Chapter 601 Upgrades"Hey, what do you see? Tell me," Derel asked.

"Uh, okay," Ning said and brought back the screens. "Can you see anything?"

"No," Derel said with a confused look. What was she supposed to see?

"I can see all the different groups in front of me. Hmm… Become Visible!" Ning said with a loud voice.

He looked back. "Did it work?" he asked.

"No, I still can't see. Dammit, little worm. You should have given me the leader role. Here, let me take it," Derel moved her hand to touch the crown, but Ning caught it before that.

"I am already the leader. It was chosen amongst us. Please don't try to steal it," he said.

"Tsk, fine," she said.

"As you may see, there are many upgrades you can do in front of you," Genesis started speaking up in the air.

'Oh right, upgrades,' Ning thought and a panel opened in front of him.

The panel had two columns of information. One the left side, it said Tower. On the right side, it said Monster.

[Increase Tower Health Point: 5 Points (1000-1100)]

[Increase Turret Damage: 5 points (100-110)]

[Increase Turret Attack Rate: 5 points (1.0-1.1)]

[Increase Turret Attack Range: 50 points (50 to 60)]

[Add A Second Turret: 500 Points]

Those were the 5 options provided for turrets.

On the monster side, things were far simpler than Ning could have expected. There were only 2 options for monsters.

[Reduce Spawn Rate by 10 seconds: 10 points]

[Increase Monster Level: 20 points]

Ning looked at the monster half of the panel with a bit of confusion. He could understand why one would improve their turret, but what was the point of improving the monster? Did it give more points?

Even if he did get more points from that, what was the point? The objective of the competition was to last as long as they could. Making it harder on one self didn't seem like a smart plan to him.

"As you can see, you can improve your turret or make the monster stronger," Genesis said.

"Now, you might be wondering what the points are or how you could obtain them. Its easy."

"Kill the monster."

Ning nodded as that was expected.

"However, since this is a competition, its not that simple," Genesis said. "The points you will get will be from 2 to 20 depending on who kills the monster first," Genesis said.

"If you kill it first, you get 20 points. If you kill it last, you get 2 points. So, I suggest you kill it as quickly as you can," he said.

"The way to win the competition is after one of the group loses against a monster, that monster will go to the center of the circle where you all are in. Whoever kills that monster gets the gem that was on the leader's head."

"When all 5 of your teammates have a gem on their empty crown, you advance. No single person can wear 2 gems. If any of your teammate dies, you can still use their crown to place a gem on it. It's the crown that matters, not the participant," Genesis said.

"Now, that is all I shall tell you for now. For the rest, figure it out on your own," Genesis said. As he disappeared, a clock hung in the sky where he was previously.

No, more accurately, it was a timer.

Ning stared at the timer as it ticked down from 50.

"The round starts in 50 minutes," Ning said as he tried to use his Aether. "Still no powers. I guess we will get it after the match starts."

"Brother Ning, I hope you don't expect much from me," Drake said. "At least not for another good 6 hours."

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Ning looked at the sky and nodded. "I hope you can do well afterwards," he said.

"How is someone with a name like yours a coward?" Derel said.

"Huh?" Drake asked.

Issi simply shook his head and looked away, not trying to get into the business of it all.

"Right, what is it you can see and we can't?" Issi asked.

"Oh right, its like this," Ning said as he explained everything he could see and do on both sides of the panel.

"We get harder monsters to fight? Great," Derel said excitedly. Ning stared at her and was secretly relieved that he didn't let her be the leader of the group.

Who knew what sort of troubles she would bring by recklessly using the points.

"I think we should improve the tower as much as we can. If we can get a double turret, that would be amazing," Issi said.

"Little worms, You have me fighting for you. There is no need for the turrets," Derel said.

Ning was about to say something when he noticed Nova fidgeting rather badly while staring at the timer hanging in the sky.

Ning looked at the timer again and noticed that 10 minutes had already passed since he began explaining about what he could do and what they meant.

"What's wrong, Nova?" he asked her, making her jump a little in fright.

"I… I'm sorry, but I cannot be of help to you here," she said in a quivering voice.

Ning expected that. The girl had trauma the likes of which he hadn't see before. Just merely remembering what she had done was enough to send her mind crashing down.

"It's okay," Ning said. "We won't need you to fight until the very end."

"No," Nova said. "You don't understand. I can not fight or stay here. I can tell from the first round. I cannot do anything to the monster."

"And I can't control my powers either. If I stay here, they will affect you too," she said.

"I'm so sorry, but I will have to leave," she said and started walking away.

Issi stepped forward and blocked Nova's path. "I don't really mind you leaving, but I can't let you leave with that," he pointed to her head where a crown lay.

Chapter 602 Round 2 Begin"That crown is what will send us to the next round, so I cannot let you leave with that," Issi said.

Ning wanted to stop him from blocking her because he understood her problem a little, but Issi was right. If they let Nova leave right now, then there was a chance they wouldn't pass at all.

Ning didn't worry about dying, but rather about what would happen if he were to be killed. There was a reason the system had cautioned him after all.

"The-Then I won't go far away," Nova said. "But I do need to be away from here so that I don't ruin everything."

Ning thought for a moment and asked, "Do your powers work while you're asleep?"

Nova nodded.

"What exactly will they do?" Ning asked curiously.

"Only bad things," she said without missing a beat. "It always leads to people dying around me regardless of my wish."

"Seriously?" Issi asked as he took an unconscious step back.

"Ooh, quite the little worm we have here," Derel said. "Do you know how far your powers work?"

Nova shook her head. "It used to be a lot, but over the couple of years I lived alone, my powers seem to have faded. Now, I think…" she carelessly turned her head around and looked at the trees in the distance.

"That far," she said as she pointed to those trees. "It should be fine if I'm over those trees. Maybe a little more just to be safe," she said.

Ning thought for a moment and said, "Alright, go into the forest and wait for my signal. If any one of the 9 groups loses, I will give you a signal, in which case you can come running to the center of the group where we can get a gem for you."

Nova thought for a bit and shook her head. "There will be many that will vie for the gem, I-I don't want to kill more people," Nova said.

"Tsk! This little worm is a mess," Derel said with a hint of dissatisfaction on her face.

"Let her be, leader. She can come towards the end after we all have a gem," he said.

Ning sighed. That was his only choice. "Alright, you can go," Ning said. "Be sure to come when I call for you."

"I will," Nova said and ran away.

Ning remained standing, not sure what else to do now. He turned around and asked, "I don't suppose you can tell me what your powers are?"

"Don't bother asking me, leader," Drake said from the side. "If I'm not fighting a human, the most you can expect from me is superior strength and regeneration," Drake said.

"Well, that should be somewhat helpful," Ning said, half-believing his own words. He then turned to Issi and asked, "can you do anything else from what you showed me?"

Issi thought for a moment and said, "Yes, but it will be a last resort type of thing."

"And you?" he turned to Derel.

"Fire," she said simply. "I can use fire."

"Only fire?" Ning asked a little disappointment.

"Lightning too, but mostly just fire," she replied.

"Okay, I guess," Ning said.

"What about you?" Derel asked Ning.

"I have way too many little ones to explain," Ning said. "You will see after I fight."

"Ooh, keeping secrets huh?" Derel said with a sly smile.

As they all waited, time slowly passed by. Ning's full focus remained on the two panels in front of him.

He kept looking through all the different groups to see how bad their competition was.

When the timer hit 5 minutes they all finally got ready as it was about to start.

In fact, Genesis himself came back during the final minute and count down the last few seconds aloud.

"3… 2… 1… Begin!"

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As all 49 different people waited with bated breath, light flashed about 100 meters in the direction where Genesis stood.

Far in the distance, Ning saw something appear. He had been expecting a giant beast or some hideous monster.

However, when the first thing that appeared was a small, seemingly harmless rabbit, he had to stop and analyze the situation.

'Is that the monster? Or are we bring tricked?' he thought. He expected the first few rounds to be easy given how there was an element of progression. But not this easy.

Just as he thought that something bright red flew past his face, leaving a hot air trail behind him.

When he came out of his daze, he saw the rabbit in distance explode into meaty chunks and a 'Defeated!' word hung in the air.

Next to that word, something else came up.

14 points.

"Stop dazing around, our lives depends on this," Derel said from the side as she put down her hand that had just thrown the fireball.

"Right, sorry," Ning said. The cute little rabbit really had caught him off guard.

He looked back at the 14 points that now also showed up on the Upgrades panel.

'We barely wasted any time and still, we were the 4th group to kill it, huh?' he thought to himself.

He looked at the screens of the other groups and saw that everyone had finished fighting. Now, they would have to wait half an hour for the other monster to arrive.

In the meantime, Ning looked back at the upgrades and asked, "Should we upgrade the tower or the turrets?"

"What's the point?" Derel asked. "We can kill the monsters before they even reach here."

"That's true," Ning said, "but what else are we going to spend it on then? Certainly, we don't want to make it difficult for ourselves by increasing the monster's level right?"

"Who knows?" Derel said. "We might get so bored that we will have to do just that."

"What about the spawn time?" Drake asked from the side. "Wouldn't making it spawn faster give us more points in general?"

"Hmm… that's not a bad idea," Ning said out loud before realizing the problem with that idea.

"Wait… that shouldn't work at all. Did Genesis screw up?"

Chapter 603 Monster Upgrades"That makes no sense," Ning cried out.

"What doesn't?" Issi asked with a confused expression.

"The monster upgrades. I had only been thinking about the monster level previous because that took my eyes, but I should have been looking at the spawn interval instead," Ning said.

"I don't get what you're trying to get at, leader," Drake said.

Ning turned towards him and asked, "How do we get points?"

"Uh… by killing the monsters?" Drake asked with a confused look.

"And what determines how many points we get?" he asked.

"By who finishes first. Where are you getting at?" Drake asked impatiently.

"If the monster spawn interval could be abused to improve the speed at which the monsters spawned. Then the top 5 people from the very start of the match would have a constant way to keep earning the points to increase their own points," Ning said.

"That sort of unfairness is not something I would expect out of genesis," Ning said.

"What do you think will happen then?" Derel asked.

Ning thought for a moment and said, "I have an idea. We will need to experiment with that though. We will need to kill the next beast within the top 3."

"Okay, leave that to me," Derel said and walked away from her spot.

"Where are you going?" Ning asked.

"Isn't it better to go sit right by where the beast spawns to kill it fast?" she asked.

"Yes," Ning nodded. "But we have some time. Look."

He pointed at the clock that hung in the sky. They now had about 25 minutes remaining. Ning opened up the upgrades and pressed on the [Reduce Monster Rate] option, immediately spending 10 of the 14 points he had.

Then, he waited. As the timer slowly wound down, he saw that people had noticed what his team had done and sent their own fighters next to where the monster appeared to fight it.

Ning watched the timer high in the sky, not removing his eyes from it even as it got down to the last 5 seconds.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

He heard a bang in the distance, but his eyes didn't move from the timer. As soon as the timer had reached 0, it immediately restarted.

Only, this time instead of starting at 30:00, which was the time remaining before the next monster spawned. The timer actually started at 29:30.

Ning's suspicions came true.

"I was right," he said solemnly, but loud enough that the returning Derel could hear him.

"What were you right about?" Issi asked curiously.

"The Tower upgrades, it most definitely improves this tower behind us and only this," Ning said. "But the monster upgrades seem to work for every single monster that spawns for every group."

