38: Chapter 38 Shrinking Circle

The hail fell for over a dozen hours before finally subsiding, but the sky outside remained an endless, heavy pitch-black that seemed capable of swallowing light.

Zhou An sat before the main console, his hands crossed supporting his chin, staring intently at the perfectly flat, ripple-free scanning line on the radar screen.

"polar night, hail, a sudden attack without any system warning..."

Zhou An quickly reviewed the events of the past few days in his mind.

"Although this system is cruel, it absolutely follows a certain extremely cold 'Principle of Equivalent Exchange.' Just like the previous meteor shower; while dangerous, the meteorites hid incredibly rich treasure chests."

Zhou An's eyes brightened slightly, his pupils flashing with an ambitious light: "This sudden polar night winter combined with the large-scale hail cannot possibly be just a simple purge. In this sky full of darkness, there must be an encounter even more astonishing than the meteor shower treasure chests; it's just that because there is no light, and the radar has been suppressed to varying degrees, everyone has become blind, and no one has been able to discover it."

Rather than flying forward mediocrely like a headless fly following the main force, it is better to take the initiative.

"System, modify the automatic cruising logic."

Zhou An decisively ordered: "Lower the absolute straight-line cruising speed to 65 km/h; as long as we ensure we are five kilometers faster than the 60 km/h black fog behind us, we won't be swallowed. Use all remaining redundant engine power for irregular, wavy, back-and-forth flight up, down, left, and right!"

"Set radar scanning power to maximum! Keep the stealth field on standby!"

Zhou An wanted to maximize his search cross-section while ensuring his survival! He wanted to take a big gamble in this dead-silent night sky!

Over the next three days, [Cloud Top Fortress] was like a ghost bat flying crazily through the air, soaring up and down, darting left and right in the extreme cold and darkness.

Luo Ning and Li Muzi were also made somewhat nervous by Zhou An's extremely aggressive navigation method; the two of them even kept one eye open while sleeping, ready at any time to deal with huge obstacles that might suddenly dart out from the darkness and collide with them.

Until late on the third night.

On the radar screen, there was still a dead-silent scanning ripple, with no abnormal feedback.

However, the physical holographic camera located at the front of the fortress captured a faint, unnatural, dark golden light in the dark abyss far away. That light flickered in the dead-silent darkness like the tempting eye of a demon.

"What is that?"

Zhou An immediately controlled the fortress to move closer toward the direction of the light.

As the distance closed, the light did not become brighter; instead, it twisted and refracted in the darkness, forming an incredibly grand yet illusory and ethereal image.

It was an ancient Roman-style coliseum hanging upside down in the firmament!

Huge stone pillars towered into the clouds, and the mottled stone walls were carved with reliefs of unknown deities fighting beasts.

This building was unbelievably large; even the [Cloud Top Fortress], which was dozens of meters long and weighed hundreds of tons, was as insignificant as a fly resting at the foot of a giant elephant in front of this ruin.

"A mirage?"

Li Muzi pushed up her glasses, looking in shock at this spectacle that defied the laws of physics.

"But... why would a mirage appear here?"

Before they could study it carefully, when the bow of the Cloud Top Fortress just touched that layer of distorted dark golden light, an irresistible, massive suction force instantly erupted. Like a giant whale swallowing water, it forcibly dragged the entire fortress along with the surrounding clouds into that folded space.

A cold system notification sound exploded in the minds of the three.

[Ding! Detected polar night hidden encounter: Ancient Arbiters Coliseum (Cross-region folded space)!]

[Warning: This encounter is a 'multi-region intersection node'! In this place, you have a high probability of encountering top survivors from other numbered regions!]

[Mandatory trial mission triggered: Fight of the Trapped Beasts (Battle Royale mode)!]

[Mission Details]:

Duration: 8 hours.

Rules: After entering the coliseum airspace, all vehicles will be forcibly anchored and cannot leave this space. Within 8 hours, you must use any means necessary to defeat or annihilate other teams.

Victory Condition: After the 8-hour countdown ends, if only your team remains alive in the coliseum, you are victorious and will receive an extremely rich [Cross-region Unique Treasure Chest]! If multiple teams remain, everyone will be erased!

[Current remaining surviving teams in the coliseum: 12!]

"Battle Royale?! Cross-region?!"

Upon hearing these words, Luo Ning was not afraid; instead, her eyes were filled with bloodthirsty light, and she grabbed the submachine gun beside her.

It looked like her SAN value was locked at a low point again.

Li Muzi's face was slightly pale, and she quickly analyzed: "That means, those we can meet here are definitely top-tier lunatics like the boss, who dare to leave the main force and explore everywhere at this stage. And they are top combat forces from various regions!"

"12 teams... only one can survive."

Zhou An watched the blood-red countdown jumping on the panel, his eyes becoming increasingly cold.

