Chương 812

Unlike myself and Ava, the debuff commands sent out seem to have affected Ren's avatar, making it extremely easy to hold them in place. At such close range, surrounded by over a dozen 1st Class Premium Avatars, the natural intimidation and pressure of ether commands, dense divine threads, and mana control should be suffocating. Yet, my eyes still shift toward the guard that initially caught my interest. He holds a double-sided sharpened axe to the left side of my neck.

"We didn't look so strong, did we? Even after seeing our stats and track record in the wilderness." Its gaze tightens at my words, and the sharp tip of the axe thrusts forward to make contact with my neck as he replies.

"Just because you can catch a few of us off guard doesn't mean you're of any real threat to admins..." Four injured demonic servants all begin to heal, spreading white ether into their avatar cracks, and even the arm of the first servant I blew off starts to restructure itself and slowly grow back. They all stand to their feet and split up to join the two other groups surrounding Ava and Ren. The fifth guard that was struck by Ren's invisible arrow, on the other hand, is still fidgeting on the ground.

Strange white bursts of light are coming off it, and my curiosity to see what exactly happened is overwhelming. This Lord clearly hit some kind of weak point and injected a small amount of ether into the guard, disrupting the natural command flow. While I could very easily replicate such a thing, I certainly can't using the normal command prompts. Whatever attack Ren threw used real ether control. Though, my mind quickly turns back to the conversation at hand, and I respond to the Admin that has an axe to my neck.

"Well... if we could catch you off guard as 5th Class Lords, don't you think we could fool those watching the arena events?" A gleam shows in my eyes as I smile, hoping he understands what I'm saying, as he's the guard that said out loud earlier it was a shame they couldn't bet on us as underdogs and make some profit.

Though, a pressure grows on my neck as he thrusts his axe forward, forcing me to take a step back and have the other side of my neck touch a longsword and a curved dagger from two other admins behind me. This won't be as simple as I thought.

"You already made your decision not to work out a deal when you attacked us," he states in a stern tone. None of the other Demonic Servants seem to have any changes on their faces. Yet, something no one here knows is that I have extremely intricate knowledge of Demonic Servant Avatars. So intricate, in fact, that over eight thousand of them serve me back in the Ellipsia Citadel, and I know that many of them are programmed to follow strict orders against their will despite being fully conscious within these frames.

While they all have the outward appearance of bright green demons, there could be any 1st Class Lord inside these shells.

"Last chance. Let us compete, and we both walk free. It's a win-win, right?" Now that we're making contact, my senses are quite heightened, and I can actually feel the real Lord beneath this Avatar Shell hesitate, wanting to make a deal with me. But an intense rush of ether commands force him to say something else.

"Only cooperative Lords will be designated to participate in the Arena. One Crown Cycle at minimum is a requirement to walk past the Great Wall. None of you could even make it into the Inner City in the first place." I let out a sigh and then send a dense wave of ether and unsuppressed mana control into this Lord's body. The ether commands pulse outward, infecting every command on the surface of this avatar, specifically the automated commands suppressing its free will.

The mana control rushes into its consciousness, and an echoing message of telepathy tells it a specific set of instructions to follow in the next few seconds if it wants to live. The servant's eyes widen as I explode with a burst of light magic that expands throughout the entire artificial black zone we're in. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

To all of the surveillance systems, it seems like I've just stacked hundreds of light magic-enhanced ether commands outward, shocking the system momentarily. In such a controlled environment, it's actually far easier to pull this off than trying this stunt out in the open.

I replicate the technique Ren used to deactivate all of the other aggressive servants around me with a single finger's touch, then move forward to start attacking some of the other guards holding Ava and Ren at death's edge with their soul weapons. Once the flash of light magic and ether commands fades and everyone can see within the dome again, over half of the servants are deactivated and unconscious, while the other half now have their soul weapons digging deep into the backs of all three of us.

[Admin Override Activated!] [New Title: Chained!] [Avatar Debuff: All Stats and Command Strength Decrease by 99%.] Another debuff notification rings in my inner ear, limiting our added stats and command strength even further because I was still able to cheat it with a perceived 1% of my power left. Now, if I was truly relying on this avatar, it would be at 0. 01% effectiveness, most likely making it impossible to move or activate any magic.

