Rebirth: The Universe's Hidden Heiress-Chapter 84: Who’s Number One? (1)

Since the underground arena was a holographic virtual competition, the connection pain for the players was set very low, at only thirty percent.

However, this did little to prevent the fear brought on by the sensation of weightlessness during a fall. The feeling of not being able to grab onto anything and the uncertainty of when one might be smashed to pieces was truly dreadful.

Noticing the slight tremble of Yuka’s pink mecha, Rabies became even more thrilled, laughing loudly in his cockpit.

Yuka’s arms were firmly restrained by Rabies, leaving her unable to exert any strength.

She could only forcefully turn over, positioning the black mecha downwards to shield herself from any protruding rocks during the fall, thus minimizing the damage.

Rabies, not to be outdone, forcefully pressed down on Yuka’s mecha to turn over on top of her. In a matter of seconds, the two had flipped over countless times.

The snow rolling down from the mountain formed a wave-like, overwhelming blanket, rapidly approaching them.

Yuka, not wanting to continue the stalemate with the black mecha, fiercely kicked out in mid-air.

Rabies, thinking that "Lady" was trying to kick him away, immediately blocked the attack with his mechanical leg.

The next second, everything blurred before Rabies’ eyes.

Bang!

Yuka took advantage of the Rabies’s distraction in blocking her mechanical leg, and delivered a fierce headbutt, causing varying degrees of damage to both mechas’ heads. But Rabies, caught off guard by Yuka’s sudden move, felt dizzy for a moment, and his grip involuntarily loosened.

Yuka quickly kicked again, creating distance between her and the opponent. She switched her mechanical arm, preparing to throw out a grappling hook to grab onto a rock above and stabilize her body.

However, in the next second, Yuka and the black mecha collided with a large rock. freēwēbnovel.com

Yuka heard the sound of her mecha’s back shattering and felt a numbing shock to her back. Just as she was managing to prop up the upper part of her mecha, an unstoppable torrent of snow from the mountain enveloped her and the black mecha.

Watching "Lady" struggle in the snow but eventually failing to escape being buried, Alfie laughed loudly, "I thought ’Lady’ was something special. Is that all? Just that?"

He didn’t care about Rabies’ well-being at all. Like Rabies, he enjoyed watching talented people being helplessly defeated. The sight of their futile struggle excited him the most.

The audience in his live stream was also in an uproar.

Roukujou’s hair trembled with frustration, but he managed to compose himself and reassured the audience, "Guys, Pinky will be alright. She has overcome numerous dangerous situations before and turned the tables before. This time will be no different!"

The chat was buzzing with messages.

One read: [Saltyfish, you better stop talking, I’m afraid your bad luck might kick in again.]

Another said: [Sob, Pinky must be okay.]

Roukujou forced a smile and said, "Well, then I’ll stop talking." But only he knew how much Pinky must be suffering right now.

The Snow Mountain map was somewhat similar to the Reef Beach, but not entirely the same.

In the Reef Beach map, the system had a drowning prevention feature. As soon as a player got into the water, they could choose to exit at any time, and the system would immediately eject them from the arena.

However, this feature was absent in Snow Mountain.

The snowy mountain map was already a less popular and more challenging option.

Most of the time, players would finish the match before an avalanche occurred. Only after an instance where players had just entered the map and triggered an avalanche with a single step did the system slightly modify the ejection rules. If an avalanche occurred and the system detected that one player’s mecha hadn’t moved for a long time within five minutes, the match would automatically stop, and the winner would be decided based on the extent of damage to the mechas.

But five minutes is a long time. Being buried by an avalanche is like being buried alive, trapped under thick snow without seeing the sun, unable to move, just slowly waiting for death. It’s imaginable how much psychological damage this could cause to a player.

Yuka’s fingers twitched slightly. Swept down by the snow wave, she didn’t know how many times she had been forced to roll in mid-air.

Now her brain was a mess, her vision blurred and whitened. She felt slight pain due to hitting at least ten rocks in the roll, causing severe damage to her mecha.

Surrounded by white, Yuka frowned in dizziness, even hallucinating.

She felt like she was back in her past life when she hadn’t yet embarked on the path of being a warrior, just an ordinary girl who had lost her parents, buried like this.

She hid under corpse after corpse, her face covered in filth and blood, facing the pale, terrified face of a dead person.

She could only cover her mouth tightly, not daring to cry or make any sound, for fear of attracting the attention of the vile creatures that gnawed at human flesh atop the pile of corpses, searching for fresh food.

One more turn of a corpse, and they would find her.

All sounds around her began to blur as young Yuka, with her eyes closed, felt tears streaming down her cheeks.

Finally, the corpse lying on top of her was turned over. Young Yuka clenched her fists, rose with her head down, and charged towards the opposite side, intending to take down one of the despised creatures before dying, hoping to perish together with it.

However, she crashed into a warm embrace.

"Stop, it’s a child," said the person holding her, his voice old but gentle.

Slowly, Yuka opened her eyes. The old man in front of her looked kind, dressed in sturdy attire, exuding an air of distinction. He gently stroked her head with a compassionate expression and asked, "Little girl, do you want to be a warrior and fight?"

A young man beside them protested, "Master, I don’t think she’s cut out for that. She’s so weak! Look, she’s so thin."

The old man glanced at the young man, who immediately bowed his head in fear, silenced. But Yuka had already heard the young man’s assessment of her, lowering her head, bracing herself to be abandoned.

"Poor aptitude doesn’t mean one can’t be a warrior," the old man said kindly. He asked Yuka to look up, earnestly asking, "But if you truly wish to become a warrior, you must exert efforts thousands, even tens of thousands of times more than others, endure pains and hardships thousandfold, and still, success isn’t guaranteed. Even so, are you willing to do that?"

"I am!" young Yuka answered without hesitation.

She followed the old man back to the deep mountains to train in combat and became a warrior. Initially, she was merely a low-level fighter, often facing death in battles with others.

However, it was through these brushes with death that she honed herself, growing stronger. She proved that she was no less than those born with talent.

She always appreciated the old man for taking her in and was kind to his other disciples. They often invited her to join them on missions to exterminate insectoids.

She had done nothing wrong, but others took her protection for granted while accusing her of stealing credit, praise her effort yet scorn her for being their master’s lapdog.

In the end, when the girl Yuka had protected the most pushed her into a swarm of insects, Yuka felt a sense of fate settling.

Yuka’s throat tightened, and her consciousness began to fade.

"Master! Yuka! Yuka!"

Startled, Yuka suddenly woke up, opening her eyes.