"Oh," Derel gave a surprised look too. "So you mean to say that if you press that monster improvement button, it will bring out a stronger monster just for us, but all the others as well?"

"Yes, that is what I suspect," Ning said. "The spawn rate already works like that, I don't see what the level shouldn't."

"That means you can either make the game easy for yourselves by improving the tower, or make it hard for others by improving the monster," Drake said.

"Yes," Ning said. "If we're confident that we can beat every monster that comes our way, going for the monster upgrades is the way to go."

"But if only we go for monsters and other end up strengthening their own towers, we might end up regretting it," Ning said.

"What should we do then?" Drake asked.

"I… I can't tell which is better," Issi said.

Ning found benefits in both of those choices, but there were also drawbacks. 'I should be one of the strongest person here, but I can't discount the fact that there might be someone stronger than me too,' he thought.

Derel looked at the 3 with a slightly confused look. "What's the problem then?" she asked. "Can you little worms not come up with such an obvious answer that you need me to give it to you?"

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"Oh? You have a suggestion?" Ning asked.

"Of course, the answer is obvious," the dark-skinned girl said. "You hoard the points."

"It's fair and simple right?" she asked. "You just keep your points until you really need it. If the monsters get hard, you invest everything into the tower."

"If others start suffering from the monsters, you add a bunch of levels to just get rid of them at once. There is nothing that says you should be using your points at all here," she explained.

"Right," Ning said with a surprised expression. "I can't believe I didn't see the third option."

"It's no matter. I'm used to hoarding stuff, so it comes easily to me," she said.

Ning nodded and looked back at the upgrades. The cost of reducing spawn rate of monsters had jumped to 15 now. That was probably to stop them all from reducing it to nothing very quickly.

Ning looked at the top and saw the number 22. "We were second this time?" he asked.

"Yes," Derel said with a frown. "Someone was faster than me."

"It's understandable, I guess," Ning said. "They were all waiting for the monsters to spawn. Just the fact that we got second place is good enough."

Derel nodded, but she still couldn't keep the disappointment away from her face when she remembered the 18 points that floated afterwards.

"Right, I didn't watch you kill the monster. Was it a rabbit again?" he asked.

"Yes, the same as the first time," Derel said.

"Hmm… so no one must have improved the monsters," Ning said with some thought.

"Alright, since we are going to horde points, we are going to do it the best way possible," Ning said.

"We will try to get every single 20 points we can," Ning said.

Derel and Issi nodded, while Drake gave a slight chuckle. He was no longer 'dying', but he still looked dead.

'I can wait until the sun goes down to see how he is,' Ning thought.

Then, he turned and focused back on the time that said there was about 25 more minutes to go.

Chapter 604 1 Day LaterIt had been half a day since the battle began. As evening came around, Drake apparently got his vigor back.

However, the monster was too weak to require his help. A simple stomp from either Ning or Derel is enough to do the job for now.

As the timer ticked down to 0, something white appeared underneath them. It was an armadillo or at least a monster than looked like it. It was still in the realm of cute, but not as cute as the rabbit.

So, without hesitation, Ning brought up his legs and slammed them onto the beast. The armor of the beast did nothing to protect it against Ning's strength.

As such, the shell cracked and the beast was smushed. However, before Ning could see any gore, the beast turned into a bunch of white light and disappeared.

Next to his foot floated two sets of words. 'Defeated' and '18 Points'. He was fast, but not fast enough.

"Someone still beat you huh? Maybe I should do it next," Derel said with a smug smile. She had been the only one here that had managed to get 20 points out of all of them.

Ning wondered if he should just bring out his spear and attack.

He started up at the clock and saw the timer at '26:11'.

It had gone down an entire 3 and a half minutes. That was on average two spawn timer changes amongst the lot of them.

Someone had also improved upon the monster's level. Twice at that too.

It had changed from a rabbit to a spider, to an armadillo type of monster.

Ning opened up the upgrades and stared at the monster side of things.

[Reduce Spawn Rate by 10 seconds: 20 Points]

[Increase Monster Level: 20 points]

He looked at the total points and saw that they had 198 points to work with. That felt like a good number, but he still wanted more.

Ning sat back down on the grass, a little bored from the competition. It wasn't just his thought as even the rest of the group showed signs of boredom.

After the first round of competition, where they had to go through intense fights amongst themselves to prove that they were worthy of the system, they had expected a bit more of the 2nd round.

Even if not more difficult, they expected it to be of about the same difficulty. But this had been way too easy. Not to mention only one person even got to do anything, to begin with.

"Do you think there's a reason why the time between the monsters appearing was kept to such a large gap?" Drake asked while thinking of something to himself.

"They're trying to mess with us is what it is," Issi said from the side. "Look at the price between spawn rate and monster level. They want us to willy-nilly spend all our points on spawn rate, then when the monster level had to inevitably increase we will be in trouble as way too many strong monsters will spawn way too fast."

Ning thought at that point. "That sounds about right," Ning said. "And our boredom doesn't help either. I'm sure by noon tomorrow, we will be spending our points like we're buying lives to get more monsters to fight with."

"That sounds fun though," Derel said from the side.

Drake kept a thoughtful look to himself. Somehow, even in the darkness, his pale face didn't seem to hold any blood.

'He should be feeling better now that the air has chilled a bit after nightfall right?' Ning thought to himself.

"Are you hungry?" Ning asked him.

"Haha," Drake gave a slight chuckle. "I'm most definitely hungry. But don't mind me, you don't have what I want."

Ning turned around and asked, "do you guys want something to eat?"

"Uh… sure," Issi said.

"Ooh, do you have some meat?" Derel asked excitedly.

"Uh… let me check," Ning said as he closed his eyes and looked into his storage. He did in fact have some food from when he was back in Vilmore.

He brought them out and handed them to the two of them. Derel gave a sigh for some reason before eating the meat she was handed.

Ning ate some too.

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Soon, they continued with their task of killing a poor little animal before it even gets to see where it had arrived.

Before any of them knew it, the sun rose up on the horizon.

"Well, I'm going back to the shade. Have fun," Drake said as left back to the tower.

None of them said anything at all and instead just focused on the monsters that would spawn anytime now.

Over the night, the monster had been upgraded twice over again, and the spawn rate was now down to 24 minutes.

The thing that appeared now was a skeleton with a bone sword that took a single slash from Ning or the others to destroy it in one attack.

"It should be able to last more than a second in a couple of upgrades," Issi said from the side.

"Finally, things will be more interesting," Derel said.

Ning looked at his nearly 600 points and asked, "Should I spend 20 points on improving this monster then?"

"No, hoard it more," Derel shouted from the side.

"We have enough to buy another turret right?" Issi asked. "Should we perhaps…?"

"No!" Derel shouted. "No spending. Hoard it."

Ning chuckled a little. "Yeah, I think we should do what she says."

"Yes, little worm," Derel said from the side. Ning shook his head and waited for more of the time to pass.

As they fought the monsters once again, slowly the day came to become noon and exactly 1 day had passed.

At the exact same time, Genesis appeared in the sky and looked down below to the 10 different openings in the forest below, and shouted, "Great job, all of you. It's great that you lasted so long."

"However, I can see that you are all very bored, so why don't we make it a little interesting, eh?"

Chapter 605 It's GoneNing looked at the sky, wondering how Genesis was possibly going to change the competition now.

He would most definitely welcome some change because of how boring his last day had been, but he also didn't want a big enough change that the entire competition on its head.

As he waited for Genesis to speak, after a long wait he finally spoke.

"Have fun." Then, he disappeared.

Ning and the rest looked with nothing but confusion at the place where Genesis stood.

"Did he say something that I missed?" Issi asked from the side, not sure if that was really it.

"I don't think he said anything at all. Maybe it was special info directly to the leader?" She said as she turned around. "Little worm, did he say anything to you."

Ning shook his head. "Nothing. I don't even know if he did anything to the competition," he said.

"Leader, you should quickly check on the system," Drake said from the side. He had come closer after Genesis had appeared.

"Right," Ning said and opened both the visuals on the other 9 groups, as well as upgrades.

However, there had been no changes to either of them. He could see the confused look on the faces of the others on the screen in front of him.

Then he noticed someone on the screen looking at him directly. No, she wasn't looking at him, but rather towards the location where his vision was taken from.

The place where Genesis stood.

Ning looked up as well and saw the empty space where Genesis had been at just a moment before.

Empty.

His eyes suddenly went wide in shock.

"It's gone!" he shouted, catching the attention of everyone around him.

"Huh?" Issi gave a confused look.

"What's gone, leader?" Drake asked with his hooded face.

Before Derel could ask a variation of the same question, he pointed towards the sky to show them.

As they turned, they saw nothing in the sky as well, and just as Ning's had, their eyes went wide as well.

"Where's the timer?" Issi suddenly shouted.

"It's gone," Drake said with his pale face that made him look like he was scared.

"So when is the monster spawning next?" Derel asked with her dark face looking even darker.

"We don't know," Ning said thoughtfully. "We will have to stay alert every minute now."

"Goddamn, he did make it interesting, and difficult as well," Issi said.

"Yes," Ning nodded. Now there wouldn't be as much boredom as they would have to wait attentively for the monster to appear.

"The pressure on us is going to increase now tho," Drake said from the side.

"It will indeed," Ning said.

Ning knew that there was about 23 minutes from when the skeleton appeared before another beast appeared. So, at the very least they still had 20 minutes to spare.

However, he wouldn't know how short the next one would be. Or after that one.

Since the spawn rate reduction wouldn't reflect on anything, they would be on their toes at all moments as the timer got closer and closer.

As they waited, Ning noticed that it was about time for the monster to arrive and they got ready.

They prepared themselves very well, so when the monster inevitably appeared, Ning immediately skewered it through the head with its spear.

The monster immediately turned into white light and disappeared, leaving behind a 'Defeated' and '20 points'.

"Ooh! not bad, little worm," Derel said.

Ning wasted no time and immediately brought out a clock he had in his storage from back when he was in Vilmore and started checking the time.

The hands of the clock said that it was 23 minutes past 16 O'clock. It was not a clock suitable for this world, but that would have to do.

"Leader, did you notice?" Drake asked from the side.

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"Hmm?" Ning turned towards him. "Notice what?"

"That was not the same monster as before," Drake said. "It was a snake."

Ning nodded. He had noticed that but didn't say anything as he had been expecting it.

"Someone must have upgraded the monster to take advantage of the situation," he said.

Ning watched the time while he handed over the job of killing the monster to Derel and Issi.

As the clock slowly reached 16:44, Ning heard a boom and looked up just in time to see the fading '16 points'.

'21 minutes,' he thought to himself. 'it's getting lower.'

He wondered if he should take advantage of the situation and decrease the duration even more so, but he shook his head.

As Derel said, collecting the points was the best option for them all.

"This is not working," Issi said from the side as they waited for the next monster to appear.

"What isn't?" Drake asked him.

"This! We!" Issi gestured to all of them. "Us all waiting around together for one puny monster to appear. It's not working."

"We need to relax a little or we will be mentally fatigued to the point where we won't be able to do anything," he said.

They thought for a moment and nodded. "You're right. We should do it turn by turn," Ning said.

"I will do this one," Drake said. "If they improve the monster even more, later on, I won't be able to beat them fast enough to gain enough points."

"Okay," Ning nodded and laid down on the ground, completely throwing the thought of when the monster will appear next as that was Drake's problem now.

When the monster arrived, Drake managed to kill it fast enough to be in the top 3 and Issi took his place.

