The Trial Game of Life

Table of Content | Character Guide

T/N: The Character Guide has been updated with 3 more profiles! ^^

Meng Yufei had died.

Amidst the deafening cheers, gifts were thrown into the road, one after another. Some audience also tossed in a few cubes of green, red and even blue colours.

The remaining players seemed itchy to touch the cubes, but no one actually dared to make a move.

“Don’t be distracted.” Peng Mingfan reminded Qian Wei as they stood back to back with each other. Qian Wei quickly returned to his senses and continued to fight the goblins while marvelling at how awesome the boss was. He was of course jealous, but he wouldn’t have the nerves to resent the boss for that.

Other players felt the same. The entire arena suddenly became silent, with only the little demon continuing to ramble on and on with excitement while looking at Jin Cheng’s eyes as though he just caught sight of a rare jewel.

No. 10’s team subconsciously moved a bit away from Jin Cheng.

Tang Cuo also moved a bit away from him.

Sometimes Jin Cheng really couldn’t tell what this ‘disciple’ of his was thinking.

“What are you avoiding me for?”

Tang Cuo: “Just following the trend.”

Jin Cheng: “You come over here.”

Tang Cuo: “Oh.”

Jin Cheng laughed angrily and tackled a few more goblins that were approaching. He gestured to Tang Cuo to pick up the items on the ground, but Tang Cuo didn’t pay attention to those, instead, he asked: “Is there anything that can cure poison here?”

Jin Cheng: “Are you poisoned?”

Tang Cuo: “My HP’s upper limit has dropped to 40.”

Jin Cheng: “Aren’t you just deliberately making me go mad?”

Tang Cuo wasn’t deliberate of course, at least not this time. It was all because of this damn competition. But there was really nothing in this pile of items that could cure poison, so Jin Cheng took out an antidote for him.

This potion was sold for 3 points in Yong Ye City’s official potion shop, and Tang Cuo was reluctant to buy it.

After drinking the potion, Tang Cuo’s HP limit slowly recovered, and he finally put some mind into picking up the items. Jin Cheng took the green and red cubes by himself and gave the blue one to Tang Cuo, which could improve his Defence value.

They didn’t take a closer look at any items on the ground and just simply picked up everything they could before turning around and making a bolt for the goblins.

By this time, Qian Wei and the other eight players were still advancing forward, and Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo had fallen behind. Tang Cuo couldn’t perform range attacks, so he was mainly responsible for ―  picking up the remnants, aka the goblins that weren’t killed yet.

Remnant-picking was, in any case, a job that required skills. He must consider how he could stop all the fish that slipped through the net without disturbing Jin Cheng. It also tested his flexibility, manoeuvrability as well as ability to coordinate with his partner.

The whole group continued to advance.

After half an hour, Qian Wei and the others were still fighting hard.

But this endless killing of goblins really exhausted everyone.

“When are we ever reaching the end?…” No. 9 panted and looked at the road that seemed to have no end in sight. His scalp went numb just by looking at the waves of goblins awaiting them in front.

No. 10 girl once again took out the item that looked like a paper boat and tried to fly over with her teammates. There was no ban of flying here, but the moment the three got on the boat and took off, they attracted all the goblins’ grudge. The goblins’ red eyes flashed brightly as they threw their blades at the boat, and even worse, they all went berserk and started to stack up atop each other, dangerously trying to pull down the boat.

The boat was destroyed in less than three minutes and crashed right into the enormous stack of goblins.

Looking at the boat being brought down by a tsunami of goblins, Qian Wei couldn’t help but feel cold sweats streaming down his back. Even if No. 10’s team could escape from the siege, they would at least be worn out and the whole group’s combat power would be tremendously reduced.

“What do we do now?” Qian Wei looked at Peng Mingfan: “Do we use our ultimate attack?”

Peng Mingfan’s state was slightly worse than Qian Wei, but his expression was still undisturbed: “Wait.”

After another ten minutes, even the naked eyes could see that the team was slowing down.

By this point, there were still 45 minutes before they could hit the mission requirement of three hours.

No. 6 Ghillie Suit was carrying the rocket launcher with trembling hands, and the frequency of his shots had gradually decreased: “Not good! I don’t have enough fuel here!”

The special goblin released another green cube, which was picked up by No. 10 girl before she turned around and said: “There’s no way to rest here, hang in there!”

“It seems that everyone is almost reaching their limit.” The little demon looked condescendingly from above, admiring the contestants’ exhausted faces with satisfaction and once again stretching his voice: “How long more will it be until you reach the end point? Want to guess if I will tell you not? Hahaha, of course I won’t tell you!”

