Talking telepathically, Emilia called out to Jose who's losing his footing. His skin was vaporized and some parts of his body that's fully exposed to the pillar of flame were charred. Other than that, he was bleeding from his nose, eyes, and ears. He was losing consciousness at the moment as the pain ravaged his body but he was holding on with his sheer willpower, not once even loosening his grip on Emilia.

"Jose! Answer me! Can you still fight?!"

After stumbling around for a little and finally stabilizing himself, he answered. "Yes… I can still fight." The line across his nose then lit up as he began rapidly healing.

As the dust settles after the massive explosion, Jose now had a clear view of the extent of damage it had done to the surrounding area.

A massive crater formed from where the explosion took place and the body parts of the golems were scattered around, some of them even turned completely into dust due to sheer force.

The vegetation were completely incinerated, turning the surroundings into desert-like conditions with the extremely dry soil robbed of its hydration to the air feeling stale, hindering one's breathing.

However, amidst all of that, the flag he had erected was completely fine alongside the circle that indicates the point's area.

Jose walked forward to the towering Firan who was standing still as she looked down on the golem that Alchimie was riding earlier. However, he was nowhere to be found.

"Now you guys have done it… That was my first time I used this ever since I started climbing."

Jose heard this but he simply pointed Emilia towards her as if challenging her.

"I've shed all of my scales just for that, and it hurts! But thanks to the Exposure, it sure resulted in a massive one… But you're confident now because your attacks will finally work, right?!" Firan shouted with irritation in her tone.

"Yes…" Jose then dashed forward at high speeds as he invested most of his stamina into improving his movement. He maneuvered around Firan and began slashing her everywhere. Because of her size, she was an easy target and because of Jose's speed, she couldn't quite block properly. "You…!" Leaving her with no choice as she was still recovering, she shrunk herself down and began exchanging hits with Jose. She retrieved a spiked bone club from her inventory and despite her lack of proper martial arts technique, she was still wielding it competently enough to go against Jose's skills, although she still do suffer hits.

"I'm running out of time, her recovery is almost finished!"

Firan's recovery of her scales was steady. Even though she was bleeding all over, she will soon be able to shrug this off because of her scales, allowing her skin to heal underneath it later.

They clashed some more until there comes a moment Jose was finally unable to cut her.

Jose swung down his weapon and as it came in contact with Firan, it bounced back, throwing him off balance. "Oh no...!"

Firan reeled back and swung her spiked club after a massive wind up, but before the spikes were able to penetrate Jose's body, a massive force came hurling in between them.

Whoosh—!

A massive vertical slash made out of wind went through in between them, kicking up a cloud of dust, leaving a mark on the ground, and blowing both of them back.

Jose looked at the direction whence that wind slash came from. There he saw the bloodied Yuuki who's almost out of Health and Stamina as he stumbles around for a bit.

"This fucking status effect!" Yuuki cursed.

Alchimie's voice was then heard as he rushed towards the former. "Samurai!" Despite the clear damage he sustained from the explosion with burnt spots on his body, even damaging his robe significantly, he rushed towards him as he still have more strength left in him than the other. "Good thing the golem took most of the damage…"

As he arrived near Yuuki, he formed a golem core in his hand and shoved it into Yuuki's chest. "You good?!"

"Yeah, thanks. But there's these bitches chasing me…"

"Recover first… I'll try slowing them down." He summoned more golems from his inventory that's specializing in tanking damage and they began grouping into a formation, barricading against the approaching opponents and focused on protecting the two behind them.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Just how many more golems did you make?"

"More than enough to last this trial… probably."

"Really…?"

"I like being prepared."

"Haha…" Yuuki stood up after being able to recover enough stamina and drew his katana despite not recovering a quarter of his health.

"Let's go finish this damn trial…"

"Ah…"

Kiera, Tokyo Tokyo, and the remaining Ashura members finally arrived and they began engaging the golems. They were quick to dispatching a few of them without much effort.

"Guess that wouldn't hold them for much long."

"Then let's go." Yuuki dashed forward as he tightly grasped his weapon and as soon as he neared Kiera, he swung.

Kiera immediately blocked by swapping her hammer back to her shield.

Clang—!

The clash of their weapons caused a knockback, resulting in her sliding away for a few meters.

Boom—!

Yuuki dodged the bullet and just as Kiera swapped back to her hammer, he swung at her once again just as she did downward.

Their weapons clashed once again, but this time, Yuuki was overpowered by the weight of the hammer, plunging it downward as he lost his grip and the dust kicked up.

