In the third round, Gaoxin entered the Voting Room. The moment he glanced at the contents of the Duel Invitation, he laughed.
"I'm Sophia. If you want to stay alive, incite defection against me."
Are they trying to become the White Faction and start killing as soon as possible?
Below that were four options.
All four were circles! Exactly identical circles!
They had equal areas, equal circumferences, and no words on them.
At first glance, it looked as if four identical circles had been sent over.
But after observing them carefully, Gaoxin could still make out the differences between the four.
The difference lay in the colors of the circle borders!
The first circle had a pure black outline. The second had a brown outline. The third had a dark-red outline. The fourth had a blue-black outline.
"Playing tricks like this is really underhanded."
Gaoxin sighed inwardly. His opponent had designed things well from the very first question.
The difficulty was already so high, and they had even cut out the Glass Person's tongue to prevent them from leaking the questions.
It was practically an all-out offensive.
Fortunately, he had mentioned dividing things according to yin and yang at the end.
Otherwise, relying only on what was bigger and stronger, counting the number of vertices, or looking at their orientation, would make them completely impossible to distinguish.
"Choose the third one."
Gaoxin casually made his selection. Among the four options, dark red was the closest to "bright," after all, since it contained a hint of red.
"The voting results are inconsistent. Select a gladiator within three minutes. The gladiator may only be a Glass Person."
Seeing that the vote had failed again, Gaoxin pursed his lips helplessly.
There was no need to incite defection yet. He would go out and regroup with everyone first.
As soon as he went out, he saw Sule rushing out. "Damn, how are they all the same?!"
"..." Gaoxin scratched his head.
Meimei said, "They aren't the same. Look at the colors."
Sule stared blankly. "The colors?"
"I couldn't see any difference in the colors..."
Dongfang Yi scrutinized him. "Are you color-blind? Eat more goji berries and cassia seeds when you get back."
At that moment, Xing Shiping and the others also came out, and everyone began announcing their choices.
Sule had not seen the colors and had chosen randomly, so no one knew whether he was right.
But in Xing Shiping's team, two others had also gotten it wrong. Although they had seen that the key lay in the colors, they had chosen brown.
"How could you choose brown? Obviously, it should be dark red," Dongfang Yi said, puzzled.
The two men were stunned. "Dark red? They're all pretty dark. Shouldn't we choose brown?"
Gaoxin smiled and consoled them. "You were supposed to choose yang... It's fine. We were planning to sell blood anyway..."
"Speaking of which, back then, I spent a long time figuring out how most people distinguish between yin and yang, and between hard and soft things."
"Practice more from now on."
As he spoke, he had Dongfang Yi give everyone more practice questions, constantly predicting questions of all different types.
At the same time, he had the other side turn Han Qing back into a Black Player!
They also successfully incited defection from one of Luis's brothers on the opposing side.
Clearly, this was the calm before the storm.
The Viking Gang planned to make their move in the fourth round.
Just as everyone thought that everything was proceeding as usual,
Xing Shiping suddenly shouted, "Um... Sophia gave me another mission!"
Hearing this, Gaoxin was not alarmed but delighted. "Did that woman tell you to make a move and choose me as the gladiator?"
Xing Shiping and the others nodded. "Yes, yes! She told me to eliminate you and have my brothers and me suddenly vote for you, forcing you to fight."
Dongfang Yi said coldly, "That woman knows the Viking Gang will make trouble in the fourth round, so she wants to strike at us first."
"She wants Xing Shiping to turn against us directly. By using this round to eliminate Gaoxin, she can also throw our White Faction into internal chaos and create an open confrontation."
"That way, she can deal with the Viking Gang without worry."
Xing Shiping said solemnly, "Of course I won't hurt Gaoxin. Hmph, I'll just say we don't have enough votes, so our five votes tie with your five."
Gaoxin and Dongfang Yi spoke at the same time. "No!"
The two exchanged a glance, and Gaoxin said, "I'm going! I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time."
During the third-round gladiatorial phase, the Black Faction's gladiator was a Black Vest Man, one of Sophia's subordinates.
He stepped out of the Black Base and walked coldly into the arena.
He was 1.8 meters tall and not especially muscular.
Holding a dagger in his hand, he merely stood there, yet his entire body radiated a murderous aura.
He waited, not knowing whether the person his young lady had arranged would appear.
Most likely, the person would appear. After all, the White Faction had never chosen a gladiator. Every time, they had abandoned the vote with zero votes. In theory, all it would take was for the defectors to suddenly put several votes on Gaoxin.
Unless Gaoxin's group discovered this and immediately voted for someone else as a group, they would definitely succeed.
Time passed, one second after another.
The Black Vest Man waited for more than two minutes.
Yet the White Base's gate remained tightly shut.
