They were waiting and watching like vultures. The sight of blood would have driven them into a frenzy. Unfortunately, there was no blood.
Arthur killed all those 40 people in less than 30 seconds. The fight was easy. No one could withstand one attack from him. Actually, o one could see the attack we'll enough to react to it and resolve it.
He was too fast. He was also too strong. Even if someone blocked his attack with their sword or weapon, he would still crush the person by pressing their weapon onto them with brute force.
He only used his hands. But no one could tell for sure because he was a whirlwind. He was just too fast.
His hands tore his enemies apart. They were as fragile as paper to him. If not for their protection runes, there would be blood and corpses everywhere.
Most of his time was spent chasing the people in the group who wanted to run after witnessing his ferocity. The killing itself was too easy so it didn't take much time.
He chased down everyone and killed them. Not even the young master who far behind the group and was urging them from the safety of his meat shields survived.
In fact, the young master died first before the group of people he gathered was demolished. An arrow silenced him, so he couldn't urge the group anymore.
His group fell apart quickly in his absence. After all, if their employer is no longer in the test, they have nothing to die for. It was another reason why they decided to give up, but Arthur didn't spare them. He made sure to make them regret trying to kill him.
They saw that he did all of this without shedding any blood. In fact, they are not sure if he shed any sweat.
When the others saw how easy it was for him to kill 40 people, they didn't want to go forward anymore. They didn't want to waste their lives for nothing.
It is not that they think that Arthur will last forever. They are sure that he can't take them all on. The problem is that they don't know when Arthur will tire.
Arthur will surely tire. But before then, anyone that fights him will die. Only those who are still standing after he tires can reap any reward for their effort.
The rest of the young masters and their group want to be the last one standing after Arthur gets tired. That means they don't want to be the ones to tire him out and get killed for their effort.
It is true that they are willing to pay people to die for them. But not everyone values money over their performance on the test.
And the young masters themselves value their performance too much to risk being cannon fodder for others. This dynamic held them back.
The young masters and their groups had Arthur surrounded. Any sign of weakness and they would rush at him to devour him.
They were 15 young masters with a group of 300 people with them. They surrounded Arthur while the rest of the examinees were watching by the side.
Arthur himself was breathing in and out, trying to recover his strength. He was clearly weak. Yet, no one wanted to be the one to be sacrificed to make him weaker.
He glared at every one of them without fear. In fact, his glare was fierce, and his eyes were bright. He looked as if he was looking forward to the fight.
He even said, "What are you waiting for? Come and get it, you useless fucks."
But no one came forward no matter how much he urged them. They only watched him while waiting for someone to take the first step.
They might have rushed him with their group if Arthur didn't target the young masters first. They have seen the power of his bow many times, so they know that they won't survive if Arthur targets them.
If Arthur targets them and they die, it won't matter if their group of 300 manages to tire him out eventually. Everything would have been for naught, so they were hesitant to attack.
Someone did take the first step. But it wasn't to attack him.
The person opened their mouth and said loudly, "He is too strong, but we can take him if we work together. This is his weakest point. If we don't take him now, we will never be able to take him."
The person even turned to the bystanders and said, "He is a danger to us all. The only reason he hasn't attacked us is because we don't have enough points yet. He is waiting for us to become more rewarding. If we don't eliminate him now, he will eliminate us in the future."
After saying this, an arrow struck their head. They disappeared from the examination ground immediately.
Everyone turned to Arthur and saw him already putting another arrow in the bow and getting ready to shoot. This made everyone tense. They gripped their weapons and got ready for a fight.
But he didn't shoot. He said, "He is right. I am currently at my weakest. But he is wrong about me targeting you in the future."
"I haven't targeted you because I don't want all of you to turn against me. Even if I do target you later on, I will only take 30% of your points. You will have more points if I wait until the end of your 1-hour test period. So it will be better for you to fight me then and die than now when it is so early."
"Like I said, I won't target you, but even if I did, I can only target one or two of you at most. The rest of you can fight me together and eliminate me or give up then and keep all of your points. Either way, it is not worth it for me to turn against all of you for one or two people."