Seeing Liam stumble a little, the thief player Stephen grinned. His mission was now going to be easier than he expected. Aiming directly for the next spire Liam was going to land on, the guy sent a flurry of daggers.
"Give it up, bud. No matter how much you struggle, it's only going to be futile. The person you are up against… your fate is already sealed. You are a dead man walking."
Stephen found it amusing to see the other party's struggle. The thing was… they had no idea just how strong he was, but they will soon find out.
He smirked, and just as he was about to land the next attack, his confidence wavered. The person running ahead of him suddenly stopped.
"You want a fight? You should have just directly asked me for it." Liam calmly smiled. He was no longer running away from the thief.
His speed also seemed to have increased, and he was in no hurry to go anywhere. He was standing right in front of him, ready for a fight.
Stephen did not understand. If this guy was not running away, then why did he come this far? He looked around, and then it dawned on him!
All along, Liam had been trying to separate himself from his teammates. That was why he had instantly moved away. This was a trap!
Stephen immediately tried to enter stealth mode, but it was Liam's turn to be amused. Now that they were alone, stealth or not mattered little on this battleground.
He conjured a huge ball of swirling ice this time, and shattering it, he sent hundreds of ice shards all around him.
In the split second that Stephen was forced to reveal himself because of this attack, Liam already made his next move and dashed toward him.
At the fast pace he was moving, he might as well be running on the ground. Just a few minutes ago, he was struggling with this terrain, and now he was already comfortable with it?
Stephen was dumbfounded, but he did not have the time to think about this right now. Liam was already in front of him and slashed down with his sword.
However, the thief as well was not done just yet. He smoothly blocked Liam's attack, his dagger matching the semi-epic grade sword and even pushing him back a little.
"Did you think I just added all my stat points to my agility? So naive. You just made a grave mistake. My strength is my strongest counter."
The thief let go of his dagger, and five other similar daggers showed up in his right hand.
He used his left hand to block all of Liam's attacks, and with his right hand, he used these daggers to tackle him with simultaneous multi-attacks.
Liam was completely overwhelmed. The guy's attributes could not possibly be better than his, but at the same time, his attacks were all mysterious.
He couldn't make out any of it.
"Did you think you would be able to fight a close combat player? You should have thought about this more, you half-baked mage?" The thief's voice rang loudly, resonating from all sides.
So not only was he fighting Liam at his full capacity, he also sounded very confident. This guy definitely has some sort of technique.
He churned his mana core and conjured six big fireballs at the same time, sending them out in all directions, but the guy managed to avoid all six attacks without any issue.
Liam did not give up. He was still calm and steady and focused on the attack and the retreat rhythm.
No matter what complicated techniques he was using, in the end, he only needed to focus on the final move, the result. Moreover, the thief's speed was also slowing down.
The guy immediately tried to jump back into stealth, but Liam did not let him go. He cast serial earth spikes, one more spike popping out of the already existing spikes, acting like thorns in his path.
However, it looked like the person was not retreating now, so this attack did not affect him. Instead, after entering stealth, Stephen approached Liam and silently stood behind his back.
"It's game over."
"Yes." Liam dodged him in the only way that he could, which was by falling onto the bed of spikes.
Stephen grinned. The victory was his. He watched the guy plummet to his death in satisfaction, but before Liam's body could hit the nearest spike, something white and fluffy popped out all of a sudden.
And Liam… floated right back up into the air.
"How?! How is this possible?" Stephen was dumbfounded. No one was allowed to bring a mount into this fight, and this guy was clearly not a hunter.
However, he did not have much time to think about it.
While watching Liam, the other party completely forgot about the second factor everyone needed to pay attention to in this battleground. This was what Liam had planned for all along.
The huge bird!
The gigantic flying beast swooped down and grasped Stephen with its huge claws. The guy was so focussed on showing his superior combat skills that he forgot about the other things.
"Let's go, Luna. Let's end this battleground." Liam calmly patted the fox.
