Having lost his miraculous transparent mask which allowed him to assume the appearance of other competitors and with his hi-tech bodysuit used to replicate their body builds and equipment with holographic projections ruined, the spy Kato Katai changed his modus operandi to targeting targets he saw as plausible targets for a quick elimination.

With the number of competitors having dipped substantially, all the way down to 36, plenty of competitors adopted this tactic. True titans of the battlefield decided that colliding with a worthy opponent at this stage was inefficient. Such struggles could have been saved for a follow-up round when everyone would do one-on-one battles and every man or woman would fight for themselves.

The weak, meanwhile, felt some desperation wrapping its fingers around their necks as well. They adopted a different strategy–to work together and try to put together a string of events that would lead to the elimination of the most troublesome opponents. The ones whom they would stand no chance of beating or tricking in the following rounds. To them, this stage of the battle royal was a stressful stretch to try to reduce the number of invincible foes for the upcoming rounds. Given how plenty of powerhouses had already faced elimination or even death, this was not entirely an insurmountable task.

Kato took aim with two handheld kunai dispensers. Without hesitation, he launched a couple of streams of kunai at a young and meek-looking boy in a torn and bloodied swarm-ball uniform. Before the kunai could skewer and pin the young man with a sweaty and bloodied white sweatband on his forehead, a swarm of shuttlecocks surrounded him like a shield and swept the kunai away. While a single shuttlecock offered little resistance to the incoming stream of blades, a whole swarm was like a dozen layers of chain mail.

Rinden, the swarm-baller who had already eliminated multiple daunting foes in Sweets Jin and Jari, the shinobi from Sunagakure, shifted his attention to the spy who targeted him for elimination. With the shuttlecocks dancing wildly around the swarm-baller, he threw himself at Kato Katai head-first, knowing that the shuttlecocks would dance around him and wait for the swarm-baller to capture them. Kato Katai braced himself, but overcoming a turbulent whirlwind of bullet-like shuttlecocks grazing him from all sides felt impossible.

While the handsome spy struggled against the irritating swarm of shuttlecocks, Rinden rolled over Kato's bent-over back while hooking the empty loop of his net around Kato's neck. Having completed his roll, Rinden flung Kato Katai forward. Scrambling in mid-air, Kato Katai flicked a switch on his kunai dispenser and shot a kunai with a strand of interwoven steel wire strands. Sparks flocked from his dispenser as a grappling hook mechanism began pulling him back into the ring, but the swarm of shuttlecocks formed a singular wave and smashed into Kato's body, washing him away like a tidal wash and sending Kato Katai out of bounds.

"What an unexpected badass the swarm-baller Rinden proved to be!" the announcer shrieked out, shaking with excitement and tensed with the hype of such a meek-looking competitor, scoring his third underdog elimination. "This is exactly what this arena is all about! The brilliance of the human spirit and the sheer desire to win and prove yourself, that which allows one to overcome all odds!"

Rinden staggered and flopped on his rear while the focused shuttlecocks spread wider and began buzzing around him at a looser formation and keeping up a decent range. At this point, it seemed like the other competitors were simply wrong for treating young Rinden as one of the weak links to be singled out for easy elimination.

"That's right," Rinden scrambled back on his feet and looked around the arena of cheering and laughing crowd that still saw him as a joke. The crowd that wouldn't stop being more and more amused with each successive elimination of a boy who had billions of shuttlecocks dancing around him in unpredictable patterns, waiting for him to catch them while the swarm-baller let their potent swarming capabilities deal with his opponents instead of chasing after the buzzards. "Laugh it up, be entertained. This is what sports are all about. Good, old-fashioned fun, athletes testing the limits of their bodies and seeking incredible new heights, and the people entertained by their individual stories along the way. That's the kind of place we'll create here when the World Sports Games kick off."

An ogre-like musclebound giant with wild, spiky, black long hair swung a bone club around and smashed it into the floor, causing a rippling shockwave to quake across the entire arena. This flung a featureless, bald competitor with a swimming cap and goggles into the air and flopped them on their rear end. With his obelisk-sized spiky club hanging over his boulder-width shoulder, Cornab Thunderbone the Conqueror approached the flopped female pro-athlete in a swimming bodysuit and a fluffy navy-blue, azure and white jacket.

"You're out of your element here, wench. Take a hike or I'll crush you like that martial artist whose head I split earlier!" Cornab thundered with a raspy voice similar to a buzzing disc saw.

"Eek!" the female athlete cried out while scrambling and began dragging her rear farther away from the imposing conqueror who kept up with her with slow yet wide steps that came naturally to him because of his size and ogreish disposition. "Find someone else to swing at, will you?"

With a bemused look, Cornab reached out to grab the fleeing swimmer by her ankle, then heave her out of bounds with a spin and release throw over his head. It surprised him to realize that the swimmer actually had slimier and more slippery skin than he imagined. Despite successfully wrapping his thick fingers around her ankles, the swimmer pulled her foot out of his hold despite lacking an even remotely similar level of strength needed to overpower Cornab Thunderbone's hold.

