“Was that...?” Zachary asked uncertainly.

Aiken had also been startled. “No, I don’t think so. It’s most likely someone else.”

Zachary nodded. “Yeah. What are the chances that he’s the one.”

A pause.

Flames erupted around Zachary, causing startled cries. The Peacekeeper turned this way, but Zachary couldn’t care less. He took a step and accelerated, instantly leaving the betting booths behind.

There!

He saw the hood again and sped up towards it. He tried to control his flames, but with his full focus on keeping track of the hooded figure, he was doing a bad job. Everywhere he passed, discontent spread. But no one pursued him. Zachary assumed it was because of the intensity of his flames. B-ranks were at the top of the food chain, after all.

Eh?

There was someone behind him.

“Out of my way, slowpoke!”

Zachary leaped to the side just in time to avoid being hit as Aiken dashed past him, shrouded with blocks of earth and swaths of mud, leaving wrecked earth in his wake.

What the hell? So this was Aiken’s abnormality? It was somewhat strange, but Zachary couldn’t care that much. Anxiously, he increased his power output and sped up another notch.

The hooded figure was not slow either, making it difficult for them to approach with its quick turns and sneaky maneuvers. But Aiken and Zachary kept on its tail with no problem.

Soon, they left the Colossi behind, pursuing the figure into the streets. Ten minutes later, the figure dashed into an alleyway. Zachary and Aiken followed, only to meet with a savage attack.

There was a piercing sound as three spinning blades drew arcs in the air, stabbing at Aiken. Aiken panicked and, gathering all his strength, stomped the ground. An explosion occurred as the ground broke open, and large rocks rose to block the blades’ path.

Shit! We’re dead.

Zachary jumped backward, yelling. “Senior Abyss Eye, we have no ill intent! We just want to—”

He was interrupted by an even louder screech.

“What the hell?!”

It wasn’t Aiken.

Aiken stared in confusion at the blades embedded in the boulders he summoned. Zachary was just as confused. Why did they seem so weak?...

A thought struck him. “Wait, Aiken. Stop.”

The boulders fell to the ground, and dust and sand filled the air. Zachary walked through it and, on the other end, saw the hooded figure on his knees, staring with vacant eyes, murmuring something. His face was immature, making him look about as young as Eldon was, yet he had a sturdy frame. Right now, he looked scared out of his wits, without a single iota of strength in his frame.

“Is that...” Aiken said, tilting his head.

“Of course not.” Zachary slapped his forehead. They had just stalked a stranger for no reason. He cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Are you okay? We are very sorry for—”

“N-No! Stay away! I-I’ll call the Guards if you take a single step closer! I may have borrowed a few weapons from your store, but that doesn’t mean you can kill me! I’m a Camper!”

Aiken chuckled. “The guy’s mind is fried.”

Zachary glared at him. To the shocked lad, he said, “We mean no harm. It was a stupid mistake on our part.”

“Huh? B-B-But you attacked me!”

“That was because you threw those spinning blades at us. Look at our clothing. We’re Campers, too. And you remember the rules, right?”

When he said this, the lad squinted like he was trying to observe every detail of their robes. Finally, he relaxed and dropped down, unconscious.

Zachary sighed. Aiken snickered and waved at Zachary. “Good luck with the kid. I’m off!”

“Huh? Wait! You caused this!” Zachary called, but Aiken had already gone. “Ai...”

Zachary looked at the crumpled figure for a long moment. If he left him there, he would feel guilty, but if he didn’t, he would be wasting valuable time.

In the end, he lifted the unconscious lad onto his back. I’m not Aiken after all...

The tournament matches went on for a long time. It was difficult to decide a winner quickly among such strong people because of their vast experience in overcoming disadvantages.

For example, Spikes was still on the stage battling Windfall almost thirty minutes after the battle had begun. Windfall had a clear advantage, pushing Spikes backward relentlessly, but no matter what, Spikes continued to evade Windfall’s attacks while endlessly barraging her with Earth Spikes. Windfall was beginning to get impatient, becoming less cautious and more aggressive.

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

Tia focused intently on the match, assessing it calmly. Her eyes glowed with a faint purple light, revealing much about the contestants to her that others couldn’t notice. She followed their every movement, nodded when they picked a good strategy and shook her head at their folly.

At that moment, Windfall pushed out a palm and closed it into a fist. The area where Spikes had been standing a moment before was instantly set into turbulence. The ground, already riddled with cracks and ridges, was ruined further by the wind pressure. Spikes hurriedly summoned more Earth Spikes, hoping to use that time to attack, but Windfall was not yet finished.

Roaring, she punched downwards, calling forth a massive burst of wind pressure from above. It was as though she had predicted where Spikes would be and had timed her attack perfectly. In an instant, Spikes, as well as the ground in a radius of twenty meters, was enveloped by the attack and smashed to bits.

The arena was enveloped by silence, with only Windfall’s labored breathing echoing. And then the audience broke into cheers and lamentations.

“Hahaha, I’m gonna win this one too!” Someone near Tia was jubilating. “I told you! I knew my eyes wouldn’t fail me.”

“Fuck my life,” said a sulking voice.

“You should listen to me more. This time around, I took my time to assess and understand the contestants even more thoroughly than before. I told you to bet on Windfall, but you just didn’t listen. Ha!”

“Fuck my life,” the voice said again. It seemed like the owner was going to cry.

Tia shook her head at this. “Not yet,” she said out loud. They paid her no mind, but she kept talking without taking her eyes off the stage. “You haven’t lost yet.”

