The Free-for-All first round finished and the second round started after a 10-minute interlude. The subsequent rounds were just as exciting as the first round and there were many interesting developments that occurred as, in the second round, players actually began to form teams and alliances to attack other players together.
In the end, it was a 5 on 5 team battle that had the casters and audience shouting in excitement while the third round was even crazier as a single player had decimated the entire arena using an unknown skill that flooded the entire map with water before she began hunting and eliminating everyone using her adept underwater fighting skills. This player also summoned a large serpent onto the field and the two began wreaking havoc everywhere. It was such an overwhelming display of strength that had people in complete shock and utter disbelief.
There was no top 5 in this round as the only surviving player was this person. She was a female naga player named Sky. The casters called her a naga but they suspected that she had a hidden race and class of some kind. No one in the game even knew of this person previously but she caused quite the ‘splash’ when she flooded the entire map with what people were calling her [Tsunami] skill or spell.
Maria’s attention was definitely caught by this person as she wanted to test her mettle against her. However, when she saw her name, she couldn’t help but find it familiar before she recalled that she had seen this person’s name before.
“Oh, now I remember, she’s on the Awakened Leaderboards!”
“Huh? What’s that Mary?” Lizzy asked after hearing her outburst. “You know this player?”
“I don’t know her personally, but I’ve seen her name before!”
“Okay, where?”
“She’s on the Awakened Leaderboards.”
“What’s that?”
“It's a leaderboard for Awakened players. Last time I checked, there’s only two currently on it, me and this girl named Sky.”
“Okay, but this is a first. I know all of the leaderboards but there’s no ‘Awakened’ Leaderboard.”
“Only Awakened Players can see it. Since there’s only 2 at the moment, of course, no one else knows,” Maria explained.
“What’s an Awakened Player?” Emily interjected and asked.
Maria immediately began explaining and divulged a bit of information regarding the Awakening feature of the game. It was a first for Lizzy and the rest in the booth to hear since there was no information regarding this.
“How did you Awaken, Mary?” Amanda asked.
Maria shrugged and answered, “I’m not sure. I got a reward from one of my quests and I just used it. After that, I was partially Awakened. If you guys recalled, I had posted a video of my planet-destroying quest and I got a lot of backlash from that.”
“Yeah, I remember it. It was quite the quest.”
“That was my Awakening Quest. After I finished, my race was upgraded from Fallen Angel to Fallen Ophanim - Awakened Variant.”
“Wait, you said Awakened Variant, is that different from a normal Awakened?”
“I guess, though, I don’t know what the differences are since there’s no one to compare to. This Sky player is only an Awakened but since I’ve never met her in the game, I don’t know what makes us different.”
“...”
“Well, it doesn’t matter though. Her power is amazing and I bet that flooding skill is something from her Awakened race!” Maria exclaimed, “I wanna fight her!”
“Is fighting the only thing you can think about? Why not try befriending them?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Hmm, I have enough powerful people on my side. I want a fight.”
“You only say that because you can’t fight right now!”
“Yeah, true.”
The IGC ended for today and tomorrow was a day held exclusively for the tournament’s still-in-development stages. Maria was finally going out to participate in the event and she had received news that the Gauntlet Event had finally been finished while the Boss Hunting event had been completely reworked and updated.
The Boss Hunting Event would also be held tomorrow so she would be partaking in two events that day. The first side event for the day would be the Obstacle Course race before another event she wasn’t participating in and then, the Boss Hunting Event which would close the IGC for that day.
Maria wanted tomorrow to hurry up and come since it was finally her turn to get some action. Even though her event didn’t have any PvP in it, she could at least showcase her skills on the big stage tomorrow which was something she wanted to do. She slept early that day and finally, the next day came. Maria was really excited when she arrived at the stadium. Unlike yesterday, she didn’t go with her friends to the VIP booth but instead went to the area prepared for all of the invited people like her.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the third day of the IGC! Today, we’ll be taking a step back from all the action of the Main Event and be doing a few side events that are still in development that the IGC committee plan on implementing as stages for future IGCs!”
The MC, Yun Chi, who usually hosted Unitale’s streams, came on stage today to announce what they would be doing today. For the first 2 days, she wasn’t the MC but finally, everyone’s favorite came onto the stage to host today’s events. Maria waited patiently until finally, all of the opening statements and talks between the MC and the casters for today’s events finished and one of the staff members came to get her.
