Author's note: I won't bore you with the details, but I had a long break without anything to type my story up on. Super sorry for the long wait, but it is what it is. Next chapter coming in a week. Much love for the support and enjoy the chapter :)

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“We all have a dark side. Most of us go through life avoiding direct confrontation with that aspect of ourselves, which I call the shadow self. There’s a reason why. It carries a great deal of energy.”

-Lorraine Toussaint

When the timer in the middle of the couches was nearing zero, my friends and I were all ready. We’d stashed all our packs into our inventories after throwing some smaller objects from the fully loaded fridge into them and I’d also used up some more space in my inventory for other objects from the fridge since I didn’t have a bag to carry them in. Turns out that every object requires its own space in the inventory unless it’s all bagged up. Milik and I had entertained the notion of tossing the entire fridge into one of our inventories, but we were already halfway through raiding the fridge at the time so the idea was trashed.

One thing that had changed though was that every one of my friends were carrying a standard combat knife that had been in the duffel bags given to them by the military outside of the tower. I was carrying the midnight black machete which I’d bought the week before.

‘Has it really only been one week since I left my family?’ It had been the longest week of my life and we hadn’t been in the tower for more than an hour and a half, but I already felt like my entire life had been flipped upside down on its head. I came in here to protect my family and all the people of Earth from the Overlords’ threat of apocalypse, but here I was about to be pitted against my own people. Forced into a situation where it was either kill or be killed. Looking around at my new friends, I realized that there wasn’t really a choice here either. It wasn’t kill or be killed. For the sake of my team, the only outcome I had better think of would have to be to kill. To be killed would only result in weakening my team and placing them all in danger. With my recent stat increases as well as original skills, I was the strongest member of The Overgods and I intended to use that strength for my friends.

As I felt my resolve take form, the countdown in the middle of the room finally hit zero and everything around us vanished. All around us, the other teams were standing and those that hadn’t expected the couches to vanish underneath them were quickly picking themselves up off the ground. We were back outside of the little shelters the Overlord had created for us and the hooded figure blinked to life on the same wall of the tower as before.

“Ah, I trust that you all are prepared now?” The figure scrutinized us and I felt as if I were an ant standing in the presence of a giant, but the pressure vanished almost as quickly as it had come. Breathing a sigh of relief, I heard the Overlord say, “I see that some of you were more productive than others in the time you had…”

That statement made me frown a little bit since it meant that the Overlord could somehow tell which of us were strong and which were weak. It was then that I remembered that most games allowed an identifying skill of sorts, but I thought the Overlord had said the Infinity Complex was something inherent to us humans which they just unlocked? So I guess the Overlords must have their own powers…I wonder what they are. Shaking my head, I banished the thoughts. ‘Too many damn questions and not enough answers.’

Unexpectedly, the hooded figure began laughing to himself and I felt the suffocating pressure once more envelop the area around me. “It seems as if this group has an admirable sense of humor. The Overgods? Did you know that they were always targets until they reached the pinnacle of power? Simply laughable. You’ve no idea that you’ve doomed yourselves to constant struggle and death. You have my condolences” The pressure vanished once more and all the other people in the room were confusedly looking around at who the Overlord’s words had been directed towards, but only the people nearest my group realized that we’d been the ones under pressure by how we’d reacted to it.

My friends and I were all catching our breaths but the Overlord carried on unperturbed by my angry glare and a sickening grin split across the Overlord’s face, revealing his razor sharp teeth. “Well marked ones, it seems it’s now time for the main event.” The overlord waved his hand and two spherical lights popped into existence. One was red and the other blue. They hung high in the air above us slowly revolving in a circle together. Waving his hand once more, a smooth platform appeared out of thin air in an empty space not too far away from where everyone was attentively watching the Overlord. The platform was about a foot off the ground and was about as large as half of a soccer field. It was glowing a brilliant white and didn’t look to be made out of stone or metal. Rather, it seemed like it was constructed using pure energy.

