Outworld Liberators-Chapter 194: Faces of Victors and Defeated Harvested Below

Chapter 194: Faces of Victors and Defeated Harvested Below

People began to peel out of the light one after another, drawn up through the cloud, like source where the glow thickened.

The moment they touched it, the pull changed.

What had been slow became sudden. Bodies shot forward, faster than any fall, carried toward the arena like stones flung from a sling.

They landed on the arena floor in scattered bursts. Sackmace came first, then Lonequiver, then Reelfisher.

Their boots struck stone and skidded. They tried to close ranks, to speak, to read each other’s faces.

Reelfisher stepped toward Sackmace and met an invisible barrier. His cheek hit it with a dull smack.

He blinked confused, and pressed a palm to nothing.

More survivors arrived, one by one, blinking at the stone under their feet, at the space between them that would not yield.

Above, a timer kept counting down, steady and indifferent.

Those who did not make it out in time were eaten by the earth. Their screams flared and then cut off.

A heartbeat later, the land spat them out onto the arena entrance. They lay there gasping, faces dumbfounded, having expected death and receiving disgrace instead.

Over a million had entered. Now, roughly two hundred thousand remained.

Worse, the flags were not complete. Not all true banners had been claimed.

A display flared to life above the arena, and a total count of flags revealed itself.

[True Flags Retrieved Total: 1577/2048]

[Participants with True Flags: 391]

[False Flags Total: 7,891,536]

Eldric rose into the air and held there, unmoving. The sky had agreed to lend him a perch.

The arena quieted. Even the audience seemed to remember how to breathe softly.

"Insight is the first virtue of any cultivator," Eldric said. "Those with the wit to gather the false flags shall be rewarded all the same."

The three sided pillar screens shifted at once. Light ran across the linen like water, and both audience and participants stirred in surprise.

[1000 No-Arm Radeon]

[Exchange for Injury Healing Pill]

[1000 Two-Arm Radeon]

[Exchange for Weapon Voucher]

[1000 Four-Arm Radeon]

[Exchange for Armor Voucher]

[1000 Six-Arm Radeon]

[Exchange for Competition Hint Scroll]

[1000 Eight-Arm Radeon]

[Exchange for Five Stamina Tonic]

[1000 Ten-Arm Radeon]

[Exchange for Workman’s Body Strength Codex Page 1/5]

"Now I shall grant the participants three days rest. Trade and exchange what you will amongst yourselves."

"When those three days are spent, the next part of the tournament shall begin."

A ripple moved through the audience, but it died fast. A few cheers. A few groans. Mostly a dull murmur.

The tournament was entertaining, yes, but it was not what they were truly waiting for.

[Flag Collection Ranking]

(1) [Sackmace] [Multiplier 9.08x]

(2) [Reelfisher] [Multiplier 9.07x]

(3) [Lonequiver] [Multiplier 9.07x]

(4) [Almsgiver] [Multiplier 22.08x]

(5) [Irongrit] [Multiplier 117.08x]

(6) [Raj] [Multiplier 1917.08x]

(7) [Ropefist] [Multiplier 5.4x]

(8) [Raxutus] [Multiplier 7.08x]

(9) [Whiteblade] [Multiplier 4.97x]

(10) [Youngbanners] [Multiplier 4.35x]

(11) [Tabulae] [Multiplier 2101.33x]

(12) [Hatcheteer] [Multiplier 4.32x]

(13) [Manpowder] [Multiplier 7.29x]

(14) [Joyhide] [Multiplier 9.3x]

(15) [Speedy] [Multiplier 6.35x]

(16) ...

"Those who wagered upon participants who secured a true flag shall receive a multiplier upon their bets," Eldric said.

"Prepare your sacks. The cash will rise up to you from the floor beneath."

Half the audience only heard the first part. Money. The rest dissolved into noise.

Eyes narrowed. Hands moved. People leaned forward as if they could will wealth into being.

Goldman heard it all. He was quick for a mortal, quicker than most, and he had already staked half his savings on his son.

The sum he had sitting in Radeon Bank was not small.

Cultivator blood stood behind it, ancestors who had climbed as high as the Nascent Embryo stage, men with real names that carried weight.

Goldman’s name had been a joke the world gave him, because he had always been good at handling money.

Now Almsgiver had a chance to earn a name that belonged to him.

For Goldman, a name mattered more than any winnings. Still, he had his sacks prepared fast.

