Three leaders were more than he could handle. It wasn't more than he expected, but it was more that he could take without some preparation. In order to get that amount of attention, he had to kill over one hundred foot-soldiers. That was the amount of them he thought he had killed.

  He didn't have time to go over that. He spent a few loops, just working through the numbers for that. Each time you encounter three, it was too many. But during that time, his skills increased as he got to the Adept level of thirty with Athletics, Unarmed Combat, and was getting close to it with Will and Soul Magic.

  This meant that he could use his cloud of shrapnel trick pretty well. He found himself on his fifteenth loop, heading up to see Mister Pigeon again.

  "So, that's it's the game plan. I know that we've talked about this before. It was a different loop, but this time I want to see if I can get them to stop at the beginning. That's right. I'm going to jump in, and I want to see if I can stop a hulking demon or at least stop one half of the group that's invading from actually invading. You see what happens as they come out of both sides of the gate, and the gate looks like an archway."

  Mister Pigeon cooed.

  "I know, I know, I don't know if demons have a choice, either, but that's the closest thing I could imagine to what they're actually using. So bear with me and my metaphors."

  He cleared his throat, and remembering that this time he had brought water, took a swig of his water skin. It tasted cool and refreshing. How many loops had it been since he had eaten? Clearly not enough.

  "This is delicious. I need to eat more and drink more in these loops. If you don't eat for long enough, you kind of forget what it tastes like, right? I almost forgot. Water tastes delicious when you haven't had anything to drink in a long time. I bet mead tastes even better now. Oh, man, I could even try to eat things that I wouldn't otherwise be able to eat, like honeybees!"

  Mister Pigeon gave him a glare.

  "Okay, maybe I'll keep to things that people normally eat. But with the loops? I can push my diet to the limit and not get fat. Not that I would be able to."

  That made him chuckle. Ludere imagined himself stuffing his face right before the demons landed, and then trying to fight them, all full of meats and cheeses. It would be an interesting time, to be sure. Not sticking around until he's hungry after a battle because he died was one of the things that he never really got to experience. He'd heard of battle hunger. In fact, he got very hungry after several of his fights, but in most of the cases one of the elite hulking demons had taken the opportunity to prematurely end his loops.

  "Maybe this time I should get, like, a full platter of meat. That should fill me up. I think I need to find some more rare skills and borrow those as well."

  There was one more match before the invasion would arrive. One more chance to rethink this. It would have to be quick.

  "You still think I should just try and take down the gate? I know that was your opinion in a previous loop, but here? I could see this being some things or a new quest. Slay the elite demons. Gain the skill levels I need to save the arena."

  Mister Pigeon was busy eating the handful of bird seed that Ludere had dropped upon his ascent.

  "It's the little things. You know, I'm never going to be recognized for this. Never, unless something happens… I don't know if I even want to be recognized."

  Mister Pigeon flapped his wings.

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  "No, obviously I should want to be recognized. But how would they? Oh no, here it comes."

  As the gate opened up, he took all of his training into a big jump from the top of the Arena, all the way down. This time, the hulking demons were not going to get him by surprise.

  He landed as the first hulking demon stepped through. His arrival kicked up a ton of sand.

  The elite demons held up a hand to the line of troops behind him. For the first time, he was able to see directly through to the other side of the gate. Inside the gate, the sky was bright red.

  The hulking demon bared his teeth.

  "Excuse me, sir, but I've been meaning to test my might against you. I think I'm ready." Ludere leveled his spear at the same time as he pushed a wave of shrapnel out.

  It wasn't full blast. He had just landed from a large jump as if it was just a tiny step, after all. The elite absorbed it all as if the sand meant nothing to him. Which for all Ludere knew, it didn't.

  He knew where the sand had hit and in the haze, he attempted to strike the elite with his spear. The classic move was to go for the throat. Pushing the spear felt nearly impossible, as if the elite was made of stone.

  Ludere grunted. For all the effort that he could expend, for all the strength he had gained, and for all the technique he could possibly muster, none of it was a match against what he was fighting. And that wasn't to say that he couldn't try harder. He certainly knew that there was more to go, but at an added level, he was pushing against something that was so much more difficult than he ever expected. Each level above was worth so much more than many other lower-leveled in the same skill. Because of how difficult it was to obtain skills, a warrior with forty levels in a skill was so much stronger than ten warriors with the same skill at ten.

  It was an old fact that this was the reason why so many people, who had preference in the long term, of being selected for more opportunities, because they had shown so much potential before that. Now the Empire wanted to invest in them more.

  It was the main reason why he'd been given the job at the arena. There had been some talk that some day, he would get a posting at a house doing numbers for them with the kind of skills that he was going to get after working at the arena for several years.

  He looked forward to the opportunity, but the person that hadn't looked for that opportunity had probably been staked through the heart too many times now to count. If he could survive this elite warrior, then he would consider it a success.

  But this?

  How could he even fight this? It felt insurmountable. The elite paused only for a moment, and then was upon him.

  "I said... Are you okay, Ludo?"

  Ludere shook his head. "Pardon. I was having a dream about fighting an elite demon. You wouldn't think they're so fast, because of how large they are. But they really are very fast. It's like they're not trying to follow the laws of reality."

  "Pardon?"

  "Fifteen Dinarii on the one guy you're thinking of?"

  The Prefereti's face went pale.

  "Come back and collect your winnings afterwards. Pleasure doing business with you."

  The man put his Dinarii down very quickly and moved even faster.

  Erebus instantly served up some side-eye.

  "Look, would you believe me if I said it was stuck in a time loop that ends in about an hour, where a demonic Invasion comes through?" Ludere crossed his arms.

  Erebus raised an eyebrow. "You've got this aura all of a sudden. Did something happen?"

  "Yeah. I died about 20 times."

  Ludere had decided to take it easy this round and get as much information as he could about how he could basically pass through a stone pillar. Eventually he would have enough willpower to break it, but for now, he could feel that he needed some sort of expert instruction. To his knowledge, he had surpassed the skill levels of Xerxei, the Medica trainer. That meant that he would need to seek someone else's help.

  "Maybe your best bet is to speak to the guy that gave you the power skill to begin with? He'll see your aura, and yeah, I shouldn't be able to see an aura…"

  "That might be right. It feels a bit like cheating."

  "Well if you're going to lose against the elite, anyway, and we can't get anyone of sufficient skill to take them down, what else would you do?"

  Ludere nodded. "You're absolutely right. Now, I would make some excuse personally, and leave here as fast as possible, and take Gia with you if you could. I still haven't figured out how to clear out the arena."

  Erebus waved him away. "If what you just told me is correct, Gia and I are going to go run away right away. I'll see what I can do about emergency clearing procedures."

  "Thanks. It's always good to talk to you. It sucks that I can't spend this time with you each loop and not immediately run out and then have to fight. At this rate, we're never going to win."

  Though it was not really believable that Erebus believed any of the words that he said, he kept walking towards the guards that he had talked to many times before.

  They would understand.