Tragedy of the Greatest Heroes

Chapter 19: Teamwork of 4 vs 1

I pulled my arms in front of my face in an x position as a fist larger than my head slammed down on me. The earth beneath me shattered from the force of the impact. 4 evil spirits at the B-Rank had appeared from a hole in the ground, and each team member took one on.

I pushed back against the fist and sent the evil spirit stumbling back. Leaping into the air I spun around, wrapping my leg in psychic energy, and kicked the evil spirit in the face. It was sent tumbling away several feet but appeared to be unharmed. It got up once again and roared at me, the inside of its mouth full of tentacles, each with its own mouth snapping on the end.

I stretched out my hand and the air in front of me ignited, fiery snake-like worms of fire flying out and burning away the spirit's many tentacles. The creatures screamed in pain and began slamming the ground, each crack shattering the ground, and leaving debris floating.

The spirit spread its arms and the debris collapsed into a sword. The spirit gripped the handle and swung it a few times, its skill clearly displayed.

‘Was this guy a swordsman in life?’ Spirits oftentimes still possessed certain traits and abilities they had in life, even unique powers could be kept.

The spirit charged forward at me and swung its sword with tremendous force. I dodged to the left, narrowly swinging past the blade by mere inches. All of a sudden the sword suddenly changed shape and a blade came out from the side, directly towards me.

I braced for impact by shielding my body with psychic energy but there wasn’t enough time. The blade cleaved through my unfinished barrier easily and collided with me, slamming into my arms that were blocking my body. I felt small fractures in my bones form as I was sent flying almost 20 feet away. I was lucky, if the spirit had been better at earth manipulation then the blade would have been sharpened and cut through my arms.

As I was in the air I saw that Violet, Vivian, and Roland were completely pushing their opponents back. I snorted to myself when I landed, dragging my hands through the ground to stop myself from sliding back.

‘There really is quite the difference between Low and Mid B-Ranks.’

I quickly poured psychic energy into my bone fractures and they healed in just a few seconds. However, healing was a taxing ability, I couldn’t use it too much or I would soon be left exhausted.

Turning my attention back to the evil spirit I began to formulate a plan to take it down quickly. We appeared to be about the same rank so in terms of capacity, I would be a little higher. This was because a decent chunk of the spirit's power was spent sustaining its existence. However, its sword was troublesome and I didn’t have any weapons experience so close combat would be a dangerous choice. I could try and fight long-range range but using energy projection attacks would cost more psychic energy and I definitely didn’t have good accuracy.

‘So, what to choose.’

This time though it appeared the spirit decided for me. In just a few moments it had gone from 20 feet away to within sword distance. As the sword came around from the spirit's side I jumped into the air, passing 5 feet over its head. In my hand was a concentrated orb of psychic energy. I released it and a light blue beam shot out as I traveled over the creature's head, carving a line across the spirit.

I couldn’t deal with the sword in close quarters for long and I couldn’t rely on long-range abilities. Therefore a mid-range attack keeping me away from the sword that started from close-quarters to grant me easy accuracy was the best course of action.

When I landed behind the spirit I released a powerful blast of psychic energy and blew a hole through its back. The previous attack had caused it to focus a barrier on its head, leaving the rest of its body exposed. Until a spirit reached A-Rank, it would somewhat be confined to human anatomy weaknesses, which meant a dead head was a guaranteed dead spirit. By abusing this weakness and the fact that the intelligence of spirits was low until S-Rank I could put myself in a winning position.

The spirit fell over and I climbed over it, stomping on its head to land a final blow. The head exploded into beautiful rainbow colors and the rest of the body began to melt away. Soon the entire spirit turned into beautiful rainbow lights. I heard one final, weak roar, and then the lights disappeared.

I turned back towards my teammates who had already regrouped. They waved at me to meet them slightly up ahead, we likely only had a little bit of time before another group of spirits attacked us. We needed to get ahead while we could.

I nodded at them and waved forward to signal my understanding. I saw them begin to move towards the exit of the arena as I pushed off the ground. I rushed towards the end as fast as a car, at almost 80 miles an hour. It wasn’t a sustainable pace but just to get to the end of the arena, it was sufficient.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy did you?” The principal said through the speakers hidden in the arena.

‘This fucking guy…’

In front of the exit, a massive hole opened and a singular evil spirit emerged. Immediately I could tell something about this one was different. While extremely large, the size of a two-story house, and still very colorful, its body was identically shaped to a human's. Their hands, glowing hair, bright eyes, everything about them looked like a human.

‘This… it’s a high B-Rank.’

It opened its massive mouth, its jaw unhinging further than what traditional human anatomy allowed, and gave a tremendous roar. A blast of wind collided with me and I lost my footing, sending me tumbling directly into Roland. Our heads collided and my world spun for a moment as I struggled to figure out whether I was on top of or beneath Roland.

“Marm, ger ohf mmme,” Roland said, muffled by my body.

