As the barriers went up Kriel wasted no time. "You can all come at me whenever." His smug demeanour made one man's blood boil, who charged in alone, foolishly.
Kriel was a general in the Demon clan, he was leagues above any human, ten average humans would be nothing to him.
The real reason he had only got those five in the first group is because they had a note about not working well with others in Byurik's notes and we wanted to see if that was right so we could not waste time. If they were disqualified then Cosmael would stop participating and focus on healing and mental probing.
Kriel sighed with disappointment, the man was a bit above average, but average for a human was a weak demon and he was one of the strongest. He planted his sword's blade in the ground then did a handstand on it with one arm, then dropped his foot onto the man's shoulder, shattering it and his chances of joining.
The rest knew then, they had no chance of winning alone, but the question was if they could accept that and work together, or fail to adapt and Kriel was very good at using his demonic version of empathy to manipulate others into rash and unfavourable action.
"You humans, seriously... Why did you even bother learning to talk? Such a waste..." What no one but the six of us knew is that he was very restrained, we had discussed how he should injure people as his silent judgement method.
A Broken shoulder - Out without question
A broken wrist - Needs training in a fight, but not hopeless
A broken leg - Needs endurance training
A broken rib - Needs defensive training
A broken weapon - Useless in a fight but might have other traits that are noteworthy
A broken thumb - nothing special, not good at teamwork but not hopeless
An open wound, but nothing fractured - body is good, mind is good, but teamwork is hopeless and they are out if they don't change by the end.
No wounds - If they manage to fight Kriel and not get wounded, they are in pending a full telepathic scan.
Kriel's choice of a two-handed sword was a deception, something he took into battle to lure enemies into a trap. It gave the impression he was a heavy-fighter and moved with the same rigidity that they did. The truth of the matter was he was incredibly agile and acrobatic.
He would work flips and full spins into swings, use the momentum of those swings to let the weight of his sword pull him away and create distance. It was like the sword was wielding him a sword's man rather than a swordsman.
It was how he fought that day at least and for a full minute he dodged, flipped and side-skirted his four remaining opponents, each second making his frustration grow. 'This is taking too long, Adam and Eve want this over quickly, they could have trapped me in this space in five seconds flat.'
"We need to trap him, this is pointle-"
"Shut up! You don't tell me what to do boy!" One of the men shouted and talked himself out of any more of Kriel's time.
Kriel descended on him, blocking out the sun as he landed weightlessly with a foot on each of his shoulders, except he hadn't landed. There was a full three inch gap, that lingered for what seemed like forever. Not because Kriel was levitating, but because he was curling into a ball as fast as he fell and in the instant he reached full recoil, he drove the man into the ground.
The man was thankfully knocked out with the force of the blow, because both his shoulders were shattered and the noise of his screams would have annoyed him further. He wasted no time launching into a somersault-kick to shatter the other aggressors shoulder to.
The last two intruiged him slightly, but he had had enough, he grabbed his sword and after closing the distance, raised it into a heavy overhead slash to take out the remaining woman's shoulder, but he missed.
For a second he thought he miscalculated, but then he noticed the young man who had spoken up pulled her away and to safety.
"Get off me creep! I don't need your help!" That sealed her fate, but he was still interested, was it pride? Why did she get so angry about him helping her?
'Astrael, mind reading this one's mind, I want to know why she got so mad. Adam told us to be observant for things like that.'
'Sure... He would understand... In fact I may have a mission very soon. Try and help her move passed it.'
'You're the boss. Clean up the others would you please, they're in the way.' As Astrael descended the two froze, then slightly relaxed as she gathered the other three like bags of rubbish.
"Adam is a surprisingly compassionate man, but he doesn't have time to help with trauma at the moment. Just ask Layaera that one. He has seen more than he can stand of certain vileness though." The woman turned pale as he spoke and charged in, sliding to a halt as he dropped to all fours and placed his head to the ground.
"I don't need pity, I'm st-"
"I'm sorry, you're weak... Skilled for a human, but weak. The boss has a saying at least I think it's his, but it might be something from another era... "If you want to survive long enough to grow strong, live as the weak do and use coexistence and cooperation." Or something like that, girl I can't imagine what you experienced or how it made you feel, there are two empaths probably seething right now and Adam will be on the warpath soon enough."
"I don't ne-"
"Please, let us make sure that never happens to you again, give us what we need to let you help us. We would gladly pass you with no trial but if you wanted to pass that way, you wouldn't be here. You are joining a team, a team with two men you have no power against, you need to understand that, you need to decide right now if you can tolerate that. If you can't there is no shame in it, you suffered, that is something none of us, Adam especially, would belittle."
The girl's eyes turned glassy, Astrael descended and hugged her. "Don't worry girl, I'll make sure certain people know why deva should not be angered. Now dry your eyes, we need you to apologise to the young man, it is a teams duty to protect each other and you owe him nothing for it, but demeaning someone who done nothing but help you demeans yourself."
She paused only long enough to compose herself then turned and gave a slight bow. "I'm sorry... Let's fight him, together."
Kriel stood. Kriel was a lot of things, emotional was not one of them, he had seen and heard all he needed. Now he just wanted to test their stamina and endurance since they had held back.
"I'm sorry, i'm not ready to take orders from you, can you take mine?" She asked under her breath, surprising even herself with the growth.
"Sure, but we can't keep up with that agility, so make it something special."
"I know a bit of lightning magic... I need you to get the other side of him and use your sword as a lightning rod. It won't do much, I'm not strong with it, but it might give you a second to swing."
What they didn't know was Kriel heard every word and held back a grin. 'You know what kids, fine, lets see what that extra second amounts to for you. Damn... this could suck, Adam better have a good plan for dinner.'
Adam did not... He was going to be occupied for a couple of days, not that anyone knew that but Eve and the immortals.
Kriel let them rush in, they wanted to give the impression that their plan was simply to overhwelm him with a spontaneous synchronised flurry, which whilst he had no trouble with, he was momentarily caught off-guard by it.
"HAHAHAHA! YES, THAT'S IT!" He roared, genuinely ecstatic at the fact they were working together. "A decade... Stay with me for a decade and I'll make sure no humans match you." If they had known he was one of the demon king's generals, that would have been a compliment, but ten years was a long time in the mind of two so young, so it came across more as mockery.
In a flash they both separated, the girl used lightning magic as planned, unfortunately what she hadn't know was that the reason it was always weak before, was because her trauma stopped her from visualising it properly... But in that moment, she could only see Kriel spasming on the ground after being struck by heavy lightening.
"A shame... I wanted to give you that attack, but you'll kill the boy." He said as he felt the mana begin to scream.
In a flash, he was behind her, her thumb was broken and she was unconscious.
Then he done the same to the boy.
"I really hope Astrael doesn't hold back on whoever stunted such talent." That was he last thought on the matter as the barriers finally dropped and the remaining two were sent to join me with the other first round successfuls