Those who understood they had won hurried to the openings beneath their feet and set sacks over the gaps.

Some were smiling so hard their cheeks shook. Some looked sick with anticipation.

Others did not move at all, frozen in the sour knowledge that they had lost. Bitter thoughts bloomed fast.

They should not have trusted a brother.

Should not have trusted a husband.

Should have picked the safe names from the betting list.

Then the winners vanished behind invisible shields. A faint shimmer wrapped them like glass.

From the floor beneath their boots, gold and spirit stones shot upward in hard bright bursts, clattering into sacks, pinging off knuckles, spilling light across greedy faces.

Bliss took them. Pure, shameless, and sharp enough to hurt anyone watching.

The losers watched those smiles, and jealousy turned to heat in their throats.

Radeon Terraces wanted it that way.

Far below the arena, arrays hummed and drank the crowd’s spite and hunger.

What rose there was not coin. It was something else, minted from the noise of human want.

Small black tube stones, some with a ghostly green glow, others with a colder blue.

Ghosts and wraiths fed on flesh for a few miserable scraps of power.

With this, they did not need flesh at all. As long as there were people to envy and crave, the harvest did not end.

Those with high cultivation saw what the mortals and the younger cultivators missed.

In the armrest of each seat was a small board, flush to the wood, easy to overlook until you knew to look for it.

[Directly Send to Bank]

They did not mind watching mortals scramble for riches. Most of the older ones only pretended to be above it, saving face for the seats they sat in.

Who did not like the thought of swimming in spirit stones?

They watched from the side and sighed about how cultivation always asked you to be an honorable man or a chaste woman.

Not everyone was sighing. Some were working.

A knot of analysts in the audience kept their eyes on the arena and their fingers on ledgers.

They made money by reading participants the way other men read weather.

One of the names was Raj. He had appeared like a bolt of lightning, and the analysts understood what the multiplier meant.

Almost no one had bet on the boy. That was why the payout would be obscene.

The other name was Tabulae.

A girl. Cunning. Pretty mouth. The sort who could ask the right questions and make it feel like your idea to answer.

They noted her anyway, even the ones who tried to laugh her off. Most called it a fluke. Beginner’s luck.

They told themselves the next segment might turn into a fighting round, and if it did, a dainty lady like that would snap like a twig.

Their leader was Gregodor.

Gregodor had been haunting the Gaming and Social District for weeks. At first he had been doubtful, but the numbers had converted him.

He had nearly doubled his money, better than his loaning business without the same risk of broken knees and unpaid debts.

He talked loud. He advertised louder. His mouth pulled mortals and cultivators alike into the district, promising a hundred different games at Radeon Terraces, each one a new way to lose or win yourself into ruin.

Gregodor also loved finding Eldric. He would corner him between events and ask how to accelerate business without damaging cultivation, as if there was a trick that made greed pure.

Eldric had all of Radeon’s memories behind his eyes, and he used them.

He suggested puppets. Reorganization. Cleaner chains of command. Less waste.

Those talks built a bridge between Radeon Terraces and Lenderstone of Vaultspire.

In one of those conversations, Gregodor asked if his men could sell information on the games, not outcomes, just insight that looked like it might become outcome.

Eldric nodded once. Permission. Profit. Gregodor took it as friendship anyway.

On the arena floor, the flags began to turn to dust in the hands that held them, cloth thinning, fraying, then crumbling.

In their place, small wooden tables appeared at each participant’s feet, each one carved with an array that listed what flags the owner had truly secured.

Tabulae slipped her own board into her pocket without looking at it twice.

Her focus was elsewhere. She kept her face neutral and her eyes moving, counting people, counting fear.

She had three true flags. Participation entrances. True meant leverage. Leverage meant she could buy what mattered.

An Injury Healing Pill.

Mortals were already drifting toward Sackmace, Lonequiver, and Reelfisher in tight groups, hands out, voices soft with desperation.

Tabulae watched them like she watched cards on a table. Those three held the demand by the throat, thirty three true flags between them.

They could set a price, and they knew it. It did not matter if they sold low. Not to a weak competitor.

As long as they fed flags into the hands of people who would not threaten them later, they could profit twice, once in stones and once in safety.

Plans spun in her mind. She walked to a corner of the arena and sat with her knees tucked close, making herself look small on purpose.

She waited. Let the price climb. Let panic do the work.

Then, when the hunger for true flags reached its peak, she would trade her two flags for the best return.