"What the…?" Cornab looked at his hand, which became drenched in some strange and thick goop, forming webby membranes of slime in between his fingers while slowly drooping bit by bit onto the ground. "What aquatic witchcraft is this?" he croaked, pushing his bone club off his shoulder with a light twitch and slamming it onto the tiles with enough force to cause a thunderous crack as if a lightning bolt had just cracked down.

"Don't underestimate a swimmer, even when she's out of the water!" the swimmer quickly scrambled back on her feet and taunted her opponent with a confident pose. "Speed Cartwheel Cluster!" she chanted out while becoming surrounded by wavy mirage doppelgangers of herself. Together, shuffling and mingling in between each other, the swimmers dashed in and out from each side while pummeling and beating down on the dazed ogre, causing him to stumble back and check up on his meaty jaw for fractures.

"For your sake, you better hope I don't get my hands on you!" Cornab Thunderbone growled while wildly swinging his massive and spiky bone mace but only swinging through a couple of mirages that came into being through a combination of humidity in the air from the full artificial lake behind one side of the arena and the incredible speed of the female swimmer.

"We swimmers learn to move lightning-fast underwater. Water's resistance is far thicker and harder to work against than even air's. If a ninja throws a kunai, it might fly on until it meets a solid object in its way. Underwater, it would quickly run out of kinetic energy and drown. Such a thick and inhospitable environment builds up a swift and agile body," the confident female swimmer declared, pointing her finger at the heaving and panting conqueror.

"Hmm… I see. I've faced ninja and hardened fighters whose fists I couldn't feel the sting of, yet yours somehow manage to pack a wallop, despite your fragile-looking, feminine body. If your muscles and skeleton have been bolstered by years of underwater training, building up a body that can shoot like a bullet indefinitely underwater and easily withstand the crushing pressure of the abyssal depths, it is only natural," Cornab Thunderbone surmised. "You are no weak maiden indeed. I was wrong to compare you to the spoils of war. You'd be fitting to be my wife or a general."

"Sorry, swimming is my passion and once we win this tournament and build a grand sports arena here, I'll be performing in front of millions of people. Unlike you, who only fights and kills to increase your own fortune and renown, pro-athletes perform for the entire world, for the betterment of their sport. Water polo, swimming, diving, synchronized swimming… That is my life," the bold female swimmer declared, pointing as an accusatory gesture at Cornab Thunderbone.

Before the female swimmer could blink again, Cornab Thunderbone stood before her and lashed his gigantic mace, thwacking straight in her face and sending the poor athlete flying above even where the Cursed Warriors fought. Shadow and gloom covered Cornab Thunderbone's disposition, almost as if the woman's rejection had spoiled his mood and triggered the revelation of his true combat strength.

"I've broken far more devoted and hardy spirits with this very mace. The rod of this weapon is, in fact, made from the spine of a kunoichi from Nadeshiko village. The women of Nadeshiko leave their village to seek a man who can defeat them as a rite of passage. They then end up marrying that man. This admirable woman died in combat before she admitted defeat, which is why she became the spine of my trusted weapon. Maybe if you are as sturdy and adamant in your convictions, your ribcage can serve as a fine layer of my mace?" Cornab wondered as he advanced through the ranks of brawling fighters to seek his opponent where she might have landed.

Cornab slammed the head of his mace into the ground, flexing his muscles tight before breathing out a cloud of black vapor from his lungs that lingered and stretched all the way to the heavens. A clear, bright desert noon turned into a gloomy dark storm. Having picked his mace from his side again, Cornab Thunderbone lifted his mace into the air and let a strident blaze of lightning encase him whole with the raw power of the storm that he intended to bring down from the heavens.

Cornab Thunderbone launched himself at the female swimmer as she was still pulling herself off the ground with a notable hole in her swimming cap through which handfuls of curly auburn hair poked out. One half of her swimming goggles shattered and the second goggle had the lenses fall out, revealing sea-blue eyes. The swimmer's warm and furry jacket had a tear on her upper right shoulder, and she couldn't stop wiping the dirty and bloody grazes caused by the calamitous fall from the skies.

"Water Style: Water Assault!" the injured swimmer shuffled through a bundle of hand seals before thrusting her hands still weaved in the position of the final hand seal forward. The lake behind her roared in a turbulent whirlpool before spitting out a tidal stream of water at the incoming musclebound ogre. Cornab Thunderbone put his mace in front of him, unleashing the storm packed within.

With radiant flashes of light, the electricity of the grounded storm exploded upon the washing wave of water and broke the swimmer's ninjutsu technique, causing an explosive crash and then a downpour of drops from the air. Wet from the rainfall, Cornab forced his way through the wave of water, swinging his mace at the dazed and locked-in-place athlete. The swimmer's one visible pupil widened in terror as the storm-bringing mace came closer and closer to her.

The noise of the crack of the mace against a human skull toughened by the immense abyssal pressure drowned out in the thunderclap caused by the lightning-infused mace. Immediately after connecting with one wide horizontal swing, Cornab Thunderbone swung back in the opposite direction, then to the front again, creating cracks of lightning and embodying the rage of the storm with every swing. After seeing the dulled-out, pupil-less stare in the eyes of his opponent, her goggles torn off and shattered, her swimming cap completely torn to rubber straps and her hair answering to the call of the kinetic energy freely, Cornab Thunderbone vaulted over his front with an impressive show of acrobatics before slamming his mace into the ground with a double hand overhead swing.

