Next came the voting segment. Greed sat in the waiting area, bored, thinking it was surely his turn now. After all, he was more famous than Arrogant, and there should still be many anticipating his performance.
Little did he know, the people from his universe were already campaigning. "Vote for the other one, the other one, don't vote for the Doctor!" Peter dragged one and then another, urging them to vote for Arrogant, shouting, "If you vote for the Doctor and the arena explodes, we won't be able to watch the next round!"
Those who were hesitating immediately cast their votes for Arrogant after hearing this. It made sense, after all, it was obvious that Shiller, who always wore a white coat, was more capable of causing chaos. He either skipped parts in some chapters, causing the plot to explode, or he blew everyone up to defeat a certain opponent. Nothing good ever came out of things in his hands. If they let his group compete first and he caused a big event, blowing up the entire arena, they wouldn't get to see the rest of the matches. They couldn't afford that on a rare trip like this.
Thus, Greed's notorious reputation led to everyone avoiding voting for him, intending to save him for last. So, next up was the Magneto group versus the Arrogant group.
Magneto took a deep breath. Charles from their universe had visited the universe where Greed was and worked at a hospital there. He had heard of Shiller's great reputation from Charles, so now that they were really going into the competition, he was a bit nervous.
"What skills do you think he has?" the young Erik asked Charles, "Can you read his mind?"
"Not right now, once we're in the arena I can. But, I don't think mind-reading will be of much use; it might still depend on your performance. We only got your key item, so we can only hope his skills don't counter yours."
Erik had nothing more to say. They had carefully searched for Charles's key item during the regional duel but found nothing, which led to Charles's many skills not being strong enough. It was evident from the Batman versus Superman battle earlier; having a key item is quite significant. Superman had such strong stats and no weak skills, yet he still lost to the Batman group. That's how crucial the key item was.
But obtaining the key item wasn't entirely about luck. Erik admitted that their group had failed in planning during the regional duel; they didn't focus on finding the item early on and only concentrated on fighting. By the time they wanted to start looking, it was too late. Luckily, they had good fortune; during their early fights, they acquired Magneto's key item from someone else, transforming his skill set from something like a big magnet, like in the movies, to the real Magneto who could use the fundamental force of the cosmos.
Despite this, Erik still felt unsure. Apart from the famous Shiller, there was also the mysterious Nyarlathotep. Because of his ability to observe various cosmic phenomena, he'd heard of some legends in the depths of the stars, these Outer Gods were never easy to handle, and with Shiller, they formed a strong alliance.
So, he said, "Maybe you shouldn't try to read his mind, just in case Nyarlathotep uses his spiritual pollution skill, that would be trouble."
Charles remained silent, clearly still wanting to give it a try. The younger Charles was more aggressive than Erik. Erik paused, then continued to persuade, "Or maybe let me test them first before you make a move, how about that?"
Charles barely agreed. But neither of them expected that they wouldn't even have the chance to test anything.
Arrogant walked into the arena alone, holding a black umbrella. Erik was about to say a few ceremonial words when he saw Arrogant toss the umbrella out. It first flew into the air, then opened up. Immediately after, a dense darkness engulfed the entire duel grounds, and both of them disappeared together.
The audience was filled with question marks. Wait, weren't we here to watch a match? Where's the match???
Some of the impatient ones began swearing. Rocket Raccoon, standing on Drax's shoulders, jumped up trying to peek inside, yelling, "What's the director doing! How could it turn into a black screen?! Refund!!!"
Star Lord quickly pulled him down and said, "Like you paid for a ticket. If you hadn't clinged onto her arm, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess."
True enough, the area around their seats was in a mess. Apparently, some female agent had come for a friendly chat with them and ended up reclaiming Bucky's arm.
"It wasn't me who took it," Rocket Raccoon said, "Superman threw it to me. It should rightfully be mine. His arm is different from our universe's Winter Soldier, new and shiny, really nice. Sigh..."
The entire audience was murmuring about what on earth was happening. Naturally, the Transcendent couldn't sit idly by and he dove into the black mist as well, disappearing too. Immediately afterward, Lucifer flapped his wings and appeared above the dueling field. His appearance brought another round of cheers from the crowd. He waved to the left, nodded to the right, and then flew into the darkness too.
Strangely, he didn't come out either. This amplified the buzz even more, and people began speculating about what was happening inside. Could it be that Shiller really blew up the arena?
Some people began eyeing the escape routes, considering leaving, just in case a big explosion happened. Although they wouldn't really die, that moment of dying was quite painful. However, some fearless ones, more curious about what's happening inside than fearing an explosion, moved closer to Greed to ask him, among them Stark.
"What's Hydra up to?" Stark patted Greed's shoulder and said, "He wouldn't really blow up the arena, right?"
"I don't think so," Greed shook his head and said, "Arrogant doesn't like making such big moves. If they haven't come out, it should be because..."
In fact, Greed didn't really know what was going on. He wanted to take a look at the memory bank, but he also felt it was cheating. After all, knowing the opponent's skill set in advance was a very important information advantage. If one of them got eliminated it would be fine, but if they both made it to the finals, it would definitely look like screen peeking.
However, if he didn't look and just guessed, Greed truly didn't know what was going on. He was curious about what Arrogant's skills were before, and now it looked like he got a key item, something with the effect of capturing people within an umbrella, right, Silver Horned King?
He waited for a long time without anyone coming out, but instead saw a white light emerge. The audience exploded with guesses of who died first or if they perished together. Then, two administrators came out, and they both looked very excited, seemingly arguing about something. Finally, Lucifer flew away, making Transcendent stomp in anger on the spot.
The others became even more curious. Although these two were from different companies and their job levels were different, they had been colleagues in the Battleworld for a long time, and there was no known conflict, so how did they end up arguing?
Could it be a disagreement over code repair? But as long as the repair is successful, shouldn't it be fine? Whoever can fix it should do it. Is it worth arguing? And Transcendent looked really angry, as if he lost the argument to Lucifer. Although Lucifer is the son of a big boss with possibly higher technical skills, Transcendent is the host, and this final must have been his idea. How could he be overshadowed on his own turf?
The mysteries were just too many. But before they could be cleared up, the darkness had already dispersed. Arrogant's figure holding the umbrella appeared in the center of the Dueling Field. Transcendent picked up the microphone and said, "Let's congratulate Shiller for winning this duel!"
A chorus of boos erupted below, with people throwing corn cobs, popcorn, and even ice cream towards the center of the field. Luckily, Arrogant had an umbrella, so these things didn't hit him. Transcendent was less fortunate, with someone's ice cream splatting right on his face.
While wiping his face, Transcendent said, "Don't rush, don't rush!! There was a special skill just now, causing the broadcast system to malfunction. We've rewritten the broadcast program; it won't happen again next match. We'll replay this match after all the matches are over. No more throwing, no more throwing!"
The audience was naturally dissatisfied, but there was nothing they could do. They were also very curious, since theoretically, these skills were written by administrators, so they should know what the skills are. How could there be a conflict with the broadcast system?
Transcendent didn't explain further and hurriedly started the next match. Greed finally got his chance to enter the field.
"Doctor, go easy on me." Wanda winked at Greed.
Greed smiled back at her. He wasn't entirely sure he could beat Wanda, but losing might not be a bad thing. This way he wouldn't have to deal with Arrogant, whose skill seemed off at a glance.
After entering the field, the crowd cheered with enthusiasm but quickly someone shouted, "Doctor! Don't blow up the Dueling Field, we still want to see the replay!"
"Yeah, take it easy; we want to know what that skill was about!"
"Don't worry, don't worry," Greed waved them off, genuinely not intending to blow up the Dueling Field, as he also wanted to know what mysterious skill Arrogant had.
Wanda levitated into the air first, with The power of Scarlet spreading around her. Greed didn't immediately transform into a gray mist form; he planned to test if he could start casting and catch Wanda off guard.
When he stood there taking out the medical record, Wanda indeed didn't react immediately, wondering if she was seeing it wrong, but JARVIS quickly reacted and said, "This is a casting skill, interrupt him!"
Wanda immediately acted, sending a stream of The power of Scarlet towards Greed's face. Greed calmly dodged to the side, taking the opportunity to cast for another second. Wanda knew this couldn't continue, so she decisively activated a wide-range mass-attack skill.
The power of Scarlet began to spread across the field, filling it with intense red light. Everything within the Duel area began losing health by the second, Greed included.
The troublesome thing was the frequency of health loss was faster than Greed's casting. Greed could apply a debuff every second he cast, but the health loss happened every 0.8 seconds, clearly boosted by some items, which meant he couldn't finish casting a whole spell and was constantly interrupted, making his skills almost unusable.
Greed sighed. Don't be fooled by the impressive numbers when he uses finishing skills; it's all based on his ability to cast. Without casting, all skills are useless.
But just as he expected, Scarlet Witch's skills were primarily mass-attacks, so the numbers weren't too high, despite the health ticking every 0.8 seconds, the health bar didn't really move.
Greed took a deep breath, deciding to change tactics and launch a direct gray mist assault.