The tournament was at its peak, and the crowd responded so. Now that Ryan and the others were participating there was a huge upheaval in the fight. People were dropping left and right now that an actual powerful group came around. They were tearing apart the competition in a way Derb and his group couldn’t compare. They were also the only group besides Derb that wasn’t being conservative about their moves. The whole thing made him nervous. Since when did they have such a trump card? He would have been fine with his dark infusion but at this rate, he wasn’t sure if he had a chance.

After ducking and tearing through two warriors he made a choice. He mentally called out to his incubus. ‘Hey, Connor… I need you to stop helping them. Just help me from now on.’ Connor let out confusion, and then a bit of skepticism. Derb groaned, the damn demon was too smart for its own good. ‘Yes, Connor, I want them to fail. It’s just a game either way so don’t act like I'm the bad guy.’ Connor nodded with an anxious smile on his face, it wasn’t like his master to be so backhanded.

Almost instantly the tide turned on Ryan and his group. People were blocking their hits, and the duo had to act more tactically to take out larger groups. Adam didn’t seem like he needed the help, though. He was still tearing people apart with his massive size, his little chubby helper floating right behind. In fact… all of them were doing quite well even without Connor. Maybe he needed to take a more… active approach. He gasped at his own thoughts, stunned long enough to almost take a fireball to the face.

“Jesus, I need to stop thinking while fighting.” Derb muttered. He’d been doing so well just a while ago, jumping around the field like a grasshopper with a death wish. The anxiety caused him to come out of his flow and now he was back to fighting on his feet. Connor started providing back up so he wasn’t fully outclassed right now. He’d seen some mages’ hands shake while they were cursed, struggling to keep their staffs in their grip. Derb grinned, focusing on them. The warriors weren't fast enough to keep up with him. The few who were couldn’t really get past his armor either.

With a low kick, he toppled one of the mages, piercing them with his sword. He grabbed the other who tried to run away and almost instinctively used dark mana to end him. He caught himself and just chopped him in half. He was starting to get numb to seeing people get cut in half, but he couldn’t see the recesses so he assumed that helped. The warriors behind him were furious, and he stuck his tongue out at them from inside his helmet and hopped away. He called Jack to deal with them, with Connor's help most people became paper mache to his fist.

He looked away from the screaming and horrible ticking sound that came from the demon and focused on another group. Adam and Chipmunk were split from the group and dealing with them, but they were being outmaneuvered by the archer group. It seemed they got a bit overconfident with Connor around and decided to split up. He could see the frustration in Chipmunk’s red face and almost laughed. With a quick step, he leaped over the giant man and tore apart a surprised archer. He didn’t look back to explain, merely focusing on the group in front of him. With a shoulder bash, he knocked the wind out of one and slashed another.

One tried to shoot but without an infusion, it just bounced off his armor plate. There wasn’t enough time to infuse a shot, though, so the whole team just fell apart at the combination of speed, defense, and strength. He looked back at the two and gave a thumbs up, Chipmunk gave one back with a straight face but Adam looked down, just turning and walking away. Aw, shit. He didn’t just hurt his pride, did he? There weren’t many other groups left so maybe he wanted to take one on himself?

Wait… there really weren’t many groups left, were there? The tournament was only half-finished but people were coming out slower than they were being taken out. Only around five groups were left, and two were made up of only half their original members. It seemed Ryan’s group was being smart in splitting their team up, the fewer numbers the better. Derb had remembered being ganged up on by the entire arena because of the speaker. If the arena was finally empty and he was left with just them he was sure who was going to win.

He remembered the people he traveled with during the trip here. He hated to say it but they were a decent amount weaker than these folk. He was sure they weren’t hiding anything, he saw everything while they were fighting for their lives. If he managed to weaken these guys enough he could jump ship to the others. He’d have to wait for that chance, though… He already knew which one he had to take out, Chipmunk. He was the only person he’s met able to take out Connor’s curses. Without them, Connor could barely be considered a mage.

He had to step lightly, no need to make waves just yet. Another group had come in, around 8 people split evenly between mages and warriors. They had the numbers but they didn’t seem too impressive. Derb decided to hang this one out, focusing on the smaller teams. He didn’t kill them though, making sure to just dodge their blows and leap out of the way. He needed the arena to become as chaotic as it was before, if only to make it harder on them.

Adam and Chipmunk charged in on the team he was working on while he was thinking, ruining his plan almost instantly. “It looked like you needed help, they told me to come.” Chipmunk said, hanging back while Adam did his thing. Derb nodded, not trusting his voice in giving anything away. Adam was wrecking shop and Connor was providing buffs. The other team didn’t stand a chance against these talented people so Derb was left on the sidelines. At this point he’d be singled out, he had to act quick. He snuck up behind Chipmunk and wondered how’d he efficiently take him out. Before he could do so a warrior blew past Adam and charged at them.

The commotion snapped him out of his trance and he took a swing at Chipmunk. The poor kid didn’t stand a chance, the surprise of it all not even showing in his face before he was sent off. The warrior saw this and stopped, obviously confused at what happened. Derb took the moment to jump forward and knee him in the face. The man was strong, though, and he took and grappled Derb to the ground, Both dropping their greatswords in the process. He could hear Adam in the background cry out in rage as he realized what happened.

