Chaos erupted in the preparation room, as I made my move.
I removed my dagger from the man's throat and threw it into the eye of the man who had been sitting next to me. He was the easiest pick, since he had the heaviest weapon out of the 6. 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 easy target.
There were now only 4 of them alive, but that didn't mean this was going to be easy.
I cancelled the summon on 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 cool down period had been reduced from 2 minutes to only half a minute, so throwing my dagger to eliminate one opponent wasn't a very bad choice anymore when I considered that I was still inexperienced with it and hand-to-hand combat wasn't inefficient, since I was so much stronger than my opponents. Also, I could just steal my enemy's weapon.
"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 came at me at once, 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, now I was in a bad position and there were two men about to cut me into pieces.
I lowered my body under the cutlass and grabbed the man's hand that held the cutlass. I took advantage of his momentum and spun the man around. I, then, grabbed the man head into a headlock with my left hand and blocked the morning star that was supposed to hit me in the head. After blocking the swing, I rotated the cutlass and made a cut in the morning star wielder's torso.
After cutting the morning star wielder, I was about to kill the cutlass wielding man, Atlas attacked me from the back 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 on 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, and the swing only hit 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 just disappeared.
"Aahg." I groaned, as the bolt hit my right shoulder.
The cutlass wielder had cancelled the summon on his weapon just before it was about to block the bolt. It was oddly smart from someone so stupid.
Blood started flooding out of my shoulder, as I started feeling intense pain. It wasn't anything too bad, though, and the pain could easily 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. It seemed that every soul weapon had the same kind of design.
'No, wait, Calvin's weapons were completely black. Why? No, that doesn't matter.' 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 leave it there.' I concluded in my mind.
Everybody had recovered and I was surrounded.
'Should be about time.' I thought after a while and rushed at the crossbow wielding man who was still reloading.
'Akir's dagger.' I thought, and 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 and after a while he gave up and was about to run away, but I caught up to him and my dagger sliced through his neck and shortly after a rounded object fell onto the ground.
"Anybody wanna play football?" I taunted the three men who were rushing at me. "Guess not." I said disappointed and readied myself. The intense pain was starting to get to me, and I was having a hard time suppressing my emotions. As a result, my behavior was starting to seem like that of an insane person.
The cutlass wielding fellow was the first to come at me, with the morning star wielder being 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 swung his weapon with all his might, aiming on the right side of my neck.
The attack was fast, and it attacked at my weak side. I barely managed to block the blow with my dagger, and even then, my left arm felt a little pain from the impact. He kept pushing the cutlass at my neck, and he was starting to over power me.
'It's going to take 2 seconds until I'm dead, if I stay in this position.' I thought and exerted some more force.
The cutlass was pushed away by my dagger and I directed my focus at the morning star wilder 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 what I had already accumulated in the past few days, and there was also the possibility of the cutlass wielder attacking my right side while I was defenseless.
My dagger was on its way towards the morning star wielders left eyeball when something completely unprecedented happened and my eyes flew wide open.
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'What???' I was in complete confusion as I watched a broadsword with no wielder block my daggers' trajectory.
Atlas had thrown his weapon! The broadsword continued on its path and made a hole in the white and spotless wall of the preparation room.
I didn't have the time to process what had happened, 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 and leaned back like a limbo expert and watched as the morning star flew by. After having preformed the most enchanting limbo performance in history, I stood up properly, and aimed a full force punch on the right side of the man's torso and felt some ribs crack. It was a brutal punch that not only cracked his ribs but attacked his liver.
After punching the man, I grabbed the morning star wielders face was about to push the man's head down to meet my knee, when I saw the cutlass wielder swinging his weapon down at me. I had a few milliseconds to think and decided to use my right hand to grab the morning star. I moved my right hand and felt intense pain, but 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 morning star wielder and managed to block the cutlass.
The cutlass wielder was pushed back, and I turned my attention to the next attacker, Atlas.
Atlas was attacking bare handed 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 morning star 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 landed, kicked him in the stomach with my knee. Atlas let go of my hand and fell onto the floor, gasping for air. I would have bashed him in the head with the morning star, but the cutlass wielder was attacking me once again.
'What a pathetic effort.' I thought as the cutlass wielder was rushing at me.
"Aaar!" The man yelled as he swung his cutlass with full force.
"I can hear you just fine." I said as I blocked the swing. "Yelling is unnecessary." I said, as the morning star attacked the man with, pulverized his skull. A loud crack echoed in the preparation room, and it 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 one was walking slowly and painfully towards his broadsword.
I slowly walked towards the man who was laying 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 mee!" 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 cancel the summon.
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 we were approaching Atlas, who was trying to remove his broadsword out of 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 broad sword from the wall.
"You're fucking insane, you know that." Atlas commented as he pointed his sword at me.
"I'm not. It was just the pain that made me behave abnormally" I explained calmly.
"Hahahahah, even you don't believe that." Atlas laughed.
"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'll get us to the top if we followed your orders!" The man yelled.
"Enough yelling." I said, and 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, and he started throbbing wildly.
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. He wasn't the only one experiencing changes, though. I, myself, was starting to feel dizzy and my abnormal behavior that was caused by constant pain was also starting to fade.
"The fight already ended half a minute ago." I said, as I readied myself for combat. "What will happen next won't be considered as a fight.