Then Ning, then Derel. They kept passing around the duty of killing the monster to one person, while the others rested on the side without a care in the world.

Doing as such, the day quickly turned to night, which then turned to morning.

Finally, once the morning turned to noon, Genesis appeared once more in the sky.

Chapter 606 More Interesting"Oh, he's here again," Issi said as he stared up to the sky, his long blue hair flowing in the wind as if it were underwater.

"What is he going to do this time around?" Derel couldn't help but frown.

The removal of the timer had put them on their toes and had made the competition interesting for maybe just the first 2 monsters.

The remainder of the time they had waited for the monsters had instead just become annoying.

"Something tells me it's about to get even more annoying," Drake said from the side.

Before Ning could say anything, Genesis started speaking aloud.

"Hey Everyone! How is it going? Are you having fun?" Genesis said with audible glee in his voice. "Was my little gift interesting enough for you?"

"Well—" Genesis stopped halfway through and instead said, "WHAT?!" in the most offended tone Ning had ever seen anyone speak in.

"You did not just say that little miss," Genesis spoke keeping his offended voice. "My changes are not troublesome. They are interesting, just how I want them to be."

"In fact, I am going to add to this and make it all the more interesting."

"So… have fun."

Genesis disappeared again.

"What did he do this time?" Drake couldn't help but ask.

"I'm afraid we won't find out until the monster spawns again," Issi said.

"He must have increased the difficulty again. Be careful," Ning said. "We might not face a snake this time around."

Everyone nodded.

None of them knew how long it was before the monster would spawn, or what monster it would even be.

As they waited, they started getting increasingly nervous. What could have possibly changed?

The time neared the spawn point of the monsters and all 4 pairs of eyes were focused on the spot in front of them.

Then, they heard a 'BOOM!' sound from somewhere around them. Ning didn't want to look away, but he had to. As he turned around, he managed to see the vanishing words '4 points.'

"What?!" he cried out loud and suddenly ran towards the spot nearly 150 meters away from them.

Ning looked up to the tower and saw the turret move back to its place. It had attacked just now.

"It's over! The monster is dead," Ning shouted back to their group.

"Huh?" Derel asked. "Where?"

"Right there, the tower shot it," he said. "Dammit! We only got 4 points."

"Did… did the monster spawn somewhere else?" Drake asked.

"I'm afraid so," Ning said.

"Dammit! Now we not only won't know the time of the spawn but also the location?" he shouted.

"I'm afraid that might be the change he did this time around," Ning said. "Shit! He just made this even more annoying."

"Do we take advantage of it and spend our points on the monsters?" Issi asked.

"No! Hoard!" Derel shouted from the side. "You little worms don't know how to sit on your fortune. This little farce is nothing. We will fight the monsters easily."

"After all, it's not just us that are going through the same thing," Derel said.

Ning nodded. "Let's prepare for the next ones coming from random directions then," he said.

Drake went 100 meters to the east. The rest stayed right at the edge of where the turret would attack the monsters.

Ning went to the west with his spear in hand and waited for the monsters to come.

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Issi went to the north and Derel to the south.

As they waited, the next monster that popped up was a Deer-like monster with black skin and purple lines throughout its body.

It appeared somewhere between Drake and Issi, so Issi sent out a slash of water and destroyed the beast in a single attack.

Once they saw '16 points' floating in the air, they sighed in relief. That was quite fast.

They rested for the next 20 minutes and only got serious around the last few minutes. As Ning waited, a monster appeared, the same Deer about 20 degrees to his left.

Without hesitation, he threw out his spear as if it were a javelin and destroyed the Aether Beast's head in a single strike.

The strike was so fast that Ning himself couldn't believe that he had responded so quickly.

Still, he only got 18 points. Even such speed wasn't able to compare with one of the groups.

He wished he could know which group it was that did it, but when the monster appeared, his focus needed to be on it, rather than the group.

A few hours went by as such. By now, the monsters were coming 3 times in a single hour, as opposed to 2 just a day ago.

Fortunately, Ning and his group were able to earn on average 50 points per hour.

As the day slowly passed by, Ning was feeling the mental strain of the nearly 2 and a half days' worth of competition.

He created a block of ice on his hand and placed it on his forehead to cool himself off a little. Even then, he kept his focus in front of him at all times.

The small robot with blasters, or whatever upgraded monster that might come from ahead of him, he was ready for it at all times.

Suddenly, he heard a whistling sound coming from somewhere around him. Before he could even wonder what it was, he sensed danger and immediately ducked.

However, he wasn't fast enough. A bloody chunk of his ear was split open and he could sense fresh blood slowly start to flow.

It didn't hurt him physically, but he still frowned at the fact that he had been caught off guard. He immediately caught his ear and hid it as it began to heal.

At the same time, he couldn't help but think of just how strong whatever that was had been. If it were strong enough to rip away his ear, then most definitely it would be able to pierce through his skull.

This was, without a shred of a doubt, a murder attempt.

Chapter 607 2 PointsNing turned to look at the ground where a small hole was burst open by something striking. When Ning checked it, he found a solid stone arrow as if it were made from a single rock.

"What's wrong?" Issi ran towards him after hearing the little sound and explosion.

Ning immediately turned to look in the direction of where the attack had come from. However, he couldn't see much through the thicket of the forest.

So, he immediately used his heat vision and saw a warm, orange-yellow silhouette slowly backing off from the forest.

Without hesitation, he pulled back his spear as far as he could and immediately launched it in the direction of the fleeing person.

However, just when it was about to hit the person, Ning saw them suddenly speed up and sprint away from where the spear landed.

"Tsk!" Ning clicked his tongue with annoyance.

"What was that?" Issi asked.

"Someone tried to kill me," Ning said as he let go of his ear to show that it had been perfectly healed.

"There was someone in the trees?" Issi asked him seriously.

"Yes," Ning said.

"Who was it?" Issi asked.

"I don't know. Let me check," He said and opened the screen to see the various different groups all doing their own thing.

The first screen had all of its participants, and so did the second one. And the third. And the fourth.

The fifth one however was missing a person. He quickly looked through the rest of the group and saw that no one else had people missing except for the fifth and their own.

"Here," Ning said. "There is a—"

Before he could speak completely, he heard a shout come from behind him.

"YOU IDIOTS!"

The voice stopped Ning's thought process, prompting him to turn around and see what was happening.

Just as he did, he saw something bright fly past him to the front and land on something.

Ning's head which was turning towards Derel stopped mid-way through and turned to look at where she had thrown the fireball at.

When he looked at the location, he could only see a small smoldering fire on the ground, and two words floating on top of it.

2 Points.

"You Idiots!" she said again. "What are you doing getting distracted? Aren't you supposed to be attacking the monster that comes to your side?"

"Shit!" Ning cried out. "Sorry, my mind was elsewhere."

"I can see that," Derel said as she walked toward them. "What even happened? I heard some sort of noise."

"I was attacked by someone," Ning replied. "From the 5th group from what I can see."

"And? Did you kill them?" she asked.

Ning shook his head. "Escaped before I could follow. I guess I was subconsciously staying back for the monster," he said.

"And yet you didn't attack it," Derel said. "Don't lose focus, little worm."

Ning gave a guilty look and then anger flared in his eyes as he remembered the person who ran away.

He opened a portal and put his hands through it before pulling out his spear from the distance.

"Were you attacked, leader?" Drake came asking too.

"Yes, by a bastard from the 5th group," Ning said.

"5th group… what group are we?" Issi asked.

"Well, from the screens we are 10th," Ning said as he looked back into the 5 horizontal and 2 vertical screens visible on his panel.

"Isn't the 5th group supposed to be far then? Why are they attacking us?" Issi asked. "I would assume the 10 groups to be in a circle, and if we are the 10th group, your adjacent groups would be the 9th and the first."

"How did the 5th group manage to come all the way here?" Issi asked.

"Flight? Teleportation? There are many ways little worm," Derel said.

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"No," Ning said after some thought. "The groups have no number. That's something I gave them based on their position on the screen in front of me."

"Then?" Drake asked.

"Then, if we are in fact in a circle, then this 5 by 2 grid is representing the circle. Like someone pinched two opposite ends of a circle and pulled it apart until the lines were parallel."

"If that was the case then… the 5th group would be our adjacent, along with the 9th. The 1st would be the exact opposite from us," Ning said.

"So they came from next to us to kill you, what of it?" Derel asked.

Ning thought for a moment and asked, "What would happen if I were to die there?"

"Hmm… well if what Genesis said is true, then you dying won't affect us at all," Issi said. "Your crown would still be usable, but I guess that's not really important as your crown already has a gem."

"Where would the crown be if I died?" he asked solemnly.

"Right where you died?" Derel questioned.

Ning nodded. "Most likely. And what if that person had gotten the crown before any of you noticed it?"

The group's eyes went serious as well. "We would have been in big trouble," Derel said as fury flared in her yellow eyes. "That little worm…"

Ning thought he saw smoke coming out of her mouth.

"Worst case scenario for them, they manage to get us to miss the monster's spawn timing," Ning said. "Best case scenario… our group might have just lost right there."

"Worst case scenario for them is that they would have died," Derel said.

Ning didn't argue.

Drake gave a thoughtful look and said, "I had this thought before too," he said. "So let me ask you the same question again, leader."

"Where is there such a large gap between each of the monsters spawning?" Drake asked. "In fact, why are the monsters so weak to begin with?"

Ning sighed. "You're saying this is just a group battle disguised as a monster defense competition," Ning said.

Drake nodded. "So I would like to request you of something, leader," he said as he stared at the evening sky.

"What?" Ning asked.

"Let me go in retaliation."

Chapter 608 Like Drunken SailorsNight had fallen and Drake was gone. With Nova still sitting in the forest opposite where the monsters used to come from.

So, their group only had 3 people left who could fight right now.

"Do you think it was a good idea to let him go?" Issi asked. "What if he's killed and we lose his crown?"

"It's fine," Ning said. "He looked confident and most likely has some tricks up his sleeve. Besides, if he does die, all I have to do is go to where he died and get back the crown."

"You make it sound so simple," Issi said.

"It is simple, little worm," Derel said from the side. "Now, get back to position and keep your eyes wide for any attacks."

Ning moved 100 meters away from the tower in the direction Nova was at. He had spent an entire night with Nova, and while nothing bad had happened to him, he didn't want the other two to accidentally get too close to her and die.

He activated his heat vision and looked into the forest to see any hints of heat from it. At the same time, he didn't let his attention divert from what he really needed to do.

Get points.

After checking the grid, he saw that no one was missing from any of the groups. However, that didn't mean they couldn't send remote attacks.

So, he never lowered his guard at all.

The next monster to appear was a group of massive hornets, consisting of about 40 hornets in total, each the size of a cat.

Fortunately, Ning didn't have to do anything as the monster appeared next to Derel, who simply created a massive fire and instantly burned all 40 of the hornets.

Ning smiled when he saw the 20 points float in the air.

He checked his grid again and saw that there were quite a few groups that were still fighting the many hornets.

When his eyes fell on the 5th group, he saw that they were the most troubled of all.

"Hah! That must be Drake's doing," he thought to himself and sat back on his spot as the next monster attack would come 20 or so minutes later.

In the meantime, Ning took out a bit of Aether from his storage and drank it. He slowly absorbed it, being careful not to absorb anything else from the surrounding.