Derb didn’t have enough time, he heard Adam charging at the two and the man on top of him had no sign of releasing his grip. He closed his eyes as the giant lumbering man got closer and waited for his death… only for the man grappling him to be thrown off with great force. He watched as Adam pummeled him to death, strangled sobs coming from his mouth. What the hell was happening? He turned back to me in anger and power walked towards Derb. He almost grabbed his sword before he realized the massive giant only shoved a finger at his chest.

“You were there, why didn’t you save him!?” Derb raised his hands, the rusty cogs in his head finally turning, Adam didn’t think he did it, did he? “I was too slow! I tried but he was too sudden, neither of us was paying attention!” Adam snorted, “My little buddy would not do that. Too smart. He is smart enough to not die.” Derb cursed mentally, wasn’t this guy supposed to be slow? “It’s probably because he believed you would stop them, he had a lot of confidence in you, you know? At least, that’s what he told me.”

Adam’s face scrunched up, which told him he was pushing the right buttons. “He was going on and on about how you could tear my demon apart in a fight. I’m pretty sure Jack could have saved him, though.” Derb was punched in the gut, knocking the air out of his lungs. Guess he went too far, he leaped back with his sword, though he was surprised at how Adam looked. “I could easily tear apart your monster, if Chipmunk thunk so then he thunk right. My chipmunk is smart, he’d never was wrong.”

Adam’s face almost looked like he was about to cry, his arms shaking in anger and guilt. Guess they were closer than he thought. Derb stepped in and slapped him in the back with a cheeky grin on his face. “Why so sad? You won’t be able to win like that, let’s make sure you make it to the end at least. I'm sure Chipmunk would tease you if you don’t.” Derb mimicked Chipmunk’s kiddish and snotty but deepish tone. “You really can’t do anything without me, huh big guy?” Adam grinned at that one, slapping Derb strongly across the back, to which he purposefully let himself fall.

“Watch the strength, big guy. Don’t want me to end up like Chipmunk.” He groaned as he stood up, stretching his back. “Let’s go make the little guy proud, alright?” Adam nodded, getting serious again. “I’ll show chipmunk I'm just fine without him, I’ll make chipmunk proud.” Derb smiled and nodded along, the dumb ones were always the easiest to make friends with, you just have to sort of slap them around and then get hit back and suddenly you were buddy-buddy. “Let’s do it then! I’ll go first, let’s see who can get the most people!”

Derb jumped and landed amongst the crowd of 6 that Ryan and Gabby were fighting. The fact that they had ranged meant the battle would have been long and drawn out. They’d already taken out six so they were going to win no matter what but Derb decided to help out. Now that Chipmunk was out of the way he felt like he’d wholeheartedly help them till he was found out. The crowd was going wild at what just happened, they couldn’t hear what they were saying but they saw what happened and knew just how terrible the situation was.

Luckily the speaker kept silent, though Derb didn’t know for how much longer. “The teams are getting decimated left and right! Whatever seems to be going on between our local heroes and the black knight seems to be working! Though, as we all seem to know, there’s going to have to be moments of… tension.” Derb gritted his teeth, a bit on the nose don’t you think, you stupid speaker? Adam didn’t seem to be listening, just grinding away at the opposition. It was Ryan that came to him first. “What happened!? Where’s Chipmunk?”

Derb’s shoulders sank, “They were fighting a group, and Adam was led along a bit too far, one of them jumped in from nowhere and took him out in one swing. Poor chipmunk was gone in a second.” Ryan gritted his teeth, veins visible in his forehead. “Damn it! They’ll be here any minute now and you tell me our trump card was taken out!?” Derb’s stomach sank, what was he talking about? “Who’s going to be here? Who!?” Derb shouted, ducking a sword and shoving a warrior to his feet.

They were worried about someone else? Derb thought he was their biggest threat, and now they tell him he and his demons were just an obstacle!? Ryan took care of the last one, his dark and fiery blade going cleanly through the neck and back into his sheathe. He sighed as he remembered the last competition. “Salem and Krystal, they won the last tournament by a mile. It was quite embarrassing to lose to them so early in the matches.” He groaned as he remembered the situation he was in. “We all got stronger but Chipmunk really hit it off, he was able to give a buff that used everything to make us incredibly strong.”

Derb’s knees almost gave out as he realized how little chance he actually had going up against them. Now they were telling him they were just as screwed as him!? “Wait… hold on, Connor also has something like that, he can curse people, remember? We also outnumber them by a lot, so we still have a chance… right?” Ryan got even more depressed when he heard the uncertainty. “Look, tell me what they’re like, maybe we can come up with a new plan, we still have a few more groups before they come, probably.”

The moment those words were said out loud the speaker reared his ugly head. “Can it be!? Yes! Last year’s winners have shown up in the field. About time, folks! Let’s make this interesting!!!” Derb shouted as loud as he could infusing his voice in mana for the first time ever, shocking Ryan and the others. “I CAN’T CATCH A FUCKING BREAK!” The crowd roared in tandem, ignoring his anger.