Tuxedo Maskless and the two knight versions of him combined, but he was still the same. Or that is what I thought.

Suddenly, Tuxedo Maskless was in front of me, and I was barely able to block his strike. I was sent back another ten feet, and there was a downward strike before I could react.

I tried to block, but I was driven down, and I wasn’t going to be able to stop the hammer. I rolled to the side, and I was forced to drop the battle-ax as I did.

Tuxedo Maskless was literally three times as strong and as fast as he was before when I fought him. Fighting with him now was like fighting someone completely different and using two weapons meant to be wielded with two hands.

Then one of the Knights split off from Tuxedo Maskless to grab up the battle-ax as he rushed me. I sprung up, bringing the sword up in an arch, deflecting the hammer strike that wasn’t as strong as before.

I quickly switched grip and slashed through Tuxedo Maskless, but he turned to smoke, and the knight was coming for me. I was done messing around and turned to sprint to the top, hearing the knights pounding footsteps, trying to catch me.

Tuxedo tried to shimmer into my way, but I time my cut, and he was blown into smoke. I had ten feet to go, but then I stopped and whirled.

[WALL!]

The force of me hitting some kind of invisible wall with my back almost knocked the wind out of me as I hit it. I had heard Hero at the very last second, and instinct made me spin, and now I was heaving to get my breath back; even my magical body was being pushed here.

Tuxedo Maskless and his knight copy were standing with knowing smiles but not coming to attack me. They had been playing me for a fool this entire time.

“You must defeat me alone, or you shall not pass,” Tuxedo Maskless told me as the knight walked up beside him.

Since I just turned him to smoke even when there were two, that must mean that I needed to fight him alone. That meant holding two of the weapons while defeating him, but he was too fast for me to react when he was that fast.

[You need to train your body like you have been to get to the point, but you need to hurry up, or you are going to run out of time! You have been in you for fifty minutes, and you are going to be taken out before you complete if you don’t hurry up!]

I gritted my teeth and the sword, narrowing my eyes and the two Tuxedo Maskless, and sucked in a deep breath. Ten minutes was a lot of time, but I was going to have to switch up the way I was doing things.

I burst forward, but I targeted the knight copy, smashed him back without killing him, then turned to the real one. I rushed and started to attack viciously, but I ensured that my attacks were not as strong.

Tuxedo was able to keep up with me, and the two of us picked up speed, but then I felt the copy coming from behind. I increased my power to full and smashed Tuxedo Maskless back and then whirling back with a horizontal slash to intercept the Knight copy.

I spun back through the smoke and then dashed forward to attack Tuxedo Maskless again, but I had to decrease my power more this time. I was getting stronger fast, but I needed more, and I increased my strikes until he failed to keep up and was blown into smoke.

I could feel the battle-ax coming for my head, but I let go of the great sword with one hand and snapped my hand up to stop it. The sharp ax head hit the palm of my hand and stopped without breaking the skin.

I pulled forward, ripping it out of the Knights, and spun to cut him in half with my other hand. I finished my arc through the smoke and flipped my new weapon around, so I had the battle ax’s hand in my hand correctly.

“So, are you ready to fight me seriously now? Good, I was concerned that my master interest in you might be blind, but it does seem that you can learn given the right motivation. That will be enough; you pass the first tower’s test. My name is Sigma, and I look forward to our many challenges in the future. That is if you have the stomach to try again,” Sigma told me and then disappeared into a puff of smoke along with the weapons in my hands.

I was left in with a stunned look on my face, still not really sure what just happened. Did I just win?

[Not if you keep standing here!]

Hero was right, and the timer he had put up said thirty seconds.

My brain clicked back on, and I sprinted the last twenty feet, jumping on the metal decking down to the final cube. There was a pedestal in the center of it, and after dropping down ten feet and rolling forward, I got up and slapped the button.

Instantly, the world around me was sucked in, and I was back in the dark place and then being spit back out. I was able to catch myself in the air, and I stuck the landing, but Noel was there waiting for me.

Before I could even finish landing, Noel kissed me, and I was knocked off balance, and I fell over.

[Really? After all that, and a single kiss knocks you off your feet from a grandma?]

Noel was already walking back to the house at high speed, and I decided to lay here for a bit longer. There is no point in trying to chase her; I would just have to keep playing her games to try and get closer to the shy Tsunadere woman.

For now, it was time to get the next part of my day started, dealing with the last girl.. Tiga and my so-called idiot father.