In fact, he was so cautious, that after realizing what the system wanted him to do, he hadn't even breathed the open air, and instead stuck to the breathing technique he had bought from the system to breathe while in outer space.

If not for that, he still had Aether to create air directly into his lungs.

Once he was done absorbing the Aether, he got ready to fight again.

This time, the group of hornets appeared next to him. So, using his Spear domain, he cut through every single hornet at once.

Although it took him longer than it did for Derel to defeat the hornets, he still managed to get 18 points for himself.

With a smiling face, he opened the upgrade list and saw the total points he had gathered in the last 55 or so hours.

950 points.

If the numbers did go up by 5 points for every time he reduced the spawn time by 10 seconds, with his points, he could directly drop the spawn time by 3 minutes.

That would be enough to catch everyone off guard.

But, as Derel said, hoarding the points for when you did need them was perhaps the best option out there.

After thinking about that, he checked the screens again and saw that the 5th group was still struggling to fight with hornets.

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He watched the leader, a woman with braided pink hair, struggle to use her technique as she swayed like a drunken sailor.

Not just her, the other 4 also swayed a little.

Ning saw one of the men pick up a stone and somehow forge it into an arrow that he then nocked into a metal bow and shot at one of the hornets, but he missed.

"Haha, what is Drake doing to them?" he said softly as he chuckled. "Is he mixing alcohol into their food and drinks or what?"

Ning envisioned a scene where Drake sneakily walked next to the leader and just as the leader was about to eat something, he put a few drops of very strong alcohol into his food before walking away.

Ning knew that was likely not the case, but he found it funny to think about.

It wasn't just him who saw that of course. All the different leaders from the other groups could see the embarrassing performance of the 5th group.

Ning could see each one staring into empty space with a smile on their face. He shook his head and closed the grid before looking upfront and becoming careful of his surrounding.

Momentary fun was good, but he couldn't get lost in it. Ning brought back his focus to the area and got ready for the next monster that appeared.

As they waited for it, time slowly passed. Then, in front of Issi appeared a big monster at least twice his size.

The monster was a spider with sharp knives for legs. The moment it appeared, it sent out a massive white liquid that semi-solidified to become its webs when it came into contact with the air.

Issi could barely manage to send out a slash of water, and while it did clear the webs from in front of him, the spider managed to appear right next to him and slashed its legs at him.

At the same time, Ning and Derel appeared next to him.

Derel sent out a fire blast onto the spider's face, while Ning cut off all of its legs. Then, for the final attack, Issi jumped forward and sent down a massive water slash and cut the spider in half.

The 3 of them only relaxed when they saw the words '16 points' float in the air.

Chapter 609 The Archer"What the hell was that?" Issi cried out.

"That was way too strong and fast to be on the same level of monsters we were fighting until now," Derel said with a thoughtful expression.

"Multiple groups must have increased the difficulty regardless of the others," Ning said with a thoughtful expression.

"Why would they do that? All at once too," Issi asked. He was angry that because of him, they nearly lost a lot of points. Had it not been the other two swiftly arriving to help, they would have been around the bottom of the groups.

"Drake is causing problems in group 5," Ning said. "So, they aren't able to fight against the monsters. They were even having problems with the hornets before this."

"Oh, and everyone saw it then," Derel said. "No wonder the monster's level increased."

"How's their situation now?" Issi asked.

Ning opened up the screen and checked.

"They're struggling. Quite a lot," Ning said. "They are using the turret to support themselves."

"Good. Serves them right for trying to make us lose," Derel said with a snort.

"Do they look like they'll lose?" Issi asked.

"Uh… no, the turret is very strong it seems. They must have put all their points on it," Ning said.

"Tsk. I wish they would just die. Maybe I should go and kill them myself," Derel said with a snarl.

"Let's focus on our own battles for now," Ning said and everyone went back to take their place.

Over the next couple of monsters, the situation over at the 5th group got so bad that the members were forced to take cover in the tower and wait for the tower to destroy the monster that spawned.

Seeing this, the other groups started investing their points in the monsters and made them even stronger.

Now, it was a fully armored Death knight in a skeletal horse that spawned.

It was so strong that it could survive Ning's normal attacks without a sweat. Ning had to use his Aether to strengthen himself to kill this monster.

The monster had gotten so strong that none of the others dared make it even stronger for fear of creating problems for themselves.

Still, the Death knight was enough to cause trouble for Group 5. Every time it spawned, it would gallop until it was close to 10 meters away from the tower.

If any of the other groups were to improve the monsters, group 5 would not be able to handle it at all.

Ever since walking into the tower's range, the members of group 5 had finally started getting better.

The leader of the group, the girl with braided, pink hair sighed in relief when the Death Knight appeared in the distance.

As it walked towards them, the guy with a stone in his arm, and stone covering his entire body slowly morphed the stone in his hand into an arrow and propped his metal bow.

He nocked the stone arrow onto his bow and pulled it as hard as he could before letting it loose.

The arrow made a whistling sound through the air as it landed directly onto the Death knight's skull with a resounding boom.

It staggered a bit before continuing its gallop towards them.

He looked at the others 3 who were too weak to fight back properly and nocked another arrow before attacking the Death Knight.

Once the monster got too close to the tower, the tower started shooting its own attack, which the monster survived for a while.

Only after it was nearly 30 meters away from the tower did it finally die.

All 5 of them sighed in relief when they saw that. However, they started fearing what the monster to spawn next would be.

"Goddammit!" the pink-haired leader cried out. "It's all because of that group we attacked. One of their members must have used some sort of technique on us to make us so fatigued."

"What do we do?" the archer asked.

"I want to kill them," she shouted.

"Should I go and attack them?" the archer asked.

"Will you make it back in time?" she asked before immediately shaking her head. "Doesn't matter, even if you don't make it back in time, I can handle the next one at least."

"Good," the archer said and stood up. "I will go kill their leader right now."

Without saying much, the archer left.

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Drake, who was looking at them from the shadows of the forest, saw the archer leave and his eyes shined.

His eyes no longer held the looks of a dying man, but rather a revived predator, looking at its prey.

So, he slowly drifted onto the shadow, following the archer.

The archer ran through the forest and decided to take a long way around so that they could attack from a different direction now.

As he walked, he felt something sticky and let go of the stone armor he had put on before touching his chest.

Something wet was on his clothes. "What is it?" he wondered, but he couldn't see in the darkness.

As he felt through his chest and up to his shoulders, he found a wound that he had gotten at some point throughout the fight.

"Goddammit! It must have been that hooded figure from their group," he said to himself softly, but Drake who was about 100 meters away heard him clearly.

He wanted to get close and kill the man, but not right away. If he caught his scent and ran away, he would never get to kill him.

So, he diligently waited.

As they got closer, the archer started to shout even louder.

"Goddammit! I will kill that hooded bastard," he shouted in the jungle even as he got close to Ning's area.

"I will kill that blue-haired swordsman."

"Then I will kill that red-haired chick."

"And then I will kill their leader."

"And then I will kill their final member who is hiding," he shouted.

Then, the archer stopped and the stone in his hand turned into an arrow that he nocked onto his bow.

"You know what? Why don't I just kill myself?"

The man turned the bow towards his head and let go.

Drake watched in shock and horror as the first death of the competition happened… just like that.

Chapter 610 New RevelationsAbout 5 minutes after the archer left, the leader of Group 5 was preparing for the next monster spawning when suddenly, something bright flashed in front of the 4 of them.

At first, the leader got ready to attack, but when the light died down and she saw what it was, the blood left her already pale face like she had seen a ghost.

In front of her was a floating golden crown. If it appeared in front of her then… she understood that the archer had died.

She also understood that if someone in her group were to die, she didn't need to worry about their crowns getting lost. It would automatically find itself back to the captain.

It wasn't only her that learned it though. Every single leader that was watching the grid instantly understood it.

"It seems that if someone were to die away from the group, they will have their crowns return to the group," Ning said out loud to the other two that were listening.

"So we can be sure that Drake hasn't died yet, is that what you're saying?" Derel asked.

"In a sense, yes," Ning said. "But it also means that all the other leaders can now start sending people to attack others without fearing the loss of their crown."

Issi gave a contemplative look. "If they don't fear death, then we may see some more attacks from now on," he said. "We will need to be even more cautious."

"Hello? Is someone there? Please don't come near me," Nova shouted, but she heard no response.

Drake who was quite far away from her heard her words and started fearing all of a sudden.

'That archer, did he kill himself because he was close to her?' he thought. 'She wasn't lying when she said we would die if she stayed there.'

Fearing for his life, Drake ran away, going back to Group 5 to trouble them even more.

About 100 or so meters away from where the monster spawned, Nova sat upon a tree branch with her head tilted to the sky and a dead look on her face.

For about a week now, she had finally been amongst people, people that wouldn't die just because they were around her. And yet, that time had passed and she was forced to be alone.

Alone like she had been in her world for years after everyone died. She had contemplated killing herself on multiple occasions.

However, that proved to be harder than she would have expected.

She simply waited on the tree, looking at the sky when she heard another few footsteps coming toward her.

"Who's there?" she shouted once again. Fearing someone was coming toward her unknowingly.

"Calm down, it's me," Ning's voice drifted from afar, and soon he appeared in front of her with a ball of light next to him.

"How are you making that light?" she asked with a surprised look.

"Magic," Ning said with a smile. "I'm sorry I've neglected you for nearly 3 days now. I can't imagine just how hungry you must be."

Ning proceeded to bring out some fruit and created some water for her to consume.

"It's fine," Nova said after feeling the state of her stomach. "I don't need to eat."

Ning stopped. "Are you sure? Did you eat something already?" he asked as he looked around at the forest. It didn't look like there was something to eat here.

"Yes, I am not hungry," Nova replied.

~GROWL~

As if to defy her statement, her stomach growled, leaving her to be embarrassed all of a sudden.

Ning chuckled and handed her the food. "You don't need to lie," he said. "I have plenty of it. Take it."

"Thank you," Nova said as she took the food and started eating it.

"Ho-how is the competition going?" she asked with a guilty voice. "I-I'm sorry I can't be there to help you guys."

"It's going fine," Ning said. "Don't worry, we are doing well right now."

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"When do I come to help?" she asked.

Ning thought for a moment and said, "I don't know. But it might be any day now."

"We've come upon a certain little revelation. It seems that if someone were to die, their crown will return to the group. So, we may see people coming to attack us now," he said. "So you have to be careful from now on."

"I… I will," Nova said.

"Alright, I will return back to the group now, take care," Ning said and turned to leave.

"Wait!" Nova called him just as he turned around.

"Hmm, what is it?" Ning asked.

"Umm… why are you not affected?" she asked.

"Sorry?" Ning asked before understanding what she meant. "Oh, your powers you mean. Uh… I'm not sure actually. I have a theory, but I can't confirm it at the moment."

"What theory?" Nova asked. "Can it be passed along to other people? Or even just men?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you the theory right now, but it's not something I can pass along or teach other people for sure," he said.

Ning's theory was that since he had no soul, and Nova's power was based on souls, it only affected beings with a soul.

This was why she was never able to hurt monsters on this planet which were mere creations of Genesis with no souls.

Similarly, since he too didn't have a soul, he too wasn't affected by her. But every other participant was in dire danger around her for sure.

'If she wanted to, she could go around the area and kill them all,' Ning thought. 'But that would traumatize her even further.'

"Alright, I'm leaving now. The monster will spawn anytime soon. Take care," Ning said and left.

