Chapter 725: The King’s Crown (VII)
--
Time passed by slow and steady in Cedric’s boredom...
If you ask him, he very much prefers the preliminaries compared to this stage because, at the very least, it wasn’t as boring. Waiting around here doing absolutely nothing because nobody dares to come close to him made the flow of time agonizingly slow for him. Hours seemingly stretch into years because of his inactivity.
Sure, he could distract himself by observing the battles happening all over the continent from where he was, but the fights don’t last long. Moreover, it often results in the ordinary live evolvers fleeing in defeat because the seeded participants were too strong for them to handle.
The one interesting change that happened was on the third day when Fabros, through hard work, perseverance, and cunning tactics, managed to snatch another crown for himself. And through some miracle, I was able to hold on to it until now.
He was, of course, being hunted down by the previous owner of the crown, but Fabros was hidden exceptionally well from his hunter. So much so that the hunter passed through his hiding spot numerous times but failed to sense him.
The ones who helped Fabros snatch the crown had been eliminated already. They’ve been hunted down by the previous owner of the crown. The hunter tried to torture them for information, but they just sneered at him and eliminated themselves instead of telling him anything useful. Their goals have already been achieved; the rest was up to Fabros.
Aside from this, though, nothing else interesting happened. The commoners are still teaming up against the seeded participants and are working hard to snatch crowns for themselves only to fail miserably and flee in defeat.
They’re pitiable in Cedric’s eyes, but he also wasn’t some saint who would do the charitable thing and help them. He wasn’t responsible for their weakness.
That said, boredom was slowly killing him...figuratively, of course.
He sighed for the nth time. Glancing at the leaderboards, he saw his name at the very top and felt that this was all too easy.
Had he known that eliminating that little shit would result in the rest of the seeded participants being too afraid to confront him, he would’ve let him stay in the competition a little longer just so that he wouldn’t get bored.
Alas, it’s a little too late for that.
Zwoon!
A ripping sound tore through the skies. It’s a sound that Cedric has heard numerous times by now, a sign that the safe zone was shrinking again.
Today’s the fourth day. The hosts said that this stage will only go for a week. Since a considerable amount of time has passed since the safe zone started shrinking, it has definitely shrunk considerably to the point of causing more conflict and complications for the remaining participants.
But even so, Cedric remained in the same spot he’s been in since the beginning.
He doesn’t know if this was coincidence or not, but it seems that the safe zone was shrinking towards his location, meaning that it’s very likely that he wouldn’t have to move at all because he’s at the very center of the safe zone.
If this had happened to others, they’d probably be happy about it. If they could just secure a crown and hide with it in this very spot, then their path towards the final stage was pretty much guaranteed.
For Cedric, though, it’s just another aspect of his boredom. At this point, he’s close to thinking that the tournament was bending its rule for him on purpose. It’s like they want to ensure that he ends up at the final stage for some reason, and he really wouldn’t know what to feel if that were to be the case.
He could move, yes. He’s not paralyzed nor trapped in this area. He’s free to go anywhere he pleases. It would be so easy for him to just take a stroll and intentionally provoke other seeded participants into a fight just by walking close enough to where they are.
That’s the problem, though; Cedric didn’t want to move.
The reason being is that he didn’t want to lose this perfect spot of his. Especially after predicting that everybody will eventually converge around here.
Cedric was waiting for that moment, telling himself that it’ll be worth the wait; that’s why he didn’t want to move.
Yes, he could also just go out and play for a bit and then return once the time was right, but doing that will make the final confrontation a little dull. If he went out now and clashed with seeded participants, they would have a general gauge of how strong he really is, and that might scare them off during the final moment, which would make it boring.
Cedric didn’t want that. He wants this stage to end as glorious and explosive as it could, so he decided to patiently endure his boredom for now.
It was then that, all of a sudden, a really clever and fun idea suddenly struck him.
"Oh."
"Oh..."
"My, that...hm...that sounds fun."
A wide grin slowly appeared on his face as he entertained the idea some more, and because he was bored, the more he entertained the idea, the more he was convinced that it could actually be fun.
He glanced at the leaderboard once more. It remained the same, still filled with the names of seeded participants; only his and Fabros’ names were the difference.
Cedric then thought to himself that the audience must be really bored too because everything was too predictable. Even his own performance must be boring too. After all, nobody was coming to fight him.
He then remembers that, as this was the grandest event in the entire chaos realm right now, it mustn’t be boring. Paul and Lisa must be working so hard to keep the audience engaged due to the boringness and predictability of this stage.
The idea he had in mind could potentially change all of that. The risk is that he’d be offending so many parties if he did so.
"Bah! Who cares!? This event should be fun!" Cedric chuckled to himself.
And so, with that in mind, Cedric made his move.
He stood up and summoned his sword case. He then hit it with a firm slap, and it began vomiting gross amounts of flying swords.
No, literally, Cedric summoned so many swords that they started blotting out the skies. The commotion was so big that even the ones staying at the edge of the safe zone could see the horde of flying swords droning across the horizon.
Then, with a somewhat insane laugh, Cedric said:
"Let there be more chaos!"
That was the signal that caused the flying swords to scatter all over the safe zone.
They all tore through skies and the air, leaving sharp aftertrails on their path. The remaining participants were shocked by this sudden development and were completely caught off guard.
However, that was just the beginning of the chaos.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The flying swords seemed to have minds of their own. They behaved erratically; some just flew, others attacked the participants. Although the flying swords weren’t too strong, they were strong enough to be a nuisance to the participants.
"Damn! My crown! Give it back!"
"Fuck whoever’s doing this! Give me back my crown!"
"My crown! Shit, how are these swords so fast!?"
"Where did my crown go?"
"Wait, no! Give it back!"
This...this was the chaos he wanted...
Not long after the flying swords took flight, the progress of those in the leaderboards halted except for Cedric’s. The reason being is that the flying swords snatched their crowns.
Of course, it didn’t end there.
"Holy shit, is that a crown? Gimme!"
"Finders keepers, bitch!"
"Mine! This crown is mine!"
"Yes! I got one! Time to hide."
"Well, hello there, flying swords! Oh, what’s that? Wait, is that a crown!? For me!? My, how very kind of you! Thanks!"
All of a sudden, the names of who got the crowns started appearing in the leaderboards. All of them were ordinary life evolvers who had been trying to snatch these crowns from their previous wearers only to fail miserably.
Obviously, they too were caught off guard by this sudden change, but they adapted quickly and did their best to secure the crowns they managed to receive from the flying swords.
All of these changes happened very fast. Now, the previous owners of the crowns were forced to move and retrieve their crowns, while the new holders are trying their best to stay hidden so that the crowns can’t be stolen from them.
Of course, this was on top of all the flying swords that seemed to have their own independent minds and temperaments to make the situation even more chaotic than before.
Seeing all of this happen brought a huge smile to Cedric’s face. With how chaotic things have become, all thanks to him, his boredom was cured. He’s having fun watching as the seeded participants angrily cursed and attacked his flying swords all while searching for their lost crowns.
And it seems that it wasn’t just him who was enjoying this because shortly after, he received a message from the organizers that only he could see, saying:
[Thank you for the plot twist! ]
Cedric laughed very loudly at this message.