"NOOO!! They shouted in horror, anguish and disbelief.

I ignored them and continued to hunt.

The good thing about the initial phase of the Grand Melee was that the students who got into their mechas first weren't able to start them until the 30 minutes were up.

This was done to make sure that the students don't end up stomping on the other students, of course. It was the only way that the academy could implement the Grand Melee for first year students on their FIRST day.

However, a side effect of that arrangement was that many of the elites who had been sending their clan members to join the academy every single year knew exactly what would happen, and they had developed strategies to deal with it.

Strategies which I, coincidentally, had stumbled upon myself.

BAM! I casually punched one little boy's shoulder and stomped on his token which fell out of his hand when he fell.

BAM! CRUSH!

BAM! CRUSH!

BAM CRUSH!

I was merciless and I left a trail of crying kids behind me as I proceeded into the forest of mechas. Token after token were crushed beneath my heel and powerful hand.

Quite a number of kids had already boarded their mechas, but there were still many who were still running around. If I sprinted at top speed, I could probably take down another thirty or so before I ran out of kids to rob in my direction.

And by the time I turned around to chase other kids in a different direction, they would be too far away.

"Justin!" A cry of pain sounded from somewhere behind me.

"Tes!" I shouted in shock.

I whirled around and immediately sprinted towards her voice.

"For her to be in pain, she must be attacked by a group." I thought to myself. "There's no way that she would lose in a one on one fight against anybody!"

True enough, I immediately spotted her on the ground, grappling with a fat ten year old who was surprisingly quite good at fighting. Around them were three other boys, one facing in to provide support for the fat boy if he needed any, and two more facing out to dissuade others from joining in the fun.

"Trained kids. Must be from a big clan. Good, exactly the targets I need to eliminate first."

I reached them within seconds and launched a jab at blinding speed at the first kid's tummy.

BAM!

He crumpled and immediately vomited.

The second one could only stare at me in horror before my kick reached his tummy area and he too bended over and discharged his breakfast as well.

I ignored their tokens for the moment and quickly disabled the third kid before grabbing the fat boy's neck. I pulled him roughly backwards in a strong grip.

"HEY!" He shouted angrily. "LET ME GO!!"

"Let her go, or you'll be the first fatality of this event." I threatened him viciously and tightened my grip.

"Whaaa.." All the fight immediately left him as he felt my powerful hand clamping down on his fat neck.

Of course I wasn't going to commit murder on my first day of school.

But in the heat of the moment, and with such a chaotic atmosphere, the fat boy didn't know that and immediately turned limp in panic.

"Good. Now give me your token." I said in a soft voice.

"What? No.. I can't.." He whimpered pitifully.

"Then die!" I raised my voice slightly.

"WAIT! HERE! HERE! TAKE IT! DON'T KILL ME! WAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" The fat boy wailed like a baby as he grabbed his token from his inner pocket and threw it down on the ground.

Tes immediately got up from the ground and stomped on the token.

Crack!historical

"Good. Let's go! We can still catch several more before if we hurry." I told Tes as I flung the crying fat boy mercilessly to one side.

Tes was quite pale, but there was a resolute and determined look on her face.

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Thanks." She said quietly.

"Thank me later after we win this whole event." I said to her with a smile. "Let's go!"

We quickly crushed the other three tokens and resumed our hunt.

Twenty more kids lost their tokens to us before they all got too far for us.

Upon finding no more kids to chase down in front of us, we turned around to study the situation.

A truly heartbreaking scene greeted us.

At least a thousand kids were seated on the ground, just bawling their eyes out.

Barely ten minutes into the first phase of the Grand Melee, and already, twenty percent of the participants were disqualified.

Beside me, Tes gulped loudly. She was probably feeling slightly guilty. Afterall, she had contributed quite a few to the mass of crying kids.

"Ignore the crying ones. Pity for our enemies is cruelty to ourselves and our allies." I said softly to her.

"En." Tes immediately replied.

"Look for the ones still standing alert like us, they are probably the predators. If possible, we need to take a few of them down. They will become our strongest enemies once the mecha battles begin." I said as I searched our surroundings.

"There." Tes said and pointed to our right.

I glanced in the direction where she was pointing at, and true enough, there was a group of eight kids standing with at least ten kids around them, all of them either crying or moaning on the ground.

"Good eye." I praised her with a smile. "Support me from behind, alright? Let's go get them!"

I jogged towards them slowly with Tes following me just two steps behind.

One of the eight kids saw us and immediately alerted the rest of the group.

They smiled evilly at us and got into an impressive formation. Two of the biggest boys began to walk directly towards us while the remaining split into two groups of three and took flanking positions.

It would be an uneven fight, and the other group looked like they had no intention to pull their punches.

I was very glad to see it.

Because I sure as hell didn't intend to pull mine.