“Where did he go?” Asked a large ape-man.

“I don’t know. Yet I can’t sense his presence anywhere. It’s like he has anti tracking equipment.”

“Tch. Find him. We lost him a second ago. He couldn’t have gone too far?”

Kyrion had just been doing his CrossFit maneuvers as a warm-up. His regime was bizarre: three sets of a thousand push-ups followed by the same in sit-ups. He also did parkour for a good 25 miles, which was hard to track as he jumped from wall to wall and ran along them as well. He’d be done in about an hour, but given the nature of this round, chances are it would take a while.

After around thirty minutes of pushing his body through a new level of torture, his stomach roared. Giving away his current position. He had been plank walking through the ventilation shafts, which had taken quite a bit of effort to squeeze into as he wasn’t that thin. Suffice it to say Rion made the castle shake a bit.

“Is there a beast in here? Are we under attack!”

“It’s way too early. Don’t tell me they found him already!” the double-bladed weapon wielder yelled.

“No. That isn’t right? We should have noticed an intruder.”

“No sign of them outside! They haven’t crossed alarm beacons!”

The Ape Man let out a sigh of relief before scowling. “It must have been our captive then!.”

“Gerrah!” Rion’s stomach growled again, confirming the statement.

“My body betrayed me.” Rion continued to move through the vents until his body stopped moving altogether, as though he was out of energy. After a while, Rion’s regeneration stopped, and eventually, his weight caused the vents to creek and break.

Crash!

Rion landed in what appeared to be a lounging room, where a raccoon was eating some oddly shaped objects.

“Smells good.” Rion eyed the plate in hunger, yet his body wouldn’t move.

The raccoon eyed Rion with suspicion. “These are mine, get your own.”

The woman who had been hard to track down appeared out of nowhere. “It looks like we’ve found our troublesome captive.”

“Heh.” Rion eyed the woman with a careful gaze.

“What’s so funny?”

Rion didn’t respond, as his body decided to give a verbal response. He had turned himself into the perfect prisoner. Quite the development in his eyes. Said eyes had gone half-lidded and glazed over as he entered a low-energy mode.

“What’s wrong, cat got your tongue?”

“He burned all his energy on his regeneration. So long as no one feeds him, he’ll be nice and quiet.”

“So he’s stuck there. Keep an eye on him, I’ll get the others.” The odd woman ran off, and Rion sighed in relief.

With his enemy gone, Rion had no options for now. Any more movement would damage his body, preventing his regeneration from being able to repair. So he decided that it was time to get some rest.

“Can I attack yet?” Ander asked maybe the fifth time at that hour.

“No. The place is too well defended.”

“I can open up some holes.”

“You can’t take that whole team alone.”

“Grrr…”

“Cecil, why are you being so defensive?”

“I worked so hard on that plan and they just locked up Sinbad. Which means they have an unknown ace.”

“Fine, send Max, Brion and I, have Minah work midfield for now and should we break the building open, have Minah charge forward to free our leader from his bonds.”

“Ugg.”

“None of them are decent with runes and at best we can buy some time.”

“Fine. Just remember that freeing the captain should come before fighting.”

“Yeah yeah. Max! Brion! Are you ready!?”

“I haven’t been able to fight in a while.” Brion cracked his knuckles.

“I’ll do my best, but I’m not that strong.” Max said honestly.

“What about me?” Minah asked with crossed arms.

“You’re midgard. We’re vanguard. I’m sure you can take the leftovers.” Ander said.

“My what a thoughtful boyfriend you are.”

“About that…”

“Finish that answer after the match you battle crazed dolt.” Cecil stated, having read that situation a while ago.

“Fine. Not the time for such matters.”

“What’s going on?” Minah looked between Cecil and Ander.

“Vanguard! We ride…do we have motorcycles?”

“No vehicles, you’ll have to go on foot. Apparently they aren’t allowed in this round.”

“That makes no sense. Are they trying to slow us down?”

“This is a headmaster placed restriction. He wants us to do this the right way and not like our rescue the princess game.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“So no driving through the front door then jumping out and attacking everyone.”

“Don’t tell me that’s why you want me to go.” Max sighed.

“Broforce. Since Cecil is too injured, we three bros will go in his stead.”

“I’m not injured.”

Ander pointed at the robotic hand. “You haven’t finished your hand yet, I assume that’s why you aren’t fighting.”

“The headmaster doesn’t want me to put on a one man show. I do have a few mana cannons each filled with about a day’s worth of our captain’s mana. They should be able to open up a few holes.”

“The headmaster had you choose.”

“The cannons are easier to make.”

“Fair enough.” Ander turned to Max and Brion. “How fast are you two?”

“Brion sword form please.”

“Really? I was hoping I’d get my own exercise. You can shift back after we get there.”

“Yes I could, and it would be a surprise for the third member to appear out of nowhere.”

“It’s already the second round. We should reveal a few tricks.”

“Less talk, more fight.” Ander turned towards a window and opened it.

As part of their gear, each team member had three potions: one to heal them, one to clear mental and charm magic, and one to provide two minutes of resistance. They also had two types of grenades: one was a bright flash that could temporarily blind and deafen an opponent, while the other could create a field of obscuring smoke.

Brion’s form shifted to that of a wide greatsword, which Max stepped on top of and focused. Linking Brion’s mana to himself. The sword then began to float upward before flying them out a window.

“Didn’t know you could be ridden.”

“It isn’t safe for most people to attempt. Max is able to do so though.” Brion said through somewhere that was clearly not a mouth.

“Huh, how fast can you go?”

