Martial Online.

Chapter 396 Unexpected Alliance

In the skies above Amaterasu, an enormous message that was invisible to NPCs appeared out of nowhere.

It was the countdown to the update.

On the bottom floor of Whispering Pages, Bella stared out of the window at the enormous message.

'Last time the update came, I thought I had died.' Bella remembered that time.

As she was simply working on a new collection of books, everything suddenly turned dark, and she hovered for hours in some strange expanse of space, only darkness accompanying her.

She had no knowledge of the update and, therefore, thought she had died. However, luckily for her, once the servers finished updating, she returned to the same spot in Whispering Pages where she had previously disappeared.

This time, they announced the update in-game, and she could prepare for it. However, she was still worried about whether it was going to be harmful to her.

However, deep inside, even though she didn't want to admit it, she believed that her father wouldn't let her die.

'Jesse sent a message that it will take longer before he returns.' She sighed and leaned against the window with an absent-minded look.

…

At the random corner of the street, several players talked excitedly about the update and the tournament. They all felt like Christmas had come early.

It was still a little bit over a week until Christmas, but the update came two days earlier, making some more excited about that than Christmas itself!

"What do you think the update will consist of?" A straight-nosed player asked his friends. He was almost shaking in his boots as he thought about all the possibilities.

His friends pondered it deeply.

"It's hard to top the previous update." One of his friends said with his arms crossed. "Last time, we got Reality Market, which literally changed the world."

"The hype for this update is off the charts." Another friend of his said: "I don't think they will disappoint."

"For sure, there'll be more content."

"Mm…" The straight-nosed player scratched the side of his nose bridge. "Hard to say, but I think they'll add something no one would expect."

…

"Hahahah!"

Players wearing the same brown ponchos were surrounding Blackfist, who had his back to a wall.

The members of the New Player Alliance found him lacking and ambushed him.

"Why are you laughing?" One of them asked with an eerie grin. "You are dying, and you'll have to run back to your master with a tail between your legs."

"I ain't dying." Blackfist licked the blood off his lips. "Maybe I can finally sweat a little."

With the baseball bat in hand, he lunged at the surrounding players and swung it at them.

The shieldmen from the alliance stepped forth and tanked the powerful blow with their shields. They had to take a step backwards; otherwise, they might've fallen over.

"Raah!" Blackfist clenched his black gloved hand and punched into the shield, leaving behind a deep dent.

The shield-wielding man, who blocked the fist with his shield, tumbled over and fell down on his buttocks. It was a shockingly powerful punch.

"A chance!" Blackfist grinned and lifted his baseball bat above his head, then brought it down and smashed the shieldman's skull.

There were still two shieldmen left, but seeing their friend die like that made them frightened.

Using that to his advantage, Blackfist leaped over the shields and smashed the baseball bat across their skulls. They were sent flying to nearby walls, and they died by impact.

"Guh!" The rest of the players in the alliance grimaced.

"Whoo…" Blackfist put the baseball bat in front of him and whispered. "Lion Overlord!"

The baseball bat slowly started to transform. Its aluminum surface started to melt off, and the head of the bat turned into the head of a metallic lion.

The lion looked menacing, with prominent fangs and rageful-looking eyes.

The players around him flinched and took a step backwards out of instinct.

"Eat, my beautiful beast!" Blackfist laughed madly, and then the lion's metallic mouth opened wide, and he then swung the baseball bat towards the player.

As the bat approached them, the lion's head lunged at them and took a bite off their heads. It was a scary sight, as most players lost half of their faces, while some lost their entire heads.

Not a single player survived that attack.

The baseball bat, after it finished feasting on the players, returned to normal, and the lion head got sucked back inside the aluminum bat.

"Having fun?" At that moment, a voice came from the top of a nearby roof.

"Yeah." Blackfist chuckled and looked up at the roof. The sunlight slightly blocked his sight, but he managed to see who it was and recognized the voice.

Motorhero looked at him and hopped off the roof.

After landing beside the dead players, he said, "The registrations for the tournament had already begun. Register to my team when you have time."

"You want me to be your partner for it?" Blackfist's eyes shimmered in excitement.

"Who else?" Motorhero smirked. "You are powerful, after all."

"I won't disappoint you!" Blackfist saluted and grinned wide.

Motorhero looked at him and amusingly smiled.

Blackfist was actually a very new member of Roaring Engines and was at the bottom of the hierarchy. However, that was in the real world.

Inside Martial Online, Motorhero deemed him his second-in-command, as he was really powerful in the game.

"Before the tournament, I do wish to level up." Motorhero squinted his eyes and looked at the corpses of the players, their blood staining the pavement below them.

"Have you received any word from the leader of the alliance?" Blackfist asked. "Has he accepted the invitation to single combat?"

"No, he hasn't." Motorhero said and scoffed. "What else can we expect from these losers? Weak people will also have a weak mentality. I didn't expect anything else from a person who leads over these weaklings."

"Well, they are below us." Blackfist slammed the baseball bat against his open hand. "We will win the tournament, and Roaring Engines will be known by all."

"The storm is coming." Motorhero sighed and looked at the enormous message in the sky. "Maybe this is it."

…

Creak!

A door opened to a shady-looking room with all the windows boarded up.

At that moment, the handsome Prince stepped inside the room and looked around, but he couldn't see anything.

"Thank you for coming." An enormous, broad-shouldered man stood up from a half-broken chair and looked at the handsome man with a grin.

"What do you want?" Prince narrowed his eyes. "Barbarian."

Barbarian showed himself from the darkness, and he had a long scar now running over one of his eyes. It looked like he had been severely injured.

Since the avatar was a copy of the real body and it wasn't possible to get scars in-game, it meant that Barbarian had gotten that scar in the real world.

"You know what I want." Barbarian chuckled. "Shall we join hands, Prince?"

"I would never have expected you to suggest that." Prince scoffed. "Aren't we rivals?"

"Of course." Barbarian laughed and scratched his chin. "However, I don't know a stronger person than you. That, I'll acknowledge, as you are my greatest rival."

"Fine." Prince opened his interface, opened a new registration window, and registered his team. Then he sent an invitation to Barbarian.

Barbarian glanced at it briefly and accepted the invitation with a grin.

"Do not hold me back, Prince." Barbarian's eyes shimmed with excitement. "I hope you haven't gotten soft."

"Same to you." Prince turned to leave and soon departed from the shady-looking apartment.

On this very day, a very unexpected alliance was formed in Amaterasu.

It was known that Barbarian and Prince had heated rivalry and that they hated each other. No one would've thought that they would team up, but it meant that both knew that winning the tournament was impossible.

Therefore, they both ended up teaming up with the strongest people they knew to have a chance in the very competitive tournament.

In Barbarian's opinion, Prince was the strongest person he knew, and the same was with Prince, who thought of Barbarian as mindless brute, but he was inhumanly strong, and he had to acknowledge that.