(Eris POV)
"Hey! Look! Another prey! Let's go wreck him!!"
I looked up at where Bait was pointing and saw a lone Origin Wielder wandering around in an open field. He didn't even seem like he was paying attention to his surroundings.
Bait was about to charge forward when Laverna pulled her back with a frown on her face, "Trap…"
Indeed… There couldn't have been an even more obvious trap than this one. Anyone walking around like that would have been eliminated already, much less survive this long for us to find them now.
Bait huffed indignantly, "How dare they copy me?! I'm the one that's s'ppose to be actin' as Bait! Imma' go show 'em who's boss! C'mere!!"
Without waiting for us, she flew right towards the Origin Wielder and slashed her sword towards his neck.
He seemed to panic at her sudden appearance and tried to raise his arms to protect himself, only that it was too late and her sword cut through his neck.
At first glance, it didn't look like the cut did anything and simply passed through him harmless. But in reality, Bait had cut apart that particular Origin Wielder's path of being in this battle royale.
With that path severed, he disappeared without a trace and my face appeared up in the sky with my latest kill for all to see.
Huh… Was it really not a trap though? I don't see anything happening?
Just as that thought crossed my mind, a giant rock fell out of the sky and smashed down on top of Bait, crushing her underneath it. At the same time, several Origin Wielders appeared out of thin air.
Ah… I see now.
This group of Origin Wielders most likely teamed up or something and the one Bait just killed was chosen to draw out enemies for the others to ambush. They must have prepared protection in case of another Origin Wielder showing up, but they had nothing to protect themselves against a Goddess.
The group of Origin Wielders then started attacking the rock with blasts of energy and reality manipulation, all of them concentrated on where they thought Bait would be.
They probably think Bait was still alive since there wasn't a picture of her appearing in the sky to show her defeat.
"This one humbly thinks that she has fulfilled her role properly, shall we start or shall we wait for her?" Denna asked while pulling out her blade.
As though on cue, Bait reappeared beside me while rubbing her head with her hand, "Ouch… What da' heck happened? It felt like something was dropped on top of me…"
"Big rock…" Laverna explained, pointing down at the giant rock that was being blasted to pieces.
Yep, one thing I found out pretty quickly was that I could make use of my other personalities to attack the other Origin Wielders and still get credit for the kill. But because this competition registered me as the real competitor, the others were treated like summons where it would not count as my loss even if they were defeated.
And as long as I remained, the other personalities of me could always find the path to come back to my side even if they were defeated, allowing me to compete with minimal risk involved.
Because of that, Bait has been really helpful in fulfilling her namesake so far.
She would do something similar like that Origin Wielder and draw opponents out before we would jump in and eliminate them while their guard was down or they were distracted by Bait.
That's why it was really ironic to see the exact same tactic being used here by this group of Origin Wielders.
We waited a moment for Bait to get her bearings back before all of us leapt towards the group of Origin Wielders who were still engrossed with attacking the rock.
I went towards a pair that had their back facing towards me, both of them only realising they were in danger when my sword was already swinging towards one of them.
The one on my left was immediately cut down and he disappeared immediately, having his path cut like what Bait did to their friend.
I then twisted my sword and brought it up towards the other guy, aiming to cut him as well.
Unfortunately, it seems like he had a rather quick response time as he stopped my sword with a hand, deflecting the blade away from him.
The fact that he managed to block it instead of my sword slicing through him meant he had realised my sword was infused with my domain and raised the appropriate defences, he must have already realised my identity as a Divine.
I quickly followed up by giving him a kick in his torso and pushing him a short distance away from me.
He tried to recover but my sword was already slicing towards his head.
As Lilith had cautioned us, there was no space for hesitation and we had to fight them seriously.
Our only advantage was the fact that they did not know we were Goddesses in the beginning and all of their defences were primed towards protecting them against other Origin Wielders instead.
And as proof of this, the Origin Wielder I was slicing my sword at materialised a blue coloured aura around him, proof that he was using his own Origin domain to nullify my domain.
Unfortunately for him, I have had enough practice with Muon to know what I needed to do.
I rushed in once more, my sword swinging towards his neck.
He did not even look at the sword since he believed his shield would block it, concentrating on raising his palm to fire off a beam at me instead.
Just as it looked like the beam would hit me, I disappeared from in front of him and reappeared behind him, having adjusted the path of my location to move myself.
He was confused for just a moment before my sword struck against his shield from behind, my domain clashing against his in a battle of wills.
The impact surprised him enough that his will faltered for a moment, allowing my domain to cut through his and thus his neck, causing him to disappear a second later.
I turned back just in time to see Laverna cutting down the last man of the group, completely wiping this team from the competition.
Just as that Origin Wielder disappeared to join the rest of his fallen comrades, my picture appeared in the sky again with an entire column that showed off my defeated opponents.
Right then, a voice also echoed across the sky.
"We are down to the final ten thousand participants! The battlefield will now be shrinking!"
The entire World shook and I looked down to see the ground seemingly flow like water as it melded together.
All of us had to fly up into the air to avoid being smashed by the rocks and hills that were also flowing along with the ground, as though they were going somewhere to be merged together.
I realised the Gods were literally shrinking the World by crushing it together to make it smaller, forcing the land to compress together.
A minute passed and the rumbling stopped. I used that moment to check the World to find that it had shrunk to less than half its original size, though it was still definitely more than big enough for ten thousand people to fight in.
Just as I was thinking about looking for our next victim, a voice appeared behind me.
"Oh? Seems like a few Goddesses managed to get into this competition somehow?"
All of us turned around to see a male Origin Wielder floating up in the air and looking down at us, his body wrapped in an ethereal blue glow.
Ugh… How did this guy know? He even had protection against Divines up too like he was fully prepared to fight against a Goddess…
I guess the last ten thousand people aren't pushovers anymore…