"Hmm? Did it fail?" the Black Vest Man muttered. That meant the mole had been discovered, or that he had been a double agent from the start.
Just as he thought no one would come out, suddenly—
The gate of the White Base opened.
Gaoxin slowly walked out, holding a handgun.
The moment he left the base, it seemed as though he did not dare to take another step forward. He simply raised his gun and aimed at the Black Vest Man from more than thirty meters away.
Gaoxin had entered the fight!
This was the first time since the game began that both sides had sent someone into the Gladiator Arena.
"Hey! Want to talk?" Gaoxin shouted.
Sophia also witnessed the scene from in front of the Black Base's floor-to-ceiling window. Shaking her Twin Tails, she shouted, "Kill him!"
"Whoosh!"
The Black Vest Man dashed forward without the slightest hesitation.
When gladiators met, they fought. It was a battle to the death. What was there to discuss?
"Bang, bang, bang!"
Seeing this, Gaoxin fired decisively as well, and the battle between both sides erupted at once!
"Die!" The Black Vest Man was extremely agile.
He ran while crouched low, moving along an erratic route, darting left and right. Several bullets only grazed past him.
They struck the ground or the small stone pillars around them.
There were all kinds of debris and metal barricades in the Gladiator Arena.
Using them, along with his nimble movements, he continued closing in.
"Bang, bang, bang!" Gaoxin fired several shots, yet not a single one hit!
Only when the Black Vest Man had advanced to around ten meters away did Gaoxin finally land a shot.
But the Black Vest Man merely snorted coldly. He took the bullet head-on without even losing his breath.
He even used the muscles in his chest to force the bullet back out!
Instead, he accelerated, shielding his face with the dagger as he charged straight at Gaoxin.
"Damn, you're really not afraid of bullets?"
Gaoxin roared and rapidly emptied his remaining ammunition, but most of the bullets were blocked by the Black Vest Man's dagger.
Only two struck the Black Vest Man's arm, while another hit his neck, drawing blood.
But that was all. With a small bloody hole in his neck, the Black Vest Man still charged right up to Gaoxin.
Gaoxin gave a bitter smile, rolled backward, and vaulted directly over the gate, taking refuge inside the White Base!
Seeing Gaoxin actually retreat, the Black Vest Man froze. A look of astonishment crossed his cold face.
"Can you return to your base before the fight is over?"
He had already rushed to the entrance of the White Base, and his pace slowed.
If a gladiator could hide inside their base, wouldn't locking the door trap the game's progress?
But seeing that Gaoxin was perfectly fine inside, he remembered that the rules indeed seemed not to say that gladiators could not return to their bases during battle.
So a gladiator could run into the other side's base during a fight to the death? As long as the other side had not closed the door.
This was the first time anyone had fought, so no one had really thought carefully about this before.
"Clatter." Gaoxin pressed the activation button, and the gate quickly closed.
Seeing this, the Black Vest Man stopped thinking and slipped inside.
"Heh."
The Black Vest Man let out a cold laugh as he charged into the White Base.
It was fine!
Now that he had killed his way in, it was like a wolf entering a flock of sheep. Everyone in the White Base had to die.
"There's no one on the first floor... Are they all hiding on the second floor?"
He quickly swept his eyes across the hall and realized that the others were all on the second floor. But it did not matter. The door to the Voting Room could be opened from outside; it was only locked during the Duel Invitation vote.
"Whoosh!" Seeing Gaoxin fleeing up the stairs, he threw a dagger straight at him.
It was too fast. Gaoxin only had time to step onto the wall and move sideways, but the dagger still struck him in the back of the shoulder!
Splurt! The dagger pierced straight through his shoulder, bursting out a spray of blood.
The Black Vest Man was just about to go up and finish Gaoxin off when he suddenly heard a pop.
Above the round table in the center of the White Base, the projected health bar suddenly dropped from 4 to 3!
Huh? The base had lost health?
Gaoxin had been stabbed through the shoulder. Had he died?
The Black Vest Man froze, utterly confused. Gaoxin was clearly not dead.
Then an utterly terrifying voice rang out. "The Eliminate Traitor Vote has ended."
"What?"
The Black Vest Man could no longer maintain his cold expression. His features twisted on the spot.
How was this possible? He was still in a battle to the death. How could he have been voted to death?
Eliminate a traitor? How could they eliminate a traitor? The traitor could only be eliminated after one side lost!
That was it. The health had decreased, meaning the White Faction had already been declared defeated, so the White Faction could eliminate a traitor.
But why? Wasn't this a battle to the death?
Both sides were supposed to fight until one side died. Gaoxin was not dead yet, so how had they been declared defeated?
Countless questions surged into his mind.
But the Black Vest Man no longer had time to do or say anything.
A beam of light descended, and he turned to ash on the spot.
P.S. Sorry.
Before you continue