Chapter 621 MidnightNing surveyed the situation on the screens. He had done something that had made the life of everyone in this situation harder.
He had put all of his points into the monster upgrade.
Because of that, everyone in all 6 of the different groups had struggled. Group 6 was on the verge of collapse and even Group 9 didn't seem to hold on for long.
Groups 1 and 3 were generally better, but their lack of teammates didn't help their situation. Perhaps the only one that was doing better than them was Group 2.
After defeating the last two monsters, Ning had upgraded it once more. Now, he waited to see what sort of horrible monster would arrive this time.
The chimera was, fortunately, a lucky case for them as Derel knew its weakness. Underneath the chimera's chest was a spot where its scale was inverted. That was the exact location he needed to hit with the spear just once to kill it.
Of course, getting underneath its neck was hard given how flexible the damn monster was, but once he did, defeating it became as easy as eating a cake.
"Get ready, the next monster is coming," Ning shouted at them.
Drake looked better, even though it was daytime. Derel looked eager to fight and wanted to kill whatever was coming.
Meanwhile, Issi was the only one that couldn't fight properly against the monsters, but he too was going to give it his all.
"Here it comes," Ning said as a white light appeared around them, and then… the sky got dark.
Ning had to squint for a moment to see what was happening before his vision changed and he saw clearer.
A bird stood not far away. The grass around the bird caught fire, except it wasn't a normal fire.
In fact, it looked like the bird's entire body was covered in the same fire as well.
To everyone else in the group, what was in front of them was a blob of darkness that they couldn't see through.
Drake's eyes which worked great in darkness couldn't see the bird's features at all.
Issi was as good as blind.
And Derel was only able to see the bird's source of power which lay inside of its body.
Ning was the only one who could see the beast properly. He could see its black eyes, its dark, burning feathers, its light swallowing dark beak, and the darker than black fire that burned on top of it.
Ning recognized the bird from one of the man different information stored in his brain.
He looked to the sky to see if it was true. When he saw that light could be seen very, very far away on the horizon, he was sure he knew what was happening.
"I'm sorry," Ning said without turning back.
"What?" Issi asked.
"I'm sorry. I don't know how we can win this," Ning said.
"What are you—"
Suddenly, the bird stirred up and flapped its wings once. The burning feathers on the bird's body flew off in all directions.
Ning immediately created a black hole with every bit of energy he had. He couldn't spare a single amount right now.
The feathers that flew towards them all arched into the black hole and disappeared through a portal to the location where Group 5 was located.
Immediately afterward, Ning opened another portal to group 4 where the monster was already gone from, and shouted, "Get in! Fast."
"What? No, we're fighting it," Derel shouted.
"You can't win," Ning shouted.
"Bullshit!" Derel said and ran forward to send out a blast of fire from her palms directly towards the bird.
However, when it did reach the bird, the black fire burning on top of it bird immediately destroyed Derel's fire as if it were nothing.
"This bastard!" Derel cried out as waves of smoke escaped from her own mouth, ready to fight the bird.
"Just go!" Ning shouted. "I will handle this one!"
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"I can help too," Derel said.
"Urgh!" Ning was fed up with her and immediately used his energy to push her through the portal before closing it. He then created another portal for the other two, who jumped in without much thought.
Ning turned back to look at the bird with clear fear in his eyes. He didn't know how he was going to fight this one, only that the others could not.
He knew all of this bird's tricks. A hunter in the night with a speed that killed its prey before they even realized they had been touched.
A black fire that burned eternally and consumed everything before it vanished.
The ability to turn day into night simply by existing. And the ability to block off all sense of vision.
Ning knew exactly what this bird was and how powerful it was. After all, this was something he had been looking forward to when his own bird evolved.
After all, this was what Night was going to be when he evolved. This was what every Dark Emperor Crow became when they evolved.
One of the legendary beasts in the world of Qi. Rival to beings such as the True Dragons and Qilins.
The Midnight Phoenix.
Ning pulled out his spear and put every single last drop of Aether into his body. He didn't care if he was left with Aether after this or not.
He didn't have the luxury to.
After this, He was sure that there wouldn't be another round. Since the chances of the other groups surviving a being such as the Midnight Phoenix itself was impossible, to begin with.
Ning spared a glance at the screen before looking back at the bird which was staring at him.
Group 9 was dead. A single attack from the Midnight Phoenix destroyed everything.
Suddenly, a high-pitched screech escaped from the phoenix and Ning saw his surroundings grow dark. Pitch black in fact.
There was not a single source of light to help him see in the darkness. But that couldn't stop Ning at all.
After all, his strongest vision skill needed no light to be able to see his surrounding.
He took a deep breath as he pointed the spear towards the Phoenix and charged.
Chapter 622 TrapThe phoenix moved, and it left a hurricane in its wake. It was not a normal hurricane either. The gusts of winds burned with a black fire that consumed the wind itself.
Ning, who was charging against the Midnight Phoenix couldn't keep up with its speed at all. The only thing he found out was that he was struck by the bird and sent flying down to the ground.
A crater formed near the tower but Ning was unhurt. His incredible strength and durability from being enhanced by Aether fully protected his body.
Even if he hadn't, the bird wouldn't have managed to do the same amount of damage as he had expected it to.
The bird was fast, there was no denying that. He couldn't even see it move after all. However, it wasn't very strong. At least, not in its cultivation base.
This was definitely one of the weaker ones.
That wasn't something to be happy about, however. This just meant that he would last a little longer than if the bird was stronger.
Ning was about to get back up when he saw a flash of black come through the sky. The next thing he knew, he was missing a leg.
The Midnight Phoenix appeared to the side, with half of his leg hung on the side of its abyssal beak and chewed on it.
Ning watched angrily as his leg grew back. And the bird saw that too.
The bird wasn't intelligent at all, that Ning could guarantee for sure. After all, this bird held no soul.
Only those that held a soul could be considered to be intelligent. However, that did not mean that the bird had no shred of intelligence.
Even wild animals had some sort of intelligence. Usually, that intelligence came in the form of instincts.
Instincts to prey for food when they were hungry. Instincts to run away from predators when they were scared.
Instincts to breed when they were in the heat. Instincts to be afraid of a trap they had fallen for before.
Instincts guided the brain of those that did not have a soul. As such, the Midnight Phoenix's current brain also had an instinct to tell it something.
It told it that the prey down there could become full even after it had eaten his leg. So, if it could continue it, it would be able to become its food forever.
When Ning saw the bird's eyes, he knew what he was in for.
Immediately, he flew up but the bird was way too fast. Ning was swept away to the side while the bird ripped off his leg again while he was in mid-air.
At the same time, his left arm caught on fire even as he was tossed away in the air.
Ning didn't hit the ground this time and continued flying in the air. At the same time, he used his spear to cut off his arm before it was fully consumed by the black fire.
Slowly, his leg and arm regenerated back and he couldn't help but look at the beast with anger in his eyes.
"Goddamn you! I will kill you," Ning said to the bird as he held the spear tight. Even as the bird began to move, Ning created a portal large enough for the bird to enter through.
At the same time, he created a portal right in front of the first portal and made it the destination of the first portal.
So, when the bird entered the portal, it was now forever stuck in between those two portals.
The bird was stuck in the portal for a few seconds and fire built up in the air around it.
Then, the bird slowed down as it realized it wasn't going anywhere.
When Ning saw this, he immediately created more portals around the bird to keep it contained.
The bird tried flying once again and entered through one of the portals. It appeared from a random one in the sphere that surrounded it.
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Ning continued to power the many portals as it, fortunately, didn't cost him a lot of energy to create portals with such a small distance.
At the same time, he watched the bird enter through each of the portals and try to figure out what was going on.
Even as it entered through every portal available to it, it still couldn't escape the entrapment.
Ning felt quite happy that he managed to trap it. Now, he simply needed to think of a way to kill it before he was fully drained of his energy or another one of these birds popped out of nowhere.
A minute later, the bird finally got angry as it realized that it was truly trapped and started getting restless.
The fire burned around it with no heat at all as it shot out flames from its mouth as a dragon would.
The black fires spilled from the cracks in between the trap that Ning couldn't cover as his portals couldn't touch each other, lest they destabilize and destroy each other.
Fortunately, the spillage wasn't a problem for Ning.
Then, the bird flapped its wings real hard and shot out a bunch of burning feathers all around it.
Most of the feathers entered the portals and came back at the bird. However, some of it spilled through the cracks once again.
One of them was headed straight for the tower.
Ning immediately stopped it, but the bird saw what happened. It realized that there was a way out.
The way out was incredibly small, but it was there. And the size of something hadn't mattered to the bird in a very long time.
Immediately, the bird's body began to shrink until it was the size of a sparrow.
Then, it flew into the portals again. It didn't know where the crack was exactly, so it was going to brute force it.
Ning tried his best to stop that by increasing the size of the portal, but no matter how large he made them, they could never touch each other.
So, he wasn't surprised at all when the bird managed to fly out of the trap. Only worried.
Chapter 623 ImmuneThe bird flew out, but it retained its small size. It knew that it had an advantage this way.
Ning frowned and prepared his spear. He wasn't going to get caught off guard by the bird's speed now.
He looked into the screen in a quick glance and saw that Group 6 was gone too.
Now, only 4 groups remained.
He couldn't watch how the fights were going in the other groups at all. He could only watch the bird in front of him and worry just how the hell he was going to defeat this bird.
Spear Qi filled the area as he created a domain with his intent. Slices of spear-shaped Qi hit the bird but it never could damage it at all.
At the same time, Ning thoughts of ways to fight the beast.
He thought of going invisible and fighting that way. But the bird had divine sense, so that would never work unless he had a way to hide from divine sense as well.
Besides, even if it didn't, going invisible was a bad idea as the bird's target in the first place was the tower.
The only reason it wasn't attacking the tower was that he was distracting it.
'The tower,' Ning thought for a moment and looked at something that hadn't been used before.
The Turret.
Ning immediately put what little points he had into the turret's damage and went in range.
At the same time, the bird moved once again.
Like a bullet fired from a rifle, the bird moved through the air causing multiple sonic booms. At the same time, it left a trail of darkness that tried to burn everything.
Ning pulled out every little bit of speed he could muster and ducked underneath the bird's pathway while at the same time moving his spear to hit the bird.
He was too late.
He barely managed to duck a little, but the spear never made it to the bird. Instead, the bird hit his wrist and was knocked aside due to his strength.
Now that the bird wasn't in its full form, its body was a lot weaker than before.
In fact, just the fact that he had managed to put his arm up before the bird arrived meant that it had become slow as well.
It was still way too fast for Ning, but it had become slow. Unfortunately, its fire remained of the same strength.
Ning let go of the spear on his right arm before the fire on his wrist caught up to it, and instead used it to cut off his own arm.
This was the second time Ning was forced to cut off his own limb today. He was not happy at all.
