The hulking man’s rock-covered fist tore through the air and descended upon me. Just as that massive weight was about to crush my head, I slid to the side with the explosive agility provided by Mutant Muscles. The moment the punch missed its mark and struck the ground, the marble and asphalt erupted as if a bomb had gone off. As stone fragments scattered like shrapnel, a shadow emerged from the cloud of dust.

  As the man struggled to yank his fist from where it was embedded, I noticed a slender blade strike coming from outside my field of vision at the last second. I tried to dodge, but the woman’s speed was beyond my expectations; I felt a sharp burn in my left arm. Warm blood began to trickle down the sleeve of my new military uniform.

  The woman focused on covering the hulking man's openings rather than displaying a special ability; there was nothing unusual in either her appearance or her movements. It seems the woman doesn't have a class, I thought, suppressing the sting of the wound by gritting my teeth. She didn't spin the wheel but managed to survive. Moreover, she must be at least Level 5. The fact that she could endure this chaos for so long without a class proved she was filled with pure talent and experience.

  The big man yanked his arm from the concrete with a massive crack. The savage grin on his face had turned to fury. "Stop running and fight like a man!" he roared, shaking the stone dust off himself.

  I smiled slightly, scanning between the two of them while twirling my knife between my fingers. "You talk a lot for someone who needs two people to attack one person," I said, maintaining my mocking tone.

  The hulking man let out a guttural laugh and attacked again. This time, they were more organized. The man swung his left fist like a sledgehammer, and the moment I avoided it, the woman would appear exactly where I landed or hesitated. They moved in sync, like a hunting team.

  However, there was one thing they hadn't accounted for: adaptation. With every move, I began to read their body language, attack range, and timing. A few more superficial cuts had formed on my arms and shoulders, but none were critical. Moreover, Elara’s presence behind me was a great assurance; as long as I didn't take permanent damage, these small scratches were just the spice of the fight.

  The fibers of my mutant muscles grew hotter with every attack, and my reaction time dropped to milliseconds. I began to sense where the woman would make her next knife move before she even made it. I wasn't just running anymore; I was slowly drawing them into the position I wanted—toward that bloody clearing the swordsman had left behind.

  "My turn," I muttered, somersaulting over another of the man's wasted punches.

  As that savage cycle continued in the middle of the square, my mind began to calculate possibilities like a chessboard. The steel plate inside my military vest protected my chest like a fortress, but that woman didn't know it yet; this was my greatest trump card. If I force her to attack my body, right at my chest, I can catch her blade and break her arm, I thought. The plan was clear; all that remained was to create the right moment.

  Every punch the big man threw tore through the air, shattering the asphalt like a detonated bomb, but his breathing had become irregular, like a bellows. Just as I guessed; he had probably dumped all his stats into pure Strength like a fool, which is why his lumbering body was struggling to keep up this pace. The woman was the opposite; she looked much more durable and vigorous compared to the man. Since she had survived this far, she had distributed her stats wisely, and her eyes waited like a predator for the slightest moment of weakness.

  I was going to give her that weakness.

  I intentionally reined in the explosive speed provided by my mutant muscles. I dropped my shoulders and slowed my movements on purpose, as if my energy were fading. I continued to avoid the big man’s heavy, rock-covered fists by mere millimeters, as if I were escaping at the very last moment. With every dodge, my feet became a bit more tangled, and my breath grew heavier.

  When the woman noticed this "collapse," she increased the frequency of her strikes. Instead of completely avoiding her knife thrusts, I left small openings on purpose. I grimaced in pain when the tip of her blade grazed my arm and stumbled when I took a small cut to my leg. These wounds were minor and wouldn't have much effect, but in the woman's eyes, they were proof that I was slowly becoming exhausted.

  The hulking man roared and charged, while I threw myself aside with the clumsiness of a tired man. In that chaos where dust and blood mingled, I saw the woman grip her knife tighter, preparing for a lethal blow.

  I slowed my movements further and dropped my guard, my knees buckling slightly as if I no longer had the strength to meet the next attack. I stood there like bait to create the "opening" I was waiting for. The big man pulled his fist back, and the woman watched the gap to plunge her knife into my chest.

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  The invisible dome in the middle of the square was now a pit of hell where gunpowder and the smell of blood had replaced oxygen. The fabric of time had grown heavy with dozens of screams fitting into every second, made slippery by thousands of liters of blood spilled onto the marble floor. Every punch the big man threw came at me, tearing through this heavy scent in the air; however, with every strike, the rock structures on his arms cracked a bit more, and that massive muscle mass on his shoulders sagged further from fatigue.

  We had reached the final stage of my plan.

