Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 278 - 28: The Third Scene_2

Chapter 278: Chapter 28: The Third Scene_2

"Rule four, if a chess piece goes to the wrong square, it will be directly exploded."

"Rule five, you can’t kill the king when there are more than two pieces on the opponent’s side."

"Now I give you ten minutes to choose pieces and arrange them." After Alice finished, she no longer cared about the humble bugs and started to enjoy the red tea with fresh blood presented by the butler. This time there was no need to choose a sacrifice because the losing side would be annihilated.

"Anyone who knows how to play chess, please raise your hand." Yin Shangwu looked hopefully at Tang Zheng because she had no hope for anyone else.

As expected, only Little Fanfan raised his hand out of the 21 people.

"Damn it, if it was Go, I would beat them all." Xu Guanlin was quite upset. Why did it have to be this thing?

"Tang Zheng, don’t you know how?" It was not just Yin Shangwu, everyone was not optimistic about Little Fanfan, but cast their hopeful gazes at Tang Zheng.

"I only know the basic moves of the pieces." Tang Zheng shook his head, "I originally wanted to be the ’Queen’, a piece that has nine times the combat power of a pawn."

"The rook is seven times, the knight and bishop are three times." Lu Fan couldn’t wait to stand up, raised his arm, and recommended himself, "I know how to do it, leave it to me."

"But didn’t Alice say that the pieces have to fight against each other? Even if you become a pawn, you are still a powerhouse, right?" Xu Guanlin was quite puzzled about this issue and at the same time testing Lu Fan. There was no way. Who would be confident to give such a life-or-death decision to a kid?

"No, the queen can move horizontally, vertically, and diagonally without restrictions, so it has the highest degree of freedom and most powerful." Lu Fan took out her mobile phone from her backpack, she showed off the king crystal pendant to everyone, "Do you see it? I am better at chess than at Go that my father forced me to learn."

"You are our king." Tang Zheng touched Lu Fan’s head, agreeing to her request, and then gave her a look to let her choose the ’pieces’."

"Hehe, you are my queen now." Little Lolita smiled like a sly fox who has successfully stolen a chicken, and also gave Tang Zheng a reassuring glance. Then she looked at everyone, hands on hips, chin up and asked, "So where are my two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns?"

"Being chosen by a loli, you guys probably won’t have the heart to refuse, huh?" Tang Zheng mumbled, no longer paying attention to them. Instead, he looks at the other side. Where will they place their five ’pawn pieces’?

"Han Zifeng, you will be my pawn."

"Why am I so unlucky?" Han Zifeng’s worst fear had come. He was about to refuse when he saw other people’s eyes becoming disdainful. Zhang Hao was even staring at him. He had no choice but to put up with it. He knew that if he did not agree, if they won, Tang Zheng would definitely settle accounts with him. If they lost, there would be no trouble, everyone would die together.

"Yin Shangwu and Qin Yan will be the rooks, Meiqin the bishop, Xin Lan, and Zhang Hao the knights. Xu Guanlin is not needed anymore, the rest are just some randoms..." Lu Xun was a bit excited, raring to go.

"How are you going to open? Defense or offense?" Pang Meiqin was still not reassured and asked.

"It depends on whether I am black or white. Although, I hope I can choose black, so I can use the Sicilian Defense that I am best at." Lu Fan looked at the other side, guessing who her opponent would be.

"Little Fan Fan, you are too excited." Tang Zheng frowned, Little Lolita’s state was not right, "Don’t forget, this is not like a regular chess match, both sides have to fight for every piece’s strength, so what you rely on is us, the Conquerors. Understand?"

"I know, uncle." Lu Fan paused and bowed her head in apology.

"Ten minutes up, the third game begins." Alice stood in the basket, issuing commands from above, "Both sides enter the chessboard."

"Because the Super Team has fewer people, white goes first." As Alice spoke, the pieces on the chessboard, apart from the five pieces selected by Brant, all the others turned into powder.

The one who moved into their king’s position turned out to be Brant; Tang Zheng froze in surprise when he realized their strategy. As long as their king didn’t die, they wouldn’t lose the game. But they had no chance to play this way because, apart from Lu Fan, he was the only one among them who could play a passable game of chess.