“Sorry,” I said as I stood up again. I offered my hand to Roland and helped him back on his feet.

“How was your fight, Mark?” Roland asked me.

“It was alright. If these spirits were as smart as us then it would’ve been a lot harder. How about you?”

Roland shrugged. His body language told me he felt neutral about his performance. I turned around and gestured to Vivian and Violet about how they felt about it. Both of them gave similar responses to Roland.

‘Damn you guys, all acting so relaxed after beating them so much faster than me.’

I smiled shyly, as tiresome as this fighting was, I was enjoying myself. A simple, straightforward, easy-to-understand challenge without any extreme danger to ourselves.

However, I still felt April’s death inside. It looked like the others did too. Vivian especially, still had a slightly panicked look on her face despite her being relatively safe.

“Well, looks like we’re gonna have to deal with this guy,” Roland said.

Turning back towards the massive evil spirit I saw it begin to beat on its chest and slam the ground like a fighting ritual. As a High B-Rank spirit its capacity would be higher than any of ours. However, its intelligence would make a baby seem smart and we had the benefit of numbers.

“Mark, you and I will take out its legs. Vivian, you distract it with long-distance attacks. Violet, you’re the strongest combatant here so I want you to try and kill its head,” Roland said to us.

I nodded and felt a sense of respect rise in me. Roland was gifted as a leader, it had been such a short time but he had already come up with an idea to try and give us a quick way to victory while also considering two specific points.

The first, Violet was the strongest combatant. Her status as an all-rounded B-Rank meant that in all but the two categories Roland and Vivian specialized in, she would almost certainly be the most powerful psychic. As such, she would be the one most likely to be able to kill the evil spirit in a single hit.

The second thing was that Vivian had yet to recover from April’s death. Placing her on the front lines against a stronger opponent could prove to be a bad idea if she froze up, in which case she would potentially be a liability rather than a help. Not to mention, with her telekinesis specialty, Vivian was especially suited for long-range attacks with any objects in the area.

His role assignment made use of our strongest unit in the best way possible and ensured that our weakest would remain out of harm's way while still using them effectively.

‘Well done team leader.’

“Are we all good with that plan?” He said.

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Uh, yes it sounds good.”

With everyone confirming the plan Roland and I stepped to the front, followed by Vivian and finally by Violet.

“3…” Roland began a countdown, “2…” Here we go, “Go!”

Roland and I pushed off the ground, immediately springing forward and ending up close to the spirit in mere seconds. The spirit had begun to open its mouth to roar once more, but there wasn’t enough time for it to do so.

Realizing this the spirit poured psychic energy into its arms and slammed the ground, a massive crater forming as Roland and I were forced to divert our paths away from it.

“Vivian!” Roland yelled.

“I got it!” she responded.

The spirit's attack had left a large amount of rocks in the air which Vivian now took hold of. She formed a large halo above the spirit and began throwing rock after rock at it. The spirit turned towards the sky and began trying to swipe down the rocks but Vivian skillfully maneuvered each one of them from harm's way.

With the spirits focused on the sky Roland and I charged back towards the creature. I filed a large amount of psychic energy into my legs and threw myself, legs first, horizontally at the spirit while Roland performed a simple tackle. We successfully took the spirit off of its feet and saw it begin to fall.

Violet immediately rushed over and before the creature's head even hit the ground unleashed a massive punch on it. The force of the punch was so powerful that I was nearly thrown off of my feet from the winds produced despite most of the power of the attack being directed elsewhere. I dug my hands into the ground to prevent myself from blowing away.

‘Incredible. I barely even saw any charge-up time.’

However, the spirit's head didn’t completely disappear. Only half of it was blown off, it appeared to have known it couldn’t take a full hit so it allowed half of its head to be blasted off to direct more shielding power into the other half.

The creature quickly recovered and backhanded Violet away, luckily Vivian caught her. However, her eyes were no longer on the creature, so no more distracting rocks were raining down on it. It turned its attention towards the closest person, me.

‘Ah… well this is sub-optimal.’

I instantly brought up a shield as the creature launched a beam of energy toward me. The moment it hit the shield I felt myself moving back several feet from the force of the attack and I extended the shield into the ground to prevent myself from moving back further.

‘I need to get out of this or he’ll just overwhelm me with sheer force from this one attack.’

It hadn’t even been two seconds but the outer edges of my shield were already being chipped away. This spirit I had fought earlier wasn’t even on the same level. I expanded the shield to become larger than the area the beam covered and pushed it forward. For a moment the shield fought back against the beam before losing pitifully less than a second later. However, it was just barely enough time for me to roll out of the way of the blast. Well, most of me, my shoulder was grazed.

I winced in pain as I ran towards Roland. Alone I would almost certainly lose against the power of a High B-Rank spirit. But together with Roland, we stood a good chance. I saw Roland form a massive earthen wall as the spirit roared once more, this time bouncing away harmlessly.