“When one of the two lights shines down on your group, you will go up on the platform and begin to fight when the signal is given. Remember humans, this is to the death. All members of the opposing group must be eliminated for the winning group to carry on to the next floor where the nine groups sent from the other planets are more than likely already familiarizing themselves with their new surroundings.” Silence met the Overlord’s proclamation and I began checking up on my friends in the brief respite the silence gave. It seemed that no one was really hurt from the pressure he’d exerted on us, but we were all fairly shaken up from it.

‘How am I supposed to be able to fight back the Overlord’s once this is all over if I can’t even stand up to the pressure from a projection??’ Of course, the Overlords said that the last species of groups standing would not get their planet taken from them, but I could feel that there was more to it than that. Why would they give only one species a way out and take over the rest? It just wouldn’t make any sense. One thing was certain though. I’d have to become stronger…much, much stronger to confront whatever waited at the top of the tower.

‘One day, the Overlords will kneel to me and my friends. I swear it.’

At that moment, the revolving lights above us flashed brightly and shot off to opposing corners of the mass of people and shone their lights exclusively around two different groups. I stood on my toes to look above the heads of all those around me to try and catch a glimpse of the groups but it was no use. There were just too many people and I couldn’t make out any specific features of the two groups. So instead, I looked at my group and catching Akito’s eyes, motioned with my hand in the direction of the platform. He wordlessly caught my meaning and began pushing a path through the crowd of people making good use of his bulk, enhanced strength, and intimidating look. The rest of the group fell in behind Akito and I ended up behind everyone next to Clara who was tightly gripping the handle of her combat knife. Kualin was chatting with Pixie and Milik was walking silently next to Kyra seemingly in deep thought.

Taking a quick glance at Clara’s face, I saw that she was lightly shaking and her eyes were filled with unwillingness and fear. Unsure of what to say, we walked in silence for a couple seconds before I gathered the courage to tap my hand against her knife holding hand. When she looked at me, I gave her a reassuring smile and said, “No need to be afraid Clara. You’re not alone.” She visibly relaxed and the tension with which she was carrying herself lessened a great deal.

“Thank you…” her voice was barely above a whisper, but it was enough to start making me smile out of pure happiness from being able to comfort her even just a little bit. I nodded towards her and confidently walked the rest of the way to a distance of a couple of feet from the nearest edge of the glowing platform. The other groups around us walked around the platform to thin out the crowd and pretty soon, all but sixteen of the eight hundred people here surrounded the platform while the missing two groups stood at opposite ends of the platform from one another.

Now that I basically had a free line of sight, I could see the two chosen groups much more clearly now and realized with a sigh of relief that I didn’t recognize any of the people standing on the platform. One of the groups was completely made up of Asians and I could hear them speaking to one another in some foreign language. There were six boys and two girls in this group and their ages ranged from high teens to low twenties. They didn’t particularly look very strong, especially a guy in their group who was only a little taller than five feet. A couple of the other guys in this group looked like delinquents with dyed hair and arrogant stances. One of the girls did however carry what looked like a wooden sword at her hip and I at least knew that no one would walk around with a weapon such as a sword strapped to them unless they knew how to use it.

The opposing group on the other hand looked dangerous and much more threatening than the Asians. It was an all-male group consisting of two Hispanics, two African-Americans, two Asians, a Caucasian, and one Indian. They all looked fit and in the prime of their lives, but their eyes were overrun with wild emotions: confusion, fear, anger, and loss ran rampant in different concentrations within all of them.

All but the short Asian male and the girl with the wooden sword had their combat knives out. I could tell that this fight was going to be quick and extremely bloody. Looking around for the lights from earlier, I saw that they were now revolving above the platform. And then, no sooner had I caught sight of the red and blue lights, they fused into an unsurprisingly purple color and formed a projection of the hooded Overlord seated in a chair.

Without so much as any warnings, the Overlord only spoke one word with glee. “Begin.”