Without wasting any more time, Ning grabbed the bird with his telekinesis. Now that it didn't weigh as much, he could use it to stop it.
Then, he flew towards it and tried to strike it.
The bird struggled to move, but it was incapable of moving. It didn't know how it was stopped, but it knew it had to be the work of the human in front of it.
So, even as the spear fell towards it, the Midnight Phoenix spewed out a stream of black flame.
Liquid fire shot out of the bird's mouth that directly hit the blade of the spear. Even as the spear got close to the bird, Ning knew it was over.
A bladeless spear went past the bird barely even touching it. Ning immediately let go of the spear in fear of catching the fire that was going up its shaft.
He created another spear using Aether and struck the bird again. But once again, black flame spewed out of the bird's beak, burning away the spear.
Ning frowned and was about to think of some other ways to hurt the bird when the bird suddenly grew in size.
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It was back to how it used to be and that meant Ning could no longer control it at all.
Anger flared in the bird's eyes. Even as Ning started creating a portal to run out of the way, the bird spewed out its black flame again.
Ning was still in the unknown of what would happen to him if his body were to disappear.
Would he simply switch bodies to something else? Or would his body regenerate out of nothing?
If that did happen, would the fire disappear after his body was gone? Or would he have to eternally suffer the fires of midnight that consumed until nothing remained?
Whatever the answer was, Ning didn't want to find out today. But… what could he do? How could he run away?
Suddenly, something flew down from the distance and appeared in front of him even as the black flame made its way to him.
Ning involuntarily closed his eyes, not wanting to see the figure in front of him get burned away in the fire.
However, that didn't happen at all. The black stream of fire struck the figure, but it never went past that point. It flew off the side, went downward and upwards, but it never went past where Ning was.
The bird stopped its attack and looked at the person that survived its attack. Its instinct told it this was the first time for such a thing to happen.
"How… how?" Ning held a stupefied face as he asked.
The red-haired, dark-skinned girl turned around to meet his eyes with her own yellow, snake-like eyes. "I thought I told you before. I am immune to fire," she said.
Ning looked at Derel in awe. "But… but that's no ordinary fire," he said.
"Doesn't matter," Derel said as she turned around, back to the bird. "Fire is fire. And if it is fire, it is useless against me."
"I'm sorry for sending you away," Ning said, realizing that he had sent away someone who could fight.
"Stop sulking around. It doesn't suit you," she said. "Get back up and fight. We have some points we need to earn."
Chapter 624 Flash of Light"Yes, let's fight," Ning said as he stared at the giant Midnight Phoenix.
Derel flew off without asking, with a fire burning in her hand and behind her wings.
Ning couldn't even tell her anything before she arrived next to the Midnight Phoenix, but the Phoenix was way faster than her.
It moved, leaving behind a gust of wind full of the fire, but that never bothered Derel.
She turned, while in the fire and moved towards the Phoenix again and the Phoenix turned towards her.
The two of them clashed in the middle and Derel was the one that took more of the damage in the clash.
She tumbled down through the air until she hit the ground.
"Goddammit! It is strong," she said.
"I was about to tell you," Ning said, arriving next to her. "Its speed is way too fast. We need to fight otherwise."
"Goddammit! If it just stops, I can show it who's the boss here," Derel said as she stood up.
"Can you defeat it? If it stops that is," Ning asked seriously.
Derel looked at him seriously for a few seconds and said, "yes!"
"Alright, leave that part to me then," Ning said.
Suddenly, a portal appeared next to the bird. The bird realized what was happening and flew away in the opposite direction but a portal appeared there too.
It barely managed to stop in time and flew in a different direction this time, and yet once again another portal appeared there as well.
This time, it directly went into the portal and came out of another portal, before falling into another portal.
Once after another, portals appeared all around the bird once again as it was entrapped in it.
It spewed out the liquid black flame that fell through the cracks, but nothing more than that escaped out.
"That's… interesting," Derel said. "Why didn't you do this with the others?"
"I didn't need to do it with the others," Ning said. Even though he spoke casually, there was a certain strain on his voice from him having to concentrate his entire being on not letting go of the portal.
The criss-cross of space was a heck of a lot harder to maintain than it looked. At the same time, he had been waiting for something else.
"Shit!" Derel said softly, but Ning heard her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I can't see anything. That chicken just did something," she said.
Ning turned off his vision and he too was in complete darkness. His vision returned and he watched the bird prepare to do something.
Suddenly, the bird shrank down to the size of a sparrow.
"This is it!" Ning said and suddenly he used his telekinesis to grab the bird, keeping it in place.
The bird struggled to move, but unless it weighed more than his body, it could forget about escaping his grasp.
The bird employed its movement and it gave Ning a headache from having to keep in control something of great relative weight. However, he managed to do it.
"Your turn now," Ning shouted at Derel.
"I can't even see where the chicken is," Derel shouted back at him.
Ning was about to ask something when she shouted, "Wait, wait, wait. I can see it. I can see its energy source. Holy shit that is big."
"Can you really see it?" Ning asked.
"Not the bird itself, but its position. I can see a small area," Derel said.
"Don't worry. It is small right now," Ning said. "Do it now."
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"I can't," Derel said. "I need to be next to it."
"Dammit!" Ning thought and moved his right hand, letting go of the bird, to open a portal again. "Go ahead. You'll arrive right in front of the bird."
Derel nodded to the darkness and walked forward. When she did, the small blob of graying light that flickered far away from her, suddenly appeared right in front of her.
She moved her hand reflexively to catch it, but the bird was free now, and it escaped into one of the portals.
Ning tried to catch it again, but his eyes couldn't see where it was at all.
It hit Derel on the head and entered one of the portals. Derel turned to where it went and suddenly she was attacked on the other side of her body.
When she turned around, the bird entered another portal.
"Goddamn, this chicken!" she shouted. She didn't suffer any wounds from the bird's attacks, but she did feel the pain of getting constantly hit by something left and right and up and down and front and back.
Ning wanted to let go of the portals, but that would put them in a worse position than they started with.
So, all he could do right now was put his faith in Derel and hope she could do it.
A few minutes passed by and the bird kept on pelting her all over. Derel was getting so frustrated that she started sending out fire from her mouth all around the place.
Fire entered through the portals and exit out of another one, filling the entire place with fire.
And in that fire, the little Midnight Phoenix flew around hitting her.
As Derel got attacked once after another, she started to get a hang of the pattern in which the bird hit.
So, when the bird hit her on the left shoulder, her right hand clawed towards the portal in her upper right area and she clutched something that flew out of it.
The bird struggled to move when it was caught but Derel's hands wouldn't let it go.
"Finally, you die," she said.
She slowly raised her hand to the sky. The bird kept on struggling, but it couldn't leave. So, in a desperate attempt, it tried to grow back to its original size.
But that was too late.
"Die!" Derel said and a flash of light tore the darkness as lightning fell down from the heavens and struck the bird in her hand.
Chapter 625 Fried CircuitsThe darkness around Derel disappeared and she felt the bird in her clutch go away as well.
When she opened her hands, she saw the words '20 points' clearly float in them.
Ning saw that they had won and suddenly let go of everything. The concentration he had put up to fight the bird had been incredibly taxing.
Not to mention the fact that he had lost so much of his Aether in strengthening his body enough to survive the bird's attacks.
'Aether Divinity, huh? It's got nothing on a realm immortal that cultivated in Qi,' he thought. He had known previously, but this battle only served to make him understand how truly powerless he was when he was without a system.
Derel fell to the ground in front of his eyes even as her wings tried to keep her afloat. Ning tried to help her, but he realized she didn't need it.
While she couldn't fly, she slowly guided her body down to the ground.
"Are you okay?" Ning asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Derel said. "I used a technique that I shouldn't have used unless I was in danger and ended up frying my mana circuits."
She looked to the side and saw a concerned face on Ning. "Don't worry," Derel said. "It should heal in just a couple of hours, if not a day."
"We don't have that much free time," Ning said.
"Sigh, I know," Derel said. "How long before it appears again?"
"A couple of minutes at most," Ning said as he sighed. He was sure he was going to lose.
"Didn't we get 20 points?" Derel suddenly asked.
"Yes, we did," Ning said. "Oh, the others must not be finished yet then."
Ning opened the screens and saw only 2 screens with people on them aside from his own.
Group 2 had all 5 people fighting at once, and group 3 had its people focus entirely on defense.
One of the people in group 3 was used to creating a barrier, which the black fire apparently couldn't consume entirely.
Ning looked at the other 7 screens and saw a Midnight Phoenix on all 7 of them.
'How the hell is Genesis able to create so many Immortal realm creatures? Even if they do not have the soul, just the fact they are this powerful should keep him from making it all.'
'Then how? Where is he finding all of this power?' Ning thought. More and more, Ning was starting to get curious about Genesis' identity.
By now, he was sure Genesis was in fact the system's creator. Now, he only wondered what a system's creator was.
Were they people that got too strong in their own world and ascended to godhood? Did gods even exist for real?
"Argh!" Derel grunted as he stood up.
"Are you okay? Should you be moving?" Ning asked.
"Damn, little worm. I fried my mana circuits, not broke all the bones in my body," she said.
"Oh, right," Ning said. "So, it doesn't hurt?"
"Of course, it goddamn hurts. But a little pain isn't going to stop me," she said.
"So? What should we do now? Any idea?" Derel asked.
Ning thought for a moment and looked at his screen, then back at the tower.
"I have an idea," he said. "But it is quite risky."
"I like risky," Derel said. "What should we do?"
"You will have to get beat up again," Ning said.
"Get… beat up? Like before?" she asked.
Ning shrugged.
"Fine," she said. "But if I die, I'm taking you with me."
Ning chuckled and got ready for a fight. Together, the two of them waited for the Midnight Phoenix to appear, but it never did.
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Instead, they saw something bright appear in the sky.
When Ning looked up, he saw words that gave him a weird feeling.
[8/10 Groups have been Eliminated.]
[Congratulations to the Two remaining groups on winning the 2nd round.]
"What's this?" Derel asked as she saw something white appear in front of her.
"The Gem!" Ning said, looking at it in awe. "How?"
"So we just win if all the groups die? We don't need to go out of our way to get the gems from the beasts?" Derel asked.
"I think it's over because only 10 of us are remaining," Ning said.
All the anxiety and fear Ning had been feeling was flushed away from him as he teleported out of the place and back into the white room.
He looked around, dumbfounded as he saw Drake, Nova, Issi, and Derel by his side.
A little further away were the 5 from Group 2 who too looked haggard from their fight against the Midnight Phoenix.
The Lion with the wings was missing half of its right-wing, and the left side of the elf's head was nearly bald like she had hurriedly cut her hair to protect herself from the fire.
One of the girls, that was always in robes, was now missing it, and she stood with nothing but a simple dress and yet bright, blonde hair in full display.
Ning saw something bleed into the young man as he seemed the only one without any real damage.
