Chapter 379: Selection Game 9

After Perry Yates unlocked Wargod Kai, she glanced at the unlock task for the next Skill Card.

[Eliminate fifteen percent of the Executors in the game.]

’At this rate,’ she thought, ’even if I eliminate all the Executors, I probably won’t be able to unlock all my Skill Cards.’

However, she soon discovered that completing this task would surprisingly unlock two Skill Cards.

"Don’t you feel like the tables have turned?" Dylan Adler suddenly asked.

Perry Yates thought about it. From their perspective, it certainly seemed that way.

The Executors, who were supposed to be the Hunters, were being mercilessly crushed and slaughtered by them—the prey—completely powerless to fight back.

"Even if the tables have turned, that’s only for a handful of us. Most people are probably still the prey," Perry Yates said.

Before they knew it, the original game of Hunter versus prey had morphed into a three-way conflict.

The prey were constantly evading the Hunters’ pursuit, all while trying to find a way to unlock the power of their Skill Cards.

Meanwhile, some Hunters, in their pursuit of prey, were being killed by the more powerful individuals among them.

In other words, the prey who could kill Hunters were no longer prey at all. They had become Hunters themselves, and their new targets were the Executors.

The two of them walked a bit further and found signs of a fight, along with the corpse of a dead Executor.

"Judging by the marks on the ground, the other person must have been injured too."

Dylan Adler scanned the area, and his attention quickly settled on a large rock not far away.

Behind it, he found a player who had passed out.

Perry Yates looked at the person Dylan Adler dragged out, their face caked with blood. If not for the faint rise and fall of their chest, she would have mistaken them for a corpse.

A steady stream of water flowed from her palm, washing the blood from the man’s face and revealing a familiar visage.

"Amber Sheridan?"

Once Perry Yates got a clear look at his face, she couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise.

"You know him? How well?" Dylan Adler asked.

Perry Yates didn’t hide anything. "He’s a Croupier from another planet," she said. "We’re on good terms. I worked with him during my very first game as a Croupier, and we’ve kept in touch ever since."

Dylan Adler was stunned to hear that Perry Yates could so easily contact Croupiers from other planets. But then he remembered the auction that had brought together Croupiers from countless worlds, and it didn’t seem quite so shocking anymore.

Seeing Perry Yates begin to heal Amber Sheridan, Dylan Adler couldn’t help but ask, "You have the ability to travel between planets?"

Perry Yates thought for a moment. "I did," she said. "But that’s in the past now."

"What do you mean by that?" Dylan Adler asked, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"My last game was called the Carboniferous Period. In it, every player could only bring five item cards. All of the Skill Cards fused with our bodies vanished and were scattered across the game world. If you wanted your power back, you had to find your scattered cards.

"During that process, your cards could be stolen, destroyed, or simply never found. Whatever the case, any cards you didn’t recover by the end of the game would vanish forever."

"So you..."

"I was lucky. I only failed to find one Skill Card. Although, it’s less that I couldn’t find it and more that someone took it."

Perry Yates then explained the abilities of the Any Door.

When Dylan Adler heard that an Executor had taken such a valuable Skill Card, he was beside himself, acting as if he were the one who had lost it, not Perry Yates.

"So that’s why you created the Space-Time Gate?"

Perry Yates nodded. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Haven’t you thought about trying to get the Any Door back?" Dylan Adler asked.

After all, the Any Door was an incredibly special card. Whoever possessed it could, if they wished, easily link every planet in the universe.

Perry Yates shrugged, the picture of indifference. "It’s not like I can get it back just by wishing for it."

Besides, the Any Door was a card she had created through Ascension. No one else could fuse with it unless she gave her consent. On top of that, a long time ago, she had copied her most important Skill Cards as a precaution, and that included the Any Door.

As for why she later chose to use the new Space-Time Gate instead of reactivating her copy of the Any Door, there was no particularly important reason. She simply wanted a change of pace.

About ten minutes later, the wounds on Amber Sheridan’s body were mostly healed, and he slowly began to regain consciousness.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Dylan Adler watching over him. "Did you save me?" he asked.

Perry Yates’s voice came from behind him. "No, I did."

Seeing Perry Yates, Amber Sheridan looked as if he’d just been reunited with a long-lost relative.

"Perry! It’s so great to see you here!" Amber Sheridan cried, rushing forward for a hug. Perry Yates blocked him, the look of disdain on her face unmistakable.

"You’re covered in blood. Don’t get it on my clothes."

Amber Sheridan immediately stopped his blubbering and gave her a look one might reserve for a heartless lover who had just spurned them.

A few minutes later, Amber Sheridan was in a fresh set of clothes. He then recounted everything he had been through.

After hearing his story, both Perry Yates and Dylan Adler looked at him with immense sympathy.

If one word could describe Amber Sheridan’s experience, it would be "brutal."

Utterly brutal.

He had been hunted relentlessly since the game began. If not for the life-saving item he’d brought with him, he probably would have been toast within the first hour.

After he finally managed to unlock his first Skill Card, it was as if the Executors had planted a tracking device on him; they always found his exact location, one way or another.

Sometimes it was one, sometimes two or three, and sometimes it was a whole group.

In short, his situation was the complete opposite of Perry Yates and Dylan Adler’s, who were actively hunting for Executors.

It was like comparing two fishermen. One had to chase the fish to catch them, while the other didn’t have to do anything but stand still as the fish desperately flung themselves onto him.

Perry Yates then invited Amber Sheridan to team up with them, and he agreed without a moment’s hesitation.

"This is great! I don’t have to fight alone anymore!" Amber Sheridan exclaimed. Just then, he spotted two Executors in the distance, rapidly approaching their position.