"W-We had nothing to do with what Jason did!" Sonya immediately surrendered as soon as Arnold's forces started surrounding them, "I swear, if we had any idea, I would have stopped him myself. hell, I would have killed him by my-"

"Oh, so you're telling me that the psychic mage over there did not inform you about it?" Arnold scoffed while playing with his guns, "Smells like BS to me, to be honest."

"I-I'm not a p-psychic-"

-Bang-

Before anyone could even realise what was going on, there was a bullet hole right next to the mage's feet. The smell of gun powder was still fresh in the air. Arnold was not in a playful mood. Especially not after recklessly battling the tree, its minions and now these mofos. In fact, he just wanted to kill them and get it over with, but then he might need them later on for future tasks so he could not afford to be completely reckless at the moment.

'We are already down from being 9 contestants to 7 since the brigadier and now one of the twins are gone.' He thought, 'It would be a bad idea to kill any more of them. But that doesn't mean I can not threaten them.'

The mage fell hard on her bu.tt, still shocked that Arnold actually fired at her without a moment's hesitation. She had a look of shock and disbelief on her face while she kept gazing at Arnold as if he was mentally sick. But more than that, her entire squad was having a tough time wondering about how could Arnold know about her secret skill.

The mage did know enough healing spells so that she could pass as a healer in the eyes of the others. But in reality, she was a psychic mage, just like Nicholas. That was the reason for their confusion. Little did they know with probe skill, they were like an open book to him. At this point, Arnold might even know them better than they knew each other.

"You lie one more time and the next bullet will go through your fcking head." Arnold said in a calm tone while smiling at her, "So, which one of you basta.rds is going to tell me the truth huh?"

Sonya's squad stared at each other like a herd of sheep without a shepherd. Of course, it was Sonya who had instructed Jason to try and assassinate Arnold. She chose him over the others for two reasons, first, he was the fastest amongst them and could kill Arnold before the gods could interfere. And second, Jason was already suffering from cancer. He was barely being kept alive using high-grade healing magic. But even after using that, he would have died either way sooner or later.

Thus she instructed him to do them a favour before dying and he did. If it wasn't for Talos, he might have succeeded... or so they thought. Arnold had a couple of passive abilities that could have saved him in the nick of time. So he wasn't all too worried about his safety if at all.

"I am expecting an answer from you."  Arnold yelled again, "You know what? Hand over your rewards to me and I'll forget about everything."

"We won't do that!" The tank immediately yelled back. 

"Oh... it seems you got a pretty good one." Arnold smiled, "Let's have a look shall we?"

"I would never give it to you even if you kill me."

"Kill you? Why would I do that when I could turn you into my slave." Arnold smiled at her before nodding at the one standing behind her, "Natasha, could you do the honours?"

Controlling minds and forcing the others to make a fool out of them was what Natasha had the most fun doing. Except perhaps using sensual ways to torture someone to death. Either way, when the mage saw Natasha trying to control her friend's mind, she immediately created a barrier separating them from Arnold's forces.

"An attempt was made..." Natasha mumbled and ripped off the barrier as if it was made of thin fabric, "A pitiful one at that too, tsk."

"How can she be stronger than me! She is just a pathetic summon!" The mage couldn't control her frustration anymore and lashed out at the succubus.

"Bad move... why do these idiots never learn."

"Master, shall I?"

Arnold sighed, "Do what you want. Just don't kill her, I still want them to pay for what they did. And them being dead won't help me with that. Either way, I'm heading out. Talos make sure she doesn't go overboard and the rest of you... do what you want." 

Arnold then turned towards Johnny and Nicole before leaving with them. He could no longer care what happened to the rest of the contestants, but if they dared to destroy even one of his summons, he wouldn't care about the competition anymore and erase them from existence.

***

Back in Shiva's domain, he couldn't stop smiling. Things were actually going better than he had anticipated, for now. Lady Parvati and Nandi were happy because Shiva was happy. But they didn't know the absolute reason for his happiness, however, they could guess it had to do something with his Vassal.

"I know your vassal outperformed every participant in the universe, but don't you think it's a bit too soon to celebrate?" Lady Parati mumbled before softly caressing her husband's shoulder.

"I agree with Lady Parvati, my lord. It's good that he won, but if he continue his reckless actions, his luck would sooner or later run out." Nandi respectfully enquired.

"We have been observing the mortal for a while now. Do you think he would care about it even if I tell him to?" Shiva's smile grew broader, "But you are right about one thing, he trusts too many people and does not know there are snakes everywhere. Even amongst the ones, he would readily give his life for."

"What are you trying to say? Someone is going to betray him?"

"Let's just say... the next couple of rounds wouldn't be a smooth sail for our hero."