Chaos erupted in the preparation room as I made my move.

I removed my dagger from the man's throat and threw it straight into the forehead of the man who had been sitting opposite me. He was the easiest pick since he had the heaviest weapon out of the six. I would have thrown it at Atlas, but I was afraid that his reflexes would have been too fast for me to hit him in a vital spot, so it was better to kill the easiest targets out of the way.

There were now only four of them alive, but that didn't mean this was going to be easy.

I unsummoned my weapon and jumped back after avoiding a bolt that was shot by the crossbow wielder.

I had done some testing after my soul weapon evolved and discovered that the cooldown period had been reduced from a few minutes to only half a minute, so throwing my dagger to eliminate one opponent wasn't a very bad choice anymore. It became even a better option when I took into account that I was still inexperienced with it and hand-to-hand combat wasn't inefficient, since I was so much stronger than my opponents.

"Attack him in five!" Atlas yelled.

'In five?' I thought, trying to figure out what he meant.

By five, he could have meant a formation or the number of seconds they were about to attack me in.

'If he meant seconds, then they should attack right... about... now.' I thought as they all attacked me at once. All except for Atlas.

One man came at me from the right, swinging a morning star at my head. The second man came at me from the left, swinging a cutlass at my back, and the last one of the three was about 15 meters from me and aimed a crossbow at my right foot.

First, the crossbow user fired, and I moved my foot to the left, so that my feet were closely together.

The bolt hit where my right foot had been, and I successfully avoided the bolt. However, I was left in a bad position, and there were two men trying to cut me into pieces.

I squatted down just enough to avoid the cutlass and grabbed the man's hand that held the cutlass after it passed my head. I took advantage of his momentum and spun the man around. Then I grabbed the man's head into a headlock with my left hand and blocked the morningstar with the man's cutlass. After blocking the swing, I rotated the cutlass and made a cut in the morningstar wielder's torso.

After cutting the morningstar wielder, I was about to kill the cutlass-wielding man, but then Atlas attacked me from behind with his broadsword.

Once I heard Atlas' footsteps, I took the man's cutlass and turned around to block Atlas' attack.

Atlas swung his sword, aimed at the left side of my throat, and I blocked the swing with the cutlass in my right hand. I turned around and swung the cutlass at Atlas' head, but he jumped back, causing the swing to hit only air.

I was about to pursue him when I remembered the crossbow user. I turned to him, and a bolt that was flying at me greeted me. I brought the cutlass up to block the bolt, but then the cutlass disappeared, and as a result, the bolt mercilessly dug into my right shoulder.

Immediately, my face twisted in pain, and I let out a deep groan.

The cutlass wielder had cancelled the summoning on his weapon just before it was about to block the bolt.

Blood started flowing out of my shoulder, as I started feeling intense pain. It wasn't anything too bad, though, and the pain could be ignored.

I turned my attention to the bolt and thought about how I should act. The bolt that was firmly stuck in my shoulder was black and had golden runes on it, much like my weapon.

My thoughts were all over the place, as my heart pounded rapidly. 'The bolt is made out of steel. I'm not sure if I can cut it with my dagger during the fight, so I have to let it be,' I concluded.

Everybody had recovered, and I was surrounded.

'Should be about time.' I thought for a while and rushed at the crossbow-wielding man, who was still reloading.

'Akir's weapon.' I thought, and to the shock of everyone besides me, a dagger materialized in my left hand. As soon as the crossbow wielder saw the dagger, he started trying to speed up the reloading process. After a while, however, he gave up and was about to run away. I caught up to him with ease, and my dagger sliced through his neck, and shortly after, a round object fell onto the ground.

"It's six against one, and half of you have died in less than a minute. You guys are pathetic." I sneered and readied myself, as the three men rushed at me. Usually, the idea of talking while fighting seemed idiotic to me, but the intense pain was starting to get to me, and I was having a hard time suppressing my emotions.

The cutlass-wielding fellow was the first to come at me, with the morningstar wielder a few meters behind him on the left.

"Don't attack one at a time!" Atlas yelled from behind the men, but it was too late.

Perhaps the men thought that my injury made me weak, but their misjudgment would cost them their lives.

The cutlass wielder didn't have a weapon anymore, so he decided to attack barehanded.

The attack was fast, and it was directed at my weak side. Unable to utilize my right arm, I blocked the attack with my left forearm.

However, when I thought he was going to launch another attack, he grabbed my hand. It seemed like he wasn't aiming to hurt me. He was trying to keep me from moving.

'It's going to die if I don't deal with things as fast as possible,' I thought and exerted some more force.

