"So does he have the Crown or not?" Mr. Frosty asked Visionary.

"He doesn't have it." Visionary scratched his head in confusion as he said, "I'm only seeing a normal humanoid red aur.."

​​

"WATCH OUT!"

Poof Poof!

Two pitch-black bombs exploded on top of the large rock, one next to Visionary and the other at the party behind him.

The strike was so sudden, by the time Visionary heard the warning, he was already engulfed inside the bomb!

He didn't see it coming as he was still using his infrared vision.

"Visionary are you alright?!" Mr. Frosty shouted while inside a dome made of ice. His allies were all hiding inside of it as well.

"He is not alright." Felix's frigid voice came out of the white aura as he dashed through the tunnel, "None of you will be if you keep pestering me."

Frightened, the players near the red circle either gulped a mouthful or took a step back at the sight of Visionary turning into drifting black particles...

Those with thoughts of chasing Felix in the tunnel completely uprooted them and were on the verge of slapping themselves for even thinking of willingly approaching that monster.

In their eyes, it was only worth antagonizing Felix if he had the Crown. However, from Visionary's answer, it seemed to them that he wasn't carrying it.

Their gut feeling was screaming at them that something was fishy about Felix. But still, no one dared to put their lives at stake just to fulfill their curiosity.

Just like that, Felix swagged in the guarded tunnel while wearing the Crown under the eyes of 48 players!

The spectators were speechless not knowing to react to this situation. They really didn't anticipate his plan to work.

Honestly, some of them still had no idea why the Crown was hidden from Visionary's infrared vision.

Thankfully, Meliodas figured it out swiftly and explained it to them, "The Crown does not release heat from within like living being's bodies but simply glow brightly, emitting rays of light." Meliodas praised Felix with a pleased smile, "Landlord exploded two pitch-black bombs on the Crown, which absorbed the rays of light, making it completely disappear in the eyes of those with infrared vision!"

Meliodas might have explained it nicely, but the VIP spectators knew that Felix's plan only worked due to his oppressive strength!

If it was another player trying to pull that shit off in front of 48 players or so, Mr. Frosty wouldn't ask Visionary to spot the Crown but instead jump with his allies and gang up on the player.

However, Felix was too terrifying and Mr. Frosty wasn't a retard to use his alliance's wellbeing to scout for the other alliances and partnerships.

He was certain that Felix was going to at least take three or four with him before going down.

The sight of what remained of Visionary drifting in the air just further highlighted that his decision was the best to make.

...

Inside a well-spaced tunnel that was leading to the underground, Felix was sprinting with buckets of sweat dripping down his chin.

He already removed the white aura, as he couldn't afford to have it active for even an extra second.

His energy tank wasn't even 30% full after using the white aura as camouflage for so long and the corruption inducement many times.

'Asna, prepare to start pumping the purified energy.' Felix informed Asna while wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeves.

He wasn't sweating due to the nervousness of deceiving an army of players, but the hellish heat that was smacking him in the face the further he went down the tunnel.

After all, he was literally inside an active volcano.

'Alright.' She suddenly reminded him, 'But do notice that you only have about 200% of purified energy instead of 500% like before.'

When Asna gave Felix the purified energy in the shuffle maze, she pumped purified energy that she got from 5k of high-grade poison stones.

However, during the last five days, Felix brought her only 2k high-grade mixed stones. He only obtained that amount due to the fact Asna didn't require a specific element to purify energy.

'That should be enough.' Felix smiled in a confident manner. However, after glancing at the time in his bracelet, he couldn't help but frown his eyebrows.

Only 20 seconds remained till the next location transmission, and he was still quite far from the tunnel labyrinth that was shown in the game hall.

He knew that the distance between him and the players was still crossable by some players with movement abilities.

'Let's put some traps.'

Instead of fretting over it, Felix started creating ruby red bombs and threw them to the ceiling while running.

However, before the bombs could collide with the surface, Felix would make them stop forcefully and let them hover mid-air, totally hidden as the tunnel was dimly lighted.

After hiding 20 bombs on the path, Felix started to huff in exhaustion as his energy was getting drained each second to control those bombs and make them stay in their positions without exploding.

'Asna!'

Understanding what he wanted, Asna started pumping her purified energy until Felix's tank was only 40% full. Since the energy was purified, Felix was actually back to having 100%!

'One, three, six...eighty.' Focused, Felix kept counting the meters while running from the booby-trapped zone.

Peep peep!

The moment he heard his bracelet's alarm of the incoming transmission, he went to hide behind a medium-sized rock that was next to the right wall.

'150 meters.'

Immediately, He pushed his infrared vision to show him only the distance that he calculated. After preparing everything, Felix took a deep breath through his nose with his eyes closed shut.

He could hear his heartbeat increasing each second that passed, showing that he might seem confident but deep down he was still agitated and nervous by having everyone in the game chasing him down for the remaining duration of the game.