The cruel conqueror breathed out a breath of relief while trying to pull his spiky bone mace out from the mush he must have left from his fragile opponent. This task didn't come as easily as he initially thought. There was no usual mush of blood, despite Cornab swinging with both his hands and delivering his serious judgment with his strike. Wonder of wonders, the toughened body of the female swimmer was skewered by the spikes of the skull mace, but she wasn't completely ground to beef like most opponents the conqueror has met.

"Hmm… Truly incredible. Your ribcage indeed deserves to decorate my mace. Let's just see if I didn't shatter it first…" Cornab Thunderbone wheezed out with his raspy voice while leaning down to scoop up his seemingly lifeless opponent. With a grim face that realized the full severity of what he was about to do, Cornab squeezed the neck of the hanging and still barely breathing athlete, snapping it in one squeeze.

"Holy…! I implore those of you in the audience that didn't come for this sort of cruelty to look away! While this isn't what this arena and this sport represent, as someone with the adequate strength to enact his will, Cornab Thunderbone can do whatever he can get away with in this arena! Those that have a problem with it, are welcome to step up and stop him!" the announcer didn't sound like he enjoyed anything that was about to take place, though he spoke of it with the usual gusto and volume so that the weight of this gruesome moment didn't cease resonating with the audience.

A swarm of shuttlecocks washed over Cornab Thunderbone's body from behind, tiny metallic rods brushed against the very eyeballs of the conqueror and while they irritated the musclebound ogre, they only caused tears to form in his eyes and not a hint of injury. By the time that Cornab Thunderbone's sight returned to him, the athlete with the broken neck was washed away underwater into the artificially flooded lake.

Knowing how quickly a snapped neck can be fatal, the healers working in the Sun Disc jumped to their floats and went to work, sailing to where the battered and broken swimmer plunged and jumping into the water with no hesitation to pull her body from under the water. Without the proper control of her body, water would've easily leaked straight into her lungs, even further complicating the chances of survival for the young woman. However, her body was strong and tempered for combat, far beyond the peak of an ordinary human. If anyone could have survived these grievous injuries and salvaged some kind of life, it was someone like this remarkable athlete.

"You fucked up now!" Cornab Thunderbone turned around and brought his mace down, causing a second collection of ripples that threw the surrounding competitors around. With black eyes seeping with pure vitriol, Cornab scanned as far as his eye could reach, but he couldn't find the pathetic swarm-baller anywhere. What was more surprising–not even a single buzzing shuttlecock that usually revealed his location. "DAMN YOU! Show yourself! Show yourself right now! Don't you dare rob me of my strength and then hide like a mole! All of you, listen up! That which can withstand my mace deserves to add to it, bolstering its strength. If your skull can take the blow, it's mine! If your ribcage doesn't turn to powder under the weight of my swing, it's mine! That's how a truly strong weapon is built!"

Having completely lost any trace of sanity, Cornab Thunderbone roared with all the volume of his raspy voice, expelling a visible concussive shockwave in all directions that only aggravated the lashes of lightning raining down from the skies. Most of the raging battles all across the arena ceased because of the uncontrollable violence and leaking wrath that the enraged conqueror represented.

With a cocky smirk, Cornab brought his mace down, igniting a frontal cascade of thunderbolts that ravaged the ground on their way to the intended target in a straight line. A peeking little swarm of frightened shuttlecocks became encased with a tremendous field of static electricity that couldn't stop cascading from one shuttlecock to the other, electrifying the entire field and making it difficult to stay in their proximity.

With gnashed teeth and a determined look on his face, Rinden, the unlikely hero, rolled out from cover and twirled his empty net before him. By slamming its back end into the ground, Rinden grounded the incredible jolt pulsing from the field of shuttlecocks that followed him everywhere. So immense was the charge that it ravaged the tile set in fissures and cast bright flashes of light from within their depths. A stray jolt clocked Rinden in the chest and flung him back from the rod. Grunting and smoking from the burn on his chest, the swarm-baller rose in front of the looming, eight-meters-tall threat, swollen with muscles and ready to put the young man through ungodly displays of violence for robbing him of another layer of bone for his mace.

"You owe me a ribcage, short stuff!" Cornab hissed by turning his spiteful glare down, but never turning his head and humoring his hated enemy with a straight glare. To the Thunderbone, the Storm Bringer, this meek young man with flabby arms was just trash in his way to step on, not a proper opponent to challenge with an angry and determined stare. "Before I can determine if your ribcage fits, I'll need to put it through a stress test. You better get ready, runt!"

"Oh no! The tyrannical Cornab Thunderbone, the last conqueror still competing, has found Rinden the swarm-baller! If it wasn't my job to report all that's happening down in the arena, I'd look away!" the announcer lamented with a vastly overacted burst of emotions. "While young Rinden's record made a believer and a fan out of me, something makes me wonder if his outlandish luck hasn't run out yet?"