What?! The Gamemaster And The Top Player Are Dating?!

"If the soul had overtaken Hasumi's body, we should have indirectly completed the mission, but what if the body, it took wasn't Hasumi's?" Zhihao felt a bit stupid for not having seen through this. Alvi had not exactly lied to them, they were just too dense to have noticed.

Alvi told them that they had failed the mission and wouldn't be able to complete it anymore, this wasn't because Hasumi was not with them or anything like that. If Zhihao had guessed it right and the soul had overtaken Hasumi's body, the mission should have been completed just as he expected, but there was a reason why it had failed. A reason Zhihao was not able to foresee. 

He thought Alvi and he were talking about the same thing when she said that they had failed the mission because of Doji and Kazan's plan. They had failed the mission because of those two, but Zhihao was never aware of what the plan was and Alvi never said that his guesses about the plan were correct. 

The plan wasn't to kidnap Hasumi, it was to kidnap the soul. 

"The soul took over Kazan's body!"

[Congratulations.]

[You guessed it right.]

Zhihao had realized it a bit late. When he remembered what the demon had screamed at him, he felt like he should've realized it sooner. The demon was basically yelling that he was the perpetrator who was planning on burning this entire place down, but with no powers, how could he? 

Why was he so confident while cursing Taki? 

It was because he had a hidden card up his sleeve. Zhihao could still not grasp how that demon had done all this. 

Kazan was really crazy! 

"But doesn't that mean we can still complete the mission?" Li Ling asked. 

Zhihao shook his head, "No, we can't. Not only do we not have Hasumi but we also don't have the soul with us."

"Alvi, If we find Hasumi can't we force the soul to leave Kazan's body and enter Hasumi's?"

[You can't.]

[Once the soul has entered the body, the only way it will leave the body is if the vessel is destroyed.]

"So we have to kill Kazan?" Zhihao questioned. 

[There is a reason this is an annual festival.]

[The vessel only lasts for a day before it is destroyed. That is if the vessel is a human body. If it is a demon vessel, it will last a bit longer, but no matter what type of body it is, the soul still needs time to recover and be ready for a new vessel.]

[If you want to complete your original mission, you'll need to kill Kazan and wait another year.]

[Do you think that's possible?]

Zhihao sighed. 'Wait for a year? That was hopeless.'

[So I didn't lie.]

[You are now dependent on the secret mission.]

This wasn't so shocking for Zhihao who had already guessed that they won't be able to undo the damage done. 

Maybe Zhihao had gotten a bit carried away by the way Alvi interacted with them. The original system would not lie to them, but that did not mean that it did not hide information from them. He had forgotten this important factor that he had always hated. 

Li Ling couldn't comprehend the situation, "So why are we running back?"

This was an important question. No matter who the soul had taken over, no matter who was the vessel, the main mission still remained impossible to complete so why were they running back to the festival now. 

"Because I know what the secret mission is," Zhihao responded confidently and Li Ling looked at him with surprise. 

This guy was much more intelligent than he thought. How could he get all this from the little information and hints provided? 

Li Ling decided to ask what Zhihao had found out this time, "What is the secret mission?"

Zhihao smiled, it took him a while to get it, but once he understood that Kazan had become the vessel for the soul, the rest of the pieces of puzzles started putting themselves together without Zhihao's help. The dots started connecting themselves and now Zhihao was more than a hundred percent sure about what he had to do, he was sure he was going to win this level. 

The confident and amazing Mastermo was finally back in action. 

"If the secret mission doesn't need our help and would be triggered by something else, what could that be?" Zhihao asked, but he didn't wait for an answer, "Kazan became a vessel for the soul, and if I'm guessing right, while we ran away, he was going through the process of getting the soul."

[You are a genius]

"Remember what Alvi said?" He asked again, but once again, he answered his own question, "She said that his yelling would have pained Taki and I did a perfect role-play for the situation except, I forgot one thing."

"What did you forget?" 

"If it was the real Taki, he would have kissed Kazan."

Li Ling looked at him in shock, he was almost sure that no one would be able to catch such a small thing. Who would listen to Alvi's side-commentary? Who would think that it is a clue?

Zhihao was a lot more attentive than he had originally thought and although this was one of the things he liked about this man, he was also afraid of it because who knows how much this man had picked up clues about Li Ling. He was scared of being found out and still acting innocent. He would become a joke if that were to happen and he was afraid of what Zhihao would say then. 

Zhihao didn't notice the sudden change in expressions on Li Ling's face, he was too busy continuing his explanation as to what he had summed up, "If it were the real Taki, he would've indirectly completed the ritual by kissing Kazan."

[You are right.]

[That was Kazan's plan.]

Li Ling decided to speak up once again as staying silent for too long may cause suspicion, "So the soul hasn't taken over him yet?"

