Chapter 289: End of the First Round (2/2)

That said, the Players were quite friendly aside from such occasions.

Since most of them had suffered previously as refugees, and later lived in relative affluence as Players and were discreetly guided by Xi Wei by farming monsters, daily quests, and even clearing clogged toilets, their personality naturally resembled friendly Earthlings.

Therefore, some of the Players who had collected enough marked cards would try to help other stumped contestants.

Considering the numbers of traps and monsters on the maze island, one might say that the contestants having no trouble were in the minority, which led to many Players attempting to save believers of other churches.

Even so, not everyone paid their debts.

More than half of the Players were backstabbed by the people they had saved and hence eliminated.

To be fair, those backstabbing did not refer to deliberate harm—there were those who did that, but there were too few of them. Instead, their backstabbing involved pushing the Players into harm’s way and seizing the chance to run away or reap the rewards.

In fact, there were only thirty percent of those saved contestants who had only fled without betraying the Players, while less than twenty percent believers of other churches would work together with the Players to handle the new threat.

Still, it was fortunate that Players were not isolated. After some of them had been backstabbed, they would immediately expose the culprits on the forums after being disqualified and teleported back to Lancaster, so that the other Players still in the game would be wary and even try to avenge them.

At the same time, however, most of the Players also finally realized that the outsiders weren’t reliable. The only ones dependable in their opinion were other players, whom they’ve always bantered with, fought for items against, and sparred with from time to time.Even Players who didn’t join the tourney and were merely watching the live broadcast at Lancaster Square or joining the discussion of believers from other churches on the forums, inadvertently strengthening the cohesion between all Players.

Not even Xi Wei expected that, and he was uncertain if that was good or bad.

That said, it would mostly likely lean towards good when he thought about it. After all, things were awkward in the divine realm with a new divine war possibly erupting at any given moment. Not even the Prime Material Plane would be spared when the time comes, and even if the gods didn’t descend upon it to stir trouble, there would assuredly be conflict between the believers of various churches.

Therefore, as opposed to paying a terrible price of being backstabbed in the future due to their friendly and trusting nature, it was better for the Players to pay their dues and learn their lesson in a competition which wasn’t that important, so that they would personally experience that the only people they could trust were themselves.

Moreover, the vile contestants who were desperate to win and didn’t hold back from backstabbing Players were singled out by Xi Wei and shown repeatedly in the magic mirrors broadcasting the tourney over Lancaster Square. Now, the citizens all subconsciously realized that those believers couldn’t be trusted at all, and their gods were most likely nothing good either…

Indeed, none of the contestants or the viewers were expecting the first round of the Twin City Cup to be so horrific.

Although Mayor Corinth had mentioned that twenty percent of the contestants would clear the first round, too many unexpected circumstances had taken place, just as the marked cards of many corpses had been dropped in places where it was irretrievable. As such, only less than ten percent of the contestants—133 of them, in fact-made it through, which was a relatively high ratio in that regard.

While the horrific tourney wasn’t kind for the contestants, there was nothing more exciting for the viewers, which in turn grew their anticipation for the second round.