearly a brown-haired, blue-eyed young foreigner. Anyone familiar with global dignitaries would have been shocked to see the Crown Prince of Dubai chatting amiably with a Chinese middle-aged man.
Warren wasn't offended. He pulled out a water bottle, set it on the table, and with a casual flick of his gaze, the cap shot off like a bullet, punching a hole straight through the ceiling, while the water stream coiled into a dragon, swimming through the air of the vast living room.
"Convinced now? Stop playing coy. Tell me—how much do you know?"
The prince regarded Warren with a half-smile, his expression troubled, sea-blue eyes crystal clear:
"Strange. Was my surprise not convincing? How did you know I had intel, my dear?"
Warren pulled a bottle of ice-cold Yanjing from the fridge. The beer spouted like a fountain, thin streams flowing upward against gravity into his mouth. "Please. Maybe in your country gold and oil are everywhere, but when it comes to reading people, you lot can't hold a candle to us old Beijingers. Your expression just now showed you wanted to see what my ability was, not that you were curious whether I had abilities at all. Which means, at least in your sphere of knowledge, powered individuals aren't exactly breaking news. The real question was: which ability this time."
The prince smiled and snapped his fingers:
"Full marks. In fact, for hundreds of years, every sixty years, these strange ability-wars have erupted across the globe. Some were observed and documented. Most were dismissed as CGI hoaxes—after all, even UFOs and aliens can be Photoshopped. But our family's technology can authenticate the real from the fake. The truth is, in this timeline that modern scientific civilization has spoiled, a mysterious force is selecting something on Earth. Their purpose—I only know this much."
Before he finished, several videos arrived in Warren's inbox, each marked TOP SECRET, sourced through channels that were clearly not simple.
He clicked on a few. The footage was staggering.
On screens, supernatural beings fought one another in corners of this blue planet:
The first video was labeled: United Kingdom.
The Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency of the British monarchy, a island territory situated at the geographic center between Britain and Ireland, with a population of nearly 90,000 and considerable autonomy—fertile ground for the rebellious and idiosyncratic, birthing terror races like the Isle of Man TT and the Manx Grand Prix.
The Isle of Man TT course spans 60.72 kilometers, the world's only motorcycle racing event run on closed public streets—ordinary streets and country lanes, with over 200 curves.
Since the first fatality in 1911, by 2019, 260 riders had been reduced to ash on these roads (including both the TT and the Grand Prix), along with more than a dozen spectators and crew dispatched to a world no one wishes to visit—far exceeding any other race. Injuries were beyond counting. The entire course was essentially a slaughterhouse; the entire event, a meat grinder.
The motorcyclists in the video seemed distinctly unconcerned with safety. Speeds exceeding 300 kilometers per hour turned them into dragons of colored light on the screen, their lives flickering on that strip of brilliance, liable to evaporate at any moment.
"Damn, these guys have balls..." Warren had barely exclaimed when one rider was suddenly launched from a turn as if struck by a shell, bike and rider becoming a single ball of fire.
An accident? No—impossible. The acceleration was clearly not accidental.
Warren narrowed his eyes. For a split second, he caught a barely perceptible hand gesture from the rider behind.
Gravity manipulation? Air control? Or metal manipulation? He couldn't quite tell. The only thing clear was that the burning rider was clearly no ordinary person—because within the high-speed fireball, no human body was ejected, only mechanical debris, the rider dissipating into data streams in the air.
Evidently, this was the Holy Grail War, and among the racers, exactly as the envelope he'd received stated, seven participants fought until only one survived.
The course started from Douglas, the island's southeastern port, then headed west, turning north into Ramsey at the northeast, before looping back to the start—a circuit of 37.75 miles (60.7 km). The whole course wound through the Snaefell mountain range, making the terrain wildly undulating with over 1,300 feet (396 m) of elevation change, over 200 corners per lap, many through narrow alleys flanked by stone walls—a lethal gauntlet for riders.
Despite this, the event was a magnet, drawing riders from around the world every year. During race season, the island entered a festive state—locals lining the roads, cheering enthusiastically.
The battle between riders continued. Warren noticed the British-flagged rider and a Portuguese rider teaming up. One flicked a screw from his palm; the other caught it, swept his hand outward, and the screw vanished into thin air.
The next second, wires of metal materialized between the two ends of the track, suspended in the air like spiderwebs. Wires of that strength and thickness, once they struck a rider at speed, would be catastrophic.
The roar of engines drew closer. The trailing riders were between a rock and a hard place.
But something strange happened: a rider in red swept his hand, and the metal wires melted into liquid steel, dissolving instantly in the air.
The red rider wasn't done. The molten steel congealed into bullets, firing at the two riders ahead.
Almost instantly, the tables turned. The two who'd seemingly allied fell, dissolving into the void.
The red rider made a playful pistol gesture and accelerated toward the finish line.
Warren couldn't help but suck in a breath: