All Chapters of Zero Logic: The Hunter Gambits: Chapter 41
- Chapter 50
63 chapters
Chapter 41: Gastronomic Explosion
“He’s not dead yet,” Oliver hissed, his voice low and wary. Oliver was still lying flat on the violently shaking iron bridge, his eyes locked on the massive monster in the middle of the acid lake. Gluttony had indeed choked. The fifty ton steel crane was lodged deep in its throat, preventing its gigantic jaws from closing. Its abstract body, a mass of fat and thousands of mouths, was now swelling unnaturally. Its pale skin had turned translucent, revealing torrents of neon green fluid raging inside it. [Stomach Capacity: 105%] [Status: Overload] [Regeneration: Active, attempting to digest steel] “Look at the number,” Oliver said, pointing with his creaking mechanical hand. “It’s trying to digest the crane. Its stomach acid is extremely corrosive. If we leave it alone for five more minutes, the steel will completely melt and it’ll feel relieved. Then it’ll eat us all for dessert.” “Then what the hell are we supposed to do now?” Claire shouted from her sniping position on th
Chapter 42. A Dream Inside a Coma
That smell... Oliver recognized that smell. It was not the scent of blood, not gunpowder, and not the sharp ozone of Purgatory’s magic. It was the smell of overcooked boiled cabbage, rotting wooden floors mopped with dirty water, and damp wool blankets that had never been properly washed. The smell of poverty. The smell of an orphanage. Oliver slowly opened his eyes. But instead of a sterile medical ceiling, he saw a leaking one stained with spreading brown water marks. He was sitting on a cold wooden floor. In his hands were a few playing cards, worn and creased at the edges from constant use. Across from him sat three boys twice his size. The orphanage bullies. “Show your cards, Rat,” one of them said, blowing hand-rolled cigarette smoke straight into Oliver’s face. Little Oliver, maybe ten years old, looked down at his hand. [2 of Hearts], [7 of Spades]. Trash. But hidden inside the loose sleeve of his left arm was an Ace of Spades.
Chapter 43. The Illusion of Happiness
The world was shards of glass. Wherever Oliver looked, he saw himself. Thousands of Olivers. Some facing forward, some facing backward, some even upside down on the ceiling. “Claire? Throg?” Oliver called. His voice bounced through the deceptive corridors of mirrors, creating echoes that made his head spin. “Claire... Claire... Throg... Throg...” There was no answer. One second ago, the three of them had walked into the arena together. But the moment the pink mist settled over the room, his companions vanished. Gone. As if they had never been there to begin with. “Spatial separation,” Oliver analyzed silently, his hand brushing against the cold surface of a mirror beside him. “Classic. Lust wants us to play solo.” Oliver walked very slowly. The golden Magnum pistol was gripped in his right hand, while the mechanical hand on his left was ready to fire cards at any moment. The pink mist smelled incredibly sweet. The scent of lilies, vanilla, and..
Chapter 44. The Deadly Erotic Dance
“You broke my toy, darling. That was very rude.” The voice did not come from a single direction. It spun around, bouncing off the thousands of mirror shards scattered across the floor. Oliver stood in the middle of that storm of glass. His Magnum pistol was ready, but his hand had begun to sweat cold. SWUSH! A red shadow shot past behind him. Incredibly fast. No normal human eye could have followed it. Even Oliver’s Probability Sight could only catch a faint afterimage. “Here,” the voice whispered directly into Oliver’s right ear. Oliver spun instantly and fired. BANG! The bullet passed through nothing but empty pink smoke. “Wrong,” the voice whispered again, now at his left ear. Sharp nails grazed Oliver’s cheek, leaving a thin cut that burned fiercely. Lust, Sin Number Six, finally revealed her true form. She was no longer the sweet housewife from before. She stood tall atop a tilted pillar of mirror glass. Her form was that of a woman with beauty painful to behol
Chapter 45. Fractures in the Team
“Damn it... my face... my asset...” Lust retreated steadily, one hand covering her left cheek, which had caved inward. Thick purple blood seeped through the gaps between her fingers. Her perfect beauty was ruined, and for the Demon of Desire, that pain was far worse than death. She did not counterattack physically. Instead, she slowly stepped back, slipping into the shadows of the shattered mirrors piled in the corner of the arena. “You two...” hissed Lust, her voice echoing from every direction, dripping with poison. “You think you’re a perfect pair? Just wait until you see what’s inside each other’s heads. It smells far worse than a corpse.” SWUSH! Lust vanished. She melted into the darkness, waiting for the right moment to assault their minds again. Silence fell instantly. Only Oliver’s heavy breathing could be heard, along with the crunch of Claire’s boots stepping over broken glass on the floor. Claire extended her hand to help Oliver up. “Get up, Boss. Don’t sleep