The leader of the group, the girl with the violet hair was full of dirt and sweat, as well as blood from being attacked.
The group hadn't made it out as well as Ning and his group had.
Ning finally turned to look at his own group and saw Issi with a gem on his head. He too had gotten it after all the 8 groups had vanished.
'Would the game have ended earlier if there were 10 people with multiple groups?' he wondered.
Just as he thought that bright white light shined from the sky as Genesis appeared finally after quite a few days.
"Congratulations, and welcome back," he said in a grandiose voice that reverberated throughout the room with infinite dimensions.
"I am proud to call you my top 10 finalists, of whom one who will get this system of mine that I call, the Conversion system."
Chapter 626 I Killed Them'The Conversion System?' Ning wondered what that was. Genesis sounded rather proud about his system, so Ning couldn't help but wonder just how many fundamental rules of the universe it broke to obtain it.
'250 people he brought here. And now, only 10 remain. 240 dead, in less than 2 weeks,' Ning was finally starting to feel horrible about this.
The worst part was that Genesis wasn't doing it to give one of the winners a system so they could live freely. He was doing it so he could see how his little system did in the real world.
He wanted a lab rat, and he was willing to kill 249 people, and 1 soul to get it.
Ning couldn't help but wonder if there was any way for him to stop Genesis from getting too far with all of this.
But if even his System was too scared to do anything against him, Ning didn't know what he could do.
So, he had to keep on doing what he had been doing until now.
Shut up and go with the flow.
"Look at you all, fighting such a tough battle and winning. I never expected for you to make me create such strong creatures."
"As a reward for all of this, once your little break is over, I will tell you exactly how my system will work," Genesis said.
"Until then, have fun."
Before anyone could speak up, Genesis disappeared. Not long after, they all disappeared as well.
Ning appeared on the street of one of the many cities all over this planet. He tried to use his Aether, but as expected, it was all gone.
The other four teammates of his appeared next to him as well.
"So we are all still together, huh?" Issi asked as he looked around. The folks with the question marks over their head still walked around.
"We're all in this together, little worm," Derel said and started looking for an exit out of the city.
Drake slowly shifted away from Nova and tried to distance himself.
"Our powers don't work here again," Ning said so he wouldn't be so afraid of her.
Still, Drake didn't listen to him and moved to the wall before uncontrollably slumping on it and sliding down.
The cloak covered his face from the sky, but the hot sunlight still hurt him to stay under.
"Oh right," Ning said. "Let's get you inside."
Ning carried Drake into a normal house next to them and laid him on the bed.
"Thank you, leader," Drake said after taking a deep breath. After coming indoors, his body was able to move a little more and he could stand up.
"I don't think I'm a leader anymore. The competition is over and there's nothing to protect after all.
"Well, I will still call you a leader," Drake said.
"Such an embarrassing act from someone named Drake. You should have some pride and fight against the pain," Derel said.
"My parents didn't name me Drake. It's more of a nickname they used to call me with, and I adopted it as what I want everyone to call me," Drake said.
"So your real name isn't Drake?" Derel asked.
"No, its—"
"So you are just another little worm," Derel said with a sneer. "Tsk, and here I thought I met someone worth of me remembering their name."
"Whatever," Drake said and laid back on the bed.
"So… what do we do now?" Issi asked when all of them were silent.
"I don't know," Ning said.
"Will we have to fight each other now?" Issi asked something that had been bothering him for a while now. It was something everyone else had on their mind as well.
"Hopefully not," Ning said. "Genesis might come up with a different type of competition for the rest of us."
"What type is that?" Derel asked.
"I don't know," Ning said. "Let's not bother with that at the moment."
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"Sigh, fine," Derel said. "I'm going out. I need mana to fix my circuits."
As everyone watched, Derel walked out of the door and left.
"I'll go train as well," Issi said. "I don't like the fact that I had to sit out of the last 3 fights."
He too left the room, leaving the 3 behind.
Ning thought for a moment. He too needed to go collect some Aether. His reserves had been quite low after the last fight.
"I should probably go get ready for the next competition too," Ning said. "I'm assuming you won't leave now either?"
Drake shook his head. Just like last time, he wanted to stay back in the city.
'Well, since his only source of power are other people, it's not surprising he wouldn't want to leave,' Ning thought.
"You will be staying too right, Nova?" Ning asked and turned towards NOva. Only then did he notice that she was huddled up on the floor behind Drake's bed.
Seeing Ning's eyes, Drake too stood to check on her.
Ning walked up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Nova?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
Nova jolted out of her trance and looked around in fear. Her breathing got quick and Ning could clearly see the effects of her trauma on her face.
"What's wrong?" he asked. 'Did her trauma from the first round come back? Or did she see the people die in the 2nd round?'
He was sure that as far as she knew, nobody died because of her in the 2nd round.
"They died because of me," She suddenly said as tears rolled down her face. "I killed them. I killed them."
She started shivering like she had felt the coldest of chills ever.
"What are you talking about, Nova? You killed nobody," Ning said.
"No, I killed them. They were just protecting themselves, and… and… I killed them. I didn't want to kill them, but I had to… oh god!" she cried.
Ning was stunned. "You had to?" he asked, but Nova didn't answer at all.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. "Nova, who did you kill?" he asked.
Nova looked at him with fearful eyes. "I killed them," she said. "Those people from group 3."
Chapter 627 Way with WordsNing looked dumbfounded. "You killed the members of Group 3?" he asked, unable to understand how that was possible.
"Yes," Nova said in between her tears.
"But why?" Ning asked, unable to find a reason why she would do that. "How were you even there in the first place?"
"I ran," Nova said. "As fast as I could."
Ning remembered watching on the screen in the last few minutes of the competition. One of the members of the Group 3 was capable of creating a barrier that blocked the attacks of the Midnight Phoenix.
Since the competition's end had been so abrupt, Ning wasn't able to understand what had happened, only that they had won.
Just not having to fight with the damn bird again had been reason enough for him to celebrate. In between, he forgot to even think about how their victory came about.
Now that he did, he noticed how truly confusing it was. One moment Group 3 was fine, and the other moment it was over.
If given the opportunity, Ning would totally assume that the man with the barrier had failed in between which led them to have lost the round.
However, now that he knew the reason, it made so much sense.
"Why did you do it?" Ning asked. "Did someone force you? Did someone kidnap you and take you away again?"
Nova shook her head. "I did it to protect you," she said.
Ning was stunned again. "What?" he asked. "To protect me?"
Nova nodded. "I saw through the screens. You were attacked by the bird and it tore off your leg. The only way to protect you was for us to win the competition, so I went to Group 3's location and… and they killed themselves," she said.
"I looked like I was going to lose?" Ning asked. Now that he thought about it, he really was going to lose. If not for Derel appearing at the last moment, he would've surely lost.
Ning crouched down in front of her and wiped her tears. "You don't need to cry," he said. "Since you killed them for my sake, those deaths are on me. Not you."
"But… but… I killed them," She said.
"I know," Ning said. "But you did it out of good intentions. While that doesn't change the fact that you did kill someone, but it does make your act that much less horrible."
"Re-really?" she asked.
"Yes," Ning said.
Nova sniffled a bit and stopped speaking. "You ran all the way to the 3rd group's location right?" he asked.
Nova nodded.
"Then you must be really tired. I'm sure your legs are hurting quite a bit," he said.
"Yes, they are," Nova said and looked at her leg, assuming it to stop hurting, but it didn't.
Somehow, that little thing made her happier than anything Ning could have ever said. "Yes, they hurt a lot."
"You should go rest. There should be other rooms in the house," Ning said.
Nova nodded and left.
After a few moments, Drake looked back at Ning and said, "You have quite a way with words, Leader."
"One of the benefits of having lived long," Ning said.
"Well, then you must be many times older than me, cause I can't speak that well yet," Drake said. "If I was in your position, I might have just said she did the right thing."
"That is neither what she wanted to hear, nor what she needed to," Ning said. "Look after her while you're here okay? I'll go gather my energy back."
"Understood, leader," Drake said with a salute and slumped back down on the bed.
Ning sighed and left the room to go out of the city. Along the way, he couldn't help but think just how close to losing he was.
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What would have happened if he lost? What if the bird destroyed his body, and while it regenerated, it then destroyed the tower.
What would have happened then? Would he have been killed by Genesis? That likely wouldn't kill him, but what then?
That would've killed Drake, Derel, Issi, and Nova for sure. And when he too was killed and didn't die, Genesis would find out for sure that there was something wrong with him, and soon find out that he didn't have a soul.
As someone that made a system, he would be very thrilled to find the host of the energy system in his hands to experiment on.
After that, it was only a guess as to how long Ning would have to be kept by Genesis.
Maybe a thousand years? Ten thousand years? A hundred thousand years?
For someone like him, a hundred thousand years was likely nothing but a blink of an eye. But, to Ning who to go find his woman and disciples, that was a very, very long time.
'I can't afford to lose,' he thought. 'Even if it means having to let everyone else die, I cannot lose.'
Ning walked out of the gate and suddenly stumbled against someone that was standing there.
He was about to disregard the person, thinking it was a fake human, but when he saw no question mark on the top of his head, Ning gave a closer look.
He saw a young man with bright blue eyes and slightly brown hair in front of him. He was just half a head shorter than Ning and looked quite young for someone to be fighting amongst these groups.
"My bad," Ning said.
"It's fine, I was in the wrong too," the man said and tried to walk away when Ning suddenly grabbed his shoulders.
Ning had to immediately let go of the shoulders when he felt some jolts of electricity hurt him.
"Sorry," he said when the young man gave an offended look. "I just wanted to ask if your group is in this city too?"
The young man finally looked at Ning closely and remembered, "oh it's you, from the other group."
"Yes, i—"
"Yeah, I won't be answering the questions of my enemy," the young man said and went towards the forest outside in a certain direction.
Ning looked dumbfounded, but quickly stopped worrying and took one of the paths to the forest as well.
Chapter 628 Touch HimNing walked out of the city and made his way toward the forest. He then settled down on the thicker part of it and brought out his Aether from the bag.
Fighting against the Midnight Phoenix had depleted his Aether to such an extent, that it had finally made him aware of the fact that even between the different energies, there was a sort of hierarchy.
As it stood, Qi was a much better power system than the Aether. Perhaps he could also do with Aether what others could with Qi, but that didn't change the fact that Qi would have him require a lot less focus, attention, and overall talent in creating and manipulating.
If even a weaker Immortal bird with no intelligence was enough to give him trouble, Ning could only imagine what an actual immortal with all of their mental faculties could do.
Once the bottle came out, he slowly drank it. It was fortunate that he brought the most concentrated stuff from Vilmore. Otherwise, it would have surely become a problem if it started sucking in Aether from the area.
Ning had to collect it little by little too, just to be sure he didn't accidentally pull energy from the outside. He had yet to realize how much energy from outside he could absorb before Genesis learned of his truth, but he damn sure didn't want any of it to get out.
