Can the sadness that magic cannot take away be offset by love?

"Huh..."

"Scene modeling loading..."

"NPC module loading..."

"Task module loading..."

“Hiss…hiss…hiss…”

"Loading complete."

"Dear contestants, welcome to the Global Youth Mage Exchange Tournament. This is the 5 million person elimination tournament 'Witch's Back Garden'."

"I wish you a happy survival."

As the cold electronic sound fell, Iris opened her eyes simultaneously, and all she could see was a thick gray haze. Looking around, she could not see anything except the dark figures that were as blurry as herself, interspersed in the mist.

When she first saw those densely packed shadows piercing the mist like needles, Iris thought she had seen a ghost. It took her a while to realize that these shadows were probably contestants like herself.

Everyone kept quiet tacitly and observed the activities around them in a small manner. In this dead silence like a dark cloud, the fog in front of most people's sight suddenly dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye.

In the overwhelming fog, the short figure gradually became clearer and clearer. Before everyone could react, the small black shadow seemed to raise its head. In the gray vision, everyone could see two red lights lighting up in the black shadow's eyes.

At this moment, an electronic sound sounded inopportunely above the space ball:

"This round is an elimination tournament with no time limit. The 500,000 people who survive to the end will advance."

Before he finished speaking, in a place where no one could observe, the smile on the black shadow's mouth suddenly widened, and in just a blink of an eye, the black shadow's figure quickly grew larger.

Then, some people discovered that it was not that the black shadow had become bigger, but that it was approaching them quickly.

Like a drop of ink falling into clear water, the stream gathered by the crowd reacted quickly, from calm to boiling in just a moment.

Sensing the eerie and terrifying aura emanating from the black shadow, almost everyone turned around in an instant and ran in the direction away from the black shadow.

The sound of whistling wind rang in their ears. The wind mages flew away without hesitation. The wood mages used plants to carry them. The water mages jumped onto the water and ran forward. Iris froze the road under her feet into ice, and when she turned around, she installed a device to assist gliding on the soles of her shoes, and moved forward at lightning speed like skating.

Many people around her stepped onto the ice without any preparation, and there were continuous curses and sounds of people falling down. Some unlucky people who were close to her had their feet frozen by the ice magic that kept spreading forward on the road, and they fell headfirst onto the ground without any preparation.

As a result, some people's escape speed was slowed down.

Such disregard for the lives of people around is not uncommon here. When a wind mage rides on the wind, he doesn't care how many people will be knocked down by the sudden strong wind. A wood mage will not care how many people's bodies are pierced by the vines that rise from the ground in order to quickly reach the caster... Less than a minute after the game started, dense elimination notices appeared one after another above everyone's field of vision, and the number of survivors shown in the small box in the upper left corner continued to jump at a speed that was difficult to capture with the naked eye.

The lethality of the black shadow is still unknown, but the lethality of its peers is already evident.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"

Sharp and piercing screams startled everyone's suddenly trembling heartbeats, and the survivors display box changed the data at an even crazier speed. Before long, only a series of blurry afterimages remained where the numbers had originally been displayed.

Everyone felt unanimously that the terrifying aura emitted by the black shadow was approaching the crowd at a certain moment. The murderous intent that was almost at their scalps stimulated the vast majority of people, and they fled in all directions at a faster speed.

The judges outside the arena breathed a sigh of relief, as the large-scale stampede they had anticipated was resolved by the black shadow before it happened - anyone who accidentally fell down at some point would be swallowed up by the black shadow chasing them into the scarlet mist the instant they could not even raise their heads, and would then receive an exclusive elimination notice.

Everyone was busy escaping, and few could spare the extra energy to notice the way the black shadow eliminated people - anyone who came into contact with the scarlet mist that appeared around the black shadow would be thrown out of the arena in the pain of having their bones and flesh cut out.

It was the knockout round appetizer – the battle royale.

No one considered resisting the black shadow, because no magician, including Iris, had the confidence to compete with the black shadow in speed.

The strong sense of threat that kept pressing on their ears no matter how fast they ran or how far they ran, and the panic that kept ringing the alarm bells in their minds became a shadow buried in everyone's heart like a thorn in their flesh.

There is only this voice left in everyone's heart——

Run, run quickly!!!

Don't get caught up!!!

will die! ! !

At this time, all the talk about space balls being able to guarantee life safety is thrown out of the window, and only the primitive biological instinct of survival controls all people's thoughts and actions.

Iris didn't dare to stop and look back even once, but just ran forward tirelessly for a long time.

