Forged From Resolve

Kaos had found his way to a building that was mostly just an open courtyard with a sandstone floor. It wasn't much cover, but he felt it was his best option.

He took a moment to look out an entrance to the central tower.

[59 PARTICIPANTS REMAINING]

"Just a little longer" he thought to himself. Then he heard footsteps coming in behind him, he turned around and saw a student, a little on the shorter side, walking through the center of the courtyard.

Both of them froze and locked eyes for a moment, then the student rushed at him. His opponent was fast, but didn't seem to be quite as fast as Kaos was in terms of sheer running speed. The student grasped at the air, and a sword with a very thin blade appeared in his clenched hand.

Kaos jumped backwards as the student made a wild slash at his stomach.

"That's definitely not a normal sword" Kaos thought to himself. "This guy isn't as fast as me, but definitely knows weapon combat better than I do."

The quick sword attacks from the student were taking all of his brain power to deal with, and made it even harder to formulate a plan on what to do next.

"Screw it!" he grunted as he blocked an attack. He had to try something crazy in order to turn the tables, otherwise all his previous eliminations wouldn't mean anything, and those three hundred points would be meaningless. 

As the student swung his sword again, Kaos, used the top of his spear to redirect the attack, and spun the butt of his spear around, striking his opponent in the rib-cage.

It wasn't a hard hit, but it got him enough off balance for Kaos to strike again. He kicked at the student's leg, sending him sprawling sideways onto the ground.

He stabbed downwards with his spear at his opponent's exposed torso.

That was the last hundred points he needed.

But instead of the spear piercing his opponent, it made a loud clanging sound and stopped short, being deflected off of a metal breastplate that definitely hadn't been there before.

The student grabbed the end of the spear near the tip, and shoved it backwards.

As Kaos stumbled back, half from the shove, and half from surprise, the student chuckled and the breastplate disappeared.

"My wish is that I am able to create weaponry that grows stronger the more willpower I have." The student reached out towards Kaos as if to grab a new weapon pointed in front of him, and continued, "Fair is fair, what's the trick up your sleeve?"

Kaos stared blankly back, surely this idiot didn't just tell him the details of his wish and expect him to do the same.

"Uhhh… I'm not going to tell you…" Kaos said almost robotically. They both stared at each other, as if completely taken aback by the other's stupidity.

"It's like an unspoken rule though!" the student yelled indignantly, "I tell you mine, you have to tell me your wish!"

"That's stupid though!" Kaos yelled back instantly, "I have to be able to take advantage of the fact that you don't know if I have something up my sleeve or not! You can't bluff anyone if you tell them everything you can do!"

A crossbow flashed into the student's already extended hand and he smirked.

"So in other words you got nothin."

Kaos realized that he had let too much information slip in his confusion. He had to attack before his opponent could.

Before he could move, he felt something hit him. He looked down at his chest, a large crossbow bolt protruded from it.

Still in shock, he looked up at the student who seemed almost as surprised that Kaos was still standing.

Then the pain hit him, not nearly as much as he expected would have outside the arena, but it was still enough that made it feel impossible to move.

The student stood there with the crossbow still outstretched as if he wasn't sure what to do if Kaos didn't just keel over and turn to sand.

It was make or break time, Kaos couldn't last long enough to make it to thirty third place with the crossbow bolt in him, but if he could just take down the participant in front of him, he would still have his four hundred points.

He sprinted at the student, his vision growing more blurry by the second, he was just within spear range and the student dropped his crossbow which vanished soon after leaving his hand.

He jumped at his opponent with the last of his strength, thrusting the spear at his chest.

The spear clanged off of a newly created metal breastplate.

"See", the student said as Kaos hit the ground stomach first, driving the crossbow bolt almost all the way through him, "I told you what my wish was and you attacked in the same way again! You can't make it in the Dek class like that. I know you've got a wish, but it obviously doesn't work for combat so find something else to do."

The student paused for a second, seeming to feel bad for Kaos, "Look," he continued, "The Dek class is mainly training you on how to use your combat wish, and that's not going to work for you... you did really well for somebody without one, but this first arena game is basically easy mode, and I know it sucks to hear, but this isn't your thing."

Infuriated, Kaos grabbed the student's leg, but his grip strength wasn't there. In fact… neither was his hand, the pain had gone away, and his body had somehow become… sand?

He had been eliminated.