Noah could hear hurried footsteps echoing out behind him, but he remained still. For a second, he’d imagine how terrifying this encounter would be without Liam as his spotter, jumped from the back by a perfect ambush, with two attackers in front waiting to finish the job in case the ambush went wrong. That caused anger to flare up within him, but he contained it for now.

“Now, dodge left!” Liam called out, and Noah sidestepped to the left with as large a leap he could manage. He felt something sharp gaze the right side of his abdomen, and his gaze turned right to catch the glimpse of a bald man with a tattoo on his left arm. Having planned it out, Noah went down and extended his right leg as the man tried to halt his momentum, surprise written all over his face.

The bald man crashed against Noah’s right leg, the momentum sending him careening into the ground, face-first. The Tower did provide aplenty of ways to gain power, but like Liam had said, power without control was meaningless. Before he could get up, Noah had his gladius resting against the man’s exposed neck.

“Move, and you die. That applies to you two, as well. You make the slightest hint, and when I say hint I fucking mean it, of a move, and he dies,” Noah called out to all three men with a pleasant surprise on his face.

“How…,” The bald man muttered in confusion, “…. he knew I was there, Charles. It’s like he saw me coming from miles away….,”

Charles expression grimaced as he looked at the messy situation his actions had created, Wang Lei looking equally disappointed. But they made no move to advance yet, Noah had his blade next to the man's throat.

“What’s your name?” Noah asked the bald man, who had sweat running down his forehead by this point.

The bald man grunted, and replied, “You’re not going to kill me. I’m the only thing between you and certain death.”

Noah focused his gaze from the bald man to the other two, waiting for a reaction. They didn’t twitch, not yet, so he spoke, “Ah, you don’t have a name? Fine, I’ll give you one. From now on, you’re John. Now John, I fear we find ourselves at an impasse. You and the gang of refined gentlemen you’ve got here, John, tried to murder the fuck out of me the moment you thought I was distracted. I warned poor Charles that I wasn’t alone, but he didn’t listen.”

“What do you mean?” ‘John’ asked, seemingly genuinely puzzled as he glanced around but there was no one in sight.

“Ah John, I don’t like repeating myself twice, but I will make an exception in this case- You see John, I hear these voices that claim to be from the future, they warn me, guide me and protect me from murderous scamps like you? Now John, I’m not much of a betting man- but you really want to wager your life on whether a man who hears voices in his head rational or not?” Noah asked, both mockingly and mirthfully at the same time.

John’s expression went as pale as a sheet, directing his gaze towards his companions with a pleading expression written on his face.

“Let him go, and we can come to an amicable solution. You're outnumbered two to one, if you try to force this you will die,” Charles, having recomposed himself, warned Noah in no uncertain terms.

“Ah Charles, I fear you don’t quite comprehend what I mean by an impasse. You see, I already know that you three are complete strangers. An arrangement made for safety, strength and greater ease in murdering innocent bystanders. Very human, Charles, admirably so. However, an alliance made for benefits is quite a fickle one, don’t you think? Had fate been a little different, you could be here, kneeling as my hostage while 'John' decided your fate.”

“Get to the point,” Charles snapped, with a hint of fear creeping into his voice.

“The point, you traitorous son of a whore, is that you should think about how this will play out. I kill John here, you chase me down and maybe, though I’d say it would be highly unlikely, manage to kill me. Then what? You already let one member of your alliance die for a piece of equipment, what makes you think your Asian companion Wang Lei won’t drop you for the same thing? Stealing from me will make sure that one of the remaining two spectacularly betrays the other, hell, I’m almost tempted to toss you my chest plate”, Noah replied with a patronizing smirk on his face, he was enjoying this.

Charles and Wang Lei subconsciously took a quick glance at each other, and then Charles nodded. “Wang, I think we should do what this guy says for now.”

“Agreed,” The generally silent and somewhat stoic Asian man assented with a nod.

“Ah, wouldn’t it be delightful if we could be so pleasant from the start. Keep walking backwards, in slow steps in a straight line. You try to run, John dies. You try something funny, John dies. I think that you tried something funny, John dies,” Noah shot off his demands without even a second of hesitation.

“Wait! What guarantee do we have that you won’t just kill him the moment we’re out of sight?” Charlies hurriedly asked, and Wang Lei focused his gaze on Noah as well.

“I guess you’ll just have to hope that I don’t enjoy killing people. Which I don’t, because I’m a normal dude who likes his beer cold and his burger with mayo. Now get the fuck out of my sight, because if you force me, I will not hesitate,” Noah replied with derision, and the two men, after one glance at each other slowly started backing off.

“Now, John,” Noah whispered to him as he saw them walking away. “You have ten seconds to trade me everything you own, or the only thing Charles and Wang will find is a corpse.”

“You cant-“

“10”

“Please don-“

“9”

“This isn’t fai-

“8”

“Fine I’ll do i-

“7”

“But how?”

“6,5,4,3,” Noah called out in rapid succession.

“Trade!” Charles cried out, and Noah received a notification.

Joshua Miller has requested a trade. He has 112/120 free slots available.

Accept?

Yes

No

Noah accepted, and a trade window materialized in the lower half portion of his sight. He edged the blade closer to John’s neck just in case he got any ideas, and waited.

“There are 8 items in your inventory, and if I see even one less than what it should be, I swear…”

“Fine! It’s done.” John had dumped his entire inventory into the trade windows, and both parties accepted.

Congratulations, Trade successfully completed!

“Pleasure doing business, John,” Noah said, and whacked him with the pommel of his sword.

“You think he’s out?” Noah asked the empty air around him.

“Eh, I’d whack him again lad. Best to be sure when it comes to these kinds of things.”

“Sorry, John. Guess the voice doesn’t like you," Noah said with regret in his voice, but didn't hesitate to give John another whack. Yup, this time he was definitely knocked out.

And with that, Noah made himself scarce. Should he have killed John for what he tried to do to him? Maybe. The people who had entered the trial had done so voluntarily, small fries like Charles were just symptoms of the problem. The actual blight was the tower itself, tempting and coercing humanity into these death games. Anyway, for now, he wasn’t interested in becoming the judge, jury and executioner.