On his mark, the entire group of men wildly brandished their knives and charged at the Asians. Surprisingly, only four of the Asians rushed to meet them in the middle of the platform. The half that rushed consisted of both the unarmed short male and the wooden sword carrying girl as well as two of the males with dyed hair and arrogant looks. The Asians were certainly moving quicker than the group of males as they reached the middle of the platform first. Upon reaching the middle, the four of them stopped and took up open defensive stances in the form of a diamond with the shorter guy standing in front of all of them. It was when he widened his stance and stretched his hands out in front of him that I finally realized he meant to deal with the knife-wielding group of men with his bare hands.

I quickly assumed he’d be using some form of martial arts that he was familiar with and I was excited because I’d always wanted to see this kind of stuff in person, but the circumstances of the situation made it hard to enjoy what happened next.

The first man to reach the Asians was one of the two African-American men and he stabbed at the short Asian’s chest with a primal scream of raw emotion. The Asian indifferently swatted his hand aside and, spinning like a top, smashed his elbow into the man’s chest resulting in a sickening crunch and an eruption of dark red blood from the dark-skinned man's mouth as he actually flew back a couple feet into the Caucasian man behind him causing them both to hit the floor in a heap of tangled limbs. Seeing this, the other men slowed down to a stop a couple yards behind where the Caucasian and African American man had fallen.

The two Asians with dyed hair lunged towards the downed figures of the Caucasian and African-American men and wildly began stabbing them in their chests and anywhere else they could accurately stick their blades into.

I heard a gasp of horror and felt someone clamp their hands around my arm in fear and, turning my head, I saw that Clara had burrowed her face into my arm to shield herself from the sight of the fight. The rest of my group looked sickened by the actions performed on the platform in front of us, but most of us kept watching. Pixie also turned to look away from the wild actions on the platform.

A cry filled with rage turned my attention back to the people on the platform and I could see now that the short Asian male and the girl with the wooden sword had been defending their teammates from the six remaining members of the all-male group as they tore into the men on the ground. By now, the Caucasian and African-American males were both heavily bleeding from multiple wounds on their body and lay still with the glassy stare of death in their eyes.

Looking more closely at the shorter Asian male and the girl with the sword, I could tell that they had no fear or uncertainty showing on their faces. They were experienced fighters who knew how to kill, but it was probably only in a situation like this where they truly had to employ lethal techniques.

In less than three minutes, the rest of the male group lay on the ground bleeding and dying from the combined might of the short martial artist and sword fighting girl. The two Asian men with dyed hair were methodically finishing off the ones who hadn’t yet died. They mercilessly sliced through jugulars and plunged blades into hearts. I, however, was looking at one of the Asians in the all-male group who’d received a particularly nasty blow to his skull from the sword-wielding girl which had caused his head to cave in. The sight was sickening, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

I mean, I couldn’t really judge the Asians for how they killed them or for killing them at all for that matter since I planned on doing the exact same thing to whoever we had to face off against. Maybe I’d had this preconceived notion that this fight would look cleaner and feel a lot more righteous. But this? There was no point to this. The Overlord could’ve sent us to the higher floors to fight the alien groups without all this and the weak would’ve been weeded out just like that. This was all for entertainment.

“Flawless victory! Congratulations!” The projection of the Overlord was happily clapping his hands as he shouted out to the Asian group. They didn’t say anything to that. I mean, who in their right mind would accept congratulations for taking part in murder? The Overlord waved his hand once more and a shining light exploded into life at the wall where the obsidian colored staircase was. When the light dimmed down, an elegantly carved and decorated white door stood in place at the top of the staircase. A golden handle shone on the door and above the door in flaming red letters were the words ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!’ The quote was not only written in English, but in six other languages as well. I recognized over half of the languages up there as French, Spanish, Cyrillic, and some Asian language involving kanji.

“Once your group has finished their battle, you may pass through the doors at any time between now and the next four hours. Let us begin the next round.” The Overlord’s projection dissolved into the red and blue orbs of light once more and they flew off to pick the next two groups to fight.

The next three hours taught me more about human nature than I’d learned in the last nineteen years of my life and now I could honestly agree that ignorance was indeed bliss. I personally witnessed the dark side of human nature on the first floor of the tower that day. I had never tried guessing at what actions people would take when forced into these kill or be killed situations and the shocking things they would do in a lawless place such as the tower.

Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of girls who were scared to fight and if the men in their team had failed to protect them and been killed by the opposing group, they were raped, tortured, and killed in front of everyone’s eyes. There were people who broke from the mental stress of the situation and would collapse onto the ground helpless as their teammates died around them and tears fell from their grief-ridden eyes. Some would defecate and piss themselves from the fear of losing their lives and allowed themselves to be swallowed by this fear and wail in despair as their team was slaughtered. Some groups would be unnecessarily ruthless when killing and, although I attempted to help the first girl who was going to be raped by a group of men, an invisible barrier stood at the edges of the platform which prevented me from helping anyone.

The asshole from earlier, Matthew, who had attempted to make Izzy join his group was only one among hundreds that were encouraging such actions with excessive shouting and clapping. His group had already went and they’d massacred the other team one at a time and raped the few girls on that team. Now he was sitting back and watching more of that same stuff happen while I could only watch in horror with those in the room who still held some semblance of morality as others cheered these kinds of groups on. Although not all of the fights were like this, a large majority of them were brimming with these violent and atrocious acts.

All the girls in my group had stopped watching the fights a long time ago and Milik was looking a little queasy. The only respite came from seeing some of the people on the platform utilize skills granted to them by the Infinity Complex. Although it ended in a sickening crunch, I saw one guy throw another at least ten yards away and realized he must have upgraded his strength maybe five or so more points than I had to produce that kind of strength. Another person, a girl, was throwing around fire like she’d been doing it her whole life. One thing I did notice from this was that she had shouted ‘fireball’ before the fire appeared in her hand and so I assumed that the skills in the Infinity Complex were voice activated. Whether it could be a mental voice or not remained to be seen, but I was fairly sure it could be. Hell, I doubted you really even had to think of the name of the skill to use it if you already knew how it worked like with my original skills air blade and air cloak.

Although it was cool to see people using magic, I soon felt as down as I did earlier as people began torturing others with their magic on the platform. Burning people bit by bit until they died. Drowning them in a bubble of water that refused to pop from normal means. It was almost funny when someone was telekinetically choked, but then they too defecated on themselves and died. The powers granted to us from the Infinity Complex made us strong, but it was dangerous in the hands of those who relished killing and torturing others. Others, however, used their powers just to kill and protect their team which I could respect considering I planned on doing the same. However, out of the thirty or so fights I’d watched after the first one, only a hundred or so people had used their mana or showed enhanced strength and speed. This translated to every one in five people having access to skills, but whether they were original or already gifted to them I did not know.

The winning groups more often than not lost some people in their fight to eliminate the opposing group which left incomplete groups to either rest or carry on to the next floor of the tower. There was even one fight where only one man was left standing and he looked so lost and sad as I watched him leave the platform, climb the obsidian staircase and enter the white door on to the next floor without so much as a break. Whenever I saw winning groups with losses, a sinking feeling of despair would fill my stomach because groups with less people would more than likely end up with less of a chance of surviving the next floor of the Tower. As game-like as everything had seemed beforehand, I knew that there would be no respawns. And if there was a way to cheat death, then I certainly didn’t know about it.

In maybe the thirty-sixth battle, the two groups had attempted to go on the platform and not fight one another. This, however, proved to be a mistake. Once the two groups had made their choice, they basically just sat across from one another on the platform and talked among themselves. This of course was met by a ton of booing from the less restrained in the crowd such as Matthew and his ever-growing pack of groups which liked to live freely and immorally. The number of people that seemed to have lost their shit at this point was nearing two hundred. Nevertheless, It was one of those ‘oh shit’ moments where someone does something unexpected and nobody really knew what was going to happen next. I wasn’t focused on the groups when it happened though. My full attention was on the projection of the overlord.