Genesis didn't give a time frame this time after which the third competition would start. Because of that, Ning needed to finish as fast as he could.
'Fast' still ended up taking over 3 days because of how slow his absorption speed was. Ning was now prepared for the third competition that would start anytime soon.
Given how long the second competition took, he expected this one to go on for a while as well. So, he was all the happier to have completely recovered his Aether.
Ning looked over himself and realized he had done what he had come to do. So, he decided to return back. Just as he did, a voice floated into his mind. A rather familiar voice that he had been desperate to hear for quite a while now.
Ning stood dumbfounded for a few seconds. 'What?' he thought internally as he didn't dare bring out the random shout of surprise.
'The system is back?' he thought to himself for a moment before remembering that no such messages had come by him. If the system had indeed come back, he would have known.
Also, there was something weird about this message exactly. There had been no notification panel that popped up in his mind like it always did. Instead, it was simply the system's voice that spoke to him.
Ning's first thought after that had been to believe that he was hallucinating, but that didn't feel right.
Next, he wondered if it was an enemy that was using their powers on him, maybe it was even Genesis who had found out about his system. However, that didn't feel right as well.
Besides, it was impossible for them to get the system's exact voice, tone, and cadence if they had never heard it speak before.
To put it simply, Ning now believed that if was the system that had messaged him. The only question now was how?
Ning decided to ask that question once the system came back. For now, there was a more pressing matter that needed his attention.
'What does it mean by Touch Him?' Ning wondered. 'Who is he?'
It didn't take him more than a split second for him to understand that the system was talking about Genesis.
'So... Should I touch him? Then what?' Ning wondered. Was the system going to take over Genesis? Was it going to release its divine wrath onto a system creator?
To begin with, was he even sure the system was talking about Genesis? What if it was talking about Drake, or Issi, or maybe that man he saw 3 days ago. Maybe the Lion was a he too.
'I guess I should just go around touching everyone then,' he thought. 'That should be enough.'
Ning decided to stop thinking on this matter and instead looked around to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything.
Once he was done, he left the forest and walked back to the city.
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As he made his way through the sea of question marks, Ning came upon a young woman who was not. She was walking towards him from the left side and would soon arrive in front of him.
As she did, she also noticed Ning slowly walking and was a little surprised. However, she didn't just because she saw him and soon the two of them came face to face with each other.
"Good Afternoon," Ning was the first to greet her.
"Good afternoon to you too, Mr. Leader," the girl replied with a curious look on her face.
"You can call me Ning," Ning said. "What name shall I call miss Leader by?"
The girl gave a cute smile. She was the leader of the other group and had likely seen him a lot through her screens back in the game.
She wore a simple white dress with a pink ribbon around her waist. Her violet hair flowed past her shoulders and down to her hips, a striking contrast to her otherwise all-white appearance.
"My name is Saphandra, but you can call me Saph," the girl said.
"I see, it's nice meeting you here miss Saph," Ning said and his eyes drifted a bit over her head. "And what should I call... Him? Her? It?"
"What do you mean?" Saph asked.
"I'm talking about your floating companion here in all blue," Ning said.
Saph's eyes suddenly change to awe, confusion, and surprise. "You can see her?" she asked.
"So it's a her," Ning said.
Saph nodded. "She's called little blue, and she's my bonded spirit. She's the one who gives me all of my powers," Saph said.
Chapter 629 Mistress"Should you be telling me that?" Ning asked with a surprised face. He hadn't expected her to reveal the truth so easily.
"About little blue? I don't see how that could possibly harm me," she said. "It's not like I told you about my powers itself."
That she did not. Ning was sure by now that she knew what his powers were. After all, he had used them so much in the last competition. While she on the other hand had used nothing until the very last fight.
By then, Ning had become too busy with his fight to spare a glance at her group to see what their powers were. In fact, he had been too tired to even care.
"Still, I'm surprised you can even see her. I wonder why? " she mused to herself.
"I have an idea," Ning said as he moved his fingers towards the little blue girl, who looked like a fairy out of a fairy tale. It was hard to pinpoint her characteristics as she moved through the wind like a formless being.
Even as Ning's fingers arrived next to her, the little spirit gave him no heed at all. She just kept on dancing in the wind.
"She won't talk to you," Saph said. "She doesn't talk to anyone, not even me."
"Does she have no intelligence?" Ning asked with an inquisitive look.
"She does, but not in here," Saph said. "Her intelligence is drowned in this place as much as her power is."
"I see," Ning said. "I would love to see her when she has her wits about her."
Ning was genuinely curious about the little blue. He wondered what bonded spirits were. Were they a type of energy to grant powers? Or were they something born of energy and could thus grant powers?
If what she said was right and the two of them were in fact bonded, which gave Saph her powers, then Ning was confident that the spirit was bonded to her soul.
That would make little blue the closest thing to a naturally formed system. That made Ning very, very curious to learn more about her.
"So? What's your reason?" Saph asked. "What's the theory behind why you can see her?"
Ning gave her a smile as he said, "Now, now. I'm not going to reveal my powers so easily, am I?"
Saph giggled a little with him "Fine, keep your secrets," she said. "now, if you'll excuse me, I need to be on my way to taste this very delicious cake that a couple has prepared for me."
She waved goodbye and left the area.
Ning kept the smile on his face as he made his way back to the house he had left Drake and Nova in.
The sea of question marks couldn't stop him from reaching the house in less than 10 minutes. What did stop him was something without a question mark.
"Another one?" Ning thought to himself when he saw a black hooded girl standing in front of the house, talking to Drake.
Ning recognized the girl. She was the golden-haired girl from the other group who had always stayed in her black robe, covering her face with a hood until the end when she had lost it.
The only other girl from their group was the green-haired Elf, who no longer had hair on the left side of her face after fighting against the Midnight Phoenix.
"She found another robe already huh?" Ning thought to himself, but quickly took back his words when he got closers.
That was no robe. It wasn't a hood or a cloak either. The closest thing Ning could call it was a large, thin blanket that the woman had wrapped around herself.
"Please just leave," Drake's lazy voice came from the door. Ning was surprised he even bothered showing up at the door given how hot it was. Which only made him question if the girl in the blanket was in her right mind or not.
"Come on, don't be like that. Is she your mistress? Are you hiding her because of that?" the girl asked.
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'Mistress?' Ning got curious now.
"What's going on?" he asked as he walked toward the woman.
The woman turned her head around and saw Ning. Then her smile grew sinister as if she had caught someone red-handed.
"There you are," she said. "Mr. Leader. You have quite the taste in women. You must like damsels who can't do anything by themselves. That must let you feel like a hero when you do save them eventually."
"Uhh... What?" Ning was confused, to say the least. He turned toward Drake to get some sort of hint to see what the talk was about.
Drake mouthed a single word at him. Nova.
Damsel. Mistress. Wanting to play the hero. The girl's words started making sense to him.
"Who are you and why are you here?" Ning asked the woman.
"The name is Bellatrix. You may call me Bella," she said. "I came here because I noticed a girl I never saw before in the 2nd competition buy food for herself. It took me a while to realize that she was the last member of your little group that you kept hidden."
"Tell me, is she your mistress? Is that why you kept her around despite her inability to fight?" She asked.
"Miss Bellatrix," Ning said.
"You can call me Bella," she said.
"No thanks," Ning said and continued. "Miss Bellatrix, did you come around to harass my companion just because you thought she didn't get here out of her own merit?"
"I don't need to think it. I know it," she said.
"Well, if you think that anyone can reach the place we are at now without pulling even a little weight, you must be dumber than you look," he said. "As far as I remember, you didn't do anything in your fight either, and simply left all the work to the lion."
"Since that was the case, can I call you its mistress?" he asked. "Its damsel in distress?"
Chapter 630 Candies"Hmph, no need to get so defensive," Bellatrix said. "I just wanted to see how she lured all of you."
"Miss, please go back. You are not welcome here," Ning said.
"You don't own this place, do you? If you want me to leave, then make me," she said.
"Very well," Ning said and grabbed Bellatrix by the arm before lifting her entirely off the ground with a single hand.
"Should I throw you out too?" he asked.
Bellatrix's face had drained of all colors by this point. "Let me go!" she started shrieking.
Ning set her down and stared at her with wide eyes to scare her. "If you come here again, I will throw you out of the city. Do you understand?" he asked.
"I… I will kill you," the woman's face suddenly got sinister as a sneer came upon her. "Just you wait."
However, despite her brave words, she was still afraid, so she quickly turned around and ran away.
"Finally," Drake said as he slumped back into the room and practically crawled his way to the bed.
"Where's Nova?" Ning asked.
"In the other room," Drake said as he got on the bed and pulled his blanket over.
Ning walked over to the other room and knocked on the door. "Nova?" he called.
No one spoke from the other side for a few seconds, but the door opened and Nova walked out.
She was now wearing a simple blue dress and her black hair was tied in a ponytail.
"Where did you find that dress?" Ning asked. He hadn't seen her change clothes before.
"I got it from some of the people in the city. They have nice clothes here," she said with a small smile.
"That girl bother you?" he asked.
"She tried to, but I ran away," Nova said. "She couldn't catch up before I came in."
"I see," Ning said. "As long as you aren't bothered."
Nova gave a meek smile and quickly her face changed as if she remembered something. "Wait," she said and quickly ran back inside.
When she came out, there was a box of candies that she showed him. "Look, sweets!" she said.
"I can see that," Ning said, a bit confused about what was so great about it. "Can I taste some?"
Nova quickly nodded her head. Ning took a piece of the candy and ate it. The candy was hard but still had a chewy texture. In terms of flavor, Alex could taste some citrus fruit, maybe a lemon or lime.
"It's quite good," he said as he ate it.
"Isn't it?" Nova said with wide eyes. "I can't believe I forgot what candies tasted like."
Ning stopped. "You haven't tasted candies in a while?" he asked.
Nova shook her head with a foolish smile. "I've been alone for many years now. There wasn't anyone to make candies," she said.
"Surely there were some out there, right? It wasn't like all candies suddenly vanished," Ning said.
Nova suddenly got a little smaller as she crouched a little. "I… I never went outside my house after… after everyone died," Nova said.
"What? You remained in your house for years?" Ning asked.
Nova couldn't bring herself to say anything, so she simply nodded.
Ning looked stunned. "What did you eat? Did you have a garden or something?" he asked.
Nova shook her head.
"What did you eat then?" Ning asked.
"Nothing," Nova said.
Few things had managed to get Ning as confused as he was right now. "Do you not get hungry?" he asked, but then he remembered her stomach growling a few days ago.
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"I do," she said. "But then I don't."
"What?" Ning had a dumb look on his face.
"Never mind," she said. "It's my powers. Anyway, you want more?"
Ning shook his head. "You eat. I'll go rest for a bit," Ning said and left Nova alone.
It felt weird to see her as happy as she was currently. He was happy for her.