“Keep on killing!”

“Strike!”

“In this Demon City, only the pets that have the sharpest claws, the most feral manner and persist to the end can get the rewards! Only they deserve the warmest applause!”

“Everyone.” The little demon flew up high again: “Let’s look forward to the end together!” 

The monster audience were electrified. The more excited they were, the more provoked the goblins became. The creatures stared at the players with blazing red eyes and charged at them even more crazily.

At this moment, Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo were running at high speed, bringing themselves to the front-line position to replace other players.

Jin Cheng stretched his bow strings tightly, a serious expression that was rarely seen casted over his face.

“Ting —” The sound echoed loudly in the air, carrying with it a vigorous, melancholic wind. The moment the bowstring cut his finger and a drop of blood bounced, the sound waves became twice amplified.

The attack rippled out ragingly like a tidal wave.

In an instant, the goblins were thrown off their backs, clearing a space of more than ten meters. The goblins that were tossed by the sound waves crashed into the new goblins that were pouring in, all piling themselves into a thick wall.

The creatures screamed tormentingly, their crimson blood flowing down the wall as Tang Cuo quickly climbed onto it to deal a final blow with a blade firmly held in his hand.

Jin Cheng followed closely behind but never once stopped his strikes. He ran all the way to the front while doing the same thing over again.

The walls stood up one after another, dead goblins stacking atop living ones. The sea of goblins were quickly lumped into separate mounds before ending up being slashed by Tang Cuo a second later.

Qian Wei’s jaw literally dropped into an ‘O’.

Peng Mingfan was also terrified by the scene, but being the composed young man he always was, he slapped Qian Wei on the shoulder: “Don’t just stand there, there will be more coming!” 

The other players also returned to their senses to finally see that although those goblins at the back were swiftly killed by Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo, these creatures would always come back to life and the killing would still be endless. But Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo’s vicious attacks had inspired them to pick up the falling momentum.

“Kill them aaaaaah!” No. 6 started to cheer for himself but his rocket launcher had gone out of fuel for good, so he now only had his bare hands to depend on.

By this point, there were still 28 minutes before the three-hour limit. The end point remained nowhere in sight.

The monster audience watched enthusiastically and consistently threw more gifts and cubes into the road, but most of them were actually useless items. The players were desperately fighting against the goblins and still had to spend time picking out the right gifts, giving them even more headache.

Peng Mingfan finally picked up something useful — a basket of unfamiliar materials that looked like charcoal. With her fire-type ability, No. 10 produced a small spark and it blew up on that unknown material!

“There are explosives here! Come and help!”

Hearing the word ‘explosives’, everyone were instantly energised and gathered quickly. The basket of explosives soon became their strongest protection as they frantically threw them at the goblins.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

The goblins coming from behind were constantly being sent flying. The players could stabilise their defence, but the smell wasn’t the most pleasant. Qian Wei’s face turned green and he couldn’t help asking: “Isn’t the thing inside this basket monster poop?”

No. 10 Girl: “Shut up.”

Qian Wei shut up, feeling that he was destined to have bad luck with ladies.

Tang Cuo at the front also took out an item, which he had picked out from the pile of gifts just now ― it was a card with an oil painting of meteor rain.

Tang Cuo held the card with his two fingers in front of his chest. As the thought formed in his mind, the card suddenly glowed and meteors fell down like rain from the sky, their light dazzling in the goblins’ eyes before killing them in massive numbers.

Tang Cuo learnt this trick after observing Meng Yufei’s attack ― a card could be activated without the need to actually throw it.

Of course, Meng Yufei was more experienced and could activate Skill cards more smoothly. He did it so fast that the activation time was almost zero and no one could even see him taking out the card.

Cards in Yong Ye city came with limited consumption, but the number of times each card could be used was different. For the Skill card that Tang Cuo obtained previously, when he touched the card, he was able to sense that it was left with one last use.

The ‘Lightning Orb’ card that Meng Yufei snatched from Cheng Ke seemed to still have a lot of times left, but as for its initial value, Tang Cuo wouldn’t know.

This hand-painted card that Tang Cuo was using now carried a limit of three uses.

Good stuff used at the right time would bring the strongest impact. Tang Cuo put away the card and followed Jin Cheng to kill again.

With the basket of ‘explosives’, the players in the back successfully had some time for themselves to breathe. After absorbing a few more cubes, they regrouped and continued to advance.

By this point, they were only 13 minutes away from the three-hour limit.