Nova was alone again, but the simple interaction had left her fulfilled. So, he simply continued eating the food that she had been handed and went back to looking at the sky, waiting for the signal when she would have to go get a gem for her crown.

Chapter 611 A Leader's WorthAs Ning and the rest were busy fighting monsters, Drake was back near group 5, getting ready to terrorize them again.

However, he couldn't attack them, not with them sitting behind the tower that would shoot him the moment he got too close to it.

And unfortunately, he had no ranged attacks.

So, Drake waited for an opportunity, which surprisingly arrived rather quickly.

The next monster to spawn for Group 5 was a tree monster with thorns all over its branches.

When it got close, but not too close, it suddenly started throwing out thorns toward their group.

The pink-haired leader immediately used her Chakra to put up a barrier of rock around them to protect each other.

"You useless pieces of shit. Do something," she cried out, but her pale-faced teammates couldn't even open their mouths to speak.

One of the men there tried to move, but before he could even do anything, he swayed like he had the worst hangover of all time and fell back to the ground.

"Urghh!" the leader cried out, but before she could do anything else, she heard a 'TING' sound coming from behind her.

When she turned around, she saw the tree monster's thorn had attacked the tower, and its Health Points which was at 2200, had dropped to 2122 after a single attack.

Another 'TING' sound came and the number lowered to 2047.

"Shit!" she cried out and looked for a way to attack. The monster was too far away, so she had to go out to fight it. Since no one else was going to do it, she had to do it alone.

She used the Chakra in her body to strengthen her body and her mind and keep her from swaying drunkenly.

Then, she sprinted out from behind the defense and ran up to the monster who was starting to shoot the thorns at her.

As soon as she reached it, spikes of rock appeared from around her, moving towards the monster's body.

The tree monster's body suddenly rose higher as its roots pushed it high in the air from where it shot out the thorns again.

The leader took cover beneath the protruded rock and waited for the attack to end. When it did, she immediately sent the rocks flying into the monster in the air.

When she realized that the tree monster was agile, she changed her target to the roots that grew from the ground and attacked it while creating a cover for herself.

It took her about 2 minutes before she could destroy enough of the roots to get the monster to fall to the ground. Then, she created spikes from the ground again to tear into the monster, killing it instantly.

2 points.

That was all she got for the trouble she had gone through.

The leader slumped on the ground, the cover she had created for herself no longer being maintained.

She took long and heavy breaths as she tried to get her fatigue under control. But that didn't happen.

Just then, she felt something both hot and cold from her. When she turned her head, she saw the hooded Drake give a terrible smile to her while his extended finger dove deep into her neck.

She tried to do something, but nothing happened. She felt herself losing energy at a speed that she could understand at all.

"Good job, leader," Drake said in a condescending tone. "But this is as far as you go."

As soon as he felt the significant loss in energy coming from her, he knew she was going to die.

So, putting a little more force into his hand, he crooked his straight fingers, and ripped out the girl's throat, instantly killing her.

The girl fell to the ground as he left go of her and reveled in the new energy he managed to get.

"Finally, after so many years," he said to himself. He quickly took off the cloak he was wearing and looked at his left arm. There were still signs of lacerations there, but they had healed a bit.

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"I need more," he thought to himself and looked towards the 3 other participants who were inside the tower's range.

"Tsk! I can't kill them," he thought and turned around to leave. But, just as he did, he noticed something glow in the darkness of the night.

Drake looked back towards the leader and saw the golden crown on her head glowing brightly. No, it was rather the gem in it that glowed.

Curious, Drake lowered his hands slowly towards the leader's crown and touched it. The moment he did, the crown disappeared and appeared in front of the 3 that were leaning against the tower.

However, it was just the crown that appeared there. The gem on the other hand was missing.

As if knowing what had just happened, Drake slowly put his hand on top of his head and tried to touch his crown. He couldn't. His hands would just pass through it.

However, what he could see was the bright white light of the gem reflecting on his pale hand.

'It's here,' he thought with a shock on his face. 'Does that mean their group is gone?'

It didn't seem like that was the case. The 3 were still in the match, but now they didn't have their leader.

'Does this gem then give me the abilities of a leader? Like the screens and the upgrades?'

The moment Drake thought that two screens appeared in front of him, one with the different groups, and one with the upgrades.

The upgrades showed that he had about 1200 points, which didn't seem like the case for this group. Even his group couldn't have so much. So, he realized that he was seeing the upgrades on his own group with points he now owned from the leader of this group.

The upgrades were also grayed out for him, probably because he was not the leader.

"Wait, if I have their leader's gem and points, how are these 3 going to make upgrades?" Drake wondered.

That was when he realized that they couldn't. They were now without a way to upgrade their tower to defend themselves.

Perhaps, that was the exact moment that every other group truly understood just how valuable their leader was.

Chapter 612 Extra PointsDrake returned back to the group as soon as he could and let Ning know what he found out.

"You can see the screens now?" Ning asked as he started at the prismatic gem on Drake's crown.

"Yes, I think our points even got added up," Drake said.

"Yeah, I noticed that," Ning said as he opened the upgrades panel. "To think you can steal points from others just because their leaders die."

"We can't let this information get out," Ning said solemnly. "Although, they might start finding that as soon as they kill more of the leaders and steal away their gems."

"Come on! Get back in position, little worms. Don't forget that we are still the 2nd most vulnerable looking group of them all," Derel said.

"Yes," Ning said and got back to position.

The thorny tree monster spawned for one more turn before it switched to a goblin.

Ning was confused about how the goblin could possibly be more dangerous than a tree monster that could shoot thorns, and that was when the goblin started sending fireballs toward their group.

It even created a barrier to stop some of Issi and Derel's attacks. However, it was soon overwhelmed by the two of them and was swept away in their attacks.

"Such a strong ranged monster," Ning said. "If they keep upgrading, soon we will start having problems."

"Leader!" Drake shouted from nearby.

"What?" Ning turned to him to see if there was an attack or something.

"Check the screens," Drake said.

Ning opened up the screen and quickly looked through to see what was going on when he saw the goblin shoot at the 3 remaining members of the 5th group.

One of the men who could barely stand was putting up some sort of defense but from the looks of it, it wasn't going to last long.

Within 2 minutes, the man's defense was broken through and he, along with the other 2 members died to the fireballs.

When the final member died, their tower suddenly crumbled to the group regardless of how many health points it had remaining.

Then, a massive set of words appeared in the sky.

1/10 Groups have been ELIMINATED.

"They're dead," Ning said solemnly, not understanding how to feel about it all. What Genesis was doing was absolutely wrong, but he was too weak to do anything.

He wanted to keep watching to see if there would be some sort of attack on one of those remaining groups when he noticed something.

Despite losing, group 5 still had their screens active, and it followed the goblin as it walked somewhere.

Ning thought for a moment. If all the other groups were done fighting the beasts, then the last group to be done must have gotten the 4 points.

Then, the 5th group was supposed to have gotten 2 points had they survived. But the group was gone and the monster was still alive.

Did that mean…?

Without hesitation, Ning opened a portal to the sky above and entered through it.

When he appeared in the air, he looked around and immediately found the goblin making its way towards an open area in the center through the woods.

At the same time, he also saw a few other people with the same idea as him. So, in an attempt to hurry up, Ning created a portal right next to the goblin and walked through it.

When he arrived next to it, the goblin put up a barrier to protect itself, but a single attack from Ning destroy the barrier and the goblin inside of it.

2 points.

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As expected, he indeed got the points that belonged to the other group. At the same time, two different people appeared in front of him.

One was a girl with green skin and a sword in her hand. Another one was a man with a third eye on his forehead.

They both had crowns, but neither of them had any gems on it. Only Ning had the gems, and if they managed to kill him here, they would certainly manage to cripple his group.

So, without much hesitation, both of them attacked him. The girl sent a slash of her sword that flew towards her like a blade of air ready to cut him.

The man's third eye shined bright which immediately caused Ning to feel some dizziness that he did not like.

The slash landed on his tough body and dissipated into the air like water splashing against the wall.

Simultaneously, Ning activated his spear domain, and the small spear-shaped Qi started attacking the two from all directions.

The man was forced to close his eyes lest his eyeball got cut. Using this moment of clarity, Ning instantly used his Aether to create a black hole inside both of the two attacker's bodies.

The one with the mental strength had a weaker physical body, so within seconds, his body started caving in on itself, and all that remained, in the end, was a bloody meatball that was once a man.

The girl on the other hand was stronger and required a lot more Aether on his part to kill her. But, Ning didn't want to spend such an amount while he was still fighting the different monsters.

So, he simply opened a portal and walked away, leaving a wounded, but still fully alive person.

The moment he reappeared back to his group, he realized that they all knew exactly what had happened as Drake could see it all on the screen of group 5.

Ning opened the screens and saw that the group 5 screen still lingered on the green-skinned girl who took a few seconds longer to leave.

Once she did, the screen changed to the destroyed location of Group 5.

'Why is the screen still there?' Ning couldn't help but wonder. It seemed unreasonable why there would still be a screen for the 5th group now that they were eliminated.

That was when Ning formed a little suspicious about something and turned to his group.

"I think the monsters will continue to spawn for Group 5."

Chapter 613 Split TeamsThe group at first didn't understand what he meant, but once Ning told them about the screen, it became pretty apparent what he meant.

"That means if we go there, we should be able to kill the monster and get more points," Ning said.

"Sounds plausible to me," Issi said.

"Let me go, leader," Drake said volunteering for it again.

Ning thought for a moment and shook his head. "Sun will come up any time now. Soon, You are going to be both too weak and too valuable to send in the midst of so many other people that will come to fight you," he said.

Ning turned to Issi, but he wasn't the strongest in the group at all. He was like a one-trick pony who could only send out water slashes. Aside from that, he didn't seem to be able to do much at all.

Finally, Ning turned to Derel.

"Can you handle it?" he asked her.

Derel's yellow eyes brightened as a smile appeared on her face. "I was worried you wouldn't ask me, little worm," she said.

Suddenly, bright red bat wings appeared out from her back. The wings were either on fire, or gave an illusion of such.

She flapped it a bit and embers fell from her wings like fireworks. She turned back to Ning and asked, "Do I kill only the monster?"

"You can do whatever you want," Ning said.

"Haha! Good, little worm. I will see you later then," Derel said and suddenly took to the sky, leaving trails of fire and ember.

"Is she going to be fine?" Issi asked with a concerned expression.

"If she is half as good as her ego is, I don't think we have anything to worry about," Drake said and went back to looking at the surrounding.

Ning chuckled and turned to Issi. "I will keep an eye on the screen. If anything happens to her, I will go there immediately," he said.

"Why didn't you go yourself?" Issi asked. "I don't know how strong she is, but I have seen how strong you are."

"Out of the 50 here, I don't doubt you are easily top 5 in terms of strength. Maybe even the strongest here," Issi said. "But then, why aren't you going there."

"There are a few reasons," Ning said. "First of all, I need to be here to protect the tower, especially if it needs immediate upgrades. As the leader, I can't take my attention away from here."

"Secondly, the sun is going to rise soon and Drake is going to be useless again. If I don't stay here and someone stronger comes along, I won't be able to protect him," Ning said.

"While I know you and Derel are strong, there could easily be someone stronger than you both, so I can't leave that job to you and can only trust myself," Ning said.

"I see," Issi said.