"Set radar power to maximum! Luo Ning, keep the autocannon in a preheated state at all times; Muzi, keep your eyes glued to the life detector, report any movement immediately!"

"Understood!"

The two said in unison.

Zhou An gripped the joystick tightly, and the Cloud Top Fortress activated full-power stealth like a ghost, silently creeping toward the central area of the coliseum within the light.

As the fortress went deeper, the shocking scenes inside the coliseum gradually revealed themselves to the three.

The space inside was so large that it completely defied the visual proportions from the outside, as if it were a vast, broken world of its own.

Pieces of broken stone slabs, each with an area exceeding several football fields, floated in the air; bronze giant swords and broken shields dozens of meters long were stuck in the ground, and an extremely desolate, ancient, murderous aura permeated everywhere.

Moreover, just as the "Battle Royale" mode prompted by the system suggested, the resources here were extremely rich.

"Boss, look! On that floating broken pillar over there, there is a golden treasure chest!"

"The radar shows silver treasure chests scattered next to that giant sword on the lower left!"

Under the protection of the stealth field, the first hour of exploration went surprisingly smoothly.

The three of them drove this LV3 stealth fortress, playing a very comfortable "scavenging" game in this perilous coliseum. In just one hour, the scattered high-level materials and treasure chests alone made them reap a huge profit.

"This is too awesome, Boss!"

Luo Ning looked at the resource numbers constantly jumping and increasing in the warehouse, grinning from ear to ear.

"This isn't a Battle Royale, this is simply an exclusive buffet opened by the system for us!"

"Don't let your guard down."

Although Li Muzi also looked happy, she remained vigilant.

"The other eleven teams must also be scavenging frantically, and up until now, we haven't even encountered a single ship from another region; this is too unusual."

Everyone was advancing with caution.

However, the "poison circle shrinking" mechanism of the Battle Royale often descends in an extremely brutal way.

"Boom—rumble!"

Without any warning, the space inside the entire coliseum began to shake violently.

"What's going on? An earthquake? But we are in the sky!"

Luo Ning staggered from the shaking, gripping the edge of the console tightly.

"It's not an earthquake..."

Zhou An suddenly looked up, staring intently through the panoramic porthole at the circle of shadows on the outermost edge of the coliseum, his pupils contracting violently.

He saw that the huge ancient stone statues towering into the clouds, which everyone had originally thought were background scenery, suddenly began to have their outer rock shells peel off in large areas, crashing toward the ground like a waterfall!

Each of those stone statues was two or three thousand meters tall! Their eyes lit up with an extremely blinding scarlet light, and accompanied by the ear-shattering sound of grinding rocks, these giant statues, like ancient titans, slowly pulled out the thousand-meter-long giant swords stuck beside them!

The world turned upside down!

One of the giant statues simply took a step forward, and the terrifying air wave it kicked up was like a force-12 hurricane, directly smashing several huge floating stone slabs nearby into pieces!

Zhou An saw one of the giant statues blindly stepping down in their direction and instinctively launched a counterattack.

"Lock onto the target! [Electromagnetic Railgun Main Cannon], blast its knee for me!"

"Hum—Boom!!!"

A blinding, deep blue electromagnetic beam, carrying destructive kinetic energy sufficient to instantly vaporize an LV2 heavy warship, smashed fiercely into the knee joint of that giant statue!

However, a desperate scene appeared. The violent beam hit the dark gray rock surface of the giant statue, only to explode into an insignificant spark, peeling off a few pieces of rubble the size of a washbasin. For a giant statue two or three thousand meters tall, this didn't even count as "breaking the skin"!

Scraping! Extremely pure scraping!

"Damn it! What the hell kind of monster defense is this?!"

Zhou An's scalp tingled. His main cannon could shatter a meteorite with one shot! Hitting this thing didn't even leave a dent!

"Stop shooting! Run! Stealth is useless against this kind of indiscriminate AOE stomping!"

Zhou An pushed the throttle to the limit, narrowly brushing past the gap of that giant foot, which was like Mount Tai pressing down on them.

Just then, the extremely cold system notification sound rang out again:

[Notification: 91 District survivor team has been crushed by the 'Ancient Arbiters'! Team annihilated!]

[Current remaining surviving teams in the coliseum: 11!]

Zhou An listened to the notification while controlling the fortress to move frantically to avoid the giant statues' indiscriminate sweeping, gritting his teeth and complaining: "Damn, the most terrifying thing about this Battle Royale is not the teams from other regions, but these outrageous scene mechanisms!"

He glanced at the thousand-meter-tall giant statues behind him, which were still frantically destroying the environment, and a layer of cold sweat had already seeped out on his back.

"If we don't run fast enough, the crushed 91 District team will be our fate!"