Gradually, buildings resembling primitive human villages came into view. Now, if people who run to this area look down from high above, they seem sparse and scarce.

Iris approached the building intentionally, and when she noticed that the outer surface of the wooden doors would pop up a golden prompt box "This is just an ordinary hut that does not allow witches to enter" the moment people approached, she almost cried for joy.

But she did not enter at the first time. The people who arrived here first had already kept a distance from the black shadow and were not at risk of being eliminated for the time being.

As she ran, she observed the actions of others.

Many people have already noticed the prompt box on the wooden door, but no one has taken the initiative to go in.

Although Iris skated all the way here and seemed not as fast as the other mages who came riding the wind, the wind spell she quietly cast under her feet assisted her ice magic and greatly increased her skating speed.

Seeing that she was about to slip all the way to the end of the village, she glanced around, aimed in the direction of a lucky passerby, raised her hand, and a thick piece of ice slammed the person into the nearest hut. Hearing the strong curse coming from the hut behind her, Iris no longer hesitated, and dodged into a hut, closed the door with her backhand, and then a flame leaped from her palm to illuminate the dim interior environment.

A simple wooden bed on the side, a fairly clean pillow and quilt, a wooden table and chair in front of me, and a wide-open window...

Iris quickly closed the window, eliminated all dangerous factors in the house where she could see all the facilities at a glance, and then moved closer to the wall to listen to the sounds outside.

The rustling footsteps, which were sparse but still loud, gradually died down at some point. But within three minutes, the second group of survivors arrived and the scene became lively again.

There seemed to be many huts, but they were definitely not enough for all the contestants to share. Iris didn't want to test other people's conscience at this time, so she happily threw away her own conscience - she condensed a large block of ice behind the door of her own hut and blocked it tightly.

After the second group entered the village, perhaps because there were still enough huts, there were not many arguments or fighting sounds.

A few minutes later, the third group arrived. This group had a large number of people, and the sound of "dong dong dong" footsteps could be heard from the ground. The organizer's stinginess in modeling finally exposed its shortcomings at this time -

"Damn it, why won't you let me in?"

"Is this house yours?"

Iris replied silently in her heart: Yes.

Later, the main public opinion turned into:

"If you don't open the door, I'll burn down your shabby house!"

"I'll count to three. If you don't open the door, this place will be flooded—"

Iris received this friendly reminder from her neighbor at the door, and hurriedly drew a glittering defensive magic circle outside the house, so that passers-by could see it at a glance -

Three hundred and sixty degrees of protection without blind spots, waterproof, electrical, fireproof and theft-proof, a must-have magic circle for every home!

The hut itself has the function of preventing dark shadows. Who is the magic circle used to prevent? I won’t elaborate on the answer.

This chaos did not end for a long time. Gradually, the goose bumps that Iris had finally calmed down were aroused again. The gloomy and terrifying aura of the black shadow swept in like a plague of locusts. The screams outside the house became louder and louder. From the first scream to the last, it was only a dozen seconds in between. The small village regained its faint melancholy and tranquility.

Iris could only hear light footsteps passing outside the house from time to time, and dark shadows seemed to be wandering aimlessly in the village.

She was not sure whether the house could block the deadly fog surrounding the shadow. When she first sensed the shadow approaching, she retreated away from the wooden door. She only breathed a sigh of relief when she felt that the defensive formation outside the house had not been penetrated by anything strange.

After waiting quietly for a few minutes, the footsteps of the black shadow went out of the village until everyone's hearing could no longer catch the relevant sound.

About half an hour later, Iris heard the sound of a cabin window being gently opened.

Still very quiet.

Someone lost his patience and the sound of opening windows was heard one after another, but still nothing happened.

A few minutes later, someone pushed open the door.

Normal footsteps were heard on the flat ground outside the door, and then the footsteps gradually increased.

This is an elimination tournament, but the main competition system of the exchange tournament is the points promotion system - there are some minor changes every year, but it is generally not bad - the "task module loading" voice upon entry also reminds this, this will not be a simple elimination tournament. In addition to the elimination system, there is a lot of information that the contestants need to explore on their own.

The competition system for this game does not mention points, but it does not mean that there will be no points to be gained in this round - although the promotion requirements do not include points, it is not a bad thing to accumulate points in advance.

The "Task Module" reminds us that since there are tasks, there will always be rewards.

Where do the quests come from? What are the rewards?

As Iris's thoughts were churning, she suddenly heard a violent scream.

She held her breath and listened again.

Just that one sound.

The other footsteps remained the same as before, as if they were still following their own paths - but this was enough to explain everything.