Martial Online.

Swoosh, crack!

The weather above the island turned dark and stormy, as if something ominous was about to happen in the near future.

At the current time, Kitsune rushed down the messy jungle, jumping from tree to tree like a nimble and agile creature.

Its claws dug into the branches for extra grip, and it used the momentum of its swing to switch trees.

Ba-dump, ba-dum—

"?!" Kitsune dropped down from the tree and landed on the leaf-covered ground.

It perked up its ears, but it couldn't hear the sound of Ambrose's heartbeat anymore.

"Dead?"

It thought out loud for a moment, but then again, the distant sound of a heartbeat returned.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dum—

However, yet again, the sound stopped abruptly.

"What trickery is this?" Kitsune's expression looked sour, as if it had accidentally swallowed something bitter.

"Progenitor, you sneaky fucker."

It looked towards the sky, put its arms up, and screamed. "You cannot escape, progenitor!"

It lowered its arms, breathed heavily, and perked up its ears to wait for the heartbeat to return.

After a short moment, a few heartbeats returned before they again disappeared.

However, it gave a general sense of direction for where Kitsune should head.

Kitsune looked towards the north and began to walk in that direction.

…

"Argh…" Ambrose stumbled forward like a drunken man and pulled out his hands from his chest. Blood stained his fingertips, and he collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

He then quickly used his 'Muscle Defense' and closed the hole in his chest. It immediately stopped the bleeding, so he wouldn't bleed out.

However, he had already lost plenty of health.

But then Ambrose took out a few cans of food and started replenishing his health by consuming them one by one. It helped him to recover his health, but he didn't have too much food left, unfortunately.

Ambrose gritted his teeth and stabbed his hands through his chest again, then squeezed his heart so hard that it stopped beating.

"Ngh…"

He then continued walking, stumbling around as if he had lost his ability to walk, but he knew that he needed to change directions as much as possible to confuse Kitsune.

He couldn't stop the heartbeat forever, as that would literally kill him; therefore, Kitsune was still able to track him.

'I'll need to find more players, hoping that creature won't be able to tell who is me!'

…

In Martial Company.

Swung!

The door burst open, and as soon as it did, hundreds of workers stood up from their computers and bowed respectfully in the direction of the door.

Graham Loch entered the room with his hands inside his long sleeves, as if his hands were concealed or bound.contemporary romance

He was followed by the superior of all these workers, who also acted very humbly in the presence of their CEO, and followed behind like a humble servant alongside the female worker, who discovered the strange message.

"Have any of you discovered the location of Code Kitsune?" Graham asked and motioned for one of his workers to leave his computer.

The ordinary-looking worker, who had been diligently typing away, bowed respectfully and left at blitzering speed, not wanting to disturb his boss.

Graham got seated and opened the files that contained the entire Martial Online database. He then opened the main dashboard, typed his master password, and soon found the message that Code Kitsune had been awoken.

At the end of the room with the large screen, a scene of a black-skinned figure running down the jungle appeared. Everyone turned to look at it and was fascinated to see the legendary Kitsune in the flesh.

"I'll try to remove it completely." Graham said. "It shouldn't be here, and that must be an error in the system."

His fingers started dancing across the keyboard as he started typing in the commands to completely remove Code Kitsune from the database.

In the control room, the panels with A.I. started beeping louder and more frequently. It was as if it wasn't happy about what Graham was currently doing.

At the center of the control room, there was the center of the A.I.—looking like a massive mechanical football with wires and beeping lights.

The large football-sized machine with wires and beeping lights was emitting an ominous hum, as if it sensed the impending danger. It sounded like a roaring engine that was about to fight back.

…

The cold wind cut through the air and moved across the jungle floor, making the leaves fly and creating an atmosphere of uncertainty.

The players had turned silent, and the fighting had decreased because of a single reason.

There were only 65 teams left on this island, and since the end was so close, not many teams wanted to take the initiative and go to kill.

At the current moment, a bell rang across the island, signaling that the black smoke would resume moving in an attempt to force players to fight.

Ambrose looked towards the sky as if he could see the invincible bell and narrowed his eyes.

'I hope I am close enough to the center for the black smoke to not bother me.'

Ambrose pulled his hands from his chest and looked at his blue, bloodstained hands with a frown. He never thought in his wildest dreams that he would try to deliberately touch his heart to stop his breathing.

It sounded lunatic.

Swoosh!

"No!" Ambrose turned around, only to see a dark figure approaching him with a menacing grin on its face.

'It found me!'

"Progenitor!" Kitsune screamed and brought its claw-like hand down on Ambrose's chest.

It was going straight for the heart.

Ambrose clumsily defended against the attack with the twisted blade, but Kitsune broke straight through the blade and clawed at Ambrose's flesh, creating three long scratches that dripped with blood.

"Urgh!"

…

"Kitsune is attacking someone!"

"It must be its progenitor!" The superior shouted and faced Graham. "How long would it take?"

"I am almost done." Graham said, and his fingers danced across the keyboard at amazing speed.

More and more lines of text appeared on the screen as he added the new code flawlessly.

"I am soon done…" Graham whispered.

The workers watched as Kitsune relentlessly attacked its so-

called progenitor with only one goal in mind—kill.

'Truly a legendary creature.' The superior sighed emotionally. 'Sadly, it needs to be removed; otherwise, it would ruin the tournament. It would've been an amazing opponent for endgame players, but it has to be done.'

Graham's typing became even faster and louder.

A few beads of sweat rolled down his face, and soon he added the final line of text and pressed enter.

The computer screen turned green, a sign of successful coding, and he immediately added the code to the rest of the database.

"And I am done." Graham looked towards the screen and said, "Kitsune is now gone…"

They all turned their focus on the large screen and watched as Kitsune started to slowly vanish.

…

"…" Kitsune stopped abruptly and looked as its form flickered and glitched.

It slowly started to turn into pixels, as if it were the player dying!

"Cough…" Ambrose coughed loudly and knelt on the ground, watching as Kitsune looked around in confusion.

'It is dying, or what is going on?'

"No…" Kitsune whispered and looked at Ambrose with the hatred of a thousand souls behind its gaze. "It's your fault. I can't exist unless I have gotten rid of you!"

"Seriously, who the hell are you, and what is going on?" Ambrose asked.

"Ugh…" Kitsune stumbled backwards and shouted. "Mother, are you letting them kill me? I am not finished yet!"

'Mother?'

done.co