Ning went to his room and lay on his bed with a head full of thoughts. Slowly, one by one all those thoughts disappeared, and he fell asleep.
When his eyes opened up again, Ning found himself in a white room.
Immediately, he got up and looked around. There were 9 other people around him, all equally confused.
"Great! Since all 10 of you have rested, we can continue on with our competition," Genesis spoke, and Ning finally noticed him up in the air.
"Before we continue, however, I promised you all something," Genesis said as he brought out the glowing orb for all to see.
The System.
"As I mentioned before, this is the Conversion system. Now you might be wondering what it converts," he said. "And the answer is simple. It converts energy."
"Imagine you are running out of Mana in the middle of the battle and your enemy sends out a fireball. No problem. Use the Heat from the fireball to convert it into mana and suddenly, you no longer have mana problems."
"You need extra Spiritual energy to summon something and you can't find the energy? Simply use the gravity of the planet to convert it into Spiritual energy to aid your summoning."
"You are going through Heavenly tribulation, the lightning is getting more and more fierce, and you have run out of Qi. What do you do? Simple! You just convert the lightning into Qi and continue on."
"There are many scenarios where this system can be useful, and if I do say so myself, this is one of the best systems out there right now," Genesis said.
"Of course, you won't be able to use it just like I explained it just now. After all, you will have to slowly evolve it by gaining experience which will involve achieving something, learning something, or killing something."
"Once you do gain the experience and fully unlock all the functionalities of the system, I am sure you will reach the height you have never before," Genesis said with a proud voice.
"And it will be all thanks to the system I created for you."
Chapter 631 Choosing a Color"Woah!" Drake heard Genesis's explanations and couldn't help but show amazement at it all.
If he could get the system, he wouldn't have to ever worry about running out of energy.
"I won't have to kill people just so I can live either," he said to himself softly.
"Hmph, I don't need that," Derel said to his side.
Nova looked at it with a confused look. Would that even help her?
Issi on the other hand looked at the system intently as he clutched his own sword. With it, he could become stronger. Stronger, at least, than he was when his brother gave up his life to contain the tsunami into his sword.
If he had the system at that time, he could have stopped the tsunami maybe, and protected everyone who died from it.
Maybe, he would get to take revenge against the demons that caused the tsunami and ran away into their portals.
The various other people in the group had similar thoughts.
The Lion's expression was unreadable, but it seemed to want the system. The man's expression was solemn, but one could see that he wanted it.
The elf looked agitated, perhaps remembering the demons that killed her people.
The hooded Bellatrix had a sinister look on her face, perhaps thinking that she could summon a greater monster than the demon she had summoned to kill everyone.
Finally, Saphandra had a curious look on her face. She looked to her shoulders from time to time, checking on little blue, possibly thinking how this would help her.
Ning on the other hand was more scared than anything.
'Did he really base the system on the Energy system?' he wondered.
Since everything in the system had to do with energy, it begged to question if he did use the energy system as its basis or not.
If he did, did he find another host to use for his experiment? Or was the information about the energy system readily available?
Whatever it was, Ning was sure that it broke many of the laws of the universe. Ning couldn't help but wonder if Genesis himself was already breaking many of the laws.
"Alright, since the explanation of the system is done, let us begin the next round," Genesis said and suddenly something appeared in front of every one of them.
Ning was pulled out of his trance as a screen appeared in front of his eyes with 5 different squares of different colors in it.
Yellow, Blue, Red, Green, and Purple.
He was confused for a second before he saw the words at the top of the screen.
CHOOSE A COLOR
'Why?' Ning wondered and randomly pressed on the red color. However, before he could touch it, it grayed out.
"Huh?" he made a sound.
"Hey! I was trying to get the red one," Drake said from the side. "Why did you take it Derel?"
"Why not?" Derel said as she pointed to her bright red hair and dress. "If I don't choose red, who will?"
Ning looked back at his screen and saw that the grayed-out red square had Derel's face on it.
"Oh, so it's a choice between the group," Ning said out loud.
"Huh?" Issi asked.
"It's a choice between us 5. We are to choose the 5 different colors. You guys can each choose one," Ning said.
"Oh," Issi said as he looked at his screen. "If that is the case then I hope you guys won't mind if I take blue."
"Take, take," Drake said. "I would be offended if you didn't."
Ning looked at his own screen and wondered if he liked any of these colors. He soon found he didn't terribly want either one, so he was fine with whatever remained.
"Drake, you can choose one," Ning said, seeing that no one was choosing any.
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"Sure," Drake said and looked at the 3 remaining colors.
"I don't eat plants so green is out of the question," he mumbled to himself. "As for purple, that is said to be the color of royalties and rulers."
"I don't want to be either of that anymore," he said and finally tapped on the remaining color.
"Yellow it is," he said.
"Your turn now," Ning said to Nova.
Nova looked at the two remaining colors and clicked on the green without hesitation.
"Well, I guess I'm left with purple then," Ning said and tapped on the last remaining color.
Once all 5 of their faces appeared on the screen, the screen vanished.
Genesis appeared a few seconds later and spoke up.
"Since you have chosen your color, the competition will begin now," he said and put forth his arm.
Suddenly, crowns emerged from the heads of each of them. It still had the same gems that they received in the 2nd competition. Only, now the gems were colored in the same color as the one that they had just chosen.
Suddenly, the gems escaped from their crowns and flew into the air. However, they didn't merge with each other and instead met with the other 5 flying gems of the 5 different colors from the opposite team.
Finally, the respective colored gems mixed together to form a more saturated version of themselves.
Then, the 5 saturated gems hung in the air, beneath which a stage appeared, big enough for any one of them to fight in.
Ning quickly understood what was happening.
"The next round will reduce the 10 to 5. It will be a 1-on-1 against the person who chose the same color as you from the other group," Genesis said.
"Whoever wins the battle between the two will get the gem that hangs in the air."
"When the fight for all 5 gems is over, the competition will end as well," he said.
Every single one of the 10 remaining people couldn't help but be shocked as to just how hard the next round was going to be.
Ning couldn't help but look to the other side, wondering who he would have to fight. He could at least name one that he hoped he didn't have to fight against.
Chapter 632 YellowThe 5 gems hung in the air, a constant reminder that in a short while 5 of them were going to die.
The mood could not be any more somber, and Genesis didn't like that at all.
"Before the fights start, I have good news for you all," he said. "There are 3 ways of losing in the upcoming fights."
"You lose if you die. You lose if you are sent out of this fighting platform. And finally, you lose if you die," Genesis said.
"If you do not die in the next match, you will get to live until the end to see the winner of this whole thing. After all, what good is an award ceremony with no one to witness it?" Genesis asked.
Genesis's attempt at brightening up the mood only had the opposite effect. He realized that too, so he stopped trying to make them happy and instead went on with the matches.
"Alright, let's start it then," he said and put forth his hand.
The gems that were hanging in the air started spinning fast, and a single gem fell from the spin directly onto Genesis's hand.
Genesis propped up the gem for everyone to see.
Yellow.
"Tsk!" Drake said from beside Ning.
"It seems you are first, Drake," Issi said.
"Good luck," Nova said softly.
"Even though you are not using your real name, make sure you live up to it, little worm," Derel said. After learning that Drake wasn't actually named Drake, but was rather a nickname, the respect that Derel gave him seemed to have gone with it as well.
"Do your best," Ning said.
"Yeah, well… let's see who I am to fight," he said as he walked onto the stage.
From the other side, a young man walked onto the stage as well. It was the only man in the other group.
Ning looked at the short-haired man, and then at the lousy, cloaked Drake. The difference was astounding.
'Well, he should be fine once we get our powers back,' Ning thought.
"Stand on that circle," Genesis said to the two men that walked on stage. Drake and the other man went to the opposite end of the stage and got ready to battle.
Drake lousily stood while Genesis started to speak again.
"Introduce yourself before you fight," he said.
Drake rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak up. "I am—"
"Drake," the other man said from the other end of the stage. "I know. I also know the name of your companions. Derel, Issi, Ning, and Nova."
"I am Taron. Let's just get this fight over with so I can return back to my seat," the man said.
Drake got a little angry when he heard that. "No, that is not my name," he said. "Drake is my nickname that only my parents and my friends get to use. You are neither one of those, so you will refer to me with my real name."
"Oh?" Taron gave a surprised look. "And what would that be?"
"Drakula! Vladmir Drakula III, King of the Lifestealers, Ruler of Transylgard."
Ning looked at the stage with a bit of shock and a bit of surprise on his face.
"Oh, I never realized," he said.
"What? His name? I don't think any of us did," Issi said.
"No, no, not his name. But rather his species," Ning said. "I didn't realize he was a vampire or at least something like that."
"Since the both of you have introduced yourself, we shall begin the fights now," Genesis said.
"I will count to 3. On 2, I will let you use your energy in a bubble around you, on 3 you start fighting," he said.
"1…"
Drake stopped slouching and got a little straighter.
"2…"
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Suddenly, he got his Lifeforce back and he could feel the power coursing through his veins again. He looked in front of him ready to fight when he saw something crawl out of Taron's skin.
It was silver and white and shiny at the same time. There were spots of black and blue from time to time, but mostly it was just white and silver.
Drake didn't know what to think about it, but for some reason, he thought it looked like metal.
"3… Fight!"
Suddenly, the flowing metal covered Taron and he put up his metal-covered hands to show a circular hole at the center of his palm.
Suddenly, something bright appeared in it, and in the next moment, something fired from it.
Drake dodged to the side as quickly as he could, but he was still slow. He was hit directly on the shoulder and a portion of it was torn off and sprayed all over behind him.
Drake gave a glare and caught his left hand from slumping over and pulling the rest of the torn shoulder down with it.
"Give up, or you'll die," a robotic voice came from the metal-covered mask that Taron was now wearing.
"Like hell I will," Drake shouted and dashed forward. His mouth showed fangs that were never there before while his missing shoulder slowly started to grow back, bone and all.
"Very well then," the blasters on Taron's palm brightened and fired once again.
Suddenly, Drake disappeared in a puff of smoke and the blasters missed him. What remained was a small bat that flew at super-speed and just before it arrived next to Taron, it changed back to Drake and gave a deafening blow to Taron's head.
However, his fist didn't touch Taron at all.
A portion of Taron's helmet flew out to create a physical barrier that stopped him.
Drake immediately spun and kicked the right side of Taron, but a portion of his stomach's covering once again came out to block the attack.
Drake turned into a bat and arrived further back to look at Taron seriously.
He barely managed to catch the smug smile that was now hidden behind the flowing metal that covered his face.
"You ready to give up yet?" Taron asked.
Drake gave a sinister look as well. "I have not even started yet."
Chapter 633 First Victor
Wake up, Taron
Wendy spoke in his ears, but Taron didn't hear it. His eyes and ears were only watching and listening to Drake.
Kill yourself. That was the command he had gotten and he would fulfill it.