The man was pushed a few meters away onto his back, and I directed my focus at the morningstar wielder, who was attacking me. I quickly threw my dagger at the man, who was dangerously close. This way, I could dispose of one more person. If I tried to stab him directly, I could accumulate even more damage than I had already accumulated in the past few days, and there was also the possibility of the man I pushed attacking my right side while I was defenseless.

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My dagger was on its way towards the morningstar wielder's left eyeball when something completely unprecedented happened and my eyes flew wide open.

'Huh?' I thought in complete confusion as I watched a flying broadsword block my daggers' trajectory.

Atlas had thrown his weapon! The broadsword continued on its path and made a crater in the spotless, white wall of the preparation room.

After realizing what had happened, I instantly unsummoned my dagger.

I then shifted my focus, as I had to find a way to avoid the morning star that was going to hit the left side of my torso if I stayed still.

I got on my tippy-toes, leaned back like a limbo expert, and watched as the morningstar flew by. Afterward, I stood up properly and aimed a full-force punch on the right side of the man's torso, feeling some ribs crack. It was a brutal punch that not only cracked his ribs but also attacked his liver.

After punching the man, I grabbed the back of the morningstar wielder's head and was about to push the man's head down to meet my knee, when I saw the man behind me aim a full-force kick at my head. I had only a few moments to think, and decided to use my right hand to grab the morningstar. I moved my right hand and felt intense pain, but I didn't even consider stopping the movement. I grabbed the morningstar easily, since the man wasn't grabbing onto it very tightly. I then threw it into my left hand, as I let go of the morningstar wielder and managed to block the kick.

The man was pushed back, and I turned my attention to the next attacker, Atlas.

Atlas was attacking barehanded against a stronger opponent who was armed, but his expression remained calm. He was obviously experienced, but I still had to wonder how he was so calm in a life-or-death situation, especially when he was against me.

I closed the distance and swung the morningstar at his head. Atlas, who had anticipated my first move, grabbed my left hand that was holding the morning star and was about to do something when I used my injured right arm again. I grabbed his right shoulder with my injured arm and put all my power into a knee aimed at his stomach. After the knee landed successfully, Atlas let go of my hand and fell onto the floor, gasping for air. I would have bashed him in the head with the morningstar, but the man was attacking me from behind once again.

'What a pathetic effort.' I thought.

"Aaar!" The man yelled as he swung his fist with full force.

"I can hear you just fine," I said, blocking the swing with the morningstar's midsection. "Yelling is unnecessary," I uttered under my breath almost inaudibly, and the morningstar pulverized the man's skull. A loud crack echoed in the preparation room and was followed by a loud thump.

I turned away from the corpse to check on the rest of my opponents. One was still on the ground, holding onto his right side, and the other was walking slowly and painfully towards his broadsword.

I slowly walked towards the man who was lying on the ground, and as soon as he noticed me, he started crawling away.

"Atlas! Help! Hey, Atlas, please! Help me! He's gonna kill me!" The man screamed his lungs out, but Atlas seemed to not care. He just kept walking, like he didn't hear anything.

It didn't take long until I caught up to the man. Suddenly, the morning star disappeared.

I was wondering how long it would take for him to remember to unsummon it in all the pain he was in.

I grabbed the man by his dark brown hair and started dragging him towards Atlas. The man scratched my hand to the point of bleeding, but I just ignored it. I didn't even feel the pain properly, so it wasn't hard to ignore.

"Help!" The man yelled, as we slowly but surely approached Atlas, who was trying to remove his broadsword from the wall.

"Hey, Atlas, it's not nice for you to ignore a friend in trouble," I said as Atlas turned around after removing his broadsword from the wall.

"You're fucking insane, you know that," Atlas commented as he pointed his sword at me.

"I'm just doing what I have to in order to survive." I explained calmly.

Atlas chuckled slightly before saying, "Even you don't believe that."

"Don't you care about this guy?" I asked as I raised up the man I was holding by the hair, so that Atlas could see his eyes.

"No, just kill him," Atlas said nonchalantly.

"Wait, what? No! Don't! I can still fight, if you don't let him kill me! Atlas, you said that you'd get us to the top if we followed your orders!" the man yelled.

"Enough yelling," I said in annoyance before I let go of the man. As he was falling to the ground, I quickly summoned my dagger and rapidly stabbed him in the area where his heart was.

The man fell onto the floor limply and began gushing out blood. As I watched the man quickly bleeding out, I felt my jaw tighten.

"Looks like it's just you and me now. This fight will be interesting," Atlas said as he too watched the man die.

My attention turned from the soon-to-be corpse to Atlas, who had suddenly regained his confidence.

"Fight? The fight already ended half a minute ago," I said as I readied myself for combat. "What will happen next won't be considered a fight."