  With eyes turned bloodshot from rage, the hulking man gathered his last bit of strength in his legs. "Just die already, you little rat!" he bellowed. He pulled his massive, rock-covered right fist back as far as he could. This was a blind attack that completely ignored defense, focusing all energy into a single moment of destruction. As he swung his fist, it felt as if a vacuum effect formed in the air. However, I set aside my tired and lumbering act and transformed all the potential of Mutant Muscles into a single explosion.

  Instead of moving toward the direction of the punch, I slid with incredible speed toward the opening where the man was weakest. As the man’s fist beat the air and fell into the void, his momentum pulled his body forward. At that exact second, I whipped my right leg around and delivered a solid kick to the back of the man's swinging fist, right at the joint.

  The combination of his own power and my kick ruined the man's balance like the foundations of a building shaking. He tottered under the weight of his own fist, and his massive frame collapsed uncontrollably in the opposite direction. The sound it made as it hit the concrete resembled a truck overturning.

  But I had no time to celebrate. The woman had appeared behind me like a shadow to fill the big man’s void. "You forgot about me!" she shrieked. Her voice was as cold and sharp as the hiss of a snake.

  I acted as if I had no time to turn my body. The woman’s knife was gliding rapidly toward the soft tissue of my throat, that lethal spot that would sever my carotid artery. Just as the blade was about to touch my skin, I turned my hands into a trap. I gripped the woman’s knife-wielding wrist with both hands like a vice. But I didn't run. On the contrary, I pulled her toward me, right into the center of my chest.

  The knife slammed into my chest with full force.

  The moment the woman felt the blade enter, a wild, almost sadistic smile appeared on her face. She was inches from my nose; her breath licked my face. "You shouldn't have underestimated me," she whispered, savoring her success.

  A crooked, bloody smile formed on my lips. When she looked into my eyes, instead of the pain or fear she expected, she saw only ice-cold mockery.

  "Is that so?" I said.

  The woman’s pupils trembled. She tried to push the knife deeper, but the blade wouldn't move. It hadn't shattered my ribcage, nor had it pierced my lung. A metallic resistance sent the vibration in her hand back up to her arm. One second, two seconds... The look of victory on the woman's face slowly gave way to pure terror.

  "Wait a minute," she stammered, her voice beginning to shake. "The knife... it’s not going in... is it... a ballistic vest? You lowlife!"

  "You're too late," I whispered.

  I twisted the hands holding her wrist like a pair of shears. The disgusting, dry crack from the woman's wrist bones was clearly heard even through the roar of the square. CRACK! A predatory scream rose from the woman's throat, and the knife slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground. But I wasn't finished. I gathered the strength in my muscles into my leg and delivered a kick to the woman's solar plexus strong enough to drive all the air out of her lungs.

  The woman flew back like a piece of paper. Her back slammed into a marble column and she slumped to the floor. She opened and closed her mouth like a fish, struggling to draw a single breath of oxygen into her lungs. She was alive, but she was out of the game.

  Right then, a heavy noise rose behind me. The hulking man had hauled his massive frame from the ground, turning his remaining energy into a suicidal charge. "I’ll kill you! I’ll tear you apart!" he screamed as he ran toward me like an unstoppable bull. But he no longer had speed or coordination.

  I didn't lose my composure for a second. I let him come at me. Just as he was about to hit me, I stepped slightly to the side to avoid him and drove my elbow right into the center of his face, using all his momentum. The sound of his nose breaking was more satisfying than the sound of marble shattering. The man’s head snapped back, dazed.

  However, he was still on his feet. So, I moved quickly behind him to deliver the finishing blow. I drew my knife from its sheath with lightning speed and made a deep, wide gash in the man's back leg, extending from just above the Achilles tendon up to the thigh. I felt the muscle tissue part, the support carrying the man’s huge body collapsing instantly.

  The hulking man collapsed to his knees like an oak tree falling, then slumped face-forward. Blood began to spread, mingling with the patterns on the marble.

  In the midst of the chaotic noise of the square, I looked at my two opponents groaning on the floor in pain. I hadn't killed them. I had kept my word. But they could no longer walk or fight.

  I looked at the count: 1048.

  Only forty-eight people left. The brutality around me had reached its peak. Humans had turned into animals, clutching the throats of the strangers beside them to survive. I stood a few meters away from the swordsman, my hands covered in blood, nearly ready to faint from exhaustion.

  I turned my head to see where Roy and Elara were. There were only minutes left until this massacre ended, and Bilton’s "viewers" were likely quite pleased with this performance. But I hadn't given them the savage "killer" image they wanted.

  The swordsman turned his head toward me for a moment while looking at the man on the ground. Those ice-blue eyes looked at me as if implying something.

  The clock was ticking. 1032... 1021... 1010...

  It was almost over.