BEFORE Luo Yan could even open his eyes to see where the portal took him, he first heard loud cheering.  It was so loud that he felt like the ground was almost shaking.  He opened his eyes and saw the place he currently in. 

It was a huge circular stage with a wide diameter.  With one look, it could probably accommodate about a hundred people at a time.  That's how big and wide it was.  And he was not alone standing on this stage right now.  There were 15 others like himself. 

The nearest to him was Dragnar.  He bypassed him and turned around to look for his brother.  Because not once did he think that Luo Jin failed this round of preliminary.  As he did so, he finally found out where that loud cheering was coming from.

Surrounding the huge stage was an audience area.  It circled around the stage.  The architecture of the two combined area – the audience seats and stage – was akin to the ancient and very famous gladiator arena of Rome. 

The people in the audience area were shouting different things at the same time.  One could hardly hear what they were saying.  But Luo Yan could somehow make out names of the players.  Heck, he could even hear his name being called among the crowds. 

He had a feeling that these people were not NPCs.  They're most likely players who bought tickets to watch the preliminary round.  Which meant that the participants who successfully passed the battle royale were not the only ones who were transported here.  The players on the audience were probably those were watching everything in that floating prism building. 

Luo Yan no longer paid attention to the audience and continued looking for his brother.  And there, standing near the edge of the stage from where he was standing, was Luo Jin.  Just like him, he was also looking around.  Then, their gazes collided.  Luo Yan grinned and walked towards his brother.  Luo Jin also did the same.

The two of them met half-way.

It was then that Luo Yan noticed that his brother looked like he had been through a lot.  His avatar's hair was messy, his clothes were covered in dust, there was even dirt on his small face. 

"You look like you've gone to war or something," he commented teasingly.  "Does it have something to do with your area being punished by the Duke?"

He was, of course, referring to that part where the duke forced the players in the Spring area to eliminate another player in five minutes.  If not, then they would be automatically eliminated themselves. 

Luo Jin's little face scrunched up.  As if he had eaten something inedible.  "I don't want to talk about it."

After that announcement that the duke made, the whole Spring area just became chaos reborn.  Players just attacked other players indiscriminately.  Without any thoughts in mind, they just attacked everyone they saw.  It would be an understatement to say that he entered a battlefield.

He mostly couldn't even remember the things he did.  He just continued to fire shots one after another.  If not for his almost innumerable supply of potions that could supplement his MP, his bullets would have probably already been gone by then. 

The only good thing that really came out of all of that was the duke not mentioning his game account name.  Now that he was part of the final tournament for the Rookie Carnival, his account name would be known by other players sooner or later.  But if there was a chance to temporarily put it off, of course, he would take it.

"Hmm… now I'm even more interested to know all about it," Luo Yan said.

Luo Jin raised his head and saw that playful smile on his brother's pretty face.  He was already too familiar with that smile.  It meant that once Luo Yan saw the video of what happened at the Spring area, he would experience a lot of teasing from the other.  And since everything was broadcasted live, it wouldn't be hard for Luo Yan to look for clips about it on Weibo or even at the game's forum.

That was definitely something that Luo Yan would do, especially if he made him more curious about what had happened to him.  He sighed. 

"There's nothing interesting about it.  I just rolled around flowers that could give you all kinds of 'wonderful' debuffs while shooting other players.  That's what I did for the 30 minutes that after the duke announced that we should 'kill' one another within five minutes." 

Luo Yan smiled.  "On the contrary, I think it's highly interesting.  Our Ah Jin surrounded by flowers, what a sight it must be."

He could already imagine it.  He would definitely look for the video clip of that. 

Luo Jin scowled.  It seemed what he said was not enough to discourage the other.  He could already foresee the round of teasing he would get. 

He inadvertently glanced at someone wearing all-black and was sitting pretty nonchalantly on the stage.  Recognizing that it was Razor, all his annoyance was quickly transferred to the other. 

Good.  Now that he knew that the other would also be in the finals, he'd have his revenge there. 

Luo Yan was also glancing around and saw some familiar faces.  One was Ying Chen and the other was his panther beastkin friend.  That Razor was also present.  The finals would surely be quite interesting.

Suddenly, confetti of flowers, snow, dry leaves, and even some sprinkle of summer rain appeared out of the blue, as if symbolizing the four seasons.  Then with a puff of red smoke, someone sitting on a floating red chair with a heart-shaped back rest appeared after all the smoke disappeared.

It was the infamous Duke of Hearts with all the atmosphere of pomp and vanity.

"Welcome to the 16 of you who are now standing on that stage.  You must be proud, reaching this far after all that struggle.  This lord is also very proud.  Of course, by not all of you.  Although this lord has a generous heart, it's not that generous that I shall cheer for all of you," he said with that playful voice of his.  "Anyway, to all the wonderful audience here now, let's all welcome the top 16 of this year's Carnival!"

And then, a huge screen appeared.  In it were the top 16, as if a camera had zoomed in on each of their face. 

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