Martial Online.

"Ah, our new victims."

One of the players chuckled and got seated right in front of the hole, as if he didn't fear falling down thousands of meters to the abyss.

Ambrose and Moriarty shared glances and laughed at their opponent's foolish confidence.

"Ah, was it that funny?" The player chuckled. "I am afraid neither of you will be laughing soon after."

"I don't get where your confidence comes from." Ambrose said. "Because you defeated some nobodies easily? So what. You have no clue what we're capable of doing, so I suggest you lower down the foolish confidence."

"Thank you for the advice." The player said sarcastically, "My name's Godfraud, and my friend here is named Deimos. Have you heard of us?"

Ambrose shook his head, as those names didn't ring any bells.

"I have." Moriarty spoke up, his voice dripping with amusement. "You two are quite infamous."

"Haha." Godfraud laughed dryly, "That we are. Now, are you afraid?"

His friend, Deimos, sat silently beside him, a sinister smile playing on his lips.

Ambrose lifted an eyebrow, still not understanding why they should be afraid of them.

Moriarty, after seeing his expression, said:

"Godfraud and Deimos both have a bounty of million on their heads. They were infamous for their abuse of NPCs. I've seen some of their videos before where they burn NPC villages to the ground and laugh.

"They are doing that only for fun and some views. It's shocking that they aren't banned yet from ForeverTube, but I suppose it is fine since killing NPC content is so frequent that it has become normalized.

"They're not treated as real beings, after all."

"I see." Ambrose said coldly. "I still don't understand why we should be afraid of you two."

"Heh, did you not hear?" Deimos spoke out. "We have a bounty of a million, each of us."

Moriarty chuckled and shook his head at their ignorance.

"Well, congratulations, fool." Ambrose scoffed. "Let me introduce myself; I am Ambrose, the Most Wanted Player with a bounty of 2,4 million silvers."

Godfraud's and Deimos' smiles faded away.

They were proud of their high bounties, which increased their fame and gained even more subscribers on ForeverTube. However, they had heard rumors of a player with over a two million silver bounty.

They had also seen the bounty poster, but they thought it was NPC. They knew there was a player named Ambrose, but he in the videos and the person in the poster looked so much different.

"It seems someone has had plastic surgery." Godfraud clapped his hands mockingly.

Deimos chuckled dryly and said, "Two million, so what? We're still going to destroy you."

"Sigh, foolish ignorance." Ambrose looked at Moriarty and said, "Are you going to introduce yourself?"

"There's no need for that." Moriarty chuckled.

Godfraud narrowed his eyes as he could swear that he had seen Moriarty somewhere, but couldn't quite wrap his finger around where.

"You two…" Moriarty pointed at the two and asked, "You came from Wild Card?"

"Yeah, and so what?" Deimos asked, "After what we suffered there, I am certain that

players from Wild Card are much stronger than the players who just knew how to run fast."

"What was the Wild Card?" Ambrose asked and looked at the countdown on the wall. "We still have eight minutes remaining. You might as well share the story."

Godfraud shrugged his shoulders and said;

"Fine.

"We met some misty girl after we didn't reach the finishing line in time during the first round. We were in about 10,500 positions and just narrowly missed qualifying for the next round.

"That sucked!

"We were teleported to some strange misty realm, met that strange girl there, who asked whether we wanted to join Wild Card or not.

"Of course we did.

"However, the first five days or so were quite chill. It was such a beautiful place, and we mostly played some soccer there.

"That suddenly came to a stop, and the beautiful world's sky suddenly turned red as if the sky itself was bleeding. The misty girl returned and told us that we were going to be attacked soon and that we would have to defend that place.

"We realized that this was it—the start of the Wild Card.

"However, that was the start of hell.

"We were attacked, yes, but what we were attacked by was the shocking part."

Ambrose and Moriarty listened intensely and saw Godfraud's expression change as if he were reliving the moment inside his mind.

"It was a fire-breathing dragon with scales as black as night and eyes that glowed with a fiery rage.

"We were able to use our real avatars, and most of the players there were above level 70. Yet, we were completely fucking helpless.

"With each fire blast, the dragon annihilated everything in its path, reducing the world to

ashes.

"Whenever we tried attacking it, it fled to the skies, and its wings blocked the sight of the sun. It was a battle we were not prepared for.

"Whenever some archers shot their arrows at the dragon, they merely bounced off its impenetrable scales, leaving us feeling utterly helpless.

"We saw that it had a health bar, and that was on 100%. It didn't really show the real health of the dragon.

"However, no matter how much we tried, we couldn't lower its health even by a single percent!"

"How did y'all survive then?" Moriarty asked.

"Heh." Godfraud laughed. "Did you know that we were on Wild Card for three months?"

"What?!" Ambrose and Moriarty exclaimed.

"Yeah, fucking three months!" Godfraud laughed angrily. "Fuck, I hate these game developers. They like to torture us, I am telling you!

"It was three months for us, but much shorter for the outside world. In those three months, we were only able to sleep a few hours per night during the time when the dragon was taking a break from tormenting us!

"In the end, the dragon was able to kill most of us without losing a single health, and after three months were over, the players who survived were eligible to join the third round.

"However, most players simply gave up and logged out. But there were also some that wanted to still try in the third round, like us!"

Deimos clenched his trembling hands and grinned. "This is why we're confident in killing you two. We've suffered more than you two in your entire lifetime!"

"No wonder our previous opponents were crazy." Ambrose chuckled.

"What do you mean?" Godfraud asked with a frown.

"We already defeated two Wild Card players." Moriarty said and stood up from the drenched ground.

"They must've been one of the Hiders." Deimos said with a scoff. "While some of us were Attackers, and fought the dragon till the last hours, there were some losers who went to hide instead!"

"I see." Moriarty scratched his chin. "That's indeed interesting. I also want to meet a dragon someday."

"No, you don't." Godfraud said sternly. "Dragons are World Killers. They bring destruction and chaos wherever they go.

"They are immortal. They are unkillable."

'Immortal, huh?' Ambrose mused and crossed his arms over his chest.

Moriarty looked towards the countdown, and without realizing it, the countdown was nearing its end. The story took longer than they expected.

As the countdown reached zero, the hole in the ground closed in, and the ground began changing, with small hills, small rivers, and trees appearing from nowhere.

At the wall behind the two teams, a strange goal materialized out of thin air. It looked like a goal used in soccer.

In the middle of the room, at the top of a small bridge that crossed over the small river, a ball appeared out of nowhere.

"The randomized match is handball!"

A voice sounded from invincible speakers.

"The first team to reach three goals is victorious!"