Fatty's Fight

Eager to put him in his place, the first wave rushed at Fatty. Without the slightest resistance, they were able to get close and mercilessly beat him up. They weren't willing to use spells because they wanted to save their energy, but they were confident that their pure strength would be enough to take him down.

However, though their attacks were relentless Fatty stood firm without a single injury. As his attackers started getting tired and noticed that he hadn't let out any screams of anguish, they looked at his face and were shocked to see that he didn't even look like he was enduring any pain.

"How is this possible?!"

They weren't the only ones surprised by how durable Fatty was. The man himself also found this scene unexpected. He was indeed confident of his defence, but it wasn't to the degree that he thought he would be able to charge through the battlefield unharmed.

'Woah... I really need to thank Boss the next time I see him.'

As he saw how much stronger he had become, Fatty became filled with confidence and smirked. Irritated by this expression, his attackers pushed even more of their power into defeating him, however, Fatty didn't stay passive anymore.

His body absorbed the power behind their blows until it reached the limit. Then, he released that accumulated power, causing a shockwave that not only blew back his opponents, it also knocked off the competitors who were at the edge of the platform.

"Hahaha! How do you like that?" Fatty exclaimed.

Before Fatty's astonishing strength, not only those who were told to brutalise him, even those who didn't know about him before, glared at him now.

"Ho, I didn't know the Riot's brat got so tough."

"I told you a mutt can't come from a wolf."

"Hmph, liar."

The elders supervising the test also nodded their heads as they approved of Fatty's style. In their sect, strength was most important. Therefore, rather than these lackeys who would throw away their pride for money, Fatty's bold attitude was exactly what they liked. If it wasn't because he already had his clan behind him, a few of them would have considered taking him in as a direct disciple.

Fatty was unaware of the positive feelings heading his way, but he was already in a good mood looking at the men getting ready to rip him apart.

"Hahaha! You fools! All of you will simply be rocks beneath my feet."

He was definitely getting ahead of himself, but there was no one here to stop him. Furthermore, he was confident that his victory was already stamped in history.

"Everyone, why don't we make a truce to take him out first?"

"Agreed!!!"

A void of space opened around Fatty, but not because they were afraid of him, but because they didn't want any friendly fire. As Fatty noticed countless spells targeting him, he broke out in cold sweat but he stayed firm with a smug expression.

'I can't let them think I'm weak.'

Fatty took out his war hammer in preparation to face the incoming spells. He wasn't planning on hitting back all of them, just a few would be enough.

"Fire!"

A ring of colourful attacks quickly closed in on Fatty. He tightened the grip on his hammer, and then did a wide swing, knocking back a couple of the spells while enduring the rest with a thin barrier that was close to his skin, which took advantage of his physique to boost its defence.

"Huh?"

"Damn it!"

"Get out of the way!"

Compared the total number of spell that reached him, the number that was reflected was less than a tenth, but to the ones in the path of those reflected spells, that didn't matter. As they scattered to evade the spells, their group synergy was disrupted, giving Fatty the chance he needed to flip the table.

Fatty ignored the burning pain caused by the bruises he got despite his tough barrier, and slammed his hammer down on the platform.

"Hoora!"

Like a major earthquake, his hammer caused the platform to tremble. More competitors were knocked off the stage so without giving them time to reorganise, Fatty pounced at a chaotic group of them. He raised his hammer to make them think he was attacking, but once their guards were up he slammed the hammer into the stage once more, knocking off those directly in front of him.

Less than an hour had passed since the start of the battle royals, but their group was already down to under one hundred. Fatty repeated this tactic of shaking up and knocking off his opponents, but as the stage got less cluttered, the effectiveness of this tactic dropped.

'Now, I can only hope that my best will be enough.'

Even though he was surrounded by the remaining competitors, Fatty kept a smile on his face. It didn't seem as if there was any way for him to get out of this unfavourable situation and achieve victory. The spectators didn't think so, and Fatty himself knew that he had no more trump cards that would make this easy. However, he threw away any thoughts about giving up.

"Haaaaa...!"

Relying on just his cultivation definitely wouldn't be enough. Therefore, he had to tap into the power of his physique. He focused on the image of pushing all of his nature energy inside his muscles and when he felt his entire body heating up, Fatty charged straight towards a small group of enemies. There were no tricks, no strategies, no traps. With pure courage and power Fatty fought against them all by himself.

Unaware of Fatty's struggle, Serina's battle had entered a new phase. As the number of competitors went down, the number of those aware of Serina's true skill increased. The average strength of competitors in her group was less than Fatty's so there was still a chance for her to come out on top, but she couldn't help feeling less confident when she found herself surrounded by ten men and women.

"For so many of you to gang up on me, this is unfair."

Serina merely expressed her dissatisfaction openly, but the reaction it elicited was far more than she imagined. Of the ten surrounding her, about half showed guilty expressions in response to her pout.

"Should, should we really do this?" asked one of those with guilty expressions.

"Huh? What are you getting cold feet for? Let's just knock her off already."

One of the those unaffected quickly snapped back at his wavering ally, but that ally still couldn't agree. Even he found his own change in attitude strange, but he didn't have enough doubt to ignore his feelings.

In his eyes, Serina was just a poor little girl trying her hardest to last in this battle royal, and yet here they were, mercilessly crushing her hope.

'Yeah, I can't do this.'

"Wait guys, shouldn't we rethink this? It's one thing to gang up on someone, but what pride can we have if we beat up someone a level below us."

For those who were firm about their stance, his words only made them slightly hesitant. However, for those who were also wavering, his words was the spark they needed to take a stand.

"You're right, we shouldn't do this."

"How can we be proud of ourselves if we have to resort to grouping up to fight someone weaker than a single one of us?"

"It's not like we need to put this much effort to knock off one little girl, right?"

"How about we choose a stronger target?"

Though their words began to persuade the rest of the group, there was one man who remained steadfast in his decision.

'Why are they suddenly backing out? This isn't the first time we've done something like this.'