"Damn it, it’s so unfair." Clearly, Xu Guanlin and the others also thought of the dangerous strategy of the opponent.

"Lu Fan, try to make room for the queen as soon as possible. Let me kill them all. The other chess pieces will try their best to defend." Tang Zheng had already planned for a do-or-die scenario.

"Understood." Lu Fan nodded, bit his lip, and started directing everyone’s position.

"Can we use weapons?" Han Zifeng looked frustrated, he asked Alice again.

"Only melee and cold weapons are allowed." Alice naturally hoped for the most bloody situation, so she banned the use of firearms.

With the Butler’s start order, Brant immediately set up his defense strategy. Since he was their king, his plan was defensive, intended to lure the opponent’s chess pieces and annihilate them.

Lu Fan saw the opponent move to C4 – a British opening. Just as he thought about reacting, he remembered Tang Zheng’s advice and chose the less popular Scandinavian Defense, placing the black queen - Tang Zheng - at D5.

In the next step, Brant was still setting up, while Tang Zheng launched his attack against the first pawn he faced, a white student.

Tang Zheng took out his bronze sword and in less than a second, thrust it into the student’s heart, stirring it, then pulling out the sword and shaking off the blood and flesh from it with one hand.

Hearing the horrifying screams from the dying student, all the newbies trembled with fear. Brant was astounded too – he hadn’t expected the opponent to choose such a strong offensive move. But then he felt lucky that his strategy had worked - even if the students couldn’t stop Tang Zheng, there were five more pawn servants on his side.

"So it’s a war of attrition." Brant stopped hesitating and started placing his nearby pawns into the battlefield.

After killing the second student, Tang Zheng finally faced a poker soldier. To save his ability for Brant in the end, he could only choose close combat. Due to the exhaustion from the previous seed explosion, his body was weak and it started to become difficult for him.

Rip, the poker soldier’s sharp claws ripped off Tang Zheng’s tracksuit, revealing the glowworm inside. It triggered envy in the boxer and glasses-wearing man. Brant also reassessed Tang Zheng, surprised at his decent equipment.

After three minutes, Tang Zheng finally decapitated the poker soldier with his bronze sword.

"We can’t let Tang Zheng attack alone." Lu Fan wanted to give Tang Zheng a break, so he started moving the other chess pieces. Yin Shang Wu couldn’t wait to get started - he immediately sliced off a black student’s head with a Tang Sword in one swipe.

Watching a headless body lying on the chessboard, with blood gushing from the neck, Brant realized he had made a mistake. He should have used the rule that you can’t attack the king without clearing two chess pieces to delay time and then use the five poker soldiers to kill the opponent’s king. Otherwise, if it continued like this, they would be boxed in and slaughtered.

Han Zifeng had been praying in patience for a long time, but his bad luck didn’t end. A poker soldier (serving as a rook piece) charged towards him. Feeling intimidated, Han ran away screaming for help, thinking he wouldn’t be killed instantly.

No one responded, they just watched him getting mutilated by the poker soldier, as entertaining as watching a clown. Lu Fan heaved a sigh of relief. The flaw in their defense at Han’s position was intentional to bait Brant into attacking from that side. If someone had to die, it would be better if it were the annoying Han Zifeng.

Instead of worrying about Yin Shang Wu and Tang Zheng, Brant concentrated most of his power and fiercely attacked Lu Fan. Little Lolita was in a tough spot too. Because of the game’s rules, you must eliminate all regular pieces before you can kill the king. So, it was a race of who was more ruthless.

Brant had clearly given up on the dispensable pieces, but Lu Fan had some hesitation. Should she use the students to wear down the opponent’s endurance, then make Qin Yan and the others step in, or protect them and send Xin Lan and the others for melee combat? Their combat ability seemed insufficient. She would need to bring Tang Zheng back to snipe these chess pieces...

"So this is the real difficulty of the game? Some pieces are always going to be sacrificed." Looking at the room with few monsters, Tang Zheng really wanted to kill Alice on the spot, but Brant’s vigilance by his side made him give up on this idea.