Matt was in between a rock and a hard place. Not literally, but basically as bad. He saw both of the men carrying their overly-sized weapons while sprinting full speed toward him. They were converging on his position very quickly.
'Well, there's only one way out now.'
He had to fight. At least, enough where he could carve out an opening big enough to let him start his ascent of the construction site. Though, now that plan as well was flawed.
'No, it could still work.'
He had something very particular in mind and if he played his cards right, all he needed to do next was follow through. He was still a few hundred feet from the construction site but it was a straight shot to it if he could only get past the man with the scythe.
He decided to play defensive and see what he could do with the fighting skills he had trained. Not to mention the self-defense skill he had gotten to level 2. This was getting scary, but there wasn't much else he could do.
'I can't die here.'
Matt readied his hands and aimed them at his incoming attackers. It looked like a strange fusion of martial arts. He had to go all out or else he might die here. He was going to use what he had learned from the different combat skills he had acquired and mix the most advantageous features of each into his movements.
In total, he was mixing his level 2 Self Defense skills, level 2 Boxing, level 2 Karate, level 2 Kung Fu, level 1 Wrestling, level 1 Judo, and level 1 Kickboxing skills together. It was quite a combo, but he wasn't using all of them at once, since there were too many opposing types of techniques.
He had thought of this when he was training his skills a few days ago. He thought, since some of the styles he learned conflict, instead of using them all at once, he would use individual movements from each skill the moment one was required.
In this instance, the two men were about to reach him, swinging their swords and scythe down toward his body. As they swung downward, Matt used his first skill like it was something he had practiced for months. He didn't need to activate it manually, since it was just ingrained in his muscle memory now.
'I wasn't sure if this one was going to come in handy, but it might save me here.'
He used what he had learned from his self-defense skill to gently push against the flat side of their weapons with both hands. He pushed them at the same time in different directions, causing both weapons to miss him, since they moved a few inches to each side of him.
Both of the attackers looked confused. They were both sure they had landed a hit, but then they saw him move his hands, and they missed by a mile. It made them feel pretty stupid.
Before they could comprehend what happened, Matt infused a punch with his boxing, kung fu, and karate to deliver a high-force hit to the sword user. With lightning-fast speed, he punched him hard in the chest using his best level 2 martial skills.
Matt thought it would only buy him some time, but to his surprise, the man went flying. He had sent him back by at least 10 feet. He looked at his fist confused.
'When did I get that strong?'
But that's when he realized something. An advantage he had that he never considered was much of an advantage against other players. The mind palace skill allowed him to train his skills without passing time. He had assumed that skills were fairly useless against players, at least the naturally learned ones, but they seemed to increase drastically in strength when stacked.
He also wasn't sure how common knowledge training skills naturally were for other players. If their [Help]s were just as unhelpful, then maybe he had discovered something niche. But in the time he had gotten the system, he had trained 10 skills and 6 of them to level 2.
The scythe man's usually calm and kind-looking demeanor broke as he saw his friend get sent away like a ragdoll. He looked confused and also a bit intimidated.
Matt saw the red-haired guy starting to stand up, so he turned toward the scythe user and lunged at him. The man holding the scythe flinched and tried to react quickly to Matt's attack. He held his scythe up like a shield, hoping to block most of the force.
But no punch ever landed. When he looked around, he noticed that Matt was sprinting full speed toward the construction site.
'Ha! He fell for it!'
Matt had considered seeing the fight to the end, but he wasn't going to risk his life like that. He was still facing two system users with large weapons. Who knows what other powers they could have as well?
He quickly realized that if he had an advantage that seemed rare, which was the mind palace and skill training, then it's likely more users could have found something they only knew.
Not to mention, since they were a team, they could share discoveries with each other. He didn't want to take a chance here even though he knew he was probably capable of at least defeating one if there were no holdups.
Matt finally arrived at the construction site. It was very tall, at least a few dozen stories. It seemed like it was going to be a medium-sized skyscraper one day, but for now, it was a mess of rafters and construction equipment.
He heard shouting behind him and noticed that both of the beta testers were up and running. It seemed like they had recovered already and decided to pursue him once again.
Matt wasted no time and employed his Freerunning skill to expertly climb the site, making sure to take any distance he could from his pursuers. Below, they seemed frustrated and hesitant, but they quickly jumped and climbed after him, although much slower.
Though, they seemed wearier than before, after witnessing Matt's punch from earlier and the way he deflected their weapons.
He climbed and climbed, carefully choosing each footing, so as not to plummet to the bottom on a misstep. When he looked below, he could see they were doing the same, which was slowing them down even more.
Matt naturally knew which positioning was best every single time he made a jump or placed his hand from his Freerunning skill, while they had to figure it out manually down below.
After a few minutes, he finally reached the crane at the top. He felt like it was perfect for his escape plan, which is why he had chosen this location. He wanted some extra distance.
He heard the sounds of clambering behind him and knew they were close behind, so he started his ascent of the crane. It wasn't nearly as tall as the building, but with it on top, it added a nice bit of extra height.
It only took him around half a minute and he was already at the top. He looked down below and saw that they had already started climbing the crane.
'Just as planned.'
He was guessing they thought they had him trapped, which was why they were still pursuing. Honestly, if he didn't know what he was planning, even he would've thought he was trapped.
Both of them finally met him at the top, and they grew big smirks.
"Nowhere to run dumbass!"
The redhead seemed to revel in the idea of finally ending this. Matt had put him through a lot of grief during his chase. Though, Matt had to disappoint him.
He looked at the red-haired man and the scythe wielder again, before backing up and standing right on the edge of the crane. He positioned his feet so that they were directly on the edge.
Both of the men looked at him, thinking he was scared and running out of space. They brought out their weapons, ready to finish what they started. Wanting to keep his distance so as to not get punched off the crane, the sword user aimed his blade, readying a throw. The scythe man just watched quietly with his weapon at the ready.
But before he could launch the attack, Matt smiled at them both and stepped backward off the edge of the crane.