Second Genesis

Grey was already leaning back.

What Sabrina didn’t know was that while he wasn’t good at school, he was pretty good at something other than working on cars.

Reading people.

In the group with Joaquin, Grey had noticed that Sabrina was with him despite the two not having directly interacted. But there was someone whom Joaquin had directly interacted with back then, the very same small young man who tried to convince Joaquin not to use his edict on Grey because he felt it was a "waste."

A young man who, Grey recalled, happened to be wearing a cloak he recognized.

Grey had died in his first life due to a knife to the gut. But outside of the goblins and the Skrill, he hadn’t come across any other creatures that wielded weapons.

It was a human who killed him on his very first loop. A human who came out of absolutely nowhere and thrust a dagger right through him.

A human who had been wearing the exact same cloak.

"Fuck every single one of you," Grey growled.

Rather than facing Sabrina’s bullet of energy head-on, he rolled to the side, something prickling at the back of his head that made his hair stand on end.

A knife whizzed through the location he had just stood in, a bullet of energy passing through it just a moment later.

The timing of both should have given him no chance to escape at all. Unfortunately for them, Grey was very, very much tired of dying.

With a swift, fluid movement, Grey hopped back up to his feet, and his eyes landed on a young man whose body was flickering beneath the moonlight. He could only just barely catch the faint edges of the silhouette, but it was enough.

Grey exploded forward, his longsword appearing in his hand as he slashed down.

He found that his communication with the Weapon Space had increased manifold. The first few times, it was awkward to fit things in and pull them out. But now he was manifesting weapons mid-swing with all the confidence in the world.

Eli could have never imagined that it was Grey’s very first attempt at doing something like this. In fact, he couldn’t imagine anything right now other than blocking with every fiber of his being.

CLANG.

Sword met knife, and Eli’s body was forced back into being as though the effects of his cloak were canceled. The look of surprise on his face was evident, but he wasn’t surprised by Grey’s power. He was actually surprised by...

’So weak...’

With Grey’s quick reaction, Eli had expected a mountain to fall on him. But despite Grey’s skill, his Strength was only 11. While for Eli, after all the effort it took to get to Grey in the first place, his Strength was already over 20.

And it wasn’t even his best stat.

Realizing the issue, Eli called out.

"Cover me! Keep a distance! Don’t let him escape!"

Eli was speaking to both Joaquin and Sabrina. But the former hadn’t appeared yet, and he assumed that Grey wasn’t expecting him. There was no harm in keeping a few extra cards up their sleeves, even if Grey turned out to be weak.

With a twist of his wrist, Eli grunted slightly and sent Grey a step back. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Oh boy..." Grey muttered to himself, but Eli had already closed the distance. Without the cloak, his speed was even more obvious, the dagger he was wielding becoming akin to a shadow in the night as it flashed forward.

Eli’s blade arched from above, but it was little more than a feint, his hips twisting as he unleashed a kick at Grey’s knee.

The combination was perfect. The speed of their group wasn’t just because of Joaquin alone. Instead, they had quite some luck in attracting three strong candidates into one group.

Eli had been special forces in Russia before the Genesis Games began. His tactics in battle weren’t flashy, but they were effective.

That was what made it all the more ridiculous when Grey seemed to ignore his feint as though he knew it wasn’t a threat from the start and swung his blade right at Eli’s oncoming leg.

It was too late to back out.

Shin and blade met in unison, and pain spiked through Eli’s body.

"Son of a bitch," Grey complained.

Eli was wearing shin guards, and after so many battles, Grey’s sword had dulled considerably.

He couldn’t cut through them.

Fear and pain spiked through Eli’s body as he was forced into an awkward retreat, but Grey was relentless, taking a step forward and kicking right at Eli’s chest.

Too occupied with regaining his balance to wield his blade effectively, Eli suffered the blow head-on, falling heavily to the ground.

Grey swiftly followed up. If there was going to be a chance to take out one of the three right at the start, he’d take it.

Unfortunately, Sabrina was more than a pretty face.

A bullet of gold fired right at Grey’s head, and he weaved backward.

’Where the fuck are the effects of the Skrill Mask? Don’t tell me this damned jaw broke it.’

He didn’t understand how either of the two were aiming for him so effectively when the other monsters had had a terrible time. This was the only answer he could come up with.

’Fuck. I have to kill her first.’

Grey’s dodge leaned him so far back that he palmed the ground and flipped heels over head. By the time he regained his balance, another attack was coming from Sabrina, and Eli was scrambling to his feet.

The effects of Eli’s cloak flickered and activated once more, leaving dim lines in the darkness of the night.

Grey couldn’t go after him, using the spine of his sword to swat at the bullet of energy instead.

’These two are going to be so annoying to deal with. If the asshat appears on top of that, it’ll be a problem. I might die.’

Grey had been confident, and he had a right to be. Each level of a Resistance, Combat Method, or Enhancement was basically widely agreed to be worth 10 stat points. His Level 5 Goblin Warlord Spirit was worth 50.

But good teamwork could trump all of that.

The bullet of energy shattered against Grey’s sword but still sent him taking three steps back.

His eyes flashed with menace.