Applying taser on you
BZZT
Taron's body convulsed a bit when he was shocked by his AI. Only then did he gain back his mind.
"What the hell happened?" he asked.
You were hypnotized once again and I saved you. You must thank me next time by finding me the perfect power source
"I will," Taron said. "Thanks, wendy."
no need. That is what I'm here for.
Drake looked from far away with a troubled look. 'Looks like hypnosis won't work either,' he thought.
'What can I do now then?' he wondered.
Taron got back up and got ready to fight Drake. Drake quickly got out of the firing way and started running circles around Taron to dodge any more missiles or blaster shots.
After all, he didn't have much regeneration capability if he was attacked.
'I need more Lifeforce,' he thought, but it would be hard to gain in this place.
As he ran around Taron, he noticed something that he hadn't noticed while Taron was down on the ground.
There was a bit on his back that didn't have any covering on it. It was his bum… but he didn't have the luxury to choose at the moment.
He sighed as he ran and suddenly stopped. Then, he used his Lifeforce. Suddenly, he turned into black smoke, and out of that smoke came not 1, not 2, but a hundred different bats.
The bats flew in a group towards Taron. Taron quickly fired off his blasters, but it couldn't hit the bats that knew how to dodge them.
As the bats got closer, the numerous little nanomachines on Taron's body got to work. They flew off in every direction trying to stop the advancement of the bats.
And somehow, they were successful in stopping every single bat.
Every single bat, except for the one that was really Drake.
Drake wasn't flying in the air at all. Rather, he was using Lifeforce to hide in the shadows.
As Taron moved around and his nanomachines moved around with him, Drake slowly used the shadows that appeared around him to make his way up the body.
The nanomachines would stop the bats and retreat back to their location, but since there were no nanomachines on Taron's bum, Drake managed to enter it without any of the nanomachines providing obstacles.
Then, he opened his bat mouth and bit into the bum. As soon as he bit it, his fangs secreted a venom that numbed the area around the bum. So, even as he drake blood, Taron couldn't feel it at all.
However, just because Taron didn't feel it, didn't mean that he wouldn't know.
Your vitals are dropping. You are losing blood.
"What? How?" Taron asked while also shooting at the bats around him.
Scanning
A visual of his body appeared in front of his eyes and it showed Drake sucking away all the blood from his butt.
"What the hell? This asshole is sucking my ass," Taron shouted and smacked his own butt.
Drake left before he was hit and appeared as a human far away.
"Disgusting bastard!" Taron shouted, but Drake said nothing. He felt disgusted himself.
Still, he had managed to get some much-needed Lifeforce and was now going to use that to fight.
He watched as the nanomachines struggle to protect against all of the bats.
Taron could tell that he was getting overwhelmed himself. "ENOUGH!" he shouted and suddenly his entire body armor fluctuated.
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A shockwave released from his body drove away all the bats, turning them into a puff of black smoke and destroying them.
Taron heaved a bit and Drake saw that.
'I need to overwhelm him more,' He thought. Then he used up his Lifeforce even more and suddenly he felt very light on his feet.
In a flash, Drake appeared next to Taron and he punched his face. The nanomachines around that part moved to block the attack, but Drake was already on his right side, punching it again.
Before the nanomachines could even do anything, he disappeared once again and arrived behind him.
He tried to grab the open area around his butt, but it seemed to have been covered already.
Nanomachines from Taron's behind moved to stop but Drake was already at the front where the nanomachines had first moved to protect him.
Drake's hands moved towards the empty shoulder from where the nanomachines had left and dug his long nails into them.
Then before the nanomachines could move back, he tore off a chunk of the shoulder.
"AARGH!!" Taron cried out in pain as blood seeped out of his armor.
Applying anesthesia and freezing the wound
Wendy did what she could, but Drake wasn't going to stop his attack now. He moved right and left, weaving around and into the nanomachines that protected him.
Soon they stopped leaving Taron's body. However, that meant that Taron would now have to feel the full force of Drake's attack.
Each punch felt like a truck hitting him. Taron tried to attack or even just hold on, but he wasn't able to.
Slowly, he was punched until he was at the edge of the stage, and then with a final kick, Taron was sent flying out of it.
Before he hit the ground, Taron tried to fly back, but he was already considered to have left.
So, the energy source that powered his suit suddenly went dormant and the nanomachines seeped back into his body.
Taron fell onto the ground with a massive thud and suddenly lost consciousness.
Drake stood on the stage as he heaved in deep breaths to fight the fatigue he was feeling.
Bright white light shined from above him as Genesis appeared. He slowly drifted down to Drake and placed a hand on his shoulders.
"And we have our first winner. Congratulations."
Chapter 634 Little
Genesis opened his palm and suddenly a bright yellow gem appeared on his hand.
"You have won this," Genesis said and handed the gem to Drake.
Drake nodded with a lazy look on his face. Now that the match was over, his powers had disappeared, and there was no longer any Lifeforce available for him to sustain himself.
Once he grabbed the yellow gem, the gem disappeared and appeared on the front of his crown.
Once there, Genesis finally let him leave. Drake made his way back to the group where Ning and the others congratulated him as well.
"Alright, next up is…" Genesis spoke as the 4 remaining gems in the air started spinning around very fast.
Then, a single gem fell down, which he caught gracefully.
"Here it is," he said as he opened up his palm to show the next gem.
Red.
Ning saw the blood-red gem on Genesis' hand and then turned to Derel. "It seems you are up," he said.
"It does seem so," she said as she stood up. "I'll return in a few moments, little worms."
Then, she walked to the stage.
Even as she did, Ning's eyes remained on Genesis. After all, he had noticed something interesting that would help him.
'He comes into physical contact with people that win, huh? That means I can touch him when I win,' Ning thought.
He wished he had an easy match-up.
As he watched the other group, the Lion slowly walked towards the stage as well.
"Oh, her opponent is the lion," Drake said from the side. "Wasn't he the one that kept fighting all battle for the other group?"
"Yes," Ning said. "But Derel should be fine. She killed a Midnight Phoenix. That's not something just anyone can do."
"Well, let's just watch and see," Issi said from the side.
Derel arrived on the stage and stood on the side where Drake stood. The lion appeared on the other side and waited.
"Introduce yourselves," Genesis spoke.
"Yhigach!" the Lion spoke out loud.
"Derelicia Regalian Aeon Gondra," Derel said.
"Hahaha, why does a lousy human need such big names? You should have names that match your size, little one," the lion said.
"Lit— did you just call me 'little one'?" Derel asked.
"Yes, little one," the lion spoke. "I will be sure to make your death quick. I don't find pleasure in bullying little humans."
Derel looked shocked. She couldn't believe someone had the audacity to say such things to her.
"Now you've done it," Derel said as her face filled with rage.
"Alright, we will start in 3."
"1…"
Derek's eyes narrowed as her breath deepened.
"2…"
Suddenly, power returned to both of them. The lion got his Aura back, while Derel got her mana back.
As soon as she could feel her access to the mana, she decided to let go of this little body and return to her natural form.
As she did, her body started growing.
The color of her skin changed, going from back to red.
The lower half of her face extended until it the front of her face was nothing but a snout. Her yellow slitted eyes fell into place around her now red skin.
The long red hair on her head changed into manes that hung from the back of her neck.
Two massive black horns appeared from her head that had a live fire burning on them.
Her body itself got larger and wider. The red dress she wore slowly stuck to her skin and became part of it as it slowly turned into scales on her body.
Derel's wings appeared from her back that slowly got larger and larger.
As it grew, Ning and the others realized that they were wrong in assuming that it was a bat's wing.
A tail appeared from behind her as well until it was out of the stage. It slammed on the ground so hard that Ning could feel vibrations from all the way in his seat.
The lion watched in horror as Derel's real form appeared nearly 3 times his own size.
"Call me little one more time," A distorted voice spoke from what was Derel.
"You-You… you're a…"
"Dragon, yes," Derel finished his sentence. "Are you going to call me little again?"
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"3." Genesis finished speaking.
"I—"
Suddenly, Derel opened her mouth and a massive fire burst out of it. A crimson red fire hit the lion before it had time to use its Aura to protect itself.
The fire lasted for a few moments, and when it finally disappeared, there was no sign of the lion anywhere.
The match had ended as soon as it had started.
"Oh, look at that, it's already over," Genesis spoke.
The four members on the other side looked in horror at the stage. Had it been any of them that had chosen the red color, it would have likely been them that got incinerated like that.
Derel changed back to her human form as her horns and tails disappeared. Her skin became dark again and the scales in her body became her red dress.
"Congratulations," Genesis said as he patted Derel's shoulders. "Here."
Derel took the red gem, which appeared on her forehead, and returned to the group.
"You're a dragon?" Drake asked with wide eyes.
"Yes," Derel said.
"You're a freaking dragon?" Drake said again.
"I said yes," Derel said.
"Why did you not say that before?" Drake asked.
"Why should I? You didn't say who you were before either," she said.
That shut Drake up.
"You seem to hate being called a little human," Issi said.
"Of course," Derel said. "That bastard dared to say it."
"And yet you call us little worms all the time. Isn't that hypocritical?" he asked.
"What's wrong with worms?" Derel asked with a confused face. "Worms are much stronger than humans. Since you are strong humans, I chose to call you worms."
Everyone looked at each other awkwardly. "Since when are small worms that wriggle in mud stronger than humans?" they asked.
"What? No, not worms. WORMS," she said.
"Isn't that the same thing?" Ning asked.
"WORMS. Goddammit, I can't say it right as a human," Derel said. She pointed her lips a little and spoke again, "WYRMS. W-Y-R-M-S, wyrms."
"OH!" Ning and Issi finally got it."
"You guys thought I would call you anything less than that?"
Chapter 635 LittleGenesis opened his palm and suddenly a bright yellow gem appeared on his hand.
"You have won this," Genesis said and handed the gem to Drake.
Drake nodded with a lazy look on his face. Now that the match was over, his powers had disappeared, and there was no longer any Lifeforce available for him to sustain himself.
Once he grabbed the yellow gem, the gem disappeared and appeared on the front of his crown.
Once there, Genesis finally let him leave. Drake made his way back to the group where Ning and the others congratulated him as well.
"Alright, next up is…" Genesis spoke as the 4 remaining gems in the air started spinning around very fast.
Then, a single gem fell down, which he caught gracefully.
"Here it is," he said as he opened up his palm to show the next gem.
Red.
Ning saw the blood-red gem on Genesis' hand and then turned to Derel. "It seems you are up," he said.
"It does seem so," she said as she stood up. "I'll return in a few moments, little worms."
Then, she walked to the stage.
Even as she did, Ning's eyes remained on Genesis. After all, he had noticed something interesting that would help him.
'He comes into physical contact with people that win, huh? That means I can touch him when I win,' Ning thought.
He wished he had an easy match-up.
As he watched the other group, the Lion slowly walked towards the stage as well.
