A quick fifteen-minute jog later, the color slowly starts to shift from yellow to green. This indicated that my target was already within a distance where I could find it without the marker's assistance.

The sound of the trees falling had already stopped a few minutes ago, around the time the color changed from orange to yellow, and since then, I hadn't heard a single sound.

Despite that, I was still moving in the same direction, towards where the sound had come from. Of course, the chances were high that this was an ambush and that my opponent wanted me to do exactly that. But one thing I had learned over my last three fights, was that trying to evade ambushes was pretty pointless. Rather, running right into it while being vigilant of one, has a good chance of catching your opponent off-guard instead.

As I come closer, I stand in front of a natural Colosseum, the walls made from the tops of the outward lying trees.

For a moment I considered climbing a tree and try to snipe my opponent, if they are in the middle of the ring, but quickly decide against it. Since my defensive Skills are too low a level to allow me to resist any serious attacks, I had to stay mobile and not get hit.

Evading attacks on the ground was already hard enough. Doing so on top of a tree would be nearly impossible.

So, I carefully stepped over, under, and through branches, slowly making my way through the not-so-natural barrier.

Once I finally came far enough to see through it and into the clearing, what I saw astonished me a little.

"What is it that you are using? Fire? Anger? Numbers? Hmm... Guns. I see. This is promising to be an interesting fight.", the old man kneeling in the middle of the clearing said.

The man was by far the oldest participant in the tournament, sporting wrinkly skin, and white hair. As far as I could tell, his face had Asian features and he was wearing a black Hakama and Gi, the classic wide robes Samurai used to wear. His left hand was on the sheath on his left hip, the right on the handle of the Katana contained inside it.

Realizing that he had seen me, despite being almost behind him, I quickly aimed and pulled the trigger.

In one smooth, seemingly slow, motion, he stands up, turns around, and swings his blade through the air in the same motion as he draws it. All simultaneously.

To my astonishment, I hear the sound of metal hitting metal as small sparks fly from his sword, the two halves of the bullet trowing up two small dirt clouds as they shoot into the ground.

For a moment, I couldn't help but stand there with my mouth wide open. Sure, even I had superpowers, but I somehow had the feeling that that wasn't the work of a Skill, at least not directly. The movement looked far too natural and practiced for that.

"Boy, won't you listen to the selfish request of a blind old man?", he continued as if nothing had happened.

And sure enough, he had a black cloth covering his eyes.

"If you happen to have lost a few times already, could you let me win this fight without too much of a struggle? It's been over twenty years since I lost my sight, and I don't want to lose it again so shortly after regaining it."

He had my sympathy, but that wasn't something I could afford. I shook my head. I didn't want to talk to him, else I got the feeling I might have a harder time killing him.

Still, I had the feeling he would understand.

"That's a shame.", he answered and bowed before continuing: "Please take care of me. I might be old, but so is my sword. And my body and mind are stronger than ever before. I won't make it easy for you."

Honestly, he was the first person in the tournament who was polite. He almost made me feel ashamed for still hiding, ironic since he seemed to see me nonetheless.

With the left hand on the sheath and the right on his sword, which he had put away again, he slowly started to walk in my direction.

Putting my AK back up, I take aim and shoot at him again.

Again, his blade flashes through the air, cutting the bullet apart before returning to its sheath.

Several more shots are fired in quick succession, some at his torso, others at his head, and several even at his feet and legs. But no matter how often I tried, every single one was cut apart or deflected.

It was insanity.

He had already covered half the distance between us when my gun clicked, the magazine empty.

As quickly as I could, I threw away the empty mag, pulling out a new one, wasting precious seconds to fumble it into the gun.

Honestly, I was quite intimidated by now. Sure, cutting and deflecting bullets with a sword was incredible, but the real problem lied somewhere else.

Every single movement of the blade seemed incredibly slow and relaxed, just barely enough to do the job. Thanks to that, I had absolutely no way to tell which stat was how high.

As far as I could tell, his stats may all be at the lowest possible ten points.

And then, there was the fact that I didn't want to get into the range of his sword. It was hard to tell, but the blade was surrounded by a soft blue glow. It was probably the very same Skill that allowed him to cut trees in a single swing and cut and deflect bullets en masse without the sword getting damaged.

I had the bad feeling that it would make short work of my body armor. Though, he probably was good enough to simply strike the gaps.

Now, there were at most ten meters between him and me and I had to change tactics, quickly. Without wasting any more time, I jumped out of my hiding spot and onto the clearing.