“Challenge Start!”

The audience gripped the edge of their seats as the battle begun. Everyone wanted to see if Nem’s fight against Gurion was a fluke or if he was that skilled. The battle was all about dodging; there was no need to fight back.

The first minute wasn’t very entertaining. Monsters known as Sweepers would rake through the stage. They looked like giant hair combs that run through the land. It didn’t take much skill on Nem’s part to step into the gaps between the Sweeper’s teeth.

At first there was only one, but as time went on more and more begun to spawn as they let out unrelenting attacks on Nem. Even after the 5th spawned, Nem didn’t have to exert too much effort to keep avoiding the Sweepers attacks. Every time the Sweepers reached the end of their attack, there would be a brief pause where they levitate their massive bodies and readjust themselves for another attack. As more and more Sweepers spawned, however, the time in between attacks begun to lessen as when one began to pause another one would attack.

The only saving grace for Nem was that these attacks, despite being relentless, were simple and easy to predict and avoid. It was around the end of the 2nd minute when things began to get… interesting.

The crowd outside watching Nem were deadly quiet. The beginning of the 3rd minute marked the spot where most players would fall and die. Only 60% of the players survived this death mark. Nem, of course, didn’t know that something was going to happen soon. No one ever knew about nor expected it.

By now, there were 24 sweepers constantly attacking Nem. After the beginning of the 2nd minute, these sweepers started working together, criss crossing and staggering their attacks to cause more problems for Nem. Now, at the end of the 2nd minute, the sweepers stopped attacking.

By now, Nem had gotten used to the sweepers’ attack patterns, however everything he knew got thrown out the window when the sweepers lined up into a perfect assembly line and began to fly straight at Nem. Nem stepped to the side as he had done many times already. Usually, while he was in between the teeth of one sweeper, he would have to quickly step to the side to avoid the incoming teeth that was purposefully staggered to give Nem a hard time. Now, however, all the sweepers were lined up so Nem simply had to get in between the teeth of the first sweeper and stand there to dodge the attack.

Suddenly, a red line formed straight down the middle of all the gaps in the sweepers teeth. “Boom!” A cannonball suddenly launched from nowhere, following the course the red line had set. Nem barely had time to react to the cannonball as he ducked and narrowly avoided getting blasted in the face.

After the ball passed by, the last of the sweepers did too. They lifted up into the air and formed another line, apparently attempting to repeat the process. While the sweepers were preparing to attack again, Nem saw cannons lined up in the distance. It seemed that his is where the cannonball earlier had come from.