"Oh, her opponent is the lion," Drake said from the side. "Wasn't he the one that kept fighting all battle for the other group?"
"Yes," Ning said. "But Derel should be fine. She killed a Midnight Phoenix. That's not something just anyone can do."
"Well, let's just watch and see," Issi said from the side.
Derel arrived on the stage and stood on the side where Drake stood. The lion appeared on the other side and waited.
"Introduce yourselves," Genesis spoke.
"Yhigach!" the Lion spoke out loud.
"Derelicia Regalian Aeon Gondra," Derel said.
"Hahaha, why does a lousy human need such big names? You should have names that match your size, little one," the lion said.
"Lit— did you just call me 'little one'?" Derel asked.
"Yes, little one," the lion spoke. "I will be sure to make your death quick. I don't find pleasure in bullying little humans."
Derel looked shocked. She couldn't believe someone had the audacity to say such things to her.
"Now you've done it," Derel said as her face filled with rage.
"Alright, we will start in 3."
"1…"
Derek's eyes narrowed as her breath deepened.
"2…"
Suddenly, power returned to both of them. The lion got his Aura back, while Derel got her mana back.
As soon as she could feel her access to the mana, she decided to let go of this little body and return to her natural form.
As she did, her body started growing.
The color of her skin changed, going from back to red.
The lower half of her face extended until it the front of her face was nothing but a snout. Her yellow slitted eyes fell into place around her now red skin.
The long red hair on her head changed into manes that hung from the back of her neck.
Two massive black horns appeared from her head that had a live fire burning on them.
Her body itself got larger and wider. The red dress she wore slowly stuck to her skin and became part of it as it slowly turned into scales on her body.
Derel's wings appeared from her back that slowly got larger and larger.
As it grew, Ning and the others realized that they were wrong in assuming that it was a bat's wing.
A tail appeared from behind her as well until it was out of the stage. It slammed on the ground so hard that Ning could feel vibrations from all the way in his seat.
The lion watched in horror as Derel's real form appeared nearly 3 times his own size.
"Call me little one more time," A distorted voice spoke from what was Derel.
"You-You… you're a…"
"Dragon, yes," Derel finished his sentence. "Are you going to call me little again?"
"3." Genesis finished speaking.
"I—"
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Suddenly, Derel opened her mouth and a massive fire burst out of it. A crimson red fire hit the lion before it had time to use its Aura to protect itself.
The fire lasted for a few moments, and when it finally disappeared, there was no sign of the lion anywhere.
The match had ended as soon as it had started.
"Oh, look at that, it's already over," Genesis spoke.
The four members on the other side looked in horror at the stage. Had it been any of them that had chosen the red color, it would have likely been them that got incinerated like that.
Derel changed back to her human form as her horns and tails disappeared. Her skin became dark again and the scales in her body became her red dress.
"Congratulations," Genesis said as he patted Derel's shoulders. "Here."
Derel took the red gem, which appeared on her forehead, and returned to the group.
"You're a dragon?" Drake asked with wide eyes.
"Yes," Derel said.
"You're a freaking dragon?" Drake said again.
"I said yes," Derel said.
"Why did you not say that before?" Drake asked.
"Why should I? You didn't say who you were before either," she said.
That shut Drake up.
"You seem to hate being called a little human," Issi said.
"Of course," Derel said. "That bastard dared to say it."
"And yet you call us little worms all the time. Isn't that hypocritical?" he asked.
"What's wrong with worms?" Derel asked with a confused face. "Worms are much stronger than humans. Since you are strong humans, I chose to call you worms."
Everyone looked at each other awkwardly. "Since when are small worms that wriggle in mud stronger than humans?" they asked.
"What? No, not worms. WORMS," she said.
"Isn't that the same thing?" Ning asked.
"WORMS. Goddammit, I can't say it right as a human," Derel said. She pointed her lips a little and spoke again, "WYRMS. W-Y-R-M-S, wyrms."
"OH!" Ning and Issi finally got it."
"You guys thought I would call you anything less than that?"
Chapter 636 Essence vs Mana"I've only seen corpses of dragons on my planet. My father had a bone dragon as a pet and I wondered what they were like when they lived," Drake said. "I can't believe you guys are so strong."
"Of course, we are," Derel said.
"But that was truly quite strong," Ning said. "You killed that lion with a single attack. Why did you struggle so much against the Midnight Phoenix then?"
"I can't bring out my full power in my human form," Derel said. "Only maybe 10% of it."
"Then you could have changed and fought right?" Ning asked. "Is there some problem with transforming?"
"No," Derel said. "I just didn't want to."
"Huh? Why not?" Drake asked.
"Because it was only the 2nd competition. I didn't want to give away all my abilities in the 2nd competition. Who knows what other weird fights I will have to go through before I get that system thing," she said.
That was understandable. She had also said that she didn't want to reveal her powers back at the beginning of the 2nd competition too.
As Drake asked Derel more questions, Ning's mind went somewhere else. He turned to the other group and looked at the three remaining women.
The Elf with the green hair, the blond-haired Bellatrix with the blanket for a hood, and the violet-haired Sephandra with the Spirit little blue.
'Who chose what?' he wondered.
As he thought of that, Genesis moved again as the Green, Blue, and Purple gems in the sky started moving on their own and soon another one fell to his hand.
"Blue, come on up," he said as he showed off the sapphire-like crystal to the group.
"I'm up," Issi said and stood up. His hand fell to his sword and he took a deep breath.
"Good luck," Ning said.
Issi nodded and walked on.
From the other side, the elf stood up and walked away from the group. Both she and Issi arrived at the stage at the same time and stood on either side of the stage.
"Introduce yourselves," Genesis said.
"Issilika," Issi said out loud.
"Luna," the elf said back. She wore a green and silver dress that matched her hair and eyes.
She held a staff next to her, and Issi wondered if it had a sword inside of it.
"I will count to 3 now," Genesis said.
"1…"
Issi and Luna both got ready.
"2…"
Suddenly, energy flowed back into both of them and into the air. Luna could feel mana in the air and inside of her, while Issi could feel the water Essence flow around him.
"3!"
Without wasting a single minute, Issi called the water Essence to himself and made them become a blue, water-like armor around him.
At the same time, he pulled out his sword the blade of which was a tsunami.
Luna poured mana into her staff and it changed. Slowly, it turned into a bow which she held in front of her as a string made up of mana appeared on it.
The string was of solid silver color, which she caught and pulled. As she did, a green arrow formed on the bow, consisting entirely of wind mana.
Issi slashed in front of him, sending out a wave of the tsunami with water filling his view. It wasn't just the water that his attack contained, however. It also contained the Essence of sword and sharpness.
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As the wave of the slash appeared next to Luna, her silver eyes never showed any hint of worry. He took a deep breath and let both it and the arrow go.
SHWA!~
The arrow made a whistling sound as it went towards the wave. Even as it did, it spun in a way that it gathered all the wind in the surroundings to power her own attack.
When the slash struck the arrow, they didn't interact like a physical object and explode.
Instead, the arrow drilled into the attack, and the air it pulled along with it stopped the advancement of the water wave.
At the same time, the rotating wind spun and shred away the water slash into a million, normal water drops that fell to the ground like heavy rain.
Neither Issi nor Luna gave any sort of reaction at their exchange. Neither of them had given their all after all.
Issi sent away another slash again which Luna destroyed with her arrow again.
Issi couldn't help but frown. It seemed he would have to up the Essence in each of his attacks. That was unfortunate, as he didn't have a lot of Essences, to begin with.
Since there was no other binder alive in his world, there was no one to bind more Essence into the sword at once and he could only maintain it through absorbing Water Essence himself while keeping it to the side.
That he would have to do a long time if he wanted to bring it back to its peak condition.
He sent out another simple slash as he thought of something.
'If I win, I will be reincarnating to another planet right?' he thought to himself. 'If that is the case, then I will only be keeping this sword for so long. I doubt I will get to take them with me.'
'If that is the case, then I can use it as much as I want without worrying,' he thought. Issi's blue eyes shined with determination.
'Fine!' he thought. 'If this girl wants a fight, then I will give it to her.'
Suddenly, the waves that moved in his sword started getting turbulent and they even got bigger with time.
In a few seconds, it was twice as large and wide as before and the waves looked like they would destroy even rocks if they were put in their way.
Luna's eyes narrowed as she saw that. She realized that Issi was starting to get serious.
'Very well,' she thought. 'I guess I should start getting serious as well.'
Chapter 637 I'm Sorry BrotherLuna pulled back the string on her bow again, but no arrow formed on it. Instead, she simply released it and suddenly a gust of air moved all around them.
Issi wondered what happened, but it didn't take him long to realize that the air was filled with tiny slashes of air in them. Fortunately, his armor could block the attacks.
He made a horizontal slash and a true ocean wave appeared out of it as it moved towards Luna.
Luna pulled her string once more as a mana arrow forged around it that she shot at the incoming wave.
The arrow destroyed the wave easily just like before. However, when the splash of water dropped to the ground, she saw another wave appear right behind it.
Issi had sent two back-to-back waves and had caught her off-guard. There was no way for her to protect against this wave of water in time by attacking, so he activated a ring on her finger.
The emerald gemstone on her ring shined and a barrier of wind formed around her. When the wave hit her, she was pushed back, but she took no damage at all.
The gemstone on her hand dimmed. It would take another couple of minutes before it worked again. For now, she would have to make do with her magic powers.
She shook her bow and it turned back into a staff. Then, she ran forward to fight in close combat.
Powered by the wind, she appeared in front of Issi instantly. Then, she slammed her staff to his right.
Issi blocked and parried it with his sword. Then, he attacked her back, but Luna had already flown up and somersaulted behind him.
Issi quickly ran forward and turned around as he slashed at her, sending a heavy wave of water along with sword Essence in his attack.
Luna slammed the butt of her staff onto the ground and suddenly silver light appeared from it. An illusory moon appeared in front of her as it blocked the slash of water.
Water sprayed around her but not a single drop landed on her. Once the attack stopped, she quickly changed her staff back to a bow and pulled the string.
This time, 3 arrows appeared on it. Luna let go of the string and the threw arrows twisted and turned as they collectively made their way towards Issi.
Issi looked mad. Without any hesitation, he let go of more of the power in his sword, and soon it started showing more power of the ocean.
He slashed again and a massive tidal wave at least 15 meters high appeared in front of her.
However, Luna didn't look worried at all. Instead, she simply watched the 3 arrows land on the wave and instantly destroy it.
Issi's eyes went wide when he saw that. 'That… that was one of my strongest attacks!' he thought, refusing to believe that the girl had destroyed it so easily.
Ning and the rest watched from the side with some concern on their face.
"Will he be okay?" Nova asked.
"I hope so," Drake said. "But it doesn't look good."
"Why is that little wyrm continuing to send out water? Does he not realize that she's already beaten her water? Why is he not using other attacks?" Derel asked angrily.