“Mark, are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little burn on the shoulder.”

“I’m sorry man, the spirit is smarter than I thought.”

It appeared Roland blamed himself partly for the failure of the plan. I shook my head and patted him on the shoulder.

“We couldn’t have known Roland, it’s not your fault.”

“Thank you, Mark.”

Suddenly, I heard the spirit charging up an attack from the other side of the wall. Roland grabbed my hand and pulled me away as we broke into a full sprint once more. Another burst of energy impacted the wall, carving right through it.

“Get down,” Roland yelled. He pulled me onto the ground next to him as the beam passed above our heads. Roland then slammed his hand on the ground and the earthen wall returned to the surface earth.

“Mark, run at him now!”

I got up again and immediately broke out into a full sprint, this time hitting a top speed of 120 mph. I charged up a huge amount of psychic energy into my arm, almost 10% of my total, and leaped into the air with Roland on the other side of me. Our fists collided with the fists of the spirit and a shockwave blew out. A loud bang rang out across the arena which made a gunshot sound quiet. However, the spirit was stronger than we were. Its status as a High B-Rank was truly deserved.

The spirit pushed us backward and Roland and I were sent flying back through the air. I landed on the ground and tumbled away. When I finally stopped the spirit was charging up another attack. I looked behind me and saw the exit, just 10 feet away, but the spirit's attack would still hit me.

My eyes widened in fear as I realized the spirit began to fill itself up with a tremendous amount of psychic energy and a huge spiraling orb formed in front of the spirit's face. This attack could kill me.

‘SHIT!’

I braced myself to receive an attack as the spirit roared one more time and then…

The spirit exploded from the waist up and I felt myself get flung hundreds of feet backward, past the entrance, tumbling on the ground painfully. I felt numerous fractures and broken bones form onto my body painfully as I rolled away uncontrollably.

“AH FUCK! SHIT!”

I swore out in pain from the numerous injuries I had. I saw Violet hundreds of feet away standing in front of the dead spirit, her hand smoking from the attack she had launched. She must have used a stupendously huge amount of psychic energy to pull off such an attack. Honestly, it was overkill.

‘I see, that’s why you lowered the wall and charged at it, Roland.’

Roland had realized that we were drawing the attention of the spirit, keeping it away from Violet. However, if the spirit determined that it couldn’t attack us then it would attempt to go after the individual that nearly killed it earlier, Violet. By keeping the spirit's attention on us, Violet was able to build up an incredible attack to kill the spirit in one blow.

‘But that was completely overkill.’

I groaned in pain as Roland came over and began to heal me. He was smiling proudly at himself. This was a successful battle largely because of his leadership, it was reasonable for him to be happy.

“Violet really went all out there didn’t she.”

“yeah,” I said weakly as my ribs were being painfully returned to their original positions.

After Violet and Vivian came over to help we were able to finish my healing in just under two minutes.

“Thank you, everyone,” I said smiling.

They all nodded at me and Violet blushed a little out of embarrassment.

‘You better be embaressed considering you caused this… NO Mark don’t be mean. Think good thoughts.’

“Well done you four. That’s the fastest completion we’ve seen today. 10 points to Roland for his leadership and 10 points to Violet for the display of her combat abilities and power.”

The principal's voice echoed throughout the path again, full of heartwarming praise. I gave Roland a pat on the back and Violet a high five as a congratulations.

“Well, let’s get going. There’s still a few more obstacles left,” Roland said excitedly.

We all responded reflecting his attitude. After this obstacle and hearing that we had done so well, it was difficult not to allow our spirits to get up, especially considering how much of a downer the previous obstacles were.

We began to run towards the final obstacles, this was it, our second wind. My heart still weighed from the previous obstacle, but I had found a place to use it. It is that death that would drive me forward now.

…

A man in a suit pulled up a radio and began to call in to notify his master of the information he had collected.

“Sir, I’ve discovered some information on that boy, Mark.”

The voice of the man's master came from the other side of the radio. He flinched instinctively as he recalled the punishment he had received for leaving his assigned post earlier to help the daughter of his master receive medical care.

“Good good, what did you find? Is he from an old psychic family by any chance?”

“No sir. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find anything about his family being anything but ordinary.”

“Hmm, I see. I guess it was just a lucky kid then…”

“That is the most likely possibility, yes sir.”

“Yes… it is. Hmm…”

A long silence pervaded the conversation now. The man was too afraid to hang up the radio as his master had yet to permit him to do so nor had he confirmed that their conversation was over. If he hung up the radio then it could be considered a sign of great disrespect.

“Do you have something else to say sir?” the man said nervously.

“No, nothing at all. Just report back to me if he does anything exceptional again.”

The man silently gave a sigh of relief. He was worried that his master might still be angry following the last punishment he had received. While he wasn’t attacked he did lose quite a bit of his pay and was forced to extend his contract for free.

“Understood sir.”

End of Chapter 19