And just as the duo was about to set out, suddenly, the bird that had only now left the area returned at full speed.
It saw Luna's big chubby body and immediately tossed out its earlier prey, losing interest in the scrawny human.
Splat! The next second, Stephen fell to his death, impaled by a spike, and was teleported out of the battleground.
"Hmmm? This is... we have to fight against that thing now?" Liam did not expect this twist.
Since it got its prey, he thought the bird would only return for the next round after a minute or so, but it was back already.
As the huge flying beast was about to chase Luna and make her dinner, loud bells rang, indicating the end of the battleground.
All the members of the opposition were already down!
"He He. Our timing is too good." Liam winked at the fox, who was busy showing her tongue to the bird.
Even otherwise, it wouldn't have been a huge deal for Luna to shrink down again and disappear, it would have only been a bit risky.
Bright lights appeared around everyone, completely enveloping them, and in the next second, the group was teleported back to the PVP tower's tournament floor.
Huff! Huff! Huff! Everyone panted while comfortably placing their feet on the solid ground.
It felt good to be back. Alex and the two other players who were dead were also present there and walked over to the group.
"We saw everything." Alex was fuming. "That bastard who backstabbed us ran away somehow. He must have entered stealth mode the moment he died. I looked for him here, and he is nowhere to be found."
"Let him go. Don't focus on that." Liam sat back in the arena auditorium, his gaze meeting the numerous eyes on him.
The fight was broadcasted. This meant that they had bigger problems, or at least he had bigger problems. One of his trump cards was revealed.
As if the number of people behind him already was not enough, now more were going to chase after him for Luna.
Irrespective of that, this tournament was important. So Liam did not mind. Besides, he had also not completely revealed his hands.
"Good job. You guys managed to get everyone down on time." Seeing Derek, Mia, Shen Yue, and the others walk over to him, Liam nodded at them encouragingly.
It looked like this tournament was going to reveal many things about many players. Others might learn about their strength, but it was also a good opportunity to learn about others.
"Liam, who do you think is targeting us? That player did not belong to any guild. Why did he suddenly attack us?" Mia asked.
Her cold gaze swept the huge auditorium, silently taking into account everyone paying attention to them.
"It should definitely be that fatty!" Alex fumed. "That guy appeared just as the backstabbing bastard walked over to us. This stinks rotten."
"Alex, don't fat shame the guy." Rey laughed lightly. He was also getting a little thick in the middle these days, so he was joking about it.
"Shut up, idiot. For once, can you be serious about something?" Alex shouted at him and was about to walk away when the guy they were talking about unexpectedly showed up in front of them again.
"He He. Did any of you beauties think of me? I got an itch in my back." Madan laughed loudly, not holding back at all the fact that he was enjoying their misery.
"For this, you guys could have invited me to your group. It looks like you got backstabbed either way."
"Shut up. Don't think that we don't know. You guys sent him, right. What did you achieve?" Alex spat out.
"Oi! Oi! Babe, calm down. Don't start blaming me now. I didn't do any such thing. You can ask my group if you want." Madan smugly pointed her towards the group of people standing near him.
"That's enough, Madan. Let's leave." Kouske reminded him immediately.
"Heh. He is only talking to them because of all those women. Stop wasting everyone's time, you lowlife." Anya scoffed.
Madan's face changed, and he let out a sad sigh. "Look at this boss Liam. See what I have to put up with. Can you please hand me out a slave contract too?"
"Shut up." Alex was livid. "You are not fooling anyone here. We know about your underhanded ways. So just shut the hell up and get lost. No one here is buying what you are selling."
"Heh?" This time it was not Madan but Anya who responded. "We use underhanded methods? Pot is calling the kettle black."
She suddenly took a step forward and stood in front of Rey, who was casually smiling and watching the show from the sidelines.
"Aren't you the sick one? It looks like you are cured now, but…" She grinned, giving him a strange look, "Did you ever think about why you got sick in the first place?"