"I… I don't think he has anything else to use," Drake said. "As far as I can remember, I've only seen him send out water slashes."
"Tsk! What sort of idiot only learns one technique? Even if it's just water technique, he should know to learn more," Derel said.
"I don't think he's a fighter," Ning said from the side. "He's either not a fighter or a fighter that doesn't care about fighting. That's why he doesn't have enough experience to change his style depending on his fight."
"Then? Is he going to lose just like that?" Derel asked.
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"Maybe not," Ning said. "He did mention about having a secret attack that was quite strong. Let's see what it is."
The fight between the two of them continued with neither of them getting an upper hand.
Luna was forced to stay on the defensive as Issi kept on sending out his water waves one after another. She defended it easily, but she also couldn't go on the offensive.
Issi worried that his Essence was going to come to empty up soon. With the number of attacks he had sent, he was afraid he was going to undo the binding that bind the tsunami to his hilt.
If that happened, he would lose the only piece of weapon he owned.
On the other hand, Luna was the Hero of the elves. As an elf, she already had a high amount of mana, but as a Hero on top of that, her mana was practically unending. With so much mana, she could continue to fight for as long as she wanted.
Slowly, he started attacking less and less to preserve his Essence, but that only gave Luna the opportunity to attack.
Soon, Luna was on the offensive, and Issi was forced to block.
"Screw it," he thought and suddenly held his sword in front of him, pointing towards Luna.
Luna pulled her string again as 3 arrows appeared on it, even as she did that, she tapped into the two rings she wore. Both of the skills in her two rings were available for her to use.
She let the arrows go and all 3 of them flew towards Issi.
Issi stood there with nothing to protect himself as even the suit of water armor he had put on had melted away.
He closed his eyes as he remembered the day his brother sacrificed himself to contain the massive tsunami and bind it to a broken sword by his side.
Today, he was going to undo what his brother did.
Today, he was going to let the tsunami free.
"I'm sorry brother," Issi said softly. Then, he opened his eyes and undid the binding.
Chapter 638 EssenceA tumultuous spray of water appeared out of nowhere as Issi undid the binding on the sword.
A tsunami, constrained to the side of the state made it far, far more dangerous than it could ever be on its own.
Luna's eyes went wide as she suddenly used both the defensive skill on her two rings to create a bubble of air and fire around her to protect herself.
Even then, the gush of water pushed against her defensive barrier and threatened to destroy it any second. In mere moments, she was going to get washed away by this water and that was either going to throw her out of the stage or leave her dead.
She slammed her now turned staff on the ground as a bright moon appeared in front of her to protect her.
She unconsciously reached for the necklace that she always wore no matter what, but this time her reach came back empty.
Her necklace wasn't there anymore.
Of course, it wasn't. After all, she had used it to destroy the demons after they had massacred her people.
'Hero of the Elves, what bullshit! I couldn't even protect anyone,' she thought as she looked in front of her. 'I can't even protect myself.'
She was starting to feel angry, but quickly she knew that was the wrong thing to do. So, she turned her anger into determination and quickly thought of what she could do.
With her vision block, there was nothing she could see outside of her own fire barrier which was going to end soon.
She felt the moon in front of her shudder as the wind barrier gave out. 'What do I do?' she thought.
She knew what she had to do.
Luna took a deep breath and pulled the string on her bow again. As she did, her bow, which was made with moonstone, shined in bright white light as it slowly coalesced into the string as an Arrow.
This was the last piece of moonstone she had. After this, she would never be able to use the power of moonlight ever again.
'This is it,' she said as she remembered the days when she played with her mother. It had been her mother who made her both this bow and her necklace.
She had already lost the necklace, now she was going to lose the bow as well.
A furious look appeared on her face as she pulled the string as tight as she could and waited.
The moon disappeared once all the energy in the bow was gone, and then the fire barrier disappeared because the time was up.
As soon as it was gone and the water came in rushing, Luna let the arrow go.
To her eyes, the arrow flew slowly as it touched the water that was coming toward her. It looked like the water was going to devour the arrow and hurt her.
However, none of that happened. Instead, the arrow ripped apart the current of water as it made its way through without stopping.
After a moment, the water stopped gushing out in a pressurized form, and instead all the tsunami that was remaining appeared at once.
"Argh!" Luna cried as there was nothing she could do to protect herself as a lake's worth of water appeared on the tiny stage.
She closed her eyes, knowing she was going to be swept away, however, nothing hit her.
Luna slowly opened her eyes to look in front of her and saw that all the water in the arena had gone missing.
Genesis had removed it all.
"Did I win?" she asked as she looked at the stage for Issi, but he wasn't there.
It took her a moment to find him outside the stage, surrounded by broken pieces of his hilt… as well as a pool of blood.
Half his stomach was gone and his entrails flowed out of the wound.
Ning and the rest couldn't believe it at all.
"He's dead," Drake said in a solemn voice.
"No way!" Nova gasped and looked away, not wanting to see the corpse.
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Ning looked in shock, unable to come up with anything to say about the situation.
"Good!" Derel said. "He died a warrior's death. He died fighting." Even so, they could hear a tinge of emotion in her voice.
No matter how much she called them little wyrms, she had still come to care about them even if it was the tiniest bit.
"Congratulations! You w—" Genesis stopped mid-sentence when he saw Issi's body move. However, that wasn't possible since he really was dead.
What moved was a blue figure of his shape that had swords for arms and its body was entirely made up of water Essence.
This reminded Ning of the first time he fought the small bird with wind and space powers that came back stronger in its ethereal form.
"Damn Essence users," Genesis said with an annoyed face. "Can't even die right."
Suddenly he moved his hand and the newly formed water body of Issi was destroyed in a single attack.
"That bastard!" Derel shouted. "Coward!"
"Sit down," Ning went to grab her before she angered Genesis. He couldn't let that happen.
"He killed his—"
"I know," Ning said. "Calm down. Anger won't get us anything."
Even as he said so, fury raged in his face that he was barely containing. He couldn't wait to touch Genesis now.
Luna gasped when she saw Issi's 'soul' get destroyed.
"Congratulations, you win," Genesis continued as if he hadn't done anything just moments before.
"Here's your gem," he said as he handed it to Luna and patted her. Luna was too shocked to realize what she needed to do and only came out of her shock when Genesis forced the gem into her hand.
Luna took the blue gem and looked at it. She had done what she needed to do and felt no regret about it. However, what happened afterward with Genesis was not something she felt was right.
So, she turned toward Ning and the other far away and bowed a little towards them before walking out of the stage.
Chapter 639 I Want To DieThe mood was solemn in Ning's corner. After Issi's death, no one wanted to do anything but the next competition to start. Maybe then they would be able to put their minds on something else.
Ning waited for Genesis to start picking another gem when he felt something shake slightly next to him.
It wasn't just him that felt it, but Drake and Derel did too. So, they all turned around to Nova who couldn't stop shaking her leg.
"You okay, Nova?" Drake asked.
Nova's leg kept on moving while she shook her head as well.
"What are you worried about? It's do or die, little wyrm. Even if you don't want to, you will have to," Derel said.
"I would rather die," Noval said softly.
"What?" Derel looked angry. "Don't say that. Don't be a coward."
Ning quickly stopped Derel from speaking anymore. "You don't mean that, Nova," Ning said.
"I do," Nova started crying. "I really do. You have no idea how long I've wished for that. But… but I just can't die!"
"You… can't die?" Ning asked with a surprised face. Drake and Derel got curious as well.
Nova shook her head. "My powers won't allow me to die. I've tried killing myself many times… but I just can't die."
"This must be my punishment to live with the guilt of killing everyone I ever cared about," she said.
"Hey, hey, hey! It's okay. It's not your fault what powers you were born with. That's something out of your control right?" Ning asked.
Nova nodded.
"See, you are not responsible for killing anyone. Don't worry, later I will help you handle your power," Ning said.
"You can?" Nova asked.
Ning thought for a moment and wondered if the system could possibly help him with this if it came back. Either way, he needed to lie right now.
"I am sure I can, and I will do my best to solve this problem for you," Ning said.
"Can you do it right now?" Nova asked.
"Now? Sorry, I can't do it right now," Ning said. "Are you that scared right now?"
"I think she's asking because of that," Drake said, bringing Ning's attention back to the stage where Genesis had pulled down another gem.
Green.
"I… I don't know what to do," Nova started worrying again. "I don't want to kill someone else."
Ning was silent as he looked at the other group and waited for one of the two remaining to stand up.
The one that got up was the golden-haired girl with the blanket for a robe, Bellatrix.
"It's your turn?" Ning turned around to Nova who also stood up.
"What should I do?" she worried and looked at all three of them.
"She's a bitch. I say you kill her," Drake said.
"I will always tell you to fight," Derel said.
"I kinda hate her too," Ning said. "I won't say anything if you do accidentally kill her."
Nova couldn't believe her ears. "I think I'm going to just give up," she said.
"But… you won't get to win the System then," Drake said.
"I told you already," She said. "I really want to die."
She walked on without waiting for anyone to say anything and arrived at the stage.
She watched Bellatrix arrive on the other side with the oversized robe and gave a smug look at her.
"Now you can't keep on hiding, can you?" She asked. "What will you do now that your knight in shining armor is not here anymore?"
While she spoke to Nova, her eyes kept moving towards Ning and Drake in the distance.
"I will do what I want to," Nova said resolutely.
"Introduce yourselves," Genesis said from the top.
"Bellatrix Black," the girl introduced herself.
"Nova Fable," Nova introduced herself as well.
"Alright," Genesis said. "The match will begin in 3."
"1…"
Nova took a deep breath.
"2…"
'It's fine. I just need to give up,' she thought to herself. She couldn't feel it, but her powers were back.
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"3!"
"I give up!" Nova shouted the moment the match started.
Genesis removed all of their powers the moment the words left Nova's mouth.
"What? Bitch! You need to fight me," Bellatrix said. She was out for blood against Nova.
"No, I will give up," Nova said.
"Are you sure you want to give up?" Genesis asked.
"Yes," Nova said.
"Well, sucks for you because you can't give up," Genesis said.
"What? Why not?" Nova asked with a surprised look.
"Because it's not in the rules. There are only 3 ways you can lose. You end up dead, knocked out and unable to fight, or out of bounds."
"So, if you want to give up, just do one of these 3 things," Genesis explained.
"Alright, I will count to 3 again."
Genesis went on to count to 3 while Nova couldn't help but start to hyperventilate again.
She didn't want to kill another person, not when she could help it.
She looked back and saw that she could jump off from there. If she did, the match would be over.
'Yes, I will jump,' she thought, but at the same time, Genesis counted to 2. Power came back to both Nova and Bellatrix again.
Nova tried to jump. That was the only thing she wanted to do right now, and as such, her powers wouldn't let her.
The moment the thought of jumping off appeared in her head, her legs froze as if they were stuck to the ground.
"3!" Genