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I slumped down in a hidden corner of the simulated ruin as I breathed heavily, things were not going as well as I hoped. As far as I can tell, there are no more teams with less than four people, and it was obvious that all the chaff has been sifted away, only leaving the truly competent to hunt each other down.

The evidence of that is the rather big ‘gash’ on my side as marked by the thin mana shield meant to indicate damage before the real mana shield deploys if I get ‘killed’. From what I observed from the last two teams I defeated, they may not be the most skilled fighters, but their teamwork outshined the other teams I fought recently.

Just as I was halfway to recovering my breath, the announcer spoke to address us, “Contestants, the number of teams left has reached a milestone, and the terrain will change to help the teams find each other.”

The moment the announcer finished speaking, the arena trembled as all around The Pit, mages weaved their spells and the ruins sank into the ground. When that was over, it was revealed that there were around six, four to five men teams scattered around, with me smack dab in the middle, all alone.

As I looked around, every team was standing stock still as they eyed me and every other team, seeing who would make the first move. As for me? I was thinking of a way to survive, and if I was fast enough I could run between the groups as they clashed with each other.

While looking for other things that could give me an advantage, I saw weapons that other contestants dropped, scattered all over the place, and sure enough on the ground, a few meters away from me, was my spear that I hid away to avoid being recognized by my weapon.

So while everyone was in a mexican standoff and waiting for the other shoe to drop, I made the first move. I sheathed my sword and sprinted to my spear, the time for stealth was over.

The moment I made a move, one of the other teams took advantage of my distraction and initiated a charge on the group nearest to them, this caused a chain reaction of other teams making a move at each other, that included a nearby four-man team to charge me.

Along the way to retrieve my spear, I picked up three daggers and roughly shoved them in my belt before I reached my spear and kicked it up into my hands, just as the four-man team reached me.

They approached me in an organized diamond formation, shield wielder up front, flanked slightly behind on each side by two two-handed sword wielders, and at the rear of the formation was a halberd user.

The moment I had my spear in hand, it shot forward at the shield wielder, causing him to brace his shield in anticipation of the attack and the two sword swordsmen to wound up for an attack, but at the last moment before impact, flicks of my hands while thrusting in rapid succession made my spear bend away from the shield and headshot the two swordsmen who were about to take advantage of my blow being blocked by the shield wielder.

The shield wielder, not knowing the two swordsmen beside him had their mana shield triggered, tried to shield bash and perform a follow-up slash with his sword when I jumped back, as for the halberdier, he tried to perform an overhead chop at me over the shield wielder, but I slapped his weapon aside with my own.

When I made some distance from the group that attacked me, or at least what was left of them, the halberdier pretty much announced loud enough for the rest of the teams to hear, “That technique… the Slithering Spear… that must mean you are Luke Ironcrest!”

“That is not the technique’s name, and that was a dick move to announce my identity.” I grumbled at the team in front of me as I started to notice all but two teams, who were going at each other, come to a temporary truce and look in my direction.

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Before they could come up with any bright ideas, I made a break for the nearest wall, if I was going to have to fight multiple groups at the same time, I might as well fight with my back against the wall, no point having a 360° fight when I can have a 180° fight. Too bad for me the groups got their shit together faster than I liked.

“Shields! Block and box him in!” one of the team leads shouted. Without hesitation, the other team leaders sent their shield users to follow the command, and soon there was a loose wall of shields closing in on me.

Before I got anywhere close to the wall, they formed a solid wall of shields in front of me, just like we learned in class. I tried to pole volt over them, but one of them recognized what I was doing and shouted “Back up! He is jumping over us!” by the time he warned the others, I was already too committed to jump and had to follow through.

When I landed from my failed pole volt over their shield wall and was met with swords, maces, and war hammers coming toward me. I managed to slap away the first two weapons but was forced to block with my spear and hoped my enchantments held up to the damage.

The multiple weapons crashed down on my spear, bringing me to my knees, and a sword that was coming at my chest forced me to roll backward and almost get backstabbed by the rest of the other shield wielders, but I got them to back off by swiping at their feet and got myself into a proper stance.

I looked around and found myself in the worst situation possible, I was surrounded.

I looked around to find the weakest link in the encirclement and quickly selected a spot that did not have anyone fill the back line yet.

I turned and charged that weak point as I ripped off the stolen surcoat I was wearing. When I got close to the point I wanted to break out from, I threw the ripped-off surcoat to block their vision and managed to sweep the leg of the guy in front of me, making a hole in the defense, allowing me to jump through, and so I did.

I superman jumped over the guy whose leg I swept, but just when I thought I was home free, I got shield bashed, twice, from both sides, the blow on my right hit the upper half of my body while the left hit my legs. This sent me spinning like an out-of-control helicopter and ended with me faceplanting on the ground with a big “Oof!”

Fortunately for me, tumbles, falls, and recovery were all part of my training and I managed to scamper away and get to my feet as I heard the sounds of weapons falling on my previous position before I got to my feet and turned around, throwing out a blind spear thrust and somehow managing to score a ‘kill’ on one of my attackers who were clustered behind me.

As I properly got my feet under me and retreated, I managed to score another two ‘kills’ before someone from the back shouted, “Swarm him!”

At first, those who were facing me were hesitant, but when I ‘killed’ one more of my attackers, it seemed one of the swordsmen facing me had enough and shouted while charging me with reckless abandon.

I tried to retreat faster to open up more space between us, but naturally, running forward is a lot faster than running backward like I was doing. The swordsman pounced at me without regard for defense, and I saw no reason to not accept the offering, so I sent my spear flying forward and scored a ‘kill’.

But it was a trap, when I stabbed the swordsman, he let go of his sword and grabbed the shaft of my spear as his mana shield deployed and his whole body became rigid, which included the hands wrapped tightly around my spear shaft. He sacrificed himself to disable my weapon.

I quickly abandoned my spear and drew my sword to clash blades with an incoming sword swing, but apparently, the others took inspiration from the guy who disabled my spear and they rushed me from all sides while the swordsman I was engaging in combat tried to lock swords with me.

At this point, it was clear to me that I had to run, but just as I parried a war hammer away and turned to disengage, I felt someone tackle my waist from behind and wrap their arms around me. I immediately drew one of the scavenged daggers on my belt and blindly stabbed whoever was holding me, only to realize I fucked up big time.

The person I stabbed with the dagger ‘died’, causing his mana shield to deploy, making him rigid, thus turning him into dead weight that is permanently attached to my body until an umpire comes and gets him off of me.

From there, it all went downhill. I managed to strike down two more people with my sword before those with spears and halberds surrounded me and stabbed me from all sides, easily finishing me off. And just like that, my mana shield deployed and I could only look around as the rest of the contestants slowly and cautiously separated back into their teams.

But before the fight restarted, the umpire came to pick me, and the person attached to me, up and away from The Pit.

A pity they removed the ruins, otherwise I am sure I could have lasted a lot longer, but I understand the need to hurry things along and keep things action packed.