Chapter 2: Floor 2-Flying Shark Fin Soup

Izayoi, all of a sudden, found himself somewhere else. His heel came down on the ground, sending up and an explosion of dust and debris.

"Tch, damn Rabbit Bastard, you better hope you don't meet me again!"

Izayoi grumbled to himself as he looked around to get a bearing on his surroundings. He was currently standing in the middle of a plain, tall brown grass surrounded him for as far as the eye could see, and he could make out several tall hills in the area. The sky was blue and cloudless, and there was a strange island floating above the field. The island looked small but housed several buildings all crammed so tightly together that could be mistaken as one structure.

"So, now what?"

Izayoi began to wonder as suddenly a voice began to reverberate through all of the surrounding area coming from a strange floating box that he'd somehow failed to notice before.

"Ah, Hello, Hello? Is this thing working? Argh...dammit."

The voice disappeared again for a few moments before returning,

"Helloooo Regulars, this is your very handsome and talented test administrator speaking! It's time to find out if any of you regulars have what it takes to climb the tower, although I doubt that you will ever be as strong as me!"

Izayoi smiled, but his cheek was twitching as he listened to the so-called test administrator. It seemed there was somebody that needed their ass kicked. Izayoi was about ready to jump to the floating box when the voice continued,

"So, right, let's get started. Welcome of Evankhell's Hell. There are currently two-hundred regulars spread throughout the area. You'll have thirty minutes, during this time you all can go as wild as you want. At the end of the half-hour, whoever survives will be able to keep climbing the tower. You can use your pocket to see how many regulars are left! Well, that's it, good luck, regulars!"

"Pffft. Hahahahhaha!"

Izayoi couldn't help but laugh at the test administrator's antics. He didn't give any specifications on how many people could pass, technically speaking, if everyone did nothing for thirty minutes, everyone could pass. However using phrases like "go wild" and "whoever survives" is just going to drive people to fight when the don't need to. In a way, the person's attitude reminded him of himself. That said, he would still kick his ass.

"Whatever. This is more interesting anyway."

Izayoi looked around, spotting a rocky plateau in the distance. Figuring that getting a good view of the area was necessary, he made his way towards it. He hadn't gone far when he someone trying to sneak up on him. "Try" being the keyword because Izayoi could feel him approaching from a mile away.

Izayoi stopped, waiting in place, a slight smirk now tugging the corner of his lips. It didn't take long for the grass on his left to rustle and something to leap out of it. The creature looked like a hammerhead shark...if said shark was given arms and legs and then roided to oblivion. It must have been 8 feet tall, with a bulky build. Its hammer-shaped head had a beady black eye on either side, and it had a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. Two blade-like fins attached to its tree-trunk like forearms gave clear evidence of its means of attack.

"Well, now..." Izayoi began to say, "I was just getting hungry; I could go for some shark fin soup." The creature became enraged at his words and rushed Izayoi with nothing more than a guttural growl. Izayoi jumped and planted a foot on the shark man's shoulder before jumping again. The force from his leap sent the shark man crashing into the ground. Izayoi did a neat flip in the air before landing a few feet away well exclaiming, "And he sticks the landing!" Turning to face the now prone shark man he says "You're not very friendly, are you?"

"Graaah Bastard!" The shark man roars as he pushes himself to his feet. He turns around, preparing to charge at the human again but is confused when he'd nowhere to be found.

"Over here!" The shark man hears from behind him and turns around just time to receive and spin kick to the side of his head. As Izayoi lands back on the ground, the shark man is launched into the air, disappearing into the distance. "Ah damn, there goes my shark fin soup," Izayoi says with an exaggerated sigh before turning his attention back to the plateau. "Now, where was I?"

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At another location in the grassland a beautiful girl with medium length brown hair, golden eyes, and a horn on the right side of her forehead stood over the collapsed form of several regulars. If anyone were to inspect them carefully, they would find that all signs of life had already left the bodies. The girl was currently wearing a brown vest over a yellow dress, black leggings and yellow stilettos. She hummed happily as she spoke to herself.

"That makes 36 so far." The girl then looked over to the side where a large figure in a dark cloak cut down another regular using

a large cleaver-like sword. "37." The girl giggled as she began to search for the next prey. Just then, the girl seemed to notice something and quickly jumped out of the way. At that moment, something fell from the sky and landed right where she had been standing. At first, she'd thought it was an attack and was prepared to retaliate, but closer inspection revealed the offending missile to be a body.

The body has the appearance of a humanoid shark and was very clearly dead. If the plummet from the sky hadn't ended the creature's life, then the fact that its head was spun almost three-hundred and sixty degrees around its neck would have. The girl was curious and made to examine the corpse closer when she heard another voice speak from behind her.

"Endorsi? What was that?" The girl, Endorsi, turned around to look at the third member of their little group. This person was also a girl, she had a dirty blonde ponytail, yellow/brown and eyes freckles. Her face could be considered average at best and would most likely be considered unattractive to most people. The frumpy brown cloak she was wearing didn't do anything to help her appearance either. Despite being in tower where strength was everything, this girl didn't have the bearing of a warrior at all. She was constantly looking around, as if worried she might be attacked at any minute. She was sitting on a rock, having been watching her teammates do all the fighting, and aside from the subtle ruthless and envious gleam in her eyes, there was nothing remarkable about her. One might say she appeared completely useless.

"Hmph. Isn't it obvious, Michelle?" Endorsi replied with a snort before turning to examine the body again. Inspecting the damage done to the body, she couldn't help but become a little excited. It meant there was another powerful regular here somewhere. Her battle lust rising along with her curiosity, Endorsi turned to her two companions and said, "You two get ready to move! We have more to do."

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Izayoi had been wandering around the plains for a while. Anytime he found a creature he deemed interesting, he would approach it, usually resulting in a fight. He soon discovered that while the creatures looked tough, none of them could take more than a single attack from him. After a while, he made a game out of analyzing the strength of different beings and then fighting them while matching them in terms of power and speed. Relying on pure skill to win was interesting for a time, but even that got boring after a while. Eventually, he resorted to sitting on top of one of the stone plateaus and throwing rocks at regulars around the area, explosions going off as the friction-heated rocks blasted the ground away.

"How much time is left now?" Izayoi spoke lazily as he finished throwing the last rock he had collected and checked his pocket for information.

Time Remaining: 11 minutes 27 seconds.

Regulars Remaining 4/200

"So it's just those guys, huh?" From his perch atop the plateau, he had noticed a three-person team that had been busy laying waste to the regulars in the test. They'd first caught his eye when they were able to evade or block his rock attacks. Well, two of them seemed to be able to at least; the third always seemed to have to be protected. So this group has become his new fun for a while. After dodging his thrown rocks a few times, they appeared to be trying to make their way towards his location. Rather then just allow them go come, he began to throw the rock in such a way that as they avoided them, they'd gradually be led to different regulars or groups of regulars around the plains. This, by far, had been the most fun he'd had all day. Now, however, it seemed like this group was all that remained aside from him.

"Well, time to meet my playmates." Izayoi stood up from his spot and looked toward the group that was still making its way towards the plateau he was on. With a light smile, he ran and jumped from the plateau, flying through the air towards the group of regulars.