'Easy Felix, just play it easy...' He kept trying to keep his emotions in check, 'In the underground, you are the hunter and they are the prey. you are the hunter...'

In desolate silence, Felix kept repeating this phrase over and over again until his eyes snapped open at the last second of the alarm, shimmering with a dangerous vibe, that it would make anyone tremble by a single glance.

Peep!

A sudden golden beam emerged on top of Felix's head and broke through the ceiling, heading into the sky.

The players outside of the tunnel all turned their heads with dumbfounded expressions, gazing at the golden beam that was merely a couple of hundreds of meters away from them.

They instantly recognized that Felix had duped them. However, before they could even feel ashamed and humiliated by it, they saw that the beam of light was static in one place!

That meant only one thing!

"LANDLORD IS NOT RUNNING! KILL HIM!" MR. Frosty shouted as he jumped from the large rock, followed by his allies.

They were the closest to the tunnel, thus they already had a headstart over the rest.

"F*ck! Chase them down! Don't let anyone touch the Crown!"

"Buff my speed!"

Complete chaos has erupted near the red circle as the alliances' leaders voiced their orders to rush into the tunnel, ignoring everything else.

The players with movement abilities were the first to enter the tunnel after Mr. Frosty's alliance, followed by the rest.

Everyone was focusing only on the Crown, not bothering to address the strange reason why Felix decided to go through all of that effort just to stop moving.

Unfortunately, they should have given it a second thought. As the moment Felix saw with his infrared vision that most of the players were running down the booby-trapped path, he snapped his finger with a wide grin, making all the ruby red bombs drop down from the ceiling and explode amidst the players!

Poof, Poof, Poof!...

Startled by red misty clouds, raising all over the tunnel, most players activated their defensive abilities reflexively while holding their breaths.

Sadly, there were still some players, who were slower to react, as they inhaled the inducement thoroughly.

The spectators, who weren't familiar with Felix's inducements believed that his trap had failed since most of the players got out of the booby-trap path without losing a single hair strand.

However, the moment they saw that the affected players had actually activated their offensive abilities and started barraging everyone on sight akin to madmen, those thoughts were removed from their minds.

Boom! Phew! Bam!...

"Don't fight them back, They are hallucinating!" Mr. Frosty screamed at his allies, who were trading abilities with the poisoned players.

Alas, his voice didn't reach far as the tunnel was filled with explosion noises, players' war screams, and pitiful wails.

BOOM! Argh!

A thick purple lightning bolt struck down on a beautiful girl, making her groan for only a split second before dropping into the ground, completely scorched!

Boom!

The one who killed her didn't even manage to gloat for a second, before getting rained down by a salvo of elemental abilities, making him explode into a cloud of bloodish red mist!

More and more of such sights were happening inside the path every second, painting a horrifying scene. Due to them being in a dimly-lighted tunnel, it was extremely easy to get hit out of nowhere by stray abilities.

The situation got so bad, some players turned around and escaped through the tunnel's entrance, too terrified to dash through the chaotic battles to reach the other side.

The entire tunnel had fallen into Havok, which was created by one inducement...Hulicination!

The poisoned players' greatest fears were manifest in front of them, which was obviously either getting betrayed by their allies or get struck in the back by some random player.

Felix knew that he only needed one player or two to get poisoned in order for the chaos to break out. Inside such a closed-off space, an ability that was aimed at one person would end up hitting three or four.

Adding to the dim lights and the red mist all over, it was extremely difficult for the players to notice, who was affected by the poison or not. Thus, they simply protected themselves by using whatever means to kill those aiming at them.

This carried on even when the five seconds of the inducement had already ended and the original poisoned players were dead!

All of this was manifested by the simple use of one inducement and the environment corresponding to it.

"That went even better than expected." Felix nodded his head in satisfaction as he kept watching the humanoid red auras disappear one by one akin to candles getting extinguished by a breeze of wind.

"Alright, time to bounce." Not planning on staying until everyone regain their wits back, Felix turned around and continued his sprint down the tunnel.

He looked at his game points account and realized that he gained 1120 GP at once from the chaos!

"Not bad." He said, smiling.

He didn't know exactly how many players were eliminated in the chaos, as the game points rewarded for eliminations get split evenly between the players, who had a hand in the death of that said player.

Felix didn't rely on his infrared vision to get the correct number of deaths, as he knew that some players might have escaped the booby-trapped path safely.

He might not know the number, but the spectators, who were still watching the chaos unfold in excitement and awe already counted that more than 19 players had been eliminated at once!

This number without counting the players, who escaped the tunnel!

Felix had literally used one ability, and one inducement, to downsize the number of players by almost 50%!

The spectators had never seen such great efficiency before, and they were dying in anticipation to watch how the rest of the chase was going to play out!