Windfall, who had been catching her breath, suddenly stomped on the ground and leaped to the side.

“Too late,” said Tia.

A massive Earth Spike burst out of the ground, leaving a huge pit behind, and charged at Windfall, who was still in the air. Seeing that she couldn’t avoid the impact, Windfall put on a determined expression and put her palms together before pushing it downwards.

This time, the pressure was unlike anything seen before during the match. The giant Earth Spike crumbled rapidly from it, turning into huge boulders that fell back to the ground. The dust from the impact reached the sky.

Windfall relaxed a bit and breathed deeply. She had not been prepared for the previous attack and had sustained some internal injuries from forcing herself like that.

“Relaxing on the battlefield?”

A sinister voice said. Even before the voice was through, a sharp spike, far thinner than any Spikes had used before, had already stabbed into her chest. Spitting blood, she flew backward, slamming against the blue barrier protecting the spectators and dropping to the ground.

The quick succession of events caused the audience to hold their breath, and seeing the apparent winner suddenly smacked bloody, they were at a loss for words. Spikes emerged from the billowing sand and approached Windfall with a crooked smile.

He wriggled his finger as he approached, and Windfall squirmed in pain as the spike quivered inside her chest, causing greater damage.

“Tut tut...” Spikes stopped a bit away from her. “Do you have any tricks left? You’d do best to use them now,” he paused and glanced at the pool of blood around her, “before you fall unconscious from blood loss.”

Windfall opened her mouth to speak, but blood came out instead. She coughed for a while while the audience, as well as Spikes himself, waited for her. Her breath came in short spurts.

“Aren’t you just going to finish this?” She finally said.

“I will—After you do your best. I don’t want people to say I didn’t give you a chance to retaliate.” He looked around. “It should be about finished now, shouldn’t it?”

Windfall looked genuinely shocked this time—and Tia knew this expression was real, unlike most others she made—but she didn’t waste time and instantly clenched her fists.

The wind picked up in the arena. A moment later, the air seemed to stop, and it seemed like all the air above the arena was segregated into four parts, each exerting pressure. The earth caved in and compressed from the pressure in all four directions around Spikes. Not many would be able to notice, but Tia noted that the air pressure seemed to be approaching Spikes from all sides.

“Interesting... It seems like a cage of some sort,” Spikes noted idly. “What great control! To think you can control the pressure on such a scale and so subtly as well. That’s more than I predicted. I expected you to have hidden a cyclone trap somewhere to tear me apart. As for this... if you had used this at the beginning, maybe the match would have ended quicker.”

Windfall didn’t respond. The walls of pressure quickly approached Spikes, compressing the ground. In just a few moments, the pressure was inches from Spikes.

But... There was a smile on Spikes’s face.

Suddenly, Tia’s eyes hurt momentarily, and she closed them in pain, deactivating her abnormality. When she recovered a moment later and turned to the stage, she saw an impossible scene.

A distorted mangle of flesh stood in the arena at the center of the Wind Pressure Cage’s impact. Under the shocked gazes of the audience, it dropped to the ground, blood pumping out of it in all directions.

Meanwhile, where Windfall had been a moment ago, Spikes stood there, gently patting off dust from his body.

Tia wiped her eyes again and checked again. Yes, the person who was alive and standing on the stage was indeed Spikes.

How did he do that? And why did it disrupt my Reading Skill?

At that instant, her skill had been interrupted. Did that mean she was too weak to read that information? Tia could only smile bitterly. She was certain she was not the only spectator surprised by the result. While she had known Spikes would win the battle, she had never seen an ability like that before.

What exactly was Spikes’s ability? Was it not to compress spikes and...

Tia finally understood. The bell rang, signifying the winner, while Spikes walked out of the arena, cleaning his ear with his finger. This guy is dangerous!

His A-rank abilities were one thing. His insane manipulation tactics were another.

He called himself Spikes and used only Earth Spikes throughout the battle. With this, he convinced everyone that was the limit of his abilities. Only to suddenly reveal an ability like that at the end.

It was an insane level of trickiness.

And even now, no one knows the true extent of his abilities...

Tia wouldn’t want to join his team even if she was invited. Not even an A-rank could escape his clutches. How could a measly C-rank like her possibly succeed? As for her hopes...

It was lying in the arena as a blob of flesh and blood.

She had been planning to impress the loser of the battle with her ability by pointing out every intention of theirs during the fight to them, hopefully getting them to invite her to their team. Unfortunately, the person she had the most hopes for had died to Spikes’ trickery.

“I-I-It’s not fair! I won’t stand for it! Aren’t Campers forbidden from killing one another? Isn’t that one of the first rules of being a Camper? My uncle is a member of the Spire Guard! I won’t stand for this nonsense!”

Since the battle was over and the arena would be some time before it was ready for another match, given its damage, Tia finally glanced at the two who had been conversing before.

The one shouting was the one who had bet on Windfall. As he shouted, splashing spit everywhere, the fat on his face jiggled and wiggled. Beside him was a man of similar age and build staring openmouthed at the scene.

“I-I won.” It finally dawned on him. “I won! Hahahahaha!”

Tia rolled her eyes at his happy dance. She was more than a little irritated at the moment. Time was running out. If she could not find an A-rank to take her in here, she had no choice but to settle for B-rank teams. If she did that, her chances of survival would reduce.

S-rank would be ideal, but... That is little more than a pipe dream.