“Miss Maria, it’s almost time for you to head up on stage with the others. Please follow me.”
“Okay.”
When she moved to the ground level stadium entrance, she saw many others already there waiting. She heard Yun Chi outside finally announcing the start of the first fun event for today, the Obstacle Course.
“The IGC’s devs have designed a new event for everyone called the Obstacle Course Race! It’s a race where players have to reach the goal at the end of the map in the shortest time possible!”
A hologram of the entire course was shown on the stage before Yun Chi continued explaining, “The racecourse is divided into 3 parts! A land course, a watercourse, and finally, a canyon course! Every part has different obstacles that the contestants have to get past either on their own or team up with other players!”
It was basically the same as before but she then said something that was different than what they did in their test runs, “Not only that, but the players can also attack each other using the event exclusive skills provided!”
The holograms changed and it showed different character models using the 4 event-exclusive skills of the Obstacle Course.
“The first one is [Firebolt] which can stun a player for 5 seconds, the second is [Ensnare] which can be used to hold a player in place for 5 seconds, the third is [Swap] which can be used to swap a player’s position with another player, and finally, the last skill is [Barrier] which can be used to nullify any incoming skill with a 1-second duration!”
The skills were all simple but they added a new chaotic element into the mix since players could use them to interfere with other players’ progress. A few in the waiting area turned subtle gazes towards Maria who had completely dominated the test run. They all knew who to use those skills for and Maria felt a little threatened when she felt those gazes.
“Ah, dammit…” She silently cursed underneath her mask as she knew she was likely going to be targeted later.
“All of the skills have 30-second cooldowns so the participants have to use them wisely and unlike the normal skills in Unitale, these skills don’t have a homing function so the players can dodge them if they have good reflexes!”
One of the casters who was next to her spoke up and asked, “Wow, it looks like many interesting things will happen later in the Obstacle Course event! Please keep in mind that the participants for this event are invited people and most of them haven’t played the game yet or they play but only casually!”
“Let’s introduce the participants who will be taking part in these fun events then!”
“First, it’s someone the locals here know very well! It’s Monique Bell!”
It was a rather famous Italian celebrity and the lady who was in her early 40s walked up to the stage after her name was announced. She had played in a few well-known movies before on top of being a world-class model. As for why the committee invited her to attend the Obstacle Course race was due to her background in playing in many action movies and the like so they thought she’d like the idea and judging by the fact she was here, she apparently jumped on it after receiving the invite.
A few more people were announced and they all walked up to the stage. Naturally, not everyone was some kind of famous celebrity but the people invited were those that had a name somewhere. It surprised the audience who were watching since this was a gaming event but they managed to invite so many well-known people. The IGC’s committee was determined to make the event a success so they didn’t hesitate to do everything they could to turn this tournament into something unprecedented.
The other participants who were in Maria’s group during the test runs were actually people whose names she knew from reading tabloids and watching the news. She hadn’t recognized them immediately during their meeting the day before the IGC started but it never occurred to her that these kinds of people would be participating in the event with her.
“What the heck, I was playing with these people before???”
“Finally, we have one of the face’s of Unitale! Many know her already through her streams, it’s Fallen Angel Maria!”
“Oh, that’s me…”
Maria calmly walked out and moved to the stage. She had her hoodie on and a mask covering her face so even when the camera panned in to show her on the large screens, no one was able to see how she actually looked. A video of her exploits inside the game was shown on the big screens floating in the air above the stage and many of her stream’s viewers finally understood what she meant when she said she had a surprise for them during the IGC.
When she moved next to the people already waiting on the stage, Yun Chi walked next to her and laughed, “Hahaha, looks like our Unitale’s Angel is a little shy!”
“Would you like to say anything?”
“...Hello?”
“...”
Maria froze a little and replied that way after a moment and this caused many to start laughing since she kind of said it in a very amusing tone that was full of nervousness.
“Haha, you really are a shy one! You’re much different than you are when you stream! I hope we see that later in the game, okay?”
“S-Sure…”
“Anyway, with the final contestant finally announced, let’s start the event!”