Chapter 46. A Shot of Doubt
Oliver’s index finger was halfway through pulling the trigger. The muscles in his right hand were locked tight, ready to send a .50 caliber round straight through the girl’s skull. In Oliver’s eyes, the girl in front of him was no longer Claire. It was a monster. A killing machine with melting skin and camera-lens eyes glowing red, poised to drive a massive needle into his chest. “DIE!” the creature screamed. Its voice was a twisted blend of grinding metal and Claire’s distorted tone. “KILL ME BEFORE I RIP YOUR HEART OUT, YOU DEFECTIVE ASSET!” Cold sweat streamed down Oliver’s temples. His artificial heart pumped adrenaline like a broken engine. His survival instinct, the most primitive reptilian part of his brain, shouted one absolute command. Shoot. Shoot now, or you die. The golden Magnum was aimed directly at the monster’s forehead. But Oliver’s hand stopped. It trembled. Not from fear. Oliver had sold his fear long ago. His hand shook because something inside his
Chapter 47. The Winner's Reward
The silence in the Rest Area felt different this time. After the First Round, the atmosphere had been tense because of overflowing adrenaline. Now the atmosphere was dead. It felt like a rotting corpse had been hidden beneath an expensive carpet, and everyone was pretending they could not smell it. Oliver sat on a red velvet sofa, a glass of whiskey in his right hand. He was not drinking it. He simply watched the ice cubes slowly melt, forming a quiet swirl of water inside the glass. Across the room, Throg was snoring loudly on the floor. The orc was physically exhausted. His new armor looked dented in several places, but he smiled in his sleep. Maybe he was dreaming about Griz. And Claire... Claire was asleep on the long couch near a fake window displaying a digital tropical beach. She was curled up, hugging her tactical waist pouch tightly like a body pillow. Her face looked peaceful. Innocent. There was no trace of the cold killer who had shot a Dark Elf in the head and pun
Chapter 48. The Frozen Field of Apathy
White. As far as the eye can see, there is nothing but white, a brightness painful to the retina. White sky, white ground, white air. The snowstorm in this arena is no ordinary storm. The snowflakes are sharp like powdered glass, and the wind does not just batter the body, it strips away the will to keep standing. The air temperature is minus forty-two degrees Celsius. In the human world, a temperature like this is enough to freeze gasoline. Here, amplified by the magic of Purgatory, the cold pierces through thick jackets, through skin, and clamps directly onto the marrow of the bones. “Step... two thousand... three hundred... forty-one...” Oliver’s voice sounds faint, swallowed by the roaring wind. He walks at the front, head lowered against the gale. His hands are shoved into the pockets of the thick jacket he bought, but his left hand, the Mit
Chapter 49. Waking the Giant
The wind on that frozen plain did not just blow. It bit. It felt like thousands of tiny piranhas tearing at any skin left uncovered. Oliver stood behind a mound of snow, his body wrapped only in a thin shirt and a torn suit jacket. His thick winter coat, the only reasonable defense against the minus forty degree temperature, was now on Claire. “You sure this is going to work?” Claire asked. Her voice trembled, white vapor escaping her mouth every time she spoke. She pulled Oliver’s jacket tighter around herself, trying to absorb whatever warmth still lingered in the fabric. “We’re going to kill a Sleeping God with a chunk of ice?” “Not a chunk of ice,” Oliver corrected. His teeth chattered so violently it felt like they might shatter. “We’re using gravity. That ice spike up there weighs thousands of tons. If it falls at the right angle, the momentum will be enough to separate his head from his body.” Oliver pointed at the massive ice cliff hanging directly above Sloth’s sleepi
Chapter 50. The Rampage of Sloth
The white world fell into suspended death.The pile of ice and snow, towering as high as a skyscraper, lay motionless over the place where Sloth had been sleeping moments ago. No movement. No sound of breathing. Even the storm wind seemed afraid to blow near that frozen grave.Oliver lifted his head from behind the protective rock. His face was pale, his lips blue, and his eyebrows had turned into crystals of ice. He stared toward the avalanche with his diamond-like eyes blinking weakly.“Did it hit?” Claire asked beside him. She was brushing snow off the lens of her scope with trembling hands. “That was thousands of tons, Ver. Even a dragon’s neck would snap.”“It should have,” Oliver replied hoarsely. He tried to stand, but his legs cramped violently. “The falling momentum was perfect. The angle was perfect.”They waited.One second. Ten seconds. One minute.No system notification appeared.The display in