Simultaneously, however, I've gained a brand-new link of loyalty and a single new 1st Class World, coming from a Berserker Giant Race in a star sector of this galaxy I've never seen before. The Admin that has my neck pinned down with his axe sends me a wave of telepathy through our spectate feature.

"If that's what you truly desire, I can make it happen. Anything to repay what you have just done for me...." I grin, face down in the black sand, as this freed Demonic Servant speaks up and turns his head back and forth at the remaining guards.

"Allow me to bring them to the nearest safe zone. Even though they've made fools of us, the three of them are high-quality candidates for the arena." One of the Servants that fought with Ava earlier presses the broken Soul Sword she shattered against her back, then turns.

"You're right. They are stronger than many Premium Quest Beasts." Another voice comes from a dagger wielder holding Ren down.

"We'll never break the Citadel Lord's Curse with brute force alone... If they can catch us off guard, maybe they could take out a demo—" Before this Admin can finish his sentence, an override command triggers, making his eyes turn blank, showing very similar signs to what I witnessed happen twice before in the first safe zone I visited—every time a topic that shouldn't be shared was brought up. The other Servant holding down Ren shivers at the sight and looks back toward me.

"Restrain them and pay for an express cycle. The events start in less than three days." The axe wielder nods and reaches into his ether storage, and I watch two other servants do the same. Three pairs of extremely thick black bricks with wrist-sized holes in them come out. I can feel the ether commands on them are strong and would most likely constrain any of the Warlords back in Ellipsia in their non-ranked-up forms.

Whatever these Soul Artifacts are, they are certainly for out-of-control rampaging beasts, yet I'm not too worried. I feel two servants grab my wrists, and by the time the cold black stones lock my hands in place, I've already figured out how they work and how to break out if need be. The remaining 0. 01% of strength left in my fake avatar feels like it's been sealed completely. I don't think a normal Lord would even be able to move their bodies at all with these commands restricting them.

Ava lets herself be cuffed with a nonchalant expression as well, but Ren puts up a fight, flailing about before I turn my head in the sand her way and send a [Whisper] their way. – Less than a full minute later, the Artificial Black Zone is taken down, and the three of us are taken into custody by the Demonic Servant that is on our side.

Some of the deactivated servants from earlier that I knocked out are waking up, and some jump right into battle instinctively, but the ones that witnessed everything calm them down and explain.

"Well—It was no mammoth, but I guess we can still make some profit betting on them once they enter."

"I'm just happy my biomes won't be messed with anymore. All of the strongest beasts were massacred in half my territories."

"Yeah, I forget how smart humans can be sometimes. That guy sure has a mouth on him to get himself out of that one."

"Is it really that surprising? You know how 27440 is. It doesn't take much to convince him to take a gamble." The recovering servants talk to themselves nearby like we're not even here, and I grin inwardly, confirming that I read their prior conversations correctly. A few of the Servants send out large pulses of ether in seemingly random directions. Some of them fly straight upward toward the top of the dome, while others fly out into the wilderness to check on other biomes.

Despite being almost killed, they all seem to be going on with their day like nothing happened. There's only one other servant left besides the one I turned—it's the one that spoke first when we were first confronted.

"Well, 27440, I'll take your word for what happened during the flash. Even the array's surveillance couldn't register anything." He looks my way, then back at the Admin.

"I'll submit a formal report. Once they've completed their crown cycles and make it past the wall, send over their entry numbers. I'm sure every Admin here wants a chance to bet."

"Of course." The Admin nods, and the final enemy flies away, leaving the three of us in handcuffs in the middle of a desolate black sand desert. A few small white pulses of light hit us, and the full-body restrictions slightly loosen, giving us enough mobility to start walking in the direction of the Great Wall. I get close enough to Ren to create a mental link, and both the Demonic Servant and Ava are already present in my mind.

"So, tell us about this Arena event... and... how a 1st Class Berserker Giant like yourself possibly got yourself trapped in a position like this...?"