"So—"

Ning stopped mid-speech and without explanation created a portal between Issi and him. Just as the confused Issi was about to ask what he was doing, a fire Javelin suddenly shot through the portal and landed on the ground next to them.

When Issi turned his head around to see where the attack had come from, he saw a portal right in front of Drake who was already on his feet, ready to fight.

"Go get him!" Ning shouted, and without hesitation, Drake ran off.

Two minutes later, a bloody fisted Drake walked back from the jungle with a serious expression in his eyes.

"That was hard," he said softly as he laid down by the side of the tower again.

"That was close, you mean," Ning said.

"Yeah, thanks for saving my ass back there," Drake said.

"That's what my job is," Ning said and looked at Drake's expression. For someone who had just fought another strong person, he didn't seem very tired.

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Either the fight wasn't hard for him, which Ning didn't think was true, or the fight had instead of draining his energy, invigorated him.

Ning had seen him stick his fingers onto the pink-haired leader's neck and seemingly steal away her energy. That was probably what had happened here as well.

Ning decided not to ask any questions and got ready for the next monster.

As the daybreak arrived, their group only consisted of 2 people that could fight.

Drake was forced to take shade behind the tower and stay away from the heat.

Ning looked at the screen and frowned as none of the groups had any more than 2 members on them, except for a single group that didn't seem to let any of its members go away.

Ning started fearing that was the right choice, but he still wanted the points that Derel was steadily giving him.

Out of the nearly 20 different monsters that had been summoned until now, Derel had managed to kill it 15 of the times, giving anywhere between 10 and 14 points each time.

Part of the reason was that she was too strong for the others to beat her or successfully steal the monsters away from her. in fact, she had already killed about 3 different people that got too close to her.

The rest of the reason was that she wasn't as important as a leader itself, so most people didn't bother with her.

As Ning watched her performance through the screen, he saw something incredible and yet fearsome happen in group 7.

While the leader wasn't paying attention to their surrounding, a ranged sneak attack killed the leader at once.

Unfortunately, for the attackers, the leader's body fell right next to the only other teammate that had remained to guard the tower. He immediately grabbed onto the gem to become the new leader.

But, at the same time, a massive stone fist appeared from the ground and immediately punched the new leader out of the tower's protection where another sneak attack killed the new leader as well.

One of the attackers immediately grabbed the gem and ran away, leaving group 7 without anyone to protect it with its other teammates out to do things at the order of their leader.

After seeing all this, when the next monster spawned in less than 5 minutes, Ning knew that group 7 would also be eliminated.

Chapter 614 More EliminationsGroup 7's end was inevitable. After the leader and the only other member of the group died looking after the tower died, they had no one else to protect it and in the next hour, the tower was destroyed by the monsters.

Ning felt a sense of unease when he saw how quickly the tower was destroyed. It only took 2 monsters to do so, and that was very much likely after numerous upgrades from the group.

If it were his tower, it would be destroyed by a single monster no doubt.

As the 1/10 number grew to 2/10, he cautioned his group to be extra careful. Especially Drake who was hiding behind the tower. Ning made Issi stay with him just in case.

Afterward, Ning looked through the grid of screens again and realized how empty it looked.

Most of the groups had either lost their members or were away to do their own thing.

There was barely any group with more than 3 members protecting their tower at the moment.

All except for group 2. They still had all 5 of their members still lying about.

The group consisted of 3 women, 1 man, and surprisingly a Lion. The lion was massive and had wings, but that was all Ning could tell from the screen.

He didn't how intelligent it was or how strong it was. Heck, he couldn't even tell what it's powers were as no one in that group ever needed to do anything with the Lion simply swatting the monsters away like flies.

Surprisingly, however, the leader wasn't the Lion but rather a girl at the back. He couldn't tell the features from high above, but he could tell she was quite young. Perhaps not older than 20 years, if her looks were anything to go by.

A new monster spawned and Ning quickly dealt with it. He got 14 points, but he didn't care about it as much as he would have previously.

The competition had changed from being about points to being about survivability.

As time passed by more and more people started dying, and soon Group 8 was out of the competition as well.

While the leader was fighting with a monster, someone sneak attacked and killed them. In the chaos of his leader's death, the other person in the group was attacked by the monster and wounded heavily.

There was no one else there to protect him, so he died as well. As such that group ended up being destroyed by that monster.

The monsters were now so strong that the tower alone wasn't able to protect it. As such, Ning started wondering if he should also put points into it.

'One of us should go and kill that monster to get its gem,' Ning thought.

Just as he was thinking that a purple ball of massive energy launched his way from the forest. Ning ducked his head just in time to dodge the ball of energy.

To his dismay, the ball landed on the tower and Ning felt horrified. He hurriedly arrived next to the tower with his Upgrades panel open to upgrade the health points but when he saw the tower, it still had the 1000 points from the start.

"The tower doesn't register attacks from the other contestants as damage?" Ning thought to himself.

Drake and Issi were on the other side and quickly came towards Ning to see what the commotion was about.

Ning looked back at the person in the forest angrily and rushed in to kill him.

The blue-skinned man that used the attack was weaker than Ning would've imagined him to be. Given how strong the attack felt, he was surprised the blue-skinned man wasn't stronger in his defense.

He was like a glass cannon and quickly died in Ning's hands.

Ning swiftly returned to his group and looked at the grid but someone had already defeated the monster of Group 8 and acquired their gem.

The game was getting tougher and tougher.

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Now, there were more and more people that vied for the free group space to kill any monster that spawned on it.

Derel had completely dominated the group 5 area to be her own. Similarly, other groups got the group 7 and group 8 area as well.

Group 1, Group 2, and Group 10 were the only group with 2 gems right now. They were likely the ones to win this match.

But Ning didn't think that to be true at all. After all, group 2 was still an enigma to him. Since a single beast had been fighting for the entire group, he didn't know what the other members' strengths were like.

When the night arrived, Drake was back to being usable again.

"Take care of yourselves, I'll go meet with Nova and see if she needs anything," Ning said and turned to leave.

"Leader, are you sure you want to go towards her? I saw someone kill himself when he was getting close to her," Drake said.

"Oh, someone died already? Well, don't worry me. I'll be fine," Ning said and left to see Nova.

Along the way, he kept his guard up and also looked at the screen to make sure there was nothing wrong with his team. He saw Issi and Drake standing alert and ready to fight.

He saw Derel simply standing around, bored as no one wanted to come towards her to fight.

He saw group 2 which was still full of its members. And then, he saw Group 4, whose leader just died.

Ning stopped and watched with confusion as to what was happening. For some reason, there was some argument in the group and that was leading them to fight amongst each other even as the monster attacked.

As he watched and walked, soon the group started to crumble from the inside and in the end, no one survived the monster.

'What the hell happened there?' Ning thought and finally reached Nova's location, but there was no one in the area.

It was as if she was gone.

Chapter 615 Group 4's Gem HuntNing looked at his surrounding with concern. 'Is she away somewhere?' he thought and looked around. He used every vision available to him to see if he could find her, but he couldn't.

"What the hell? If she went somewhere, she should have let us know," Ning thought to himself. "If she unknowingly walks around she could cause more trouble than she would wan—"

Ning stopped in the middle of his thought and looked back at the screen in front of him. The monster was attacking the tower on group 4, but that was not important.

What he looked at was the 4 dead contestants on the ground who had argued and fought amongst themselves even as a monster attacked them, he knew why.

With a sigh, Ning opened up a portal and disappeared into it before arriving next in Group 5.

Derel was getting ready to attack when she saw that it was him.

"Little worm, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"Group 4 is dying and I might need you to take their gem. Come with me," Ning said and opened a portal.

"Okay," Derel said and entered the portal. As she arrived in the sky outside the Group 4's area, Derel's burning wings appeared out of nowhere and she hovered in mid-air.

Ning passed through and he arrived as well. He looked down at the monster right about to destroy the tower. It was just a moment away.

"Why did you say you 'might' need me to take the gem? The situation suggests that you definitely need it," Derel said.

"I suspect Nova is around here. If she is, I want her to take the gem so we can be done with it," Ning said.

"Hmm… where is she?" Derel asked. "Do you want me to help in your search?"

"No," Ning shook his head. "I can find her on my own. You should stay flying just in case she is down there. If you were to get close, you will most likely die."

"I'm really curious about the little worm's power you know," she said.

Ning changed his vision to see heat signatures and saw a few people waiting down below. Due to that, he couldn't tell if Nova was down there.

"How are you going to find her?" Derel asked.

"You might want to close your ears," Ning said and flew below.

Derel did as she was asked and watched a Ning take a deep breath.

"NOVA!" Ning shouted with such ferocity that his sounds ruptured his own eardrums.

Derel felt the shout like one feels thunder under their feet. Instead of hearing the call through her ears, she felt it all over her body.

The many people down below were forced to close their ears as the sudden loud sound scared them to hell.

At the same time, the sound reflected off of the ground and shot back up once more, spreading to every other direction.

Everyone in the competition was now in the know of the name 'Nova'.

His own voice stopped echoing, and Ning closed his eyes and enhanced his senses.

"Ning! Down here!" A voice shouted from the ground where he saw a single silhouette.

"Oh, she's down there," Ning said. "Stay here."

Derel continued flying with no words as Ning dropped to the ground and found Nova near the edge of the forest leading to group 4's area.

"What are you doing here?" Ning asked.

"Sorry, I fell asleep. Where am I?" she asked while rubbing her eyes and yawning as she spoke.

"Sigh, so you didn't come here by yourself?" Ning said.

"No? Where am I?" she asked again.

"In the area of group 4. Someone must have brought you here then… somehow," Ning said. He looked out at the monster almost destroying the tower and thought to himself a bit.

He created an earplug with his Aether and a small handkerchief he used to cover her eyes.

"What's happening?" she asked with a confused voice as Ning tied the blindfold on her.

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"We're going to get a gem. Now put those earplugs on," he said and waited for her to do so.

Once she did, he opened a portal directly under the monster and waited 2 more seconds for it to destroy the tower.

The moment the tower was destroyed and the words '4/10 groups have been Eliminated' rose in the sky, Ning pushed Nova through the portal and they arrived directly below the monster and the collapsing tower.

Ning created a reverse gravity around his hand and pushed away all the falling chunks of rock.

Then, he brought out his spear and found the monster. At the same time, the 3 or so hidden figures that were getting ready to take the gem also arrived at the scene.

Just as Ning defeated the monsters, he turned around in time to see just what exactly Nova could do.

The 3 people that charged them immediately started fighting with each other.

There was a demonic figure with horns on his head and red skin on his body.

A woman with flowing golden hair with a wand in her hand.

And finally, the last one was the green-skinned girl from last time who Ning had left alive.

As the three fought amongst themselves, it was pretty clear that the girl with the wand was not very strong, or at least stronger than the demon and the other woman.

However, soon Ning realized that it didn't matter at all.

The demon broke off his own horns and pierced them through his own eye sockets before gouging out his own heart.

The girl with the wand created a bubble of water in which she drowned herself to die.

The green-skinned girl severed her own neck with her sword and dropped in two parts to the ground.

Ning knew what Nova's powers were and that people died around her, but he had expected them to drop and die like unconscious people, not go to such lengths to kill themselves.

Even Derel standing high above had fearful eyes on her for the first time.

Ning couldn't help but shake his head when he saw the dead bodies. "No wonder this girl is so traumatized."

Chapter 616 Giant CrabNing looked at the dead contestants and shook his head before turning to Nova. He got rid of her earplugs and told her to grab what was in front of her.

