The words made his skin crawl, but he used them anyway. If those things wanted a show, then fine. He would steal whatever advantage he could from their attention.
Michael let out a sharp breath and then laughed once like a man close to breaking.
"We are really performing for our lives now," he said.
"Shut up and move," Blake replied.
Michael grinned with pure strain on his face. "There he is."
The next two minutes blurred together in a mess of numbers, screams and collapsing bodies.
Many had already reached the minimum hundred points, but that meant nothing if their rank kept falling.
Others never reached the threshold at all. Blake saw people crying as they exercised harder and harder only for the screen to keep showing them that they were too late.
--
Rank: 188,441,770
Rank: 161,220,433
Rank: 149,000,718
--
It was still not enough and he pushed forward as much as he could.
His throat had become dry enough to hurt and the inside of his orange suit was soaked with sweat. Every breath rubbed against his chest like sandpaper.
Then Michael growled from the side and jerked his chin toward Blake's left. "Space. Move into it."
Blake looked and understood right away.
Three people had collapsed near one another, either from pain or because they had given up, and that had opened a small patch where elbows and knees would not hit them every second.
Blake shifted there while still moving and felt immediate relief.
"Good," he muttered.
"I know," Michael replied without humility.
That tiny space helped. It gave Blake room to fully lift his knees and find the rhythm Priest-Observer Thaariq had pointed out before.
--
Rank: 118,884,501
--
Blake's eyes widened.
'Close'
So close that he could almost feel the line under his fingers.
But that was the cruel part. A line like that made people desperate.
The broad shouldered man who had once been above two hundred suddenly rushed toward another contestant, maybe because his own pace had broken, maybe because madness had finally won.
He slammed into a girl who was doing planks and both of them crashed sideways. Others swore and moved away while keeping their own motions going.
One man kicked another just to steal ground. A woman shrieked when someone grabbed her ankle during a squat.
The whole plain had become a field of animals tied to invisible butcher ropes.
[Last 60 seconds.]
[Please end the first performance well.]
Blake's heartbeat became a hammer in his ears.
He no longer cared about pain. He no longer cared how ugly he looked. He moved.
--
Rank: 102,337,004
--
"No..." Blake whispered.
He was almost there and that made it worse.
Michael looked at his rank and then swore so hard that spit flew from his mouth. He was safe already.
--
Rank: 94,882,113
--
But the moment he saw Blake's face, he did not celebrate. Instead he shouted right into Blake's ear.
"Higher knees! Stop letting the heel drop too hard!"
Blake adjusted on instinct.
--
[Priest-Observer Thaariq: Correct.]
--
Rank: 99,441,006
--
Safe.
For one second Blake almost sagged with relief, but then the line under his rank flashed yellow.
[Hold position.]
Right.
He had to stay there.
The last seconds became torture. People were still rising, still falling, still stealing space from one another while the rank numbers flickered wildly like mad things.
97,884,201
101,220,771
98,770,110
100,441,901
Blake almost lost his mind staring at the changing digits. He kept moving harder and harder until his vision started shaking.
Then the horn rang.
Everything stopped.
For one impossible second the whole plain seemed to forget what to do now that motion was not demanded anymore.
And then death arrived.
The people who had failed did not even get to scream properly.
Blue light flashed around them and in the next moment bodies started dropping across the plain in numbers Blake's mind refused to count.
Some simply crumpled like strings had been cut. Some burst at the neck with a sound that made his ears ring. Some reached toward the sky as if begging after the fact could still change anything.
The woman Alena survived.
The broad shouldered man survived.
The skinny boy with the penalty did not.
Michael bent over with both hands on his thighs and breathed like an animal.
Blake himself almost fell, but he somehow stayed standing while staring at the bodies that were now scattered in every direction.
The silence lasted only a heartbeat before the screaming began from those who had survived.
Some screamed because they were alive.
Some screamed because the people beside them were dead.
Some screamed because they had just understood that the game would keep going.
Blake looked at his screen with shaking eyes.
--
Score: 166
Final Rank: 98,771,402
Status: Passed
--
The moment he read that, another box opened.
[Mission #1 complete.]
[Reward distribution in progress.]
Above the survivors, small cubes wrapped in blue light started appearing and dropping one after another. Some were black, some silver, and a few near the far distance looked gold.
One black cube dropped in front of Blake and another dropped in front of Michael.
Michael stared at his own box and then at the corpses around them. "They are really giving prizes now..." he muttered, and this time even he sounded sick.
Blake crouched and touched the cube. It was cold, too smooth, and the moment his fingers pressed on it, the lid unfolded by itself.
Inside was a thin metallic strip and a clear pouch half filled with blue liquid.
[Reward: Minor Stamina Patch]
[Reward: Low-grade Recovery Gel]
Blake's pupils shrank. So the gifts were real in every sense.
Michael opened his too and barked out a rough laugh. "Recovery gel and a grip wrap. Great. We survived hell and got medicine."
"Use it," Blake said at once.
Michael looked at him and then snorted. "Already planning ahead?"
"You think there is a break coming?"
That shut him up.
The next slaughter was rising.