However, instead of trying to pick up his weapon immediately, he pulled a thick thread from his glove and jumped up. He caught the head of the hammer from the opponent's hand and spun as he hurled it forcefully to Tokyo Tokyo.

The old man narrowly dodges it as it flew past him and immediately fired another shot with his rifle.

Boom—!

However, his target wasn't Yuuki—who attempted to dodge mid-air. Instead, he fired at Kiera, who had her shield deflect the bullet towards Yuuki's back.

"Fuck!" He cursed as he felt the bullet being imbedded in his muscles. He immediately spun two more line of threads from each hands and threw them at Kiera.

They wriggled around her like tentacles and restrained her movement. "The mana cost of this thing…!" Yuuki then dashed forward to grab his sword but another shot was fired. "Shit!"

This time however, a golem with a rock shield defended him before it was blasted away by a fireball.

"I'll deal with this old man!" Alchimie shouted as he began fighting. He immediately overwhelmed the old man by releasing five more golems that specializes in speed and carried sharp weapons—as the remainder of the previous golems he released earlier were already engaging the four other Ashura members. This prompted the latter to switch into more maneuverable weapons: a high-power revolver and a mace.

The two began duking it out and the old man began shooting at the golems which possessed minimal defenses. This allowed him to easily dispatch one as he was using explosive bullets, overwhelming the golem's passive regeneration with a single burst of damage to vital parts. Even though it would be impossible for him to locate their cores, he can just blast a large area and that could probably destroy the core if not damage it.

"Tsk!"

The golems moved erratically to confuse the opponent and Alchimie readied his earth magic. Finding the perfect timing as the golems engaged, he launched a boulder forward by pushing it with a pillar of earth.

Whoosh—!

Before it hits, knowing that Tokyo Tokyo would be able to dodge it even whilst he's fighting the four golems, he broke it down into tens of pieces by bursting it with the mana he imbued it with.

"Tsk!" As he specializes in metal element, Tokyo Tokyo stowed his weapons and conjured a thick sheet of metal to shield against the hail of rocks on one side.

Clang—!

Clang—!

Clang—!

Quickly taking the chance of him being vulnerable, the golems moved together and slashed him all over his body before he was able to hop away.

Now having taken heavy damage on top of already sustaining some damage from Yuuki earlier, Tokyo Tokyo quickly weakened. "My leg… These damn golems!"

Despite the wound behind his knee, he discarded the metal sheet and tried to hop away by pumping mana into his remaining leg. However, as he ascended from the ground, one of the golems grabbed his limp leg and slammed him on the ground.

Bam—!

"Keuk—!" One of the golems grabbed the metal sheet and slammed it on top of him, restricting his movement as they poured their weight on its four sides. Alchimie appeared on top of one of the golems lifting a boulder using magic, and spoke. "Just know that I respect you, sir... I can't believe I managed to win, but it's a 1v1 anyways…"

"1v1 my bum, brat… this is clearly not a 1v1!"

"Technically, it is. It's just that these golems are a product of my skill."

"Come on, just finish it."

"I'm not that good at fighting, really. I just got lucky." He proceeded to drop the boulder, but before it crushed the old man to death, he laughed.

"HAHAHAHA—"

"Wha—" Multiple explosions then simultaneously occured which came from the golems' heads.

Boom—!

Boom—!

Boom—!

Boom—!

"Shit…! I got tricked!" As he was currently atop one, he was burned by the explosion. Not only that, his legs were blown apart and was detached from his body upon the explosion, and despite not being on top of the other bombs directly, they still sent projectiles out of the golem heads, piercing his all over his body. Because of the severity of the damage, he wasn't even blown away yet before the moderator's protective measures kicked in at the same time as Tokyo Tokyo's and he was transported out of the trial site.

…

Alchimie opened his eyes and he was lying among the grasses when somebody addressed him.

"Yo, Kiddo!" Tokyo Tokyo waved at him with friendliness.

"Uh... Shit…"

DokuNeko was also there beside them and he too waved at him. They acted as if they were not enemies just minutes ago inside the trial. "Hey, Alchimie! Gramps got you good, huh?"

Despite them trying to kill each other just before, at the end of the day, this was simply a game for all of them. No grudges were held between them as they were all simply having a fun time playing it, even before.

Alchimie sheepishly replied. "Yeah… I'm really not that good at fighting… I just got carried by contribution points so I got the 10th ranking…"

"Haha! We know, we know. Still, you did good! Hahaha." DokuNeko patted him on the back repeatedly.