“How fast are you?” Max asked as a cloak of feathers covered his body. He no longer needed to be close to his owl companion to borrow its power, which was a significant step forward.

Ander shot off like a bolt traveling through the sky at high speed. Traveling a mile in less than thirty seconds.

Max, riding Brion, managed to keep pace, arriving three seconds later.

“You can keep up with my slowed speed. Nice.”

“That was slow?” Max had barely been able to push Brion to move at that speed.

“No need to go fast when it’s a short distance.”

“Right. Now lets-”

Ander looked down and saw seven blasts of powerful mana tear holes into the opposing castle from a mile away. The twin-blade wielder was annihilated in the assault, although no one else was unfortunate enough to be anywhere near the attack. The sound of the blast itself was a loud hum of wild mana.

“Go!” Ander finished as he dropped down one of the holes. Coming face to face with Midas.

Max and Brion landed in front of the duo, which contained The Ape Man and some kid. No, on closer inspection, the girl wasn’t that young, just short for her age.

“The Ape Man challenges you to a battle!”

Max looked at the large man before returning to the short girl, only to realize she had vanished.

“Fine then, let’s go.”

Marigold eyed Ander with the eyes of a huntress. “Do you really think you can beat me?”

“No. I know I can.” Ander replied smugly.

“Mighty cocky of you.”

Ander took a long moment to understand that as if trying to parse its meaning. “Oh, arrogant! I have that in spades.”

“Well I guess it’s time I put an end to that.” Marigold launched a volley of golden spears at Ander in quick succession.

Ander didn’t bother dodging as each spear missed its mark. “Tsk tsk. I wasn’t even moving.”

“I must have aimed a bit high.”

Ander’s eye twitched, and he closed both to keep himself in check. “You don’t say.”

“Yeah, it seems you’re shorter than you look.” Marigold added.

“Heh.” Ander’s tone shifted into a much higher pitch with that laugh. He had given into his inner darkness, that deep well of madness he didn’t like touching. “Is that so?”

Marigold summoned six more spears and scowled as each broke free of her control and turned toward her.

“No way. Marigold jumped backward, only for her spears to give chase. She attempted to send them away with her magic, but there was no response.

“That look suits you. Give me more of that terror!” Ander said from right in front of the fleeing Marigold as he drove his spear towards her throat.

A golden shield appeared to block the blow, its power sending Ander back a bit. The shield shattered moments later, and a trickle of blood flowed from her neck.

“You pierced my Divine Aegis. That could have killed me!” Marigold was quite surprised.

Ander didn’t answer as he moved around to the side and aimed to sweep her legs.

As Marigold jumped to avoid the blow, she realized the trap. Ander’s sweep was downwards at an angle as he cut into the floorboards; he used the momentum to propel himself forward into a kick with enough power to tear her head from her shoulders. What’s worse was that she couldn’t dodge or block the attack. Ander of Drisil was a tiger wearing the skin of a human and pretending to be weak.

A light covered Marigold as she was teleported away from the fight. But not by the wards.

The little girl with the Ape Man wheezed as she seemed to barely arrive in time to save one of her team’s heavy hitters. Sadly, Ander wasn’t in a good state of mind. A bolt of lightning passed through her faster than she could react, causing the wards to send her out of the arena. With a “Kill” under him, his rage faded, and he looked unsatisfied.

“Oi, shortie! Why don’t you fight me man to man!” Said a shorter man with deep red eyes.

“That’s not going to work twice in one fight,” Ander said as he calmly gathered invisible lighting on his fingertips. He then calmly raised his opposite hand and gathered much less regular lightning.

The bald mage smiled and created a layered barrier of magic to defend himself from regular lightning. He’d take the attack and then use the gathered mana to counter with an earth wall. “He won’t be able to react.

Ander mixed a bit of his divine essence into the hand, gathering the invisible lightning, and shot off the white bolt from his open palm.

The lightning hit the barrier and fizzled, causing it to increase in power. The mage then brought down the barrier and began to reabsorb the mana he’d gathered.

Ander didn’t give him the chance to finish and raised the hand with dark lightning. In an instant, a hole had been torn through the man’s chest, and the wards were triggered nearly too late. They hadn’t detected the attack, but they had detected that the mage’s life was in danger. “Guess I am a bit petty.”

“This is well within Ander’s growth potential between the measurements and time spent before the matches began. Developing such a technique is draining and if he figured it out before his fight with Damian, that would explain why he was too exhausted to fight.” Said a female elf sitting at the head of a table.

The headmaster of Etravonia’s team scowled. “The other two I understand but putting Midas in that situation without revealing that technique tells me that he is indeed a beast with secrets. I sensed that power behind his second blow. My student would have died.”

“He did die. His heart was stopped and then started by the attack. We can heal the mental damage of that near death experience. Maybe you should teach your students not to verbally antagonize monsters like him.”

“I am ashamed that Ander resorted to such a tactic against a much weaker opponent.” Caeden shook his head.

“No… No… If what the great one is saying is true then the barrier would have been broken and the attack would have still nearly killed him. We’d be dealing with a spirit break as well.” The headmaster of Etravoia sighed.

“Well at least Midas is still in the fight.”

“Midas was supposed to counter Cecil.”

“To be fair, you really underestimate Cecil if you think he’d been weakened that much. Most of my students could be the top students at any other school. The one’s here are especially monstrous.”

“But not invincible.” Caeden pointed to the screen and watched as Ander entered a room with various lit incense and was confronted by two people. They watched as Ander held his head, turned towards the exit, and walked away.