Grapple
Sam had a myriad of thoughts going through his mind while he fought with them.
He never had a problem with dealing nine to ten opponents of same level. There are times he defeated dozens of people who are powerful than him much less people of the same level. Except when he was attacked by the players.
He has a whole new understanding of the Solar fragments, the previous batch of soldiers who came are disposable at best when compared to the current batch.
These nine people, could really put on a fight and even when he used the light element and shadow element, the fastest right behind the space element which he cannot use because of the restrictions he himself put on.
They have intense coordination between themselves that was even hard to achieve in one of Sam's own teams and they all attacked simultaneously with perfect sync without any communication. It is almost impossible to predict his position when he is in light elemental fusion, but they did.