It really just happened all too fast. The Overlord’s lips had at first curled into a small frown before switching to a cruel smile that sent shivers down my spine. With a flick of his wrist, sixteen balls of blue fire no larger than basketballs appeared above each head on the platform and descended on them. Only the audience had a clear view of what was happening and those on the platform were burned to death as the blue fire engulfed their unsuspecting forms. Their screams of anguish and surprise filled the first floor of the tower for all of two or three seconds before it was over. This was met with a mix of cheering and groans of defeat from the crowd of people who had yet to go through the door at the top of the obsidian stairs. However anyone felt about this, it made enough of an impression that no groups after that attempted to call a truce.

It was the forty-second fight before I finally got to see Bryce again. He’d made a group with some of the friends we’d made in our barrack as well as a couple people I remember seeing join us for lunch and dinner every now and then. He didn’t look all too well either. Gone was his ever-present grin and bright eyes. In their places were dead eyes and a tight lipped frown. I hadn’t known Bryce for very long but once we’d gotten through that first night at the barracks, I found out that we had a lot in common and we actually became really good friends.

The group standing on the opposite end of the platform consisted of what looked like seven people that were willing to fight, six men and one woman, as well as one guy that was already charging across the platform before the Overlord had given the signal to begin. I looked over at the Overlord to gauge his reaction to this, but only saw a wide smile on his face which I took to mean that he didn’t particularly mind the rule breaking. The rest of the lone runner’s group began to follow him and Bryce raised his hand in front of him before shouting, “Water arrow!”

A projectile flew from in front of Bryce’s hand almost faster than I could keep track of even with my increased dexterity. The arrow produced a high-pitched whistle as it cut through the air and pierced all the way through the leading man’s chest as well as through the arm of the person closest behind him which happened to be the one female on the other team. Her arm fell to the floor and blood spurted from the gaping wound left behind which caused her to fall to her knees and scream in agony.

Bryce’s eyes didn’t change at all and the one who’d had the darkness tattoo from my barrack sent a bolt of darkness towards another person’s head who, too slow to dodge, had their head explode in a mass of blood and brain matter. That was one of the sickest kills I’d seen all day, but I was numbed to all the gore by now. I only tightened my grip on Clara who hadn’t moved from my side in the last three hours as scream after scream of pain and agony had filled the tower.

With two of their members dead from abilities which none of them had obviously had the chance to access yet, the rest of the other team began to beg for mercy, but of course it was no use. Kill or be killed together. That was the situation now. Bryce sent one more water arrow through the neck of a man bawling his eyes out and brandished his knife. I assumed this meant he ran out of mana since he was only level one if what he said about not encountering any monsters a month ago had been true. The screaming one-armed woman went next as one of Bryce’s teammates, a female, slit her throat with the knife. The rest of the team went down in similar fashion and I breathed a sigh of relief as none of Bryce’s teammates had died meaning he’d have a better chance on the second floor of the tower. I did fear for Bryce’s state of mind though—Hell, I worried about everyone’s mental state here. More than two hundred of the surviving people here were fucked up in the head like that Matthew guy as they stuck around to watch more blood and carnage instead of traveling up the tower. Only ten or so groups had already started to climb the tower, that Asian group being the very first to have left right after their fight.

I watched as Bryce led his group up the staircase and through the white door. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want to be here as long as I had. Didn’t want to have seen the things I’d seen. As I thought this, a red light shone down on the area around me and I felt my heart begin to thump much harder as I realized what that light meant. Looking up, I saw the red orb lazily floating above my group.

Nodding to the rest of my group, I shook Clara who was still holding on to my arm. “Clara, it’s our turn now. Come on. Stay in the back.” She slowly released my arm and wiped her hand across her tearstained bloodshot eyes. I felt my heart break a little from the sight, but it only strengthened my resolve to protect her. To protect my whole team. Placing my hand on her back, I guided her onto the glowing platform only a couple feet in front of me and left her to move further up next to Akito, Kualin, and Milik.

Akito looked as impassive as ever, if not a little more tense. His eyes were hard and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Milik had a hand over his stomach and the combat knife in the other. He was looking a little worse for wear, but ready for a fight. Kualin stood defiantly with his arms crossed as he set his eyes on the group of people standing fifty yards away from us on the platform. Paying them no mind, I turned my eyes behind me to the girls and saw Pixie and Clara tightly holding each other’s hands with combat knives in their free hands. Izzy and Kyra stood a yard in front of them looking jumpy and tightly holding their knives. They were all scared. Hell, I’m positive that we all were. Some of us were just better at hiding it than others.

