Chapter 3 - “I will not lose!”

Without communicator (equal to cellphone these days but more advanced), The Den’s residents life almost seemed like it was disconnected from outside world. Their only way to know what happened beyond the wall was the small televisions installed in every room and public area.

As for food, The Den also provided normal human foods for the wardens as well as The Dangerous Entities (tho in small amount with less frequency than normal person). Most of the Dangerous Entities (DE) enjoyed normal food just to feel a slight sense of normalcy in their life, so that’s why Yisheng could get away without consuming any blood bag. It was pretty strange. The doctor gave him his blood analysis result, it mirror of what the DEs had and so he was brought here without any resistance. Yet why he didn’t feel the craving, the urge for blood like other DEs? He kept this abnormality of his as a secret from everyone.

The high schooler’s first two weeks here felt so long, even worse with him knowing nothing about his best friend’s current condition. He realized his first priority now was to win the tournament, that’s why the 3 inmates in C10 were busy these days.

Xiaohui made his own physical and mental training menu, he even made one for Yisheng but except his improved muscle mass and endurance, he still didn’t manage to grasp any ability until now.

Claiming that he had no ability and “this oldman’s bones and joints are too rusty for a melee fight”, he took the initiative as the brain of the team. He went out to mingle with other residents and made a database on how many people are there, estimated participants of the tournaments, do they have abilities, if they did then what it was and how to counteract it.

From his investigation, there were approximately 100 residents in The Den, and estimated 24 DEs would join the tournament. Excluding Xiaohui there’re only another 3 people who felt that there were changes in their body. 2 of them claimed that they can manipulate the so called ability freely. The abilities of the 3 ability users are: invisibility, metal skin, and the other one remained unknown for it was from the West Wing part of The Den, where the women resides.

Seeing that the percentage of an ability develop in a DE is at 4:100 (4%) which is a relatively small figure, then he presumed that the ability was a result of an unpredicted mutation. It was truly a double sided sword for them, the good part is: the chance of a strong ability user enemy to show up is small- while the bad part is: the youngest’s chance to develop one was also slim. But that didn’t discourage Yisheng from trying. He kept on practicing his physical and mental power, he refused to give up too early.

———

The day of the tournament arrived. In the middle of the courtyard, stood a 400 m square arena. As per what Jianwen reported before, there were exactly 24 people in the tournament. All 24 contestants were assigned a number and randomly paired.

The rules were: anyone can surrender in a fight, if they went past the arena area then the contestant would be disqualified.

Round 1:

- Yisheng vs the unknown ability Jiejie

- Xiaohui vs Mr. Metal Skin.

“Oh damn. What a bad luck” Xiaohui suddenly cursed.

“Why? I’ve told you his weaknesses right? Shouldn’t be hard for you to beat him” Jianwen said

“Nah, I’m talking about our youngest” Xiaohui stated. Jianwen could only nod, “Well, hope your training menu isn’t for nothing” both of them crossed their fingers.

Yisheng stepped up to the stage confidently. A pretty lady with auburn hair stood across from him, the opponent with unknown variable. There were only 2 meters distance between them, the referee stood at the center. The whistle blown and the match officially begun.

Yisheng got his stance ready for an attack but suddenly the lady raised her hand. “Wait please!” She squeaked. Yisheng frowned.

“Younger brother, please be gentle with me ok... don’t hurt my face” the lady plead pitifuly. Yet when Yisheng looked at her, their eyes met and he saw the glint of her red eyes.

Yisheng’s mind suddenly blanked. His head nodded on its own, without his order.

“Now, please get out of the arena quietly dear” the lady ordered.

Then again, his body moved against his will.

“Damn stupid body stop! Stop!” He yelled inside his mind.

He remembered of what Xiaohui had told him:

Never panic if you are attacked. If they attack you physically, learn their move pattern. If they attack you mentally, you have to kick their *** out of your mind.

Yisheng, with all his might concentrated his mental power to regain his body.

His body walked all the way to the edge of the arena before it suddenly stopped. His dazed state vanished as he got control of his own body again.

He turned around and rushed toward the lady.

