Chapter 486: Three versus One

After Thomas's match there wasn't anyone else that was even close to as big a recruitment prospect during the morning matches. There were some other people with good potential which wasn't a surprise since they had made it to this point in the tournament, but for the most part Joshua was focusing on younger participants who just didn't have the time to level like the older explorers in the tournament who were still low level because they just weren't nearly as good at exploring as others. In the end Joshua had only seen ten or so people that he felt deserved a chance to be recruited to their guild, but there wasn't any way for him to watch every single match that happened in the morning.

Joshua was hoping that Henry had found some interesting recruits as well, but for now it was time for him to turn his attention back to the tournament. With the morning matches coming to an end Joshua had an hour before it was time for the evening fights that would involve not only himself, but other high level contestants in the tournament. Joshua made sure he had everything in his inventory that he would need for his afternoon matches before waiting for the message that would appear to bring him to the battle arena.

With half an hour left before the evening portion of the fourth day of the tournament Joshua was teleported away to the battle arena. He found himself in his usual waiting room with a large screen that was currently showing the battle arena's television network. At the moment they were showing some replays of matches that happened earlier on in the morning, so Joshua took a seat and turned the channel to the news network to see what they were busy talking about. For the most part it seemed as if they were finished discussing the morning matches. At the moment they had a pole going to discussing who they expected to be the Cinderella of the tournament based off the morning matches. At the moment Thomas and a rather impressive woman that was a mage were tied in the pole. Joshua wasn't surprised since Thomas had a unique job that could carry him in the tournament if he had some other tricks still up his sleeve.

After the short pole the news station started discussing the evening matches that were about to start up and they showed the hundreds of contestants that had just been put on the brink of elimination from the morning matches. Joshua was a bit surprised that the news station seemed to have figured out how the battle arena planned on doing the evening matches. Apparently the battle arena didn't expect too many of the high level contestants that were participating in the evening matches to actually lose. Thus the leftovers from the morning matches would be getting several attempts to make it into the last part of the tournament. The only issue was that they could only get in if they took down some of these undefeated contestants that had far higher levels than them.

The news crew was discussing how an upset could become possible for the people that were still trying to fight for a spot in the tournament and in the end it mostly came down to whether or not they could work together well. After all if a tank was paired alongside a mage and a close ranged fighter than that would be a balanced team that could work well together. The fact that most of these people wouldn't have worked together in the past wouldn't be that big of a deal, after all explorers were used to working with new people all of the time. It was just a part of the job even in guilds.

A team with the right balance would have a decent shot at the upset since a tank would be able to hold his own with some decent support while a mage might finally get some time to cast a large spell when fighting alongside other people. It was an exciting situation for the crowds that would be able to see these new interesting fights that would likely force the higher level contenders to actually take things a bit more seriously. That would become even more apparent further on in the day where the battle arena would continue to make more challenging fights in order to figure out seeding.

With a minute left before the match Joshua got up for a quick stretch and quickly checked all of his gear before he was teleported away to a large arena. The arena was around twice the size as all of the one on one arenas that he had been fighting in previously. The crowd was also much larger considering that there would be far fewer fights in the evening with the way it was set up. After taking a quick look around at the crowd Joshua turned his attention towards his opponents for his first match of the evening.

There were three people standing across from Joshua on the other side of the arena that hadn't even taken a glance at the crowd as they all focused on Joshua. A couple of their eyes widen after seeing him which told him that they both knew who he was, while the last person still seemed extremely cautious after seeing Joshua's level. The two that knew who he was seemed to lean over and tell the other guy about him which got his eyes to comically widen.

The group in front of Joshua was balanced just like the news crew had predicted. There was a berserker out front that would act as the tank of the group. The man was definitely on the bigger side only being a few inches shorter than Joshua. He was level sixty-five and just from the look in his eyes and the subtle lines in his face Joshua knew he was much older than the other two participants he was going to fight against.

The second person of the group was a shorter man that was just a bit over five and a half feet that had two daggers at his side which told Joshua that he was either a dagger specialist or a thief. His gear was on the lighter side and he was only level sixty-three. For him to make it so far in the tournament Joshua was certain that he had to have relied on some sort of traps or explosives otherwise there was no way he could have won enough matches to even get the opportunity to participate in the fourth day's festivities.

The last person of the group was a woman with a large bow strapped to her back. She also had light weight gear in a similar vain to the shorter guy. She was only a couple inches taller than him, and her eyes were laser focused on Joshua at the moment as she observed everything she could about him. She was a level sixty-four archer that already had two quivers on her that were filled to the brim with arrows. Joshua didn't know what properties the arrows would have, but he was going to have to keep an eye out on them unless he was forced to use his aura in the match.

After observing his opponents for a moment Joshua turned to the systems countdown to see how much longer he would have to wait and he was surprised that there was a three minute countdown. When he saw his three opponent walk closer to each other and start discussing something that he wasn't able to hear he realized why the countdown was so long. It was giving the underdogs a chance to come up with a plan of attack. Joshua smiled a bit at this before taking out one of the short swords that Naomi and Nathan had worked on for him along with the gun he had used earlier on in the preliminaries. He planned on going as long as he possibly could without showing off his scale blade. Although there were several times he had fought with his scale blade in the battle arena already, he didn't want to give any of the contestants the chance to see any of his more recent improvements in regards to using his preferred weapon.

Joshua's three opponent talked with each other for a couple of minutes before they seemed to figure out what they planned to do for the fight. The berserker took the front preparing to hold off Joshua for as long as possible while the other two helped in their own ways. The archer gained the most distance she possibly could from Joshua as she took out her bow and pulled out an arrow from one of her quivers. The thief seemed to be the only one that spent the last minute preparing the battle field for their upcoming clash. He was placing traps in front of the archer and in other locations around their side of the arena. It was apparent that they were hoping that the traps would be able to somewhat slow Joshua down, but they weren't going to rely on them.

The moment the countdown finally came to an end the berserker immediately let out a roar before charging forward towards Joshua. A sudden red aura seemed to envelope the man as he carried his large axe over head to swing down at Joshua. The red aura was filled with killing intent that was meant to breed fear in the berserkers opponents while also amping themselves up at the same time. Joshua casually dodged the slow moving man while keeping his attention primarily on the archer and the thief. In Joshua's mind they were more of a threat than the berserker since his movements were far to slow with the level difference. He might have had power behind his blows, but there was no way any of his attacks would land.

Joshua made the right decision to keep an eye on the other two as an arrow came in right when the berserker was attempting to axe Joshua in the side once more. Joshua swiped the air as he grabbed the arrow before dodging another swing of the big man's axe. He quickly glanced at the arrow and noticed that arrow head was tinted green with dark fumes coming off of it. Joshua tossed the arrow aside before avoiding another swing of the berserker's axe. When Joshua was about to stab his short sword into the man's side a knife came flying towards Joshua that he had to knock aside. That knife was then followed by another arrow that forced Joshua to jump away.

The berserker shouted again increasing his rage as his muscles seemed to bulge before he tried to charge Joshua down once more. Joshua simply smiled as he could see the strategy his opponents were going for. He was already having far more fun than his previous matches in the tournament.