Taking a deep breath, I pulled out my staff and readied myself. With a flash of light, the formation started and the room disappeared. I found myself standing on top of Pike's Peak, the iconic mountain in Colorado Springs. Surrounding me, a pack of wolves numbering in the thousands moved slowly, as if eyeing a dangerous predator that they couldn't run away from.
From the rear of the pack, a pure-white wolf nearly 6 feet tall lifted it's head and howled it's war cry. The gravity hit hard and fast, and I gasped in surprise as I realized that they'd pumped it straight up to 10 times Earth Normal. "What the hell?" I yelled out, leaning heavily on my staff as I started to gather energy. Joke's on whoever wanted to screw me over, I didn't need to move to kill all these fools. I thought about summoning a tornado and wiping them all out in an instant, but decided to aim for the long haul.
As the massive pack of wolves charged at me, I activated my Storm Energy Barrier, except this time Patrice mixed some of her energy in with mine. The usually light blue/transparent barrier turned a dark gold and crackled with energy for more potent than I could produce on my own. Deciding to show off a bit, I sat down cross legged with my staff in my lap and let them come.
I could almost hear Rick yelling "SHOW OFF!" as the first wolf was sliced to pieces by my barrier before it was sent flying. I had learned a while back how to meditate and gather Elemental Energy into my mindscape while remaining aware of my environment, and even fighting with my staff. It's a skill that's nearly exclusive to mindscape cultivator's because it requires splitting the brain to do multiple tasks and other types of cultivator's just don't have the necessary brain power.
I grinned to myself, barely able to hold back my laughter as I imagined the audience gasping in shock. I lost count after the 100th wolf threw itself onto my shield only to kill itself, and didn't find myself forced to move until the white wolf appeared surrounded by it's lieutenants. Thanks to Patrice and I gathering Elemental Energy even while killing the wolves off we were in peak condition as the gravity increased to 11 times Earth norm. My knee's buckled, but I stood my ground. In training, all of us had managed to resist up to 20 times Earth normal while standing still. It was moving and fighting that wore down Rick, Bill, Sarah, and Gunthar. That must be why they started me off at 10 times, they didn't want to waste more than an hour before I even started to struggle.
A manic grin crossed my face and the evil laughter I'd been holding back finally overwhelmed me as I stood and struck a pose. Slamming my staff down into the ground, Patrice and I summoned a gale of wind, using the techniques of the Storm Tyrant Body Refinning Method to transform it into billions of tiny blades of wind so sharp they cut through the wolves' bodies without them even realizing what had hit them.
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" I couldn't help myself from yelling out a favorite line of mine as I imagined myself with a flowing white beard holding off the bal-wolf of Mt. Pike. A massive explosion of blood covered the mountain as all of the remaining wolves except the charging white wolf and her lieutenants died. Lifting my staff was agony in the 11x gravity as I activated Defense of the Light to hold off the berserk wolves still coming for me. Grunting, I took a step back to absorb the blow and nearly fell to the ground because of the increased weight but I somehow managed to hold myself upright.
Patrice sent me an image of me stabbing my staff forwards while a bolt of lightning shot from it, and I followed through. "Elemental Strike!" I stabbed forwards and the white wolf fell to the ground, stunned as Patrice's phantasmal form appeared above my head. The dark-golden storm cloud roiled as twenty spears of ice shot out and slammed through the heads of all wolves, with 5 of them concentrating on killing off the white wolf while it was still stunned.
Before I could catch my breath, I heard a trumpeting noise coming from below and gasped as I saw a clan of Goblins lead by a Goblin Lord atop a war elephant making their way up the peak. I knew that I couldn't keep holding back, but taking a moment to regain as much Elemental Energy as possible I tried to think of a plan. That's when I noticed that Pike's Peak matched what it looked like currently, which meant that nearly 12 feet of snow had fallen just two weeks ago. My earlier pretending to be Gandolf had actually created a crack that was slowly expanding through the hard packed snow. With a nasty grin on my face, I yelled out, "Elemental Strike!" slamming the length of my staff into the crack with as much force as possible while pushing a wave of Water and Air Elemental Energy deep into the snow.
The crack expanded quickly, and I struck one more time before running backwards to the top of the peak as fast as I could manage. The roar of the avalanche was deafening, a primal noise that brought goosebumps to my skin.
Just as I was about to reach a safe zone, I buckled as the gravity increased yet again. I fell to the ground in surprise and started rolling down the hill, just barely managing to hold onto my staff. Figuring that I might as well go along with the flow, I redirected most of my shield to my feet as I stood up and had the time of my life snowboarding down Pike's Peak in the middle of the worst avalanche in it's history under 12x Earth gravity.
"HAHAHAHA" I couldn't help bursting out in joyous laughter, Patrice shooting out a wave of lightning into the war-elephant that was trying to struggle against the flow creating a thundering laughter of her own.
Spasming, the elephant went down along with it's master, never to be seen again. No one had managed to kill off all of the goblins before, and I hit the deck as gravity increased to 15 x earth normal in an instant. If it wasn't for my barrier surrounding my body I would've sunk into the snow and been completely unable to move, but I manged to orient myself so my feet were facing down and tried to control myself like a bobsledder as I flew down the mountain.
*ROAR*
A familiar sounding roar echoed through the air, and I couldn't believe my eyes as an exact copy of the Fire Drake that Beth, Connor, Rick and I had taken out a few days earlier flew into sight. I watched in horror as it took a deep breath and blew towards me, the fire slamming into my shields. I'd like to say that I came up with some incredible plan to defeat the Drake, but I was already exhausted, barely able to move under 15x gravity, and by the time the first burst of fire ended my Energy reserves were down to 20%.
With one last act of defiance, I yelled an intelligible war-cry. "ARRRGGGHHHH!" and put all of Patrice and I's remaining energy into creating a wind blade so sharp that it could cut through diamonds and slammed it into the gaping maw of the Drake just before it fired it's next burst of fire. I never knew if I managed to kill it as without the energy to run my barrier I started tumbling uncontrollably and was forcibly removed from the formation before I could break my neck.
"SAM HUGHES!" Principal Hubert's voice rang throughout the Colosseum that was roaring in excitement, "Starting off at 10x Earth Normal Gravity, he managed to kill all of the wolves and Goblins in less than 15 minutes before injuring a Fire Drake with his last attack. With 5,250 enemies killed, lasting 12 minutes and 45 seconds, his performance proves why he is the #1 student at Gifted Academy!"