Not expecting the opponent could get free from her hypnosis, she was overwhelmed when Yisheng attacked her. Despite her defense, Yisheng could lock her securely while avoding on seeing her eyes. Her arms were folded behind her back, his arm was holding her back to prevent her from trying to meet his eyes.

“Surrender” Yisheng ordered.

“Ok, I surrender”

With that Yisheng’s first round of the tournament concluded.

Xiaohui, as expected got to beat Mr. Metal Skin quickly thanks to Jianwen’s pointers. Mr. Metal Skin couldn’t harden a very large area of skin at one time, so as long as Xiaohui made feints and attack his non-harden skin, then winning was an easy matter.

Going to the top 12, Yisheng got another non-ability user as the opponent. Even so there was nothing to be relief for since the man he should defeat was a 190 cm tall burly guy with a menacing look, like a grizzly bear.

They exchanged blows, at first Yisheng could manage to hold the bear’s attacks but suddenly the bear’s power spiked. His punches got stronger exponentially, his movements got more agile than before.

‘Ah, he awakened his ability’ What a bad luck.

The bear-man eyes were dark red, his expression got much wilder, as if he was in the brink of insanity. Yisheng couldn’t adapt to his moving pattern quickly since he was to busy blocking attacks. Not long after, Yisheng’s focus faltered an the opponent caught the opening. Blows after blows landed on Yisheng until he couldn’t stand on his feet anymore.

His arms and feet were aching in protest, it felt like if he block another hit from the bear maybe they would broke. Yisheng refused to give up, he gritted his teeth, staggered to stand up again.

The bear man made his way to Yisheng, just as he was about to punch him, Yisheng glared. Something inside him bubbling, surging forth.

“I will not lose!” Yisheng roared.

The bear man’s punch was suspended in the air,

Both of them were bewildered with the situation.

Yisheng mustered what’s left of his power in his right fist and send it to his opponent’s way...

——-

Bai Jingyi had a serious head injury so he needed much more time to wake up from his comma. He was a few hours too late, the authorities had took Yisheng to “prevent him from endangering people”. The hospital staffs deny him any further information.

What could possibly happened that make Yisheng became dangerous that he must be detained? Something must have been wrong and he needed to find out. He must rescue him.

An image crossed his mind, of a small box that Yisheng’s grandma ever gave him 3 years ago. She said to only open it when Yisheng was in danger and grandma wasn’t around. It was kept at the base of his desk study in his room.

Soon after he was discharged, Jingyi got home and went straight to look for the box. The said box was still there, he quickly opened the box.

Inside was 2 rows of numbers, an emblem and a corner of burned ID Card with a unique logo but no texts. He realized the numbers were like a coordinate, he tried to enter the coordinate in his communicator and it pointed to the middle of a forest, at the edge of a city, 70 kilometers away from here. He hastily made his way to that coordinate, hoping that someone could save his friend.

After 2 hours of bus ride and an hour of walking deep into the forest, Jingyi frowned clearly disappointed. There was nothing but grass and trees around him. He tried to shout out, knock, turn, pull some tree branches, even knocking the grass but to no avail. But suddenly he heard movements from the bushes. Not long after something pricked his thigh, his vision blurred as he lost consciousness.

—-

Jingyi woke up with his arms and legs chained on the wall, amhe felt cold and bare, like he was only wearing his boxer brief. He could see nothing since he was blindfolded.

“Who are you, what do you want, and how did you get here?” A rough sound of a man came, he seemed to be the guard of this place.

“Name is Bai Jingyi. I came here because I’m looking for help, grandma Yihua sent me here. She gave the coordinate!”

The guard looked at him suspiciously.

“Uncle please? There is the coordinate, an emblem and an ID Card in my jacket’s left pocket. Those are the proof!”

Thought that the brat was lying, the guard went to mess the clothes lump on his table, searching for the said items. His jaw dropped when he saw the familiar emblem.

“The Feng Family emblem! Shit, I gotta tell boss!” He scampered off and left Jingyi confused.

Not long after that the door suddenly banged open, an elderly man with red rimmed eyes approached Jingyi. His wrinkled hands were trembling as he held the emblem and the burnt ID Card.

“What happened to them?” His voice shaking with sorrow.

——

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***