"It had." Zhihao answered, "Alvi, give us the answer."

[You're finally being impressive.]

[Just what I had expected from the top player, Mastermo.]

[The original ritual requires a royal-blood to drink from the cup. There is a reason behind this.]

[It's because if the human directly ingests the blood inside the cup, the vessel will start rotting immediately and so the demon in charge has to first make sure that the soul can be transferred without hurting the vessel.]

[Kazan is already a demon so he only needs to drink the mixed blood. His body is stronger and more compatible so it won't rot away, but he still needs to kiss a pure-blood in order to let the soul take complete control over his body.]

"So the soul is inside him, but it can't control him without a kiss from you?"

"The first half of that sentence is correct, but the latter is wrong." Zhihao replied, "He needs to kiss a pure-blood. It doesn't have to be me."

"Wait..." Li Ling noticed something weird and unsettling, "The only other pure-blood there is..."

"Taki's father." Zhihao completed the sentence. 

"That's... Disgusting." Li Ling commented. 

Suddenly they heard screams from ahead where the drums of the festival were still going on. 

Zhihao, "We don't have time. We need to hurry."

[Congratulations! The secret mission is here!]

"I knew it," Zhihao mumbled, happy with himself. 

[Secret mission: Beat the Akuma and save the world from destruction.]

"Akuma?" 

[That's the name of the soul.]

"Wait... He really kissed your father?" Li Ling asked in shock. 

Zhihao gagged at the thought, but that was the only explanation for this. He nodded with a frown, "He did."

After a minute or two they saw flocks of ghosts running towards them in panic. Zhihao saw them all coming towards him and he felt an ominous feeling in his stomach. 

[Blow them out of the way.]

Zhihao understood why Alvi had said this. If they didn't make way for these two, then they were all going to become an obstacle that slowed them down. 

"Get out of the way!" Zhihao yelled. His hands holding something bright glowing like electricity; a ball of electricity. 

The ghosts who were panicking and running for their lives saw a demon coming at them from a distance with a ball of lightning in his hand and they immediately changed their direction. Not all of them were intelligent enough or realized it soon enough. The unlucky ones who didn't act fast enough nor changed their direction were met with the ball of light that once thrown, increased in size and destroyed everything in its path. They were all dead already so being hit with this didn't kill them or hurt them, it just threw them out of the way and the path in front of Li Ling and Zhihao was now clear. 

"Nice one!" Li Ling commented and Zhihao smiled. 

"This was Taki's original power." 

[There is a lot more Taki can do.]

[This was just the tip of the iceberg of powers Taki possessed.]

Zhihao suddenly chuckled, "You really are a Taki fan, aren't you?"

[I will not be answering that.]

"Alvi, do you think we can win against Akuma with Taki's power alone?"

[Taki is powerful but he ain't that powerful.]

[If you completely depend on his powers, you'll lose without a doubt.]

Zhihao had already guessed this much, but he was not worried since he already had his own equipment with him and even had the advantage of the gambling bar by his side. 

Zhihao opened his inventory and got ready to take out the bombs and guns he loved, but he was shocked to see that he couldn't. When he clicked on it, there showed up an error on the screen. 

[You can't use all the things in your inventory.]

"Why?" Zhihao cried out in shock, this had never happened before. 

[OOC]

[If you use some items, it would cause the others to be suspicious and you'll go OOC.]

"If I can't defeat him with Taki's powers and I can't use my own weapons, how am I supposed to beat him?" Zhihao asked. 

[Check carefully.]

[Not all of your inventory items are sealed off.]

[You should still be able to use high-grade equipment.]

[High-grade equipment is different than normal ones since they are registered in all the levels and can be used.]

Zhihao scrolled through his entire inventory and sighed. He only had three high-grade pieces of equipment in his inventory. One was a useless enchantment breaking crystal, the other was the moon goddess spellbook and the third was his sword Shuang. 

Li Ling coughed as he went through his own inventory, "A-Zhi, I have Huo. That's it."

Zhihao calmed himself down and let his brain do the work for him. They can't use low-grade equipment and they don't have that many high-grade weapons, but this didn't mean they were completely helpless. 

Even without any weapons, they still had something that was beneficial to them. 

The gambling bar. 

Right now, Zhihao felt like he really did a good job betting on himself. 

He wasn't afraid that he would lose. 

He was Mastermo after all and Mastermo never loses. 

After a minute or two of running back to the festival, the noise got louder and louder, they were stormed with hoards of ghosts who were trying to get out of here as soon as possible. 

Zhihao once again used the lightning ball and the crowd before them was cleared for a mere minute and it was enough for them to move to the front row of the chaos. 

When they finally reached the site which was the epicenter of the commotion, Zhihao took a sharp breath in. 

His 'father' was hanging in midair, with his throat in the clutches of Kazan who wasn't playing around anymore.