I nonchalantly walked next to Milik and leaned on his shoulder. “So what’s the situation looking like, Shadow Strider?” I did this for two reasons. One was to show the team that I wasn’t worried about what was about to come our way. Morale is key after all. The other was to see how he’d react to the title granted to him by the Infinity Complex.

Milik shrugged in response and pointed over at the other team with his knife. “They’ve been hanging around near Matthew’s group. I recognize them only because I’ve seen them cheer as other people died. Although, I don’t know if it was all of them. At least two of them look like they don’t particularly feel comfortable around the rest of their team. You can tell by how they look standing next to them.” I nodded at his observations. I’d come to the same conclusion myself but it didn’t really matter. Whether they were in Matthew’s crowd of people or not, they all had to die.

“Akito, switch me places in formation. I’ll take point. I’m faster and I have defensive measures. Work in pairs as we discussed. Milik, you’re on me. Kualin with Akito. We good?” Grunts of acceptance were the answer. I wasn’t honestly all that worried about winning or losing. Over the past three hours, my teammates hadn’t just been watching. I’d seen them messing around with their mana and I’d been doing the same. No new skills to show for it, but I could do some more interesting things with air and my control was only going to grow. So I was nervous to fight and kill, but I felt that overall we would be fine.

“Begin.” I only looked up for an instant at the Overlord before dropping the sheath of my machete into my inventory with a quick thought and toss. It was a smooth movement and much, much faster than I’d ever moved before and I had a feeling I could reach even higher speeds. It had been less than a second after the signal to begin had been given and I was already moving forward.

Kualin and Milik followed a solid second and a half after I took off and Akito was the last to respond. I ran at a speed I felt Milik and Kualin could keep up with and we quickly left Akito behind us as we reached the halfway mark on the platform. Surprisingly, there were three men only ten yards from the middle and I felt that they were at Kualin’s and Milik’s level of speed.

‘Air cloak,’ I thought to myself with conviction. A drain of the mana from my body and an instant later, a golden light flashed. I felt the complex, multi-layered, high-speed swirling of the wind enshroud my whole body accompanied with a low humming noise. The three men in front of us were momentarily blinded by the flash of my skill and it was then that I attempted to reach my full speed.

I was in front of all three of them in less than half a second. Ten yards in one second is already encroaching upon the human limits. I had only ever moved that fast in a vehicle, but my mind kept up with my speed. I swung my machete at the neck of the guy in the middle of the group. He didn’t even have time to open his eyes before the speed and strength of my machete separated his head from his body. It was as smooth as cutting through butter, but much more sickening.

At that time, the two other guys that had rushed recovered and the one on my left began to shout “Fireba—.” Before he could finish, I spun on my foot and my unoccupied left hand backhanded him across the face, sending him reeling a couple yards back. The guy on my right swung his knife towards my right side. I moved forward in an attempt to dodge, but I couldn’t move out of the way fast enough and I felt the blade hit the swirling air around my body. What happened next was something I should’ve expected but really just didn’t. Not in that moment.

My air cloak was moving at the speed of a super condensed hurricane. His hand was moving nowhere near that speed nor did he have the strength to force his way through that speed. The knife probably went micrometers into the air cloak before twisting out of his grip and being flung into the invisible wall around the platform at a ridiculous speed. Once he lost the knife, his wrist was sprained from the force at which it was ripped from his hands and that was when Milik ran into him with his shoulder sending him to the ground.

I looked to my left and saw Kualin fighting with the man who’d attempted to redecorate my face with a fireball. The whole exchange took less than two seconds and my heart was already wildly beating against my chest. The other five members of the opposing group were all just now getting to the fight and they were moving in a clump towards me. I was positive that Akito was going to help Kualin since I told them to move together. Milik was rolling on the ground with the man who’d tried to stab me. Milik had already stabbed him multiple times in the stomach if the blood was any indication and so I wasn’t all too worried about him.

