The rest of the people there had nothing to say. It had been quite clear who was going to win that fight, and apparently the audience had known that as well, seeing as there had only been half hearted cheering from them. Now that the fight was over however, the next fighters were quite clear.

Before the System could even announce them, the Overlord and Andrew Munro stood up and started to make their way towards the arena entrance. The arena was still being formed, and they waited at the entrance for it to finish. The rocks and rope bridge from the previous arena melted away into the walls, and the floor returned. A large tower shot up from the ground, with two large doors. Each door was crowned with a picture of each man.

As they waited, both of the men had markedly different expressions. Andrew looked almost as if was wrestling with some inner demon, and he was clearly in pain, although from what, nobody could tell. The Overlord was completely placid, and he appeared to not have a care in the world. That was probably acceptable however, as this fight would likely be even more of a breeze for him than the last fight had been with Sam and the Bear, although only because he probably wouldn't let his opponent score a hit on him.

The arena finished forming, and the two men rushed in as the System announced their fights. Nobody listened to it however, instead watching the paths that they took. It was clear that they were supposed to enter the door that corresponded with their pictures, and they quickly entered them.

As soon as they did so, both were transported to somewhere that was most definitely not the interior of the tower, not unless the tower was at least ten times larger than it appeared from the outside.

The Overlord was sent to a large room filled with mechanical golems and strange flying constructions made out of metal. As soon as he looked at them, they attacked.

Meanwhile, Munro appeared in a room that was almost completely covered in fog, and strange ethereal creatures wandered among the mist, visible only as blobs of light. Munro expelled a shrapnel cloud of metal from every part of his body, but they only flew through the monsters without leaving a single dent.

In the other room, almost half of the monsters were already destroyed, crushed into oblivion by the Overlord’s fists. A thick cloud of red light hung around the man’s hands, and every time that he landed a punch it grew brighter. He was gaining power from each defeated enemy, and soon he would be almost entirely covered in light. When the two men eventually met, unless something happened in the meantime, it would not be an even match, not even in the slightest. Though, that was to be expected when one faced the strongest man on Earth.

Andrew was soon in the thick of it, batting away ghosts and specters as they emerged from the fog. These creatures were somewhat corporeal as opposed to the blobs of light, but that small blessing was nothing compared to the terror that was being exuded from them in waves. Andrew’s mind was sufficiently broken to not suffer from any sort of fear anymore, but these ghosts were so potent in their ability to produce pure terror that even the people in the audience could feel it. If the Overlord could detect it, he did not react. However, they seemed to be one trick ponies, and the fear ability was all that they possessed.

Andrew cut them down quickly with silvery bolts, having figured out their weakness to energy attacks, but not quickly enough as the Overlord finally finished off his last monster, a large red button appeared in the middle of the floor. He ran over and pressed it as quickly as he could.

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As soon as he did so, the room that Andrew was in was filled with an ominous red glow and the specters started to wail. He clapped his hands over his ears, but that was to no avail, and he soon collapsed to the ground, bleeding heavily out of them. One of the specters, a grotesque depiction of a fully flayed human form, started to move towards him. As soon as it did however, the man’s silvery armor rushed back to him from the corners of the room that it had been scattered to, and reformed on his skin. As soon as it did, he stopped bleeding and got up, his face a blank mask of silver.

Moving jerkily towards the specters, he slammed his fists into them, turning them into rapidly dissipated clouds of thick smoke. The last ghost, a twisted beast created out of multiple grasping hands, died and Andrew was teleported to the next floor. Waiting for him there was the Overlord, and the sight was enough to cause Munro to take a step back.

The man was wreathed in a living tornado of red light, and the aura that he projected even passively was so powerful that it caused people in the stands to clutch their heads and cower. As Andrew recoiled, the Overlord roared and lifted his hands high. A steady torrent of power rushed into him from the audience, and he cocked his fist back, so slowly that it looked like he was carrying the weight of the world in that one hand. With the roar of a hurricane, he punched forwards, his fist tearing through the air.

A sonic boom erupted from his fist and a solid wall of red energy slammed into Munro. Most of it kept on going, and the tower exploded outwards, the walls crumbling as the beam of red light kept on going. A force field snapped into place as the attack neared the audience and the attack sparked off harmlessly.

Munro slammed into the field a moment later, his body a twisted mass of metal and bone. As he landed, there was a disturbing crunching noise. He did not get up. A minute later, he was teleported away. For the first time in the entire tournament, a battle had been finished with a single attack.

The Overlord drew back his fist and blew on it, prompting a storm of applause from the crowd. Even Sam smiled. That had been pretty impressive. He couldn't wait to eventually test himself against that man.

The Overlord walked back up into the waiting area, and sat down, his features inscrutable beneath his mask. Sam stared at him, wondering what exactly had caused the man to become who he was now. The voice of the System cut off the remainder of his thoughts, and he listened to it carefully, wondering what would come next.

“There will be a five hour break between now and the semifinals. Congratulations to all of you who are still in the tournament. You will all be walking away from here with great rewards, although one of you will not receive a faction. It will be up to you to pick which of the top three fighters you will join. Now, go rest and recuperate, for the most important battle of your lives will soon be here.”

Sam got to his feet, wincing slightly as his shoulder was aggravated by the movement. When he got back to his room, he would be able to get some of that healing fluid to patch himself back up. Sam was careful not to depend on that stuff too much however, as he doubted that it would be available when the tournament was over. There would be no easy ways out in the real world.

Sam was the only member of his group still in the tournament, so he sat on his own, meditating. He was not meditating on anything in particular, merely trying to clear his mind and to do something as he waited for the next battle. He would be up against one of the other three fighters, but something told him that he would not be fighting the Overlord, not until the very end. That left him with either Reaper, or Rodney Kane as his opponents. Reaper was a bit of a wild card, but Sam was confident in his ability to defeat him. As for Kane, well he had already beaten him once before.

Sam lost track of time and when it was finally time for him to return to the arena, it felt like only a few minutes had passed. The waiting area was almost completely empty by now, save for Reaper, Sam, Rodney Kane, and the Overlord. Three of these men would be walking out of here as the new rulers of the Earth, and the last one would become a powerful force in their own right. All of them were here to win, and Sam could feel the tension in the air as they waited for the matches to begin. Despite everything that was riding on this, Sam could only think one thing.

“This is going to be fun.”