Nova slowly reached out and Ning guided her hand to touch the gem that was floating in the air.

The moment she touched it, the gem flashed a bright light and suddenly embedded itself into her crown.

Once that was done, Ning turned to Derel and gave her the gesture to return. Then, he opened a portal and took Nova back to her usual hiding place.

Once they were there, he got rid of her blindfold and sat her down. "What did you do?" she asked with a look of confusion.

"See," Ning said as he created a mirror for her. When Nova looked at it, she saw the gem on her forehead.

"What? Is that what you made me grab?" she asked.

"Yes," Ning said.

"Then what was with the mystery? I would have grabbed it without earplugs or blindfold too," she said. "I know how important this is to us."

"Yes," Ning said. "And it's important to all the other people too."

Nova paused. "There were other people?" she asked.

"No, not this time. But I had to be sure," Ning said. He quickly checked Group 4's screen and saw that the dead people were just out of bounds of the screen.

"By the way, what were you doing there?" Ning asked her.

"I was…" Nova tried to think. "I don't know. I think I was asleep."

"Or maybe someone drugged you," Ning said. "Is that even possible?"

"It is," Nova said. "If the person didn't have much thought behind what they did, then they wouldn't hurt themselves."

"So whoever took you never intended to hurt you," Ning said.

"Or he simply never saw me as a threat," Nova said.

"I see. They might have some other reasons to take you then. Maybe making you hostage was part of their plan," Ning said. "Or maybe the person wasn't even here and sent a puppet of theirs to get you there."

"Either way, you are safe now and it doesn't matter," Ning said. "Since you have the gem, you won't have to keep looking for my signal either. Go to sleep or waste your time however you can. You can also now see the screens and see how the fight is going."

"I can see what?" Nova asked.

"The screens. Just think about it," Ning explained to Nova how to look at the screens.

Ning quickly told her everything that had been going on in the match so far.

"Group 4, 5, 7, and 8 are already done. Of the remaining, perhaps Group 2 and our group is the only remaining groups with all 5 people."

"Group 1 and 2 had 2 crowns already, and our group has 3 crowns. Group 3, 6, and 9 are still with their original 1 crown."

"Now, we will need to—"

Ning stopped speaking when he noticed something on the screen. Another monster had popped up.

This time, it was a giant crab with a seemingly ocean-blue shell and pincers the size of a car.

Drake and Issi started fighting it immediately, but they seemed to be struggling.

Group 2's Lion was already getting close to beating it, while in Group 5's location, Derel was also getting close.

"I will need to go," Ning said and opened a portal to go through it.

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The moment he appeared, he saw Issi send out his water slash but nothing was happening. Meanwhile, the crab's shell was so thick that Drake's fingers weren't able to pierce through it.

"Step back, I will handle it," Ning said and arrived in front of the two with his spear. Ning started slashing and smashing at the crab before realizing that its shell was indeed very tough.

'I need to put in more strength,' he thought and immediately used his Aether to strengthen his body. At the same time as he was doing it, the Crab's pincer arrived next to him.

Ning felt a moment of fear and tried to teleport away, but he only belatedly remembered that he didn't have access to the skill right now.

So, the crab ended up catching him without a problem. Without pause, the crab tried to crush Ning between its pincers and Ning could feel a mountain-like pressure on his body.

However, no matter how strong the crab was, Ning was still an Aether Divinity. With a single push, he split apart the pincers and jumped toward the crab to swing at it.

He slammed the spear on the crab's shell with every little power he had and the shell crumbled beneath his attack like a thick stone through a glass pane.

Then, Ning landed on the area of the broken shell and drove his spear through the broken shell. The spear entered the beast and cut apart the inside.

It took about 3 more hits before the beast disappeared and he earned 14 points.

Despite taking so long, he earned so many points. Ning was honestly quite surprised. He looked at the screen and other than Group 2, Derel, and Group 9, everyone else was still fighting.

Taking the time, Ning sat down beneath the tower and brought out a glass full of Aether, and began drinking it.

He had ended up using a bit too much energy, and if he wanted to keep fighting at the same strength, he needed to have his sea of Aether full.

Without talking, Ning cultivated and waited for the next monster to show up.

Slowly but surely, the monster was killed by every group. But the ones where only a single person was fighting, they couldn't beat it and were forced to return back to their own group.

Now, 3 of the 4 empty groups were without anyone to keep the monster in tab, and if Ning knew any better, he knew that it would continue to be that way.

Especially, if they decided to up the monster's level again.

Chapter 617 Rock Golem"It's getting harder," Ning said to the two.

Issi nodded. "Can we upgrade the monster, please? I cannot fight that crab at all. It is resistant to all water attacks," he said.

"Sure," Ning said and for the first time upgraded the monster. "It also looked like Drake had a hard time with it."

"Yeah, its shell was too tough for me," Drake said. "I will need a bit more energy for myself."

"How will you get it?" Ning asked.

"Same way I got it from Group 5," Drake said and stood up. "Can you handle the monsters yourselves? I will go and get stronger."

Ning thought for a moment. "Will you be able to do it?" he asked.

"Don't worry. Even if I fail, I have a way to escape," Drake said.

"Very well then. Go," Ning said.

Drake nodded and left the group to go towards Group 9's area.

"Was that a good idea?" Issi asked.

"It's not a bad one," Ning said. "We might even get another gem out of this."

"We might also lose one," Issi said.

Ning sighed. "I know, but he doesn't seem like the person to throw his life away," he said. "Don't worry. Worst case scenario, I will simply have to go find one of the groups to get their gems."

Just as they were talking, the monster spawned again. This time, it wasn't the crab as Ning had already upgraded it.

This time, the monster was a massive humanoid piece of rock that slowly started walking toward the group.

"What the hell? A rock golem?" Ning thought as he stared at the beast.

Issi brought out his water sword and started slashing tons and tons of water at the beast. Each slash had so much ferocity that it nearly carved into the rocky monster itself.

However, it was still tough enough to block it.

Ning jumped into the air to attack it, but the golem's hands were surprisingly agile and managed to swat him down like a fly.

"What the hell? How is it so fast?" Ning thought as he stared back at the beast. It seemed it wasn't going to be as simple as jump and strike.

At least, not if he wanted to save his Aether.

He would have to spend 5% of his Aether reserve if he wanted to immediately end this fight. However, in between the 17 or so minutes of free time, he could only gain back 2% at most.

Overall, he was losing Aether each time he had to fight seriously, and he had no way of gaining it back mid-fight. He could only afford to lose so much. So, he needed to think of a way to defeat it without using too much strength.

Ning went back for an attack a few more times, but he was either swatted like a fly, or the golem wouldn't take enough damage.

It wasn't as tough as the crab, but the damage it took would recover as fast as it took the damage.

Also, fortunately, because of Issi's relentless slashes of water, the beast wasn't moving a step further and was never in the range of attacking the tower.

Ning looked up at the monster and thought of something. If the monster was swatting him down before he could reach it properly, then he would have to bring the monster to him.

The monster's arms were agile, but that wasn't the case for its legs. So, Ning dashed towards its legs and started cutting it from below.

The monster couldn't reach this far down, so it had to lift its feet to smash Ning.

Ning dodged easily and continued attacking, but it didn't work at all. Even when he managed to destroy a major chunk of its body, the rocks regenerated back to fill the void.

In the end, Ning was forced to use his Aether, and he decided to use it in the most efficient way possible.

Ning opened a portal and appeared on its head. The monsters didn't seem to have vision over its head, so Ning wasn't attacked at all.

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At the same time, Ning placed his hands on the monster and used a skill he hadn't used in a while.

Ning used the skill to find the natural frequency of the golem underneath him. The moment he learned the number, he started creating sounds directly from his palm and vibrated the golem.

The monster soon started cracking, and with each crack, its natural frequency changed. However, Ning was keeping his eye on the frequency and changed it every single time to maintain resonance.

The stone on the golem's head started cracking and soon enough it crumbled to pieces.

When it did, Ning saw a blue core inside of the golem and immediately snatched it. Without even looking, he knew that it was the source of the monster's powers.

Ning immediately put the core into his storage and that cut off its connection to the monster.

As soon as he did that, the monster beneath him disappeared in a bunch of light and he saw the words 16 points.

"Oh," Ning thought and checked the screens. He saw that Group 2 and Derel had already defeated their share of monsters.

Derel was stronger than he had assumed her to be and she had given them a lot of points by now.

Group 2 had also defeated, but Ning couldn't tell if it was the Lion or if they needed the help of another person.

"What was that? It was like you created an earthquake," Issi said from the side.

"It's something similar," Ning said and brought out a bottle to drink again.

"Is that alcohol?" Issi asked curiously.

"What? No this is my source of power," Ning said. "I could take it from the surrounding, but I prefer to drink it directly like this."

"I see," Issi said.

"Anyway, I think the situation is getting more and more difficult," Ning said. "We can't take the risk of a monster with ranged attacks coming and destroying the tower."

"So what are you going to do? Upgrade the tower?" Issi asked.

"No, I'm going to upgrade our firepower," Ning said. "I'm going to call Derel back."

Chapter 618 Mana CoreNing appeared before Derel from a portal. Derel turned her yellow eyes to him and smiled as she said, "Is it getting hard for you?"

"It's getting troublesome," Ning said.

"So you need me to go back?" Derel asked.

"Yes. The monsters are getting stronger and I don't want any mishap to happen while you are away," Ning said. "If a monster somehow happens to get by me, or if a single attacks goes past me, we could lose with that."

Derel gave a serious look. "I see. That stone monster was quite hard to beat before this," she said.

"Yes, let's go," Ning said and opened the portal.

"You can just fly instead of opening portals all the time, you know," Derel said as she walked through it.

"Yeah, well this is easier," Ning said and walked through it as well.

When the 2 of them arrived back at the tower, Derel looked around as the messy ground and the serious Issi.

"What's up, little worm? I only left you for a single day, and you are already so haggard," Derel said.

"Please shut up," Issi said and closed his eyes. Derel only chuckled at his response.

"Where's Drake?" she asked.

"He's gone to make himself stronger," Ning said.

"And you let him?" she asked.

Ning shrugged. "He wasn't really any helpful here. He seems to be stronger against humans than monsters," he said.

"And what if he dies out there?" Derel shouted.

"I don't think anyone has the luxury to go around killing folks at the moment, so he should be mostly fine," Ning said.

Ning looked back at Derel who was starting to get mad and said, "Don't worry, he'll be fine. He knows how important the gem is and won't try anything funny."

"Fine, if anything happens, I'm blaming you," Derel said. "So, what do we do now?"

"Well, since the beast is so strong, we fight it, defeat it, and wait for the next ones," Ning said.

"What about the ones that will spawn in the other locations where there is no one to defeat it?" she asked.

"Those should most likely go to the center area and wait for someone to kill them," Ning said. "If we have the time, we will go and get some points. Although, I think we should let them be for a few rounds."

Derel nodded and went by Issi to sit down. Ning walked over and sat as well. Together, they waited for the monster to spawn.

Once again, it was the stone monster that spawned. Before Ning could even do anything, Derel flew over to it in an arch and landed on top of it.

Then, just like he did, she pressed her hand onto its head and used the full force of her firepower on the head.

Molten rock spilled down the side of the monster's head until Derel was deep enough to grab the monster core, which she ripped out and jumped down from the disappearing monster.

"Wow," Ning said as he stared quite seriously. "That's some serious heat you got there. Do your hands not burn?"

