Lord of Prayer - Chapter 332 - 223: Avengers Alliance

「Day ten of the competition, 11:59 PM.」

Night shrouded the vast, white glacial field. The world was desolate and silent, without a single sound to be heard.

But the very instant the clock struck midnight, a piercingly cold wind howled in from the ends of the earth, plunging the world into darkness and stripping the white snow from the majestic, sprawling mountain ranges.

A colossal roar, like muffled thunder, boomed through the night. The cruel ice and snow transformed into a titanic avalanche, a churning, sweeping tide like a ghastly white tsunami. In just half a minute, it had completely buried the plains at the foot of the mountains.

The wind raged, the driving snow was like knives, and the blizzard that blotted out the sky seemed poised to devour the entire World.

The blizzard had arrived.

·

“BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!”

The piercing alarm jolted Zhou Chen and the others from their Meditation.

“It’s an alert from the drones!”

Chengzi hurried to the table, her expression grave as she looked at the competition map spread out upon it. The small, glowing red dots represented the drones scattered throughout the Restricted Area.

Over the past few days, they had launched many simple drone probes. Those drones had only one function: to perform real-time environmental monitoring of the Restricted Area.

Now, the drones on the map’s periphery were losing signal one after another. Their markers dimmed, but not before they transmitted one final piece of information.

—Arctic Hurricane Warning.

A terrifying blizzard of immense scale was approaching!

“The blizzard is coming from the southwest. At this speed, it’ll reach our position in less than two hours. We have to go,” Chengzi said urgently.

Everyone quickly packed their things, preparing to flee the zone.

Outside the cabin, the Defender Seventh Generation Mecha, its body 87% complete, lay on the ground. Its heavy steel shell glinted with a cold light. After four people’s meticulous work, what had started as a steel frame had now become a fully fleshed-out Giant of war.

Zhou Chen walked up to the Defender Mecha and reached out to touch it. After an Essence authentication, the Battle Armor opened up, layer by layer. He jumped in and lay down, and the shell sealed shut behind him, fitting together perfectly.

The moment it activated, the Mecha’s eyes lit up with a blazing light, as if it had been given life.

“How does it feel?” Chengzi’s voice came over the comms.

“Couldn’t be better! It’s like controlling my own body!”

Zhou Chen laughed joyfully, piloting the Mecha to its feet and performing a backflip on the spot.

The heavy Mecha landed with a THUD, shaking the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust and smoke.

“I shall sally forth in Gundam form!” he cheered.

“Uh, that’s not a Gundam at all. It’s just a large suit of Power Armor…” Chengzi stated bluntly.

As she spoke, she put on a small suit of Exoskeleton Armor. Beside her, Ding Yuan and Li Yiliang also suited up—after robbing so many people, they had enough resources to build three suits of Exoskeleton Power Armor after finishing the Defender Seventh Generation Mecha.

The three of them, Chengzi included, boarded their heavily modified gunship. They stored all their useful resources in the cargo hold, started the engine, and ascended in a storm of rotor wash, heading for the distant safe zone.

Zhou Chen piloted the Mecha, following them with long, powerful strides. As for the Batmobile, it had been dismantled long ago, with most of its parts now incorporated into the Defender Mecha.

The small, dark cabin stood alone in the Darkness, soon to be swallowed by the blizzard.

The zone began to shrink.

Countless contestants, driven by the blizzard, headed for the safe zone. As the competition area shrank, the probability of encountering other players steadily increased.

In the three hours after the blizzard appeared, more than forty contestants were tragically eliminated. Fierce battles erupted everywhere, leaving the audience watching on their screens shouting for more.

By dawn, the blizzard’s expansion slowed, and the frequency of battles gradually decreased. Most chose to lie low and continue developing their gear, hoping to hide until the final circle.

The competition map on the System Panel showed that nearly half of the Restricted Area was now covered by the ghastly white snow and wind, a drastic reduction in size.

Under these circumstances, trying to hide and focus on gearing up was actually quite difficult, as many well-prepared contestants had already begun actively hunting for enemies.

Four tanks sped across the snow-covered ground, their treads crushing the drifts. Their radar and life-sign detectors worked ceaselessly, searching the surrounding area for enemies.

“Got one, Senior Brother! Radar’s detected a flying object three kilometers out!” an excited voice exclaimed over the comms channel.

“Good. Let’s shoot it down!” Inside one of the tanks, MilkySnow flashed a confident smile. These four tanks were the ultimate weapons they had painstakingly built over the past ten days, powerful enough to crush ninety percent of the contestants in the competition.

After all, this wilderness survival competition had a harsh environment and exceptionally limited resources. For normal contestants, just surviving was a challenge, let alone crafting equipment and Artifacts. It wasn’t uncommon for people to still be running around with starter gear. Yet here they were with four main battle tanks. As long as they didn’t run into those monster-level players, they could dominate the entire field!

“Target locked. Awaiting fire command.”

“Fire!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Flames erupted from the barrels of the four tanks as shells tore through the air.

「Three kilometers away, in the sky.」

“Zhou Chen, four tanks are approaching, three kilometers ahead. They’ve spotted us.”

Chengzi called out to Zhou Chen. The gunship, which had been modified for superb agility, swiftly dodged the anti-air shells coming from the ground and fired a missile in retaliation.

The missile created a sonic boom and a trail of vapor as it streaked through the air, carving a white arc before slamming squarely into one of the tanks.