Endless Horde: Through the Eyes of a Godking

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The day of Heavenly Star's Millennial Tournament was here...

Cedric rose from his meditation with a calm facade. He could feel the buzz in the atmosphere coming from the excited passengers of the cruise. Yet, even with this atmosphere, the cruise was silent.

Aside from a few people who were keeping the cruise moving, everybody else were lying down comfortably in their beds with their consciousness in the virtual world. This disconnection, however, didn't prevent their excited moods from seeping out of their physical bodies.

Cedric released a sigh of relief before logging into the virtual world himself.

Despite the servers attending to a mind-boggling amount of people, Cedric didn't experience any lag at all. His log-in was smooth as always, as if this was just any other day in the virtual world.

But upon arriving there, it was proven that it's not.

What immediately greeted him was a sea of people and the sounds of their excited discussions. Everybody was looking forward to the start of the preliminary rounds of the tournament.

As a participant, Cedric received an e-mail containing instructions on where he should go, if he's still thinking of participating. It told him to join a specific server for it, and the coordinates of the place where he would find the area where the server was located were also included in the e-mail.

Cedric also received a good luck package from Philip, cheering him on. He ignored that for now and walked to the area where the server was located.

It didn't take long before he got there, and as he expected, there was a long line of people waiting there already. Fortunately, the queue moves fast, so even though there are a lot of people enlisting for the tournament, the wait wasn't really that long.

Cedric observed the competition slyly.

To their credit, most of them looked intimidating. Some were even already starting to intimidate other contenders, trying to scare them off to lessen the competition. A few were even deliberately trying to pick fights, much to many's amusement since they're in a non-aggression zone.

Although most of them looked fierce and confident, they could hide what they truly feel deep down under Cedric's vision.

He could see, and smell, desperation coming off of them. The kind that only those that are too eager to prove something to themselves and everybody else would have.

Cedric could gauge just how much they sacrificed just to make some last-minute progress for the sake of securing a good rank in this tournament.

He admires their conviction, but whether this is enough to get them what they want or not remains to be seen.

Thirty minutes later, his turn came. He walked up to the scanner that checked if his name was on the list, and after confirming that it was, it lit up green, and he was allowed entry. The next thing it had him do was to walk to the other side of the portal, which will take him to the venue of the preliminaries.

After stepping on the other side, Cedric found himself falling from the sky. There was no platform for him to step on; as soon as he got on the other side, he had no choice but to drop down to the actual venue from the sky. And from what he had seen so far, it was the same for everybody else.

His lips twitched at this. He didn't imagine that the organizers would pull off this kind of prank. Clearly, nobody was expecting this. Cedric could hear the surprised screams and gasps of those who came before and after him.

If the organizers were somehow trying to make content from their reactions to this prank, which he's almost certain to be the case, then he'd have to apologize because they aren't getting any from him.

Cedric fell, and even though he was surprised at first, it didn't show in his face. Even more so after discovering what happened.

And unlike others who struggled to catch themselves due to shock, Cedric smoothly transitioned into a controlled descent, gliding down along with the breeze as if he was riding it.

Moments later, he landed on the ground in a gentle manner. This was when he began looking around, trying to think of what comes next, but all he received was a system notice indicating the countdown to the start of the first round and nothing else.

Cedric played along. There's no use in guessing since it ruins the surprise anyway.

Instead of running around to search for clues, he might as well take this time to relax some more.

He found a spot to do so. He sat under the shade of a tall tree and leaned on it as he waited for the countdown to be over.

Cedric regarded his surroundings and found them to be really pleasant. The skies were clear, dotted with large puffy clouds. It's close to noon but not as hot due to the cool and frequent breeze of clean air.

Nature was abundant and vibrant around these parts; he could even see many types of docile animals roaming around in peace, seemingly unbothered by the hordes of people dropping off the sky.

The degree of realism was great but also noticeable. After all, these animals wouldn't stay indifferent at this kind of event, but they sure don't look and feel any different from their life counterparts.

What ruined the atmosphere were the participants themselves.

They were loud, unruly, and too chaotic. Some were trying to start a fight as if they had too much energy to spare. Others were anxiously looking around, trying to search for clues for the challenge that hasn't even started yet in hopes of getting a head start, and a few just thrived from making others uncomfortable.

Those who were relaxed and at ease like him were very rare.

This world wasn't too large; Cedric's senses could easily cover it from one end to the next. This meant that no movement here could be hidden from him, and that's why he's certain that the first round of the preliminaries hasn't begun just yet.

So those fools who were running around trying to search for something that doesn't exist were just wasting their time and energy.

Cedric passed time by counting the population of this world. By the time there were only five minutes left on the countdown, the final headcount reached 1000 people, all Immortal Level experts just like him.

He was sure that there should've been more, but there were no more people falling from the skies, so he thought that maybe they were grouped differently.

Eventually, the countdown ended. And as soon as it was over, a massive screen appeared above the skies. It was a broadcast showing the faces of a pair, a man and a lady, both wearing headsets and holding mics.

"Hello! Hello! Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to our broadcast!"

"My name is Paul."

"And I'm Lisa.

"And we are the hosts of the Heavenly Star's Preliminary Round Tournament!"

After that brief introduction, the sound of loud cheers and applause echoed from the broadcast, accompanied by a cheerful jingle playing in the background.

"I know that all of you can't wait to see our contestants perform, but for your sake and theirs, allow us to explain how the preliminary round works."

"So far, we have more than 500,000 participants in both the Grand Solar and the Cosmic Level combined. As for the Immortal Level experts, their final count reached a whopping 11,545!" Lisa exclaimed.

"I bet none of you imagined these many experts appearing in this tournament, but believe me, these aren't all of them. Some aren't able to participate because they couldn't meet the requirements to sign up. But all is fine; every single one of these people is the result of our leaders' hard work and sacrifices!"

"With them around, humanity's future will remain bright and stable."

"Ah, I apologize for going on a tangent there. I'm just really proud of how far we've come as a race."

"Moving on. I'm sure that you've noticed that there are way too many of them here."

"As you can see, we divided them into groups. One group has at least 1000 people, and everybody in the same group will compete against each other, with only the top 50 in each group moving on to the next round!" Paul stated, and his words chilled both the audience and the participants.

A wry smile appeared on Paul's face as he said, "Well, it can't be helped. There's just way too many people here. Besides, this is the Heavenly Star's Millennial Tournament, the greatest event that only happens once every 1000 years!"

"What the council wants to see is the best of the best, the true cream of the crop. They will accept nothing short of extraordinary, so obviously, anybody who couldn't keep up will be left behind."

A solemn and uncomfortable atmosphere descended upon the realm that Cedric was in, but it didn't seem to affect the hosts at all.

"Now then, introducing the first challenge that our participants have to go through!"

The perspective on the broadcast shifted, and suddenly, a large set of words was displayed above.

"Wave Survival!"