Wolf

A few hours later

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I shout as I turn around to see a black and purple chest sitting in the center of the large room. The chest is emitting a strange sort of black mist, similar but still different to that of miasma, and instead of the normal mechanical seal on it, this chest has a skull on the front of it.

This is not what I had in mind when I complained about this floor being boring!

I look away from the ominous chest to examine the room around me for anything that might help me survive whatever is inside of the box. The room itself was a simple room, with various little towers scattered throughout the room. Before I pressed the button at the end of the room, the towers would randomly send pulses of plasma between each other. Pulses that I never personally experienced myself, but would rather not experience nonetheless.

That said, now that the room has been cleared, it isn’t much more than a large, open space with various useless towers scattered throughout it.

I frown at this before shaking my head and raising my arms, causing an icy mist to begin expelling from my entire body. The icy mist then begins to move throughout the room at my behest, slowly solidifying into walls of ice in between the towers.

After that, I focus on creating more ice element and having it build up a relatively large sphere of ice around the Pandora’s Box itself, with a small tunnel going straight towards the chest in the sphere.

My frown slowly begins to fade as I look at my work around the room before I lower my head to glance at the crest on the front of my coat.

It would be better if I didn’t have to use that skill, but it’s nice to know that it is there if I need it.

I raise my head again to look at the chest before taking a deep breath and stepping forwards, only to pause again as I instead focus on the ice around the sphere, causing dozens of spikes to grow out of the ice pointing inwards towards the chest. After that, I freeze the floor throughout the entire room, just to make sure that I have the utmost advantage against whatever comes out of that chest.

Maybe some more precautions might be needed before I open the box…

Arcadian Live

The tense atmosphere that had fill the stadium the moment the black chest had appeared only continues to deepen as everyone watches Wolf set up more and more precautions throughout the room to deal with it. Meanwhile, all of the commentators currently inside of the viewing room are gathered around the forerunner screen with Mikaela, having all abandoned watching their own Competitors in order to see what happens next.

“I wonder if an explosion from the box would destroy the frozen prince’s ice?” a pureblood werewolf commentator mutters with a worried expression, causing tens of thousands of eyes to briefly focus on him from both the gathered audience and his fellow commentators before the majority of them refocus on the forerunner screen again. However, his words had broken a small amount of the tenseness within the atmosphere, bringing about more and more faint whispers throughout the audience.

Mikaela just continues watching Wolf with a frown as he begins to freeze the walls and ceiling of the room as well.

‘The amount of preparation he is putting in makes me wonder if he was traumatized by the last Pandora’s Box, or if he is just being extremely cautious about this,’ Mikaela thinks to himself, raising a hand to scratch his chin. He then pauses and lowers his hand with a light shake of his head. ‘No, he probably wouldn’t be able to think so clearly if he was traumatized by it.’

The vampire turns to look at the audience before focusing on the other screens around the area, momentarily pausing on Crystal’s as he sees her fighting a mini boss on the desert arena themed floor. However, the pause doesn’t last long before he returns his gaze to the forerunner screen right as Wolf begins to grab a couple of items from his inventory.

“Oh?” Mikaela mutters as he sees the advanced escape orb. “Is he going to use that to get out if something bad comes out of the box?”

“That wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Niklai says whilst standing next to Mikaela with his arms crossed, “although it could be a bit risky with the layout of the floor being how it is.”

Mikaela glances at him for a moment before looking at Wolf again with a faint nod of his head as he says, “True enough, but it would be better than dying.”

Katherine – who had been listening in on their conversation from her place a few meters away – floats over to the two and says, “You do remember that not all things that come out of a Pandora’s Box are bad, right? What if he gets something good from this?”

The two commentators look at her before shrugging as Niklai says, “Then he gets something good out of it and saves the use of the orb.”

‘With the minor embarrassment of setting up so much just for something that isn’t dangerous,’ Mikaela mentally adds without saying anything out loud.

Meanwhile, a cheer begins to slowly build up within the audience. At first, it can only be heard in a few remote corners of the stadium, but over time it continues to grow until it distracts the three commentators from their conversation as they all focus on the cheer with faint smiles on their faces.

“Winter Wolf!” “Winter Wolf!” “Winter Wolf!” “Winter Wolf!” “Winter Wolf!”

At the same time, the other commentators all begin to share glances with each other before several of them begin to join in on the cheer as Wolf finishes up his last precaution against the Pandora’s Box; a large block of ice frozen to the ceiling above the chest.

“He really is going all out with the precautions for this…” Niklai mutters as the cheers drown out his voice.

Wolf looks at the block of ice before focusing on everything around him and nodding his head in satisfaction. He then begins to step up towards the sphere, causing the outside of it to open up slightly to let him into the small tunnel inside as he approaches the black chest. Once he makes it within half a meter of the chest, he takes a deep breath and reaches out to touch it.

The instant his fingers make contact with the chest, he spins around and rushes out of the sphere, closing it back up behind him as he focuses on the bright black light that shines outwards from the chest with his eyes squinted. However, after only a few seconds, the black light begins to fade.

As soon as the light fades enough for the audience within the viewing room to see, the chanting stops almost immediately, followed by a deathly silence.

“What the…” Mikaela mutters with a stunned expression on his face. “Seriously?”