"I'm resistant to heat," Derel said as she put the stone into her mouth and bit into it.

Ning heard the sound of shattering and looked at her with absolutely disbelief. "That thing survived heat that was enough to melt stone," he said. "How are you eating it so easily?"

"This mana core? It used to be a regular meal for me when I was back in Baelire," Derel said.

"Baelire… that's your planet?" Ning asked.

"Yes," Derel said.

"And it was full of mana then?" Ning asked.

"Yes," Derel replied.

Ning got a little curious. "How do you use mana?" he asked.

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"Well, there are different ways," Derel said. "Mine is I use the mana inside of me to use my skills."

"What are the other ways?" Ning asked. "More exactly, can I use mana without it being inside of me?"

Derel looked at him with a curious look. "There is a way, but even if I tell it to you, you won't be able to use it at all. Unless you've touched mana before, you will find moving it very hard," she said.

"Try me," Ning said. "You might find that mana has indeed already affected me."

"Oh has it?" Derel asked. "Well, I can't help you. Sorry. The method includes using very long chants to move the mana and make it do what you want with it."

"Unfortunately, I never bothered learning those chants," Derel said. "So you're out of luck."

"Tsk," Ning clicked his tongue.

The next couple of fights went smoothly. With the help of Derel who could renew her energy from the mana core that she ate, Ning didn't need to do anything.

In fact, he even took her to the center area to defeat a few of the many monsters that were roaming the area.

As the sun came up, Drake swiftly returned to the group, a lot healthier now than he used to be before.

"How many did you kill?" Ning asked.

"2," Drake said. "One from the 9th group, and another from he 1st group I believe."

Once Drake sat around, the battle field started to get stagnant.

The monster upgraded once more and this time, the one that appeared was a lich that could create skeletons for them to fight.

Also, the lich was ethereal until you defeated the skeletons.

This monster was easier than the stone one that came before, but it took longer to defeat. Also, Derel couldn't fight with her full power here as there was nothing to renew the mana she lost now.

She was starting to face the same problem Ning did.

"Although it's not just us that will lose if this goes on for longer, but I don't want to win with no energy only for there to be another competition right after this," Ning said and thought to himself.

"Goddammit! I have an idea, but it is super risky."

Chapter 619 ChimeraGroup 9 consisted of 3 different people.

The leader was a swordsman, who seemed to hold quite a high sword skill.

Of the other two members, one was a buffed-up man that used a long sledgehammer as his weapon.

The last member was a girl whose powers Ning couldn't tell from the screens. But, according to Drake, it had to do something with shadow and darkness.

The leader held his sword next to him and sat down on the ground to close his eyes and cultivate.

Qi flowed through the air and gathered around him at an incredible speed as he cultivated.

The other two also sat down to gather as much energy as they could before it was time to fight the next monster.

The man held his sledgehammer in front of him as he gathered the Essence of force from the surrounding. Unlike his home planet, this place had every and all Essence flying through the air.

So, circulating his path in this location was much easier than back at home. As such, he wanted to win this whole thing and reincarnate in a location that was just like this.

Finally, the girl was strengthening her Willpower. As she gathered more and more Willpower from the surrounding, her mind grew and so did her ability the Willpower granted.

The 3 of them cultivated for almost 10 minutes before the lich was to appear again.

When it was time, they opened their eyes and waited. As they did, the monster appeared, but it was no lich.

What appeared was a giant monster with a large body. Its skin was covered in tough scales, and its leg was almost as thick as the tower itself.

On top of all 4 legs, its body reached almost 20 meters high. That was without mentioning the 5 different heads on its body, each with a neck of at least 10 meters long.

It's tail was perhaps longer than that too.

From what the contestants could tell, it was 5 snakes, attached to the body of an elephant that was covered in dragon skin, followed by a long snake tail with a thing at the end that rattled as it moved.

The swordsman looked at the beige-colored monster and frowned. "What monstrosity is this?" he asked.

"I don't know," the man said. "If we removed the body, I would say a Hydra, but with it, it's hard to tell."

"So it's a chimera," the girl said as she stared at the monster. "Two or more monsters that are mixed together."

"Seems like it," the man said.

"If that is so then let's kill it quickly," the man said. "It shouldn't be much stronger than the—"

Before the man could finish, one of the monster's snakehead opened up and suddenly fire spewed out of it.

The swordsman responded quickly and took to the skies. The girl created a dark circle under her feet and grabbed the man with the hammer before dropping into it.

When she appeared, she was behind the monster. Then, she turned to look at the damage the monster had done.

Half of the ground that they had been standing on was missing. It was like a meteor had hit the ground and destroyed the area.

"Holy fuck! That is a strong monster," the girl said absentmindedly. Her attention only returned back to her when she heard the hammer slam into the monster's legs.

The girl managed to see the last faint light of the giant hammer that had struck the monster as it dissipated back into the hammer.

At the same time, the swordsman dove down from the sky and sent a massive slash onto one of the snake's necks.

The hammer managed to do no damage to the monster as the dragon scales blocked all the damage. However, the swordsman was so strong that he managed to cut off the rightmost neck of the monster.

"Yes!" the girl shouted and immediately used her skills as well. Strands of black goo released from the dark ground underneath the monster and wrapped around all of its necks.

As it moved, the strands of darkness split off, but more and more appeared to replace them. Soon, the monster was constricted.

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She held it there and looked at the dead snakehead on the floor. Just as she did, she heard sounds of exclamation from both of her male teammates.

"Goddammit!" the man with the hammer cried out. "It is a Hydra."

She looked up just in time to see the cut-off neck of the monster slowly grow and split into 2 separate parts as the one head became two.

Suddenly, both of the heads opened their mouth and attacked.

A tornado appeared around the monster, ripping away at anything and everything around them.

The ground, the trees, everything was crushed, turned to dust.

The swordsman in the air was a strong cultivator, so he didn't need to worry about being damaged by mere winds. The same went for the man who walked the path of force on the ground.

The girl, however, wasn't strong enough to survive such an attack. So, she immediately disappeared into the dark pool that appeared beneath her and reappeared a distance away.

From there, she could see that it wasn't just a tornado. Air slices were being sent all around them.

The girl quickly made a sticky wall of darkness and hid behind it. She only got out when the attack no longer came.

When the wall disappeared, she saw that the two men were already attacking the monster.

So, she too created a bow out of darkness and pulled it as a dark arrow formed onto it.

The moment she let go, another one of the chimera's heads used power.

Suddenly, the ground beneath her shuddered and everything got heavy all of a sudden. Very, very heavy.

The girl could feel the increased gravity around her and even saw the swordsman struggle to fly.

The man with the hammer, however, continued to attack, albeit very useless against the tough monster.

Her own arrow fell victim to the gravity and fell into the crater in front of her.

"Dammit! Fire, Wind, and Earth. 3 of its head can already use 3 different types of powers," she grunted. "What can the other two do then?"

Chapter 620 Difficulty10 minutes had gone by and Group 9 was still struggling to win against the monster.

It wasn't just them too. Everyone was.

This was a monster that seemed impossible to kill.

It had 3 distinct body parts. The heads, the torso, and the tail.

Cutting off the tail would not kill the Chimera in any way at all. No animal would die simply by losing its tail. In fact, some lizards were even used to dropping off their tails on their own.

The chimera's torso was simply unapproachable too. With its hard dragon scales, not even the sharpest of swords could pierce through it.

Finally, the heads were perhaps the only part that could hurt the chimera, but they were a separate problem too. Due to the chimera's incredible healing factor, any sizable wound was healed within seconds.

If the wound was bigger and the head was completely destroyed, the Hydra part of the chimera would grow two heads out of that one destroyed head, making it impossible to kill it by simply getting rid of the heads.

At the moment, Group 9's hydra had exactly 13 different heads moving about in their long neck.

2 of those heads used fire magic. 3 of them used Earth magic. 3 of them used wind magic. 4 of them used water magic.

And finally, the head in the middle that remained untouched used Lightning magic.

That wasn't the only problem for them either.

The swordsman swooped in from the sky to slash at the neck, hoping that there was a limit to the amount of regeneration. However, before he could get too close, the chimera's tail started rattling really loudly, and suddenly the swordsman felt his mind go blank for a second.

The mental attack of the chimera was something that affected him as well. The man at the ground was no better with the hammer in his hand nearly slipping off.

The girl stood far away from the fight and watched the 13 different heads spew one magic or another. All she could do right now was hope one of them wasn't targeted at her.

After all, she was swaying like a drunken little puppy at the moment. Each time the chimera rattled its tail, she felt a sense of dizziness. After it passed away, the dizziness remained and she even felt a sort of weakness at it.

'What is going on?' the girl thought as she watched the other two. The other two were either incredibly good at faking their weakness, or they weren't feeling the same thing she did.

One of the bolts of lightning struck the ground not 10 meters away from her, scaring her to near death.

Fortunately, water attacks couldn't reach her as they would get obstructed by the giant hole in the ground the chimera made earlier.

The wind and fire attacks were usually targeted around it at the two that were fighting the chimera, and the earth attacks didn't seem like its strongest skill.

As the girl watched, the swordsman and the other man kept on fighting the Chimera. The 13 heads had turned to 16 in the next minute. Then 18 in the next minute, and 22 at the next one.

She watched the swordsman struggle to win, but he kept fighting. He kept cutting the necks off.

He cut the neck once again and saw that the chimera struggled to create two different heads this time and took a while.

The chimera was getting low on energy and could not keep up its regeneration. Even the wound on the foot from the man with the hammer was starting to keep bleeding without regeneration.

The girl's heart skipped a beat when she saw that. "We can win it," she thought. "We can do it. We can kill that—"

Suddenly, a white light flashed not even a few meters away from the chimera. All 3 of them turned to look and suddenly, the look on their face grew horrified.

Another chimera had spawned out of nowhere.

"No!" the girl tried to cry out but her voice was very hoarse now and was unable to speak a lout at all.

"But… but it hasn't been that long," she cried as loud as she could.

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"Oh, but I'm afraid it has," a voice spoke right next to her.

"Wh—"

4 straight fingers suddenly jabbed into her right shoulders and the girl started losing her energy. By the second, her dizziness and fatigue grew to extraordinary levels.

She tried to speak, shout, move, attack, or use her darkness, but none of it worked. The pale-faced man next to her was draining her dry.

Within a minute, she died.

The swordsman suddenly turned around when he noticed a person in his divine sense disappear. When he did, he noticed a hooded figure standing next to the girl's corpse.

"You bastard!" he shouted and sent a slash flying towards the figure, but the figure suddenly morphed into what seemed like a bird and flew away.

The man was frustrated to see his comrade die, but he couldn't go avenge her. If he did, his other comrade would die too, and then his tower would be gone, essentially killing him.

He might be an immortal, but against someone who was able to rip him off of his planet against his will, the swordsman had nothing.

He swiftly started fighting the monsters together at once. He was constantly taking in Qi from the surroundings as he fought, but even then, he was going to lose this battle, he was sure of it.

He didn't know what to do. There were 2 chimeras and none of them were beatable in the span of time it took for the third one to arrive.

He tried his best to focus on the weaker ones, but ignoring the other chimera turned fruitless.

Soon, the man with the hammer couldn't handle the two chimeras at once and was killed by multiple bolts of lightning.

The swordsman was the only one left alive, and at that time, the third monster arrived.

Only, it wasn't a chimera.

:)