"Good morning contestants!!! Head to the cafeteria for your breakfast and gather at the preliminaries ground for the fourth test!!"
Contestants could be seen slowly dragging themselves to the cafeteria in their battle uniforms with ghastly expressions on their faces. They had all come close to death in their last test so none of them knew what the next test had in store for them.
After a sumptuous breakfast of rice and miso soup with ohitashi (boiled vegetables) served as side dishes, they all gathered at the preliminaries arena.
"Good morning contestants!" Williams started, there was an ineludible tone of graveness in his voice that sent shivers down the contestant's spines.
"Good morning grand masters" They chorused
"Congratulations to the 150 of you that have made it this far. You have all persevered through the first three tests and I'll be honest with you that it was by no means a small feat. You all have displayed impressive performances and I'll implore you all to keep up the excellent work. Congratulations once more as we move into the next phase of the contest"
Williams words hardened the hearts of the contestants and they all swore silently to give it their best, each one with one's own dream to wield the Fiend Slayer.
"So now let's move to the next arena"
With that, he turned and they all followed him to the next arena.
The arena was a massive caldera, a wide depression inside a little mountain with a diameter of around 100 kilometers. The ground around it was made of igneous rocks indicating that the caldera was once a volcanic mountain.
All the contestants stood inside it and waited for Williams to brief them on the contents of the test.
Since Steve noticed the igneous nature of the ground around the caldera, he became apprehensive because he had no idea how he would escape if the test had anything to do with volcanic eruptions.
"Now, the aim of this test is to test your guarding capacity, that is your ability to deflect attacks from all directions….."
Steve breathed a sigh of relief as he heard Williams' words, 'thank goodness we won't be dealing with volcanic eruptions'
"….In this test, you have to survive attacks from all directions from small bat fiends called 'shrieks'. The shrieks are not meant to bite or scratch you because their teeth and claws contain poison that can paralyse you till the others finish you off so try to avoid them as much as possible. If you are still conscious at the end of this test, it means that you have passed" With that, Williams levitated some distance away with the other grand masters and the umpire's voice took off from where he stopped.
"Are you ready contestants!!??…"
Schrrnnng!
Their swords rang out as they came out of their sheaths and spatial storages.
"START!!!"
The air was filled with silence after the umpire's loud voice tore through the air. The contestants shifted uncomfortably on their feet as they anxiously waited for the shrieks to come, none of them had fought shrieks from all directions before so the fear and anxiety was very heavy in the air.
It almost seemed like everyone was standing still as they waited, two minutes had gone by and nothing had appeared. They were all starting to get relaxed when a deafening sound was heard. It sounded like the fluttering of a thousand feathers accompanied by a prolonged high pitched cry.
'Oh man… now I see why they're called shrieks' Steve thought as he used his palms to cover his ears because of the loud painful shrieks coming from the approaching creatures.
He looked up in time to see thousands of shrieks quickly descending upon them at an abnormal speed. Each shriek resembled a bat with leathery black body, red eyes, sharp claws and pointed wings, the biggest amongst them had a height of around 30 centimeters.
Without wasting time, he pulled out his sword and began to slash any shriek that came close to him in all directions.
Due to his constant training, he was able to comfortably slash them before they were able to reach his skin.
However, some swordsmen weren't as skilled as Steve because some shrieks were able to evade their slashes and deliver painful bites and scratches on their bodies. At first glance, it would seem like those scratches and bites were harmless, but after some time, when the effect of the poison had reached their heart, their attacks would slow down and they would become more prone to the shrieks that wouldn't hesitate to devour them.
Steve glanced barely at Lloyd and was shocked to see him standing with his katana outstretched before him and an unconcerned look on his face.
'What's he thinking? Does he think an activation will be of any use against this many shrieks?'
Steve had barely finished speaking in his thoughts when the blood katana glowed brightly in a white colour and Lloyd said
Blood katana: Absolute Defence
He ceased all his body movements and a small white circle appeared around him. Any shriek that came into the circle was instantly disintegrated, none of them were even able to reach his skin before they were disintegrated while he just stood there lackadaisically with his sword held in front of him.
'What the hell?' Steve was surprised as he saw shrieks disintegrating away into thin air without Lloyd cutting them up. The difference in power marvelled him but that didn't make him take his attention away from the shrieks that were attacking him too.
"Impressive, he can efficiently use the techniques of the blood katana without wasting too much mana…. Very impressive" Williams said to his colleagues as he saw Lloyd using the absolute defence technique of the blood katana.
"Yes…. He's the most likely candidate to win the Fiend Slayer, more likely that those self righteous Heracles. I won't have any problems giving him the sword right now, he's just so impressive" Tristan commented,
Joaquin wasn't like these absolute swordsmen that could see Lloyd's technique with their bare eyes, he had to activate his eye, Idan's eye for him to be able to see it properly. His left eye's pupil changed shape to a black cross and the cornea became red in color.
It was then that he could see Lloyd's true movements. To a normal swordsman's eye like Steve and the other contestants, it looked like Lloyd was standing still but with the aid of his Idan's eye optical enhancement, he was able to see that Lloyd was actually slashing any shriek that came into that circle with extraordinary speed.
With this sight, Joaquin confirmed that Lloyd was indeed a true prodigy.
The shrieks themselves were not going easy on the swordsmen as they attacked relentlessly from all directions.
Steve frowned sadly as a young swordsman beside him fell down and was devoured by the blood thirsty shrieks. His grip tightened on his sword as he felt his Mana surge in huge outbursts to his arm and he swung furiously in all directions, mercilessly slaughtering the shrieks that were attacking him.
Trygve on the other hand was barely managing the attacks from the shrieks, there was a slight graze on his cheek and left lower leg.
His thick blonde hair shook violently as he pushed himself to his speed limit in order to be able to defend himself.
Susan and Anna who were standing together when the test started turned it into a kind of team work where they stood back to back and fended off the shrieks.
Both of them were quite fast so it wasn't too difficult for them.
Casualties were increasing by the minute because some people were getting tired of overexerting their arms causing the mindless bloodthirsty shrieks to exploit their fatigue and unleash their poisonous attacks on them.
"Is there no end to these things?!!" Trygve screamed as he furiously slashed the shrieks.
His cheeks were bleeding, as well as his left shoulder. His movements were sloppy because of the poison in his system but he refused to give in as he fought like a wounded lion.
Steve chuckled as he saw the resolution in Trygve that was struggling with all it's might to pass that test.
'With this kind of determination, nothing can…' Steve's thoughts was cut short as he caught sight of a shriek flying swiftly towards his head region from his peripheral view.
He bent down and dodged it in time and was still able to make a quick diagonal slash that dismembered another shriek that was headed for his chest. That shriek that was headed for his head was moving at an abnormal speed, he had been able to handle the speeds of all the other shrieks but that one moved at a faster speed. If it wasn't for his good sight and quick reflexes, that shriek would probably have ended up lodged in his face.