This time, the fights would begin. There was a surreal amount of people participating, and from what Kayden learned, this phase would be a fight between more than one group simultaneously.
Mainly to reduce the number of participants quickly, five teams entered and only one of them left. But the detail is that the team that eliminated the most opponents could go to the next phase together with the winner of the bubble.
This gave Kayden a very interesting idea, which was nothing more than attacking everyone like a madman, but logically waiting for the right moments to do so.
"We're going to focus on defending at first and then try to take out as many opponents as possible at once," Kayden passed the strategy to his team as they entered a huge bubble.
There were already two other teams waiting there, and within a few minutes the other two that were missing arrived. The majority there had a balanced composition, Kayden was entirely covered in cloth so as not to be identified.
He knew what teenagers' egos were like, and surely some funny guy would try to focus on him to gain credit.
"We will start in five minutes, everything is allowed except pre-made weapons," a judge dressed in purple was floating in the air. With his instructions, the teams began to prepare.
Kayden's team began gathering mana to raise a barrier as soon as the start signal was released. Considering that the three conventional mages on his team would raise the barrier together, it would be stupidly resilient.
"The fight has begun," the judge's voice began the confrontation. And as Kayden had imagined, everyone quickly started attacking each other. It looked like a war scene with dozens of spells being cast simultaneously.
Kayden was just not stunned, as he had already faced a much worse situation in the illusion, with millions of people fighting and dying around him, with the ground and all the trees smelling of blood. This shitty mess of spells wasn't even close.
Some came to Kayden's bubble, but few were in the mood to waste energy tearing down a bubble. Several insults were directed at his team, mainly calling them cowards.
A few minutes later, most of the competitors were already fighting more carefully. The first confusion of attacks was to test the strength of their opponents and recognize the strong and weak.
It didn't take long for the teams' weak links to be eliminated. The number of people dropped from 25 to 21, there was practically one person from each team of the four. You could tell this was a balanced bubble in strength levels.
For the next few minutes, the battle became a stalemate. Little by little, the fight became a battle of attrition, with no strong advance on either side. It was practically a fight of who could last longer.
This lasted for the next thirty minutes and only changed when Kayden's team bubble started making some strange noises. It was like a drum rhythm, the sound was loud enough to disturb everyone and stop them from fighting.
The sound was beating harder and faster as the seconds passed. Not only that, but the bubble began to slowly move towards one of the teams.
Because of the strange situation, she didn't even retreat. Firstly, they had never seen an apprentice-level bubble moving. Most participants began to feel apprehensive as the rhythm of the beats increased.
Finally, the bubble began to unravel. Everyone's vision was 100% focused on seeing what was causing all this confusion. The first thing they saw at the top of the bubble falling by layers was a raised katana.
"Transcendence", Kayden activated his strongest spell at the same time as he blasted one of the most powerful Pop flashes of his life. Practically everyone around was blinded by the light.
Kayden rushed at a mage from the nearest team using his bizarre speed because of transcendence. His first blow would cut her in two if the judge didn't remove her from the arena.
Kayden didn't even waste time seeing if she was disqualified. Long ago, he realized that the government officials were fast and he didn't even need to complete his move for the opponent to be taken out.
It was a small flaw that he only thought about taking advantage of now. It was enough for him to gain a few milliseconds.
His next strike was at a knight wielding a large axe. Even though he was blind, he tried to protect his body with a huge weapon. But Kayden was like a snake and tried to hit his unprotected neck.
One more was eliminated and Kayden ran to the mage a few meters to the side. Even though she managed to briefly regain her vision, that didn't stop Kayden from removing her from the arena with a well-aimed blow to her neck.
The other opponent left was a swordsman carrying a spear. He had already regained his vision but was still in shock at the turn of events. His defense was practically done subconsciously.
The sound of iron against iron made him regain consciousness of where he was and focus on dealing with Kayden. The problem was that the boy was already very close. His spear couldn't be used in its entirety and Kayden wouldn't let that happen.
Each blow from Kayden was defended with the handle of the weapon or, the most he could do was use the spear halfway.
"What a shit boy," the spearman cursed at Kayden's persistence in staying on his tail. He didn't have a second of peace. If he made even one mistake, he would be disqualified.
One wrong move. That was all it took for Kayden to deliver a concentrated beam of lightning to his opponent and strike his right leg. The cut was deep enough to weaken the spearman movement.
After that, it was just a matter of a few more strikes for Kayden to finish him without difficulty. In less than 30 seconds, an entire team was eliminthanTaking a breath to catch his breath, Kayden looked around.
Astolfo and the other three managed to eliminate four other people as well thinks eight casualties for his team alone. Kayden deactivated transcendence and raised his hand.
"I give up" Along with his sentence, the others on his team also came out surprising everyone who was watching, it took a while for everyone to realize that they were deceived.
Kayden's team went on to the next stage, as there was no way any other team could surpass theirs in terms of points for removing opponents, when the two remaining teams understood this they began to fight as if their lives depended