The arena began to shift before the System spoke. This time, something elaborate was emerging out of the sands, and that fitted the fact that these battles would be the final ones in the entire tournament for planet Earth. Spires and ancient, ruined skyscrapers rose fully formed from the arena floor. Irradiated piles of green and yellowish chemicals oozed out from behind abandoned shacks. A bare and utterly dead forest of twisted trunks and snags tore its way free of the sands, and set up on the perimeter of the now enlarged arena. Bit by bit, a fully formed post apocalyptic city emerged from nowhere, and when it finally settled in, a choked howl of rage emerged from the center. A twisted mass of flesh and bone smashed its way out of what looked like the remains of a laboratory, and threw its head back to scream at the sky. A palpable aura of power oozed off of the monster, and Sam could tell that this was no fodder creature meant for entertainment, but a dire threat to the lives of whoever fought here.
“This next round will be shaking things up a little,” the System began. “It will be a game of cooperation and treachery, with the key player being this powerful Irradiated Ogre. The beast that you see before you does not possess a Dao or any sort of magical power, as it is only a hard light projection, but what it does have is the strength of an early F Rank fighter. The two combatants will have to work together to beat it. However, this does not mean that fighting amongst the competitors is discouraged, in fact in order to win you must eliminate both the Ogre and your opponent. Just be careful that you do not cripple yourself by erasing your tentative ally. Our two fighters for this round will be…” The System started to draw out the last syllables to the obvious delight of the audience. “The Arbiter and Reaper!”
Sam got to his feet, glad that he had been paired with the weakest of the fighters. That was not to say that he should underestimate the man, but he would be easier to defeat than the two others would have been. Reaper shot Sam a strange look, and his eyes shifted to a deep black for a moment before returning to their original color. Sam felt a momentary chill, and then was back to normal. He frowned at the other man, but he was already making his way down into the arena.
There was no teleportation for this, and the fighters had to make their way down a rickety ramp that led into the third story of one of the buildings. Reaper did not say a word to Sam the entire time, but he did not attack him either. As they stood there, Sam sighed.
“Look, we’re going to have to work together for this-” Sam was cut off as Reaper shoved him to the side and jumped out of the window. His body started to glow with Death energy, and he ran full tilt at the Ogre.
Sam threw up his hands in exasperation, and started running after him, vaulting over the broken glass shards that were on the bottom of the window frame. They probably wouldn’t have even hurt him, but it was still better to be safe. The System could very well have laced them with some sort of poison, or enhanced them to make them able to cut him.
Sam landed on the ground outside, wincing as his foot landed in a pile of something that glowed with a vivid green light. Sam shook off his shoe and ran after Reaper, beginning to hear the noises of battle from ahead.
Around the corner of the street, a small shape flew back and struck the wall of a house, shattering it. A moment later, a humongous humanoid figure ran after the shape, bellowing loudly. Despite its size, it appeared to be just as fast if not faster than Sam, and its strength was completely inhuman. Not like Sam’s in that it was simply above the level of a normal person, but in that every footfall left a deep crater in the asphalt. That was not a result of its weight, but of the sheer destructive power that it could bring to bear.
Sam waited for it to turn its back on him, and then he ran forward, bringing his mace around in a fluid arc, and driving the weapon’s head into the creature’s achilles tendon. It roared in pain and whirled around. Sam barely dodged the whip-like punch that snapped out, stumbling backwards as the air pressure of the attack reached him. A sonic boom rang out and the dust lifted off of the floor. This monster was far too strong for Sam’s level, and he was one of the strongest humans on the planet. However, not everything was a contest of pure physicality.
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Sam ran backwards to evade its next attack, and Reaper took the opportunity to launch an attack of his own, a spear of dark light, into the Ogre’s back. It roared in pain again, but the attack did not seem to do much damage to it save as a minor irritant. It may have had no magical abilities or resistances, but incredibly thick skin was a virtue of its own.
Sam ran in again, ducking under a punch, and whipping his mace around towards the beast’s kneecap, imbuing it with his Dao and mana. The mace head glowed as it crashed into the Ogre’s knee, and for the first time, it stumbled. The Ogre’s knee bent backwards with a sickening crunch, and when Sam withdrew, it teetered on its good leg. It righted itself soon after, but it was now moving with a profound limp.
Reaper came in with a massive blade of ectoplasm and attempted to sever the beast’s knee at the now weakened joint. The blade skidded off of the monster, far too weak to scratch it. Reaper growled and condensed the blade down to the size of a dagger. This time when he sliced at the monster, it sunk in deep. He tore at the Ogre’s leg until it had almost been completely crippled, but failed to guard himself from retaliation.
The monster screamed and stomped its other foot down. The ground shook and Reaper was toppled. The Ogre’s arm came around and caught the man in a devastating right hook. Reaper’s body crunched beneath the blow, and only his hasty application of a shield had prevented him from being expelled from the fight. Reaper did not get up for a good amount of time, and the monster started to lumber over towards the man, drastically slowed down by its knee wound. Sam wondered if he should just let the monster deal with Reaper, but then shook his head. Mercy should not just apply to those whose existence was convenient to Sam. He would still have to beat the man, but it would be better for his defeat to be at the hands of a human than by some monstrosity.
Sam ignited his soul and body with the power of Fiery Justice, channeling the anger that he felt at the System and his games into his next attack. Sam flickered from one place to the next, making his way across the pavement like a wraith. He was not moving as fast as the Ogre had been, but still fast enough to be almost invisible to the naked eye, considering how small he was. Sam had not tried to gauge his maximum speed before, but as he ran forward, he realized that he must have been moving at speeds of upwards of a hundred miles per hour. That was an incredible ability, and his extremities could move much faster than that. An average human before the System came could move their hands at about a hundred miles per hour. Sam could do so at about five hundred miles per hour.
As he channeled all of this potential energy into his strike, it began to glow as he poured even more of his energy into it. Sam briefly felt annoyed at his lack of variety in his attacks, after all they were mostly a form of energy redistribution, but that was a problem for him to deal with later. For now, there was an Irradiated Ogre to kill. He could always pretend to be the Avatar later.
Sam brought the weapon down on the beast's spine with all the not inconsiderable strength that he could muster, and smiled as he heard a crunch beneath his weapon. The Ogre howled and tried to run around, but fell to the floor instead, paralyzed from the waist down. It was still a formidable foe, but now that it was immobile, it would be much easier to kill.
Sam waited for Reaper to recover, and when the man did, he shot Sam a look of disdain and then threw a barrage of pitch black throwing knives at the Ogre’s head. It tried to shield itself with its arms, mostly succeeding, but one of the knives got through and pierced its eyeball. The Ogre wailed and one of its hands dropped. Reaper sent the next few knives through its eye and into its brain and then snapped his finger, causing them to detonate. The Ogre keeled over and dissolved into a cloud of particles. It was over.
Reaper advanced towards Sam, but he could tell that the man was on his last legs. Reaper began to weave a powerful attack out of his elemental energy, but Sam had no time for such an unnecessary display. He jumped forward, smashed the man’s shields with a single punch, and then knocked him out with his mace. Reaper was teleported away, and Sam waited for himself to also be transported. It soon became apparent that he was expected to make his way out on his own, which he was sure was a spiteful dig at him from the System as revenge for him questioning it.
Sam walked slowly back to the ramp, eating up the cheers of the crowd. He had complained about the banal desire for entertainment that they possessed, but damn did it feel good to be in the spotlight.
“Oh hypocrisy, what a bittersweet gift,” Sam thought, grinning as he did so. Sam made his way into the building where the ramp had been and walked up and back into the waiting area.