Chapter 487: The Matches Just Keep Getting Harder

After seeing how his three opponents planned on attacking him in their fight Joshua was ready to go for the kill. Although he knew that he had a good advantage in the fight with his level and capabilities he didn't want to allow things to drag on since that could possibly lower his seeding in the later portion of the tournament. From what Joshua could see the berserker seemed to have a skill that was slowly, but surely ramping up his stats every time he roared and attempted to charge down Joshua. It was obvious that there was a cap to how strong the berserker could become in the end, but the skill did seem to have a bad side effect as well. Each time he grew stronger he seemed to lose some of his mental stability. The berserker was starting to just chase him down instead of using any technique with his attacks, it was clearly a part of their strategy.

The archer stayed in the same spot and was continuing to fire poisoned arrows at Joshua in an attempt to hit him while he was busy avoiding the rampaging tank up front. Joshua didn't know what other types of arrows she had, but was just focusing on not letting any of her attacks land. The thief would try to hit Joshua with throwing knives whenever given the opportunity and sometimes would charge in and try to stab Joshua with his daggers at the perfect timing. The only reason he was so sure of himself to do such things was because of a skill that was somewhat similar to blink that allowed him to move from one spot to another in a puff of smoke. Whenever he missed an attack he'd puff away before Joshua could simply cut him down.

The match would drag on if Joshua went by their pace so he decided to speed things along as the berserker came rushing towards him once more. This time around Joshua used the berserker's madness to his own benefit. He led the berserker into a position where he'd be between Joshua and the archer making it impossible for her to get in a clean shot. This time around Joshua dashed around the axe swing at the last minute as he moved to the berserker's side. His short blade was ready to stab up into the berserker as he aimed for a small gap in his armor.

Just as Joshua expected both the thief and the archer didn't plan on sitting around and letting him take out their only front line. An arrow came flying towards his head while the thief puffed into existence right beside Joshua preparing to stab him in the side if he continued trying to attack the berserker. Joshua reacted instantly as he twisted his sword to block the thief's dagger before kicking the thief in the chest fiercely before he could teleport away. The thief used his free arm to try to block the blow, but from the loud crunch Joshua knew that he had at least broken the man's arm for the rest of the fight.

Joshua then twisted as the arrow passed by his head and grabbed it before it could sail past. He then stabbed the arrow into the side of the berserker causing the man to shout in pain as he tried to slam his axe into Joshua once more. Joshua easily avoided the attack and took out his gun and fired towards the archer. The archer dived out of the way at the last second, but that gave Joshua enough to fire off another shot at the thief that was left unprotected while cradling his arm. The shot pierced his chest causing the thief to vanish from the arena leaving a poisoned berserker and an archer that was no longer in a position that was surrounded by protective traps.

Joshua didn't pay the berserker any mind since at this point he was blinded by his skill and was just madly rushing at Joshua. Even with the berserkers boost in stats he wasn't anywhere near agile enough to keep up with Joshua. Plus the poison from the arrow Joshua stabbed him with was already spreading and causing a portion of the Berserker's exposed skin around the wound to turn green. It was just a matter of time before the crazed man would go down. The archer was the only threat left and Joshua was aiming to take her down right away.

With a hard kick off from the ground Joshua was blitzing in the archer's direction and now that she was out of position he didn't have to worry about the traps at all. With no one in his way the archer immediately started panicking as she got up and started to try to run back towards the traps while firing arrows at Joshua. She pulled out an arrow from her other quiver and fired it directly at Joshua's chest. When the arrow left her bow string it moved much faster than her other arrows and seemed to be covered in some type of mana that made it curve towards Joshua.

The new arrows were a bit harder to dodge, but since Joshua was already closing in on her she wasn't able to fire off to many of the arrows. He fired another round off from his gun directly in front of her causing her to come to a stop to avoid getting hit. The bullet wasn't just aimed at her however as it hit the ground where Joshua had seen one of the traps set up causing the landmine like trap to explode. The one explosion caused a chain reaction of explosions that forced the archer back towards Joshua which was the final nail in the coffin for her chances of getting away. She pulled up her bow in a last attempt to get off one more shot, but Joshua cut through it with his sword and then stabbed though her chest causing her to vanish from the arena.

In the end there was only one madly rushing berserker that was quickly slowing down due to the poison that was coursing through his system. Since there weren't really any healers in the tournament at all it was near impossible for the system to form the perfect party for these types of fights and that was being shown to everyone with the current situation of the tank. Joshua decided to not waste any more time and just shot the crazed man through the chest a couple of times until he vanished from the arena marking Joshua's victory. The crowd cheered excitedly after one of the first three on one matches and Joshua gave them a wave in return.

Soon Joshua was teleported back to the waiting room. He looked towards the countdown clock and noticed that unlike usual there was a thirty minute wait time until his next match instead of an hour. The system seemed to be trying to get as many of these new types of matches in as possible throughout the evening, but seeing as how the first one was rather fun Joshua was looking forward to the upcoming match. Joshua then turned his attention towards the screen that was currently showing one of the matches going on between a high level combatant and three opponents. This time around the match seemed to be between Shawn and three lower level explorers. The group he was up against had a knight, a spearman, and a mage that were all following a similar start to their preparation phase as Joshua's opponents had.

Shawn casually stood there and waited for the countdown to end while the knight positioned himself up front with the spearman just behind him. The mage got as far away as possible and started putting down some traps around herself to get as much protection as possible. From the floating bubbles that started to hover around her it was clear that she preferred to use water magic similar to brook, but the amount of traps she created and the variety of them weren't anywhere near as powerful or complex as Brook's tactics.

All of this didn't seem to faze Shawn at all as he simply kept looking at the countdown waiting for the exact moment that the match would start. When the countdown ended the mage was already well defended, the knight had a shield wall up and ready to hold off any attacks from Shawn, and the spearman positioned himself just behind the tank so that he could basically be the attacking force for the knight so that all the knight had to focus on was defending.

Even with all of this preparation in the end it was all pointless. The moment the match started the exact same thing happened as any other match Shawn had been in. He instantly teleported directly behind the knight and spearman and didn't even look back as both of their bodies slumped over and vanished. The mages eyes widened after seeing both of her teammates taken out so quickly she prepared to cast the large area spell that she had been channeling. But before she could even get close to getting the spell off Shawn suddenly appeared directly behind her and she fell over as her spell cancelled itself as she vanished from the arena. Just like that Shawn had won his match in the quickest fashion possible.

Joshua wasn't able to learn all that much about Shawn's ability from the display, but he did learn that whatever ability that Shawn was using could be used consecutively, but it didn't allow him to take down multiple people at the same time if they are far enough away from each other. It wasn't much, but learning something about the mysterious man's abilities was a good sign. Joshua spent a little while longer watching some of the other matches where high level contestants were joining the greatly lopsided matches. So far Joshua didn't see any of the three man teams get anyone to push themselves let alone win.

Eventually the countdown for Joshua's break period came to an end and it was time for him to go up for his next match. He turned away from the screen and got up for a quick stretch with a minute left before being teleported away to the arena. This time around Joshua was a bit surprised at his opponents, but he was able to figure out how things would work for the evening's matches. This time around Joshua would have to take on four people instead of three and the crowd broke into a frenzy at this.