No. 9 was almost on the verge of breaking. He had slipped twice on the steel cable and used up too much energy, and his strength wasn’t superb in the first place. This one and a half hour of non-stop fighting not only consumed a lot of his physical strength but also gave him lots of injuries.

The healing potions and the cubes could get back some of his HP, but frequent injuries and battles had really ground his body and his brain, and mental exhaustion could never be repaired in such a short time.

With a “crash”, No. 9 fell down.

His teammates No. 2 and No. 11 hurried over to pull him up and helped him not be taken over by the surrounding goblins. The two dragged No. 9 behind them, their nerves stretched to the limit.

“Brother, hold on, I’ll be there soon!” No. 6 Ghillie Suit passed by them, himself also dead tired. It wasn’t so much cheering for them, rather, it was more cheering for himself.

Everyone was out of breath, sweats slipping down their cheeks incessantly, stabbing wounds hurting all over their bodies.

As beads of sweats similarly streamed down his temples, Tang Cuo held the blade tightly with both hands and panted slightly, but his eyes remained cold and sharp. He thought out loud: “The end point hasn’t appeared yet. Will the game be over after three hours?”

Jin Cheng: “Maybe not.”

Tang Cuo pressed his lips and said nothing.

Jin Cheng glanced at the players behind him: “The condition to clear this game may be that at least one of us reaches the end.”

Yong Ye City had one exquisite feature ― to know how to clear a game, you could only guess.

“You go?” Tang Cuo raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t you want to come with me?” Jin Cheng also raised his eyebrows: “If the game isn’t cleared after three hours, those behind us may really collapse.”

Tang Cuo kept moving and slayed a few goblins without paying much attention: “You are faster alone.”

Jin Cheng smiled: “That’s true.”

Considering that battles in Yong Ye City were always different from reality, with Tang Cuo’s current level, he might just be a hindrance to Jin Cheng. Neither of them loved blabbering nonsense or the cheesy sorts of ‘you go, I go’. The moment the decision was made, each person headed their own way.

Jin Cheng ran forward at full speed. No longer having to think about opening the way for the people behind, his speed became naturally much faster. Tang Cuo moved a little bit to the back to join Qian Wei and Peng Mingfan.

“Big brother, where is he going?” Qian Wei asked anxiously.

“The end point.” Tang Cuo replied concisely as he glanced across the remaining players before saying: “We may not clear the game even after three hours. The final rewards will be based on your rankings upon reaching the end point, so you should figure it yourself.”

As he ended his sentence, no matter what others would have to say about it, Tang Cuo wouldn’t care.

No. 10 had a thoughtful look on her face as she consciously glanced at Tang Cuo while fighting with the goblins. After a few minutes, she finally decided to fight for the end point. Although her two companions had some hesitation, they knew that she had been a fierce fighter, so they sent some items her way and covered for her while she quickly left the main group.

No. 2 was nervous: “Now that they’re gone, what do we do?!”

No. 3 was also nervous, but No. 10 was also his teammate, so of course he would defend her: “What can we do? Keep fighting! If you have the nerves, you can also fight for the top rankings!”

As they talked, another wave of goblins rushed over, and the players kept on fighting and dodging. With two of the strongest players gone, the fight became more and more difficult. Tang Cuo could see that the remaining players were not very strong and they were consuming too much energy, so even if they continued to move forward, they would unlikely go far. He could only hope that nothing bad would happen.

No. 2 chewed on a mouthful of mud as he fell to the ground. Catching two goblins coming his way, he quickly blocked them and ended up getting a huge wound in his arm. He screamed in pain and fumblingly took out a healing potion to drink. Another goblin charged at him even before he could heal.

“You f**king go to hell!” No. 2 kicked it but accidentally sent the creature to No. 3’s way.

“What are you trying to do?!!!” No. 3 exploded instantly.

An infighting almost broke out but was stopped by the endless waves of goblins.

No. 6 Ghillie Suit jumped in between the two to separate them. At this point, having an infighting was obviously extremely irrational, for it would only hurt both yourself and others. But everyone’s spirit has reached its limit, and the little demon hovering above their head started to laugh again, his laughter an excruciating sound to their ears.

“Hahahahahaha finally you feel like fighting now? I love watching this dog-eat-dog drama. Residents of Demon City, do you like it?!”

“Ooowhoooooo!!”

Earth-shattering cheers came back in response to him.

They were now five minutes away from the three-hour limit.

Tang Cuo wasn’t interested in being a peacemaker. He simply waved his hand to command another meteor rain to open their way, then turned around and asked Peng Mingfan: “Can you still fight?”