I heard Akito’s footsteps approaching me from behind and then the sound of “FIREBALL!” caused me to look back at Kualin. He had just dove out the way of a basketball sized red flame and it sped past him towards the invisible force field around the platform erupting into a massive spike of flame.

‘Air blade!’ I fervently thought. Another drain on my mana and a gold swirling crescent blade of air formed above my hand. I threw it out towards the group of five people running my way. Three of them dropped to the floor leaving one man and woman in mid-run with their eyes wide in fear and surprise. The air blade easily cut through their stomachs and it shattered against the invisible force field twenty five yards behind them. The man and woman were completely separated from their lower halves and steadily bled out on the floor with cries of pain and sickening gurgling noises.

Akito had finally reached Kualin’s side and they were both attempting to get their hands on the elusive fire elemental user who was attempting to gain some distance and ran back towards his team. Milik was slowly picking himself up from the ground where the body of the other man lay in a bloody mess of intestines and dark red liquid. I quickly moved over and offered a hand to him which he grasped and I easily helped him up the rest of the way.

“Come on.” I said to him and rushed after Kualin and Akito who were moving in towards the remaining four members of the opposing group. The three who had thrown themselves to the ground had gotten back up and two of them had their hands out in front of them while the other two were holding their knives in preparation.

“Spread out!” I shouted at Akito, Kualin, and Milik. They all fanned out and there was now a distance of fifteen yards between us and the other four people. “Watch for the ones with their hands out. They have magic!”

‘Air blade.’ It was nearing one minute and I felt like my mana recovery was just enough to hold onto my air cloak for the next minute even if I used this air blade. Another air blade formed above my hand and I quickly threw it at the magic user who didn’t have the fire element.

“Earth wall!” He quickly shouted in response to my air blade. It was really no use though. I don’t know what made his magic weaker than mine, but my air blade tore through his rock wall like it was nothing and then diagonally slashed through his body leaving another bloodied corpse on the ground.

Knowing that was all the magic I could muster, I looked over at Milik whose hands looked to be molding something and I saw a black sphere no larger than a bead come into existence. Whatever instincts I had against danger blared to life upon seeing that little black ball in his hands.

“Decimator!” His hands dropped away from the sphere and he motioned with his hands towards the flame user. The black ball lazily moved through the air towards the flame elemental user and feeling the danger, the guy tried responding with a fireball in the direction of the black sphere. The fireball rocketed through the air and left a blazing trail of heat in its wake. The black sphere was consumed into the fireball and Milik’s eyes widened in surprise. It was too late for him to dodge and I was about to shout out at him to move no matter how futile, but then the fireball just dissipated into nothing.

‘What the fuck…?’ I thought to myself. Everyone on the platform stopped to stare at where the fireball had disappeared and the black sphere was unexpectedly still steadily moving towards the flame user. The guy’s eyes widened in surprise as the sphere reached a couple yards in front of him and he backed away and sent another fireball through the black sphere. Again it was consumed and then the fireball disappeared once again. The black sphere finally reached the guy and pushed through his upper chest where his heart was as if it met no resistance and the man's body crumpled to the ground in a heap with fear etched into his features.

Ding!

A golden window popped up in front of me with the words ‘You have leveled up’ written on it.

‘So we do share experience as a party then? Good. At least Clara will be able to level with us if she still refuses to fight after all this.’ I quickly dismissed the window as there were still two more people to deal with. The last two people were sobbing and incoherently stumbling over words asking for what I’m sure was mercy. They knew it wouldn’t happen. We knew it as well. Only one group could leave this platform. Dispelling my air cloak, I felt that I had enough mana for what had to be done.

‘Air blade.’ Again, the swirling golden blade of air formed on my hand. My friends and I were looking down on the crying men who were begging for their lives on their knees.

“Any last words…?” I solemnly asked the two men. This only made them cry louder and seeing that no answer was coming, I quickly decapitated them with the air blade before I lost my nerve and gave them what I could only hope was a painless death.