“Aarghhhh!”

Hiro could feel a cold iron needle suddenly piercing his neck. His hands could not move, neither could his legs. It was as if all four of his body parts were being restrained by very strong ropes.

It was very painful. He felt like his brain had suddenly frozen.

Hiro shouted his lungs out. Tears were already flowing out of the corners of his eyes. Slowly, his once clear vision turned blurry. He couldn’t even see the warning words on the screen.

“What did they do to me?”

Hiro had no idea what the GM was planning. But this one, he clearly didn’t like it. It was very painful. One second, his brain was frozen, and the next second, he could hear his own heartbeat. It beat faster with a loud thud.

At first, Hiro was afraid that his heart would explode. However, he regained his composure when he remembered that all of this only happened in the virtual world. Hiro tried to hold it in.

Even when the needle was being pulled out again, his heart still reacted strangely. He had never experienced something like this in his life.

“Am I going to die?”

Ding!

[The special injection has been given]

Hiro could see the writing on the screen again. But, his head ached and throbbed violently. How could he fight under these conditions?

As if starting to surrender to the current situation, Hiro closed his eyes slowly. A few seconds later, the faint sounds of applause and cheers could be heard very loudly. It was very lively.

The sound managed to make him interested in peeking. The bright light blinded him. He was already somewhere else, and his back touched something rough.

The sky above suddenly turned very bright. It was as if he was dreaming of being in the old world of the Last Shelter Online. However, that was not what made him reflexively get back to his feet. Around him, thousands of people cheered so loudly that their voices melted into one so that Hiro didn’t know what they were really saying.

Deg–

Hiro felt that his heart had just stopped beating for a second, and he reflexively grabbed his left chest and stumbled to his knees once more.

“What’s in that injection?” Hiro didn’t find any strange icon in his status. He was in good condition. No negative effects were recorded by his avatar status. This situation made him even more worried. He was a little afraid his plan would fail.

Kwak!

Spyro even noticed that Hiro wasn’t doing well. However, seeing as the dragon was still nearby, at least Hiro wasn’t alone now.

“I am okay, don’t worry,” he said, while rubbing the dragon’s head.

Hiro turned his head back to look at the surrounding area, and he just realized that he was standing in a battle arena that looked like a Colosseum. It was exactly the same as what he saw on the internet. The Colosseum in Rome, Italy.

Meanwhile, what made him wonder was the whereabouts of the other players.

The other players were outside the battle arena as if they came here just to watch, while not a few players had also appeared in the battle arena section. Those in the battle arena seemed to be divided into two.

In Hiro’s place, he could see the players with red eyes. All the players with demon bloodlines were in the same arena as him. Meanwhile, at the other end, with an invisible barrier that kept experiencing strange glitches that were showing its existence, there were players of various races. Their number was almost double that of the players near Hiro.

“Yo, Pal, did you get that shot too?” a player with the username RedDevilz29 approached Hiro. A blond-haired man who seemed to be the same age as him pointed to a mark on his neck. It was like a scorched black circle.

Hiro nodded. Wasn’t it already told by the system that all bloodline demons got it? But for what?

“Well, I don’t know what it does. I felt nothing but shock as the iron needle pierced my neck. Do you think it’s an empty injection?” he asked casually.

Hiro frowned. He realized there was something strange about what the player had said. No reaction whatsoever he said? Hiro’s heart couldn’t even work normally anymore. It was beating strangely. Sometimes, it beat very fast then suddenly stopped, as if someone was controlling and playing with it.

“Ughh…” It happened again. Hiro squeezed his chest and staggered to the side. He clung to Spyro who was struggling to support him.

“I’m sorry, Spyro. I didn’t mean to trouble you.”

“Pal, are you okay? You look so pale. Are you sure you want to play this game? You could have been killed, you know that, right?”

Hiro nodded. He already knew that. He was even sure he would win before he got that unexpected shot. But now, he even doubted he could last long in the arena.

“Damn, this is bad. What have they done to me?” Hiro walked away from the Player RedDevilz29. He still wanted to see who he knew in that place.

Then, his eyes easily found Liberty and Cara who were standing in the audience area. They both shouted at him as if they had long realized where Hiro was and tried to call out to him. However, the voices of the two girls were drowned out by the other people’s voices.

“Libe, Cara? So it’s true that all the players were transferred to this place?” Hiro looked around again. From splitting the players into two major groups, he believed the GM had prepared a scenario.

And whatever the scenario, he was sure that it was closely related to a fight between the two groups.

Ding!

[Welcome!]

The transparent screen appeared again in front of all the players, including those who were just the spectators.

[Are you ready for the game of challengers?]

[Look up!]

All the players who fell silent again immediately raised their heads up after reading the words that appeared on the screen.

At the same time, the very clear sky was now surrounded by giant black clouds that occasionally emitted flashes of light and thunder. In a matter of seconds, the atmosphere turned a little dark again. The flashes of lightning that kept popping up in the sky became the only source of light.

The atmosphere turned really gloomy right now.

“He’s coming.”