Peng Mingfan caught his breath, then carefully considered the question for a few seconds before replying firmly: “Yes, but for at most another twenty minutes. We still can release our ultimate strike.”

Twenty minutes.

With Jin Cheng’s speed, it might be enough.

Tang Cuo quickly glanced across the two sides of the road and said: “If you can’t hold them, hide behind the window.”

Qian Wei looked at the monster audience wiggling behind the window and asked hesitantly: “Is that even possible?”

Tang Cuo: “We can try.”

Qian Wei gritted his teeth: “Okay, then let’s try!” 

Everyone here was trying their best anyway!

The players pulled themselves together for the so-called final battle. Five minutes felt neither too short nor too long, and everyone held their heart in their throat, waiting for the familiar bell to chime — but it didn’t.

Five minutes had passed and nothing happened.

“When are we going to fight until?!” No. 2 cried out, himself about to collapse. No. 9, who had fallen down a moment ago, was even more out of breath and sat on the ground for a long while, refusing to get up.

Qian Wei was still insistently waiting for the sound when a goblin almost caught him off guard. An idea crossed Tang Cuo’s mind and he resolutely jumped into a window on the roadside.

The monster audience totally didn’t expect this and made an uproar as he squeezed his way through their group. Qian Wei was having cold sweats all over with this risky idea, fearing that the monsters would beat him to a pulp.

He couldn’t understand their gibberish, and having to come into contact with their hairless or hairy bodies felt incredibly strange. He trotted through them with his hairs standing on their ends and his mind chanting relentlessly.

A monster stretched out one hand and he was stunned. As if possessed, Qian Wei held the hand tightly and shook it up and down vigorously: “Hello, hello! Long time no see!”

“What the actual f**k???” No. 6 Ghillie Suit was shocked to the core to see such a move. What shocked him even more was that the monsters in the window really didn’t attack Qian Wei.

Brother, we could do this!

No. 6 imitated Qian Wei and squeezed into the window, then No. 2 and No. 11 immediately followed after.

The little demon was anxious: “Aiya how can you do this? This is a violation of the rules, unacceptable! The game is not over yet, how can you be so shameless?!”

No one paid any attention to him.

The little demon pointed his spear at Tang Cuo: “No. 12!!!”

Tang Cuo lept to a window that was more than 3 meters above ground, then with all his strength, he let go and jumped into the crowd of monsters in front of him. He sent a monster flying off with a sharp kick, then followed Jin Cheng’s example and danced atop another monster.

Jumping from one monster to another, he landed on the window frame again.

The monster audience in the room was blocked by him and made chaotic noise. The little demon continued screaming: “No. 12!!! Come down for me! Come down!”

Tang Cuo had his own reason to be so bold.

He had tried it twice before, once when he clutched the long nose of a monster to swing himself, and once when he threw a monster at Meng Yufei as a shield. In both these occasions, the monsters behind the window never went berserk.

Even when the second one was killed by Meng Yufei, it didn’t stir up any havoc.

“No. 12!!!” The little demon was so angry that he couldn’t say anything except calling out his number.

At the same time, a few kilometers ahead.

Jin Cheng finally caught sight of the ‘legendary’ ending point, but the moment he saw it, a strange expression came over his face ― because he was back at the Colosseum of the second round.

No. 1 was still lying motionless on the track as if dead, in the same position as when Tang Cuo left him. But the moment he saw Jin Cheng returning, he thought Jin Cheng was here to save him, so he finally ignited a gleam of hope and struggled to get up from the ground.

Jin Cheng didn’t look at him. He stepped into the Colosseum and found that the barriers had all disappeared. In other words, he could go to any track.

So where was the end point?

Was the third round meant to go back here?

As he was deep in thoughts, a screen suddenly popped up above the Colosseum, and a hollow ball with a bell inside, which was in fact a pet toy, fell down and rolled into the track. 

“Ting ting ting.”

“The championship battle has begun. Whoever finds the ball wins!” 

The little demon hurriedly rushed over and appeared in the air with a “pop”, eagerly reciting the rules of the game on the screen. After he finished, he glared lovingly at Jin Cheng, who was standing there puzzled like a monk trying to find his hair.

Is this demon a relative of Mr. Crow? He could say he loved you one second and wanted you to die the next.

“You disobedient pets, you should go to hell!” The little demon flapped his wings and finally recovered his usual arrogance.

The corner of Jin Cheng’s mouth tugged down as he wondered, What disobedient? Did that little bastard go look for death again?

Meanwhile, No. 1 sat there dumbfounded, because the toy ball actually rolled to a spot no more than five meters away from him ― victory was well within reach.