Chapter 571 Broken Liam suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Every single hair on his body stood up as if he was currently stalked by an apex predator. This further fueled his confusion and frustration. He clutched his head as he just couldn't figure out what was going wrong. Why was everything taking a turn for the worst? Who were these people? Why were they targeting them? Who was this new enemy? Liam couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something going on here. Everything seemed to be working against him, as if someone was manipulating it all from the shadows. What did he miss? Who did he overlook? Just as he was thinking about this, suddenly something changed. Liam looked up to see the fight in front of him. Derek's weapon had cracked. The semi-epic grade he had personally forged laid broken apart on the ground like scrap metal. The two of them had been fighting on equal footing until now, and Derek was somehow managing, but in the end, his weapon had cracked. There was nothing that could be done now. Derek instantly withdrew his shield to try and block the next attack while also twisting his body to evade the mad dog, but none of that was enough. He was simply no match for the person howling wildly without any restraint. The opponent's power was ten times higher than his for some reason. How could a person summon so much power that his own bones and muscles couldn't handle? Derek's eyes widened as he stared at something unbelievable in that last instant. There was no more human being in front of him. There was only the sword, and it was burning bright, with blazing red and black flames. And the next instant, Derek saw himself being devoured by this flame. He now understood it. It had consumed the person who was wielding it, and now it was consuming him also. However, after that moment of clarity came a searing pain. Meanwhile, back on the tournament floor, Liam hopefully looked at the battleground arena. Did Derek die? If so, there was nothing that could be better. In this match, a loss was a win. And just as he wanted, when the dust and the rubble cleared, Liam saw the familiar corpse lying on the ground. In front of him was the cracked weapon and also the player who fought against him. In reality, he was in no better shape than the cracked weapon. The man was weakly swaying. It looked like he could faint any time now and fall down. That would technically make this game a tie. Though Liam couldn't care less about the result of the tournament at the moment, this was a small consolation for Derek's efforts. So he sighed in relief. Everything had ended well. "Fucking just fall," Liam said, and the player as well crumbled. His shoulders slumped, and he lifelessly melted down, but… before he could fall down… the battleground disappeared. The two players were teleported back to the stage. One was lying down on the ground like a corpse while the other was now magically standing tall. Liam clenched his fist even tighter as the hate inside him silently rose. He was only speculating before, but now he was sure. The person that was probably messing with him and had caused the death of two people who were very important to him was none other than the tower master himself. It had to be. There was simply no one else who had that kind of power inside the PVP tower. This was a place where the tower master ruled, and his words were the laws. In his previous life, Liam did not know much about this mysterious person. In fact, no one did because the person never associated himself with any players. He was always in the high lofty tower that was unreachable. The PVP floor climbing tournaments also led to nowhere. This was primarily why this place was always called a time waste. However, in this timeline, everything had changed, and there was this sudden PVP tournament which was very lucrative. It was a bizarre tournament that had astounding rewards which could change someone's fate. Liam had always wondered about what could have caused this deviation, but he never thought that he would be at the core of it. In fact, the more he thought about it, he felt as if this tournament was just designed to screw him over and bury Crimson Abyss. But what did he do to accrue all of this wrath from that powerful person? They were in entirely different leagues. Suddenly, it stuck Liam! Of course, there was one thing that did link them, and it was the stone tablet! He had been using some of the mana reserves of the tower rather exaggeratedly. Perhaps it crossed a line? However, a meager amount of reserves like that is nothing for a powerful person like the tower master. Were his actions really warranted for a reaction of this proportion? He could have simply been kicked out of the tower or banned. That would have been a proportional response, but this… He couldn't have possibly designed all of this just to get back at him? The more Liam thought about this, the more everything made sense, and all the blocks were falling in the right places. As he did, his gaze fell on Derek's corpse in front of him, and another frightening thought also occurred. This last round and the death penalty… it couldn't be that the tower master not only intended to punish him but also confiscated the item that drops after his death? Maybe the same stone tablet? That didn't make sense because the item that dropped would naturally belong to the person who defeated him. An NPC cannot steal something precious from a player outright. It was simply against the laws of the system. If anyone were to defeat him now at this point of the tournament, it was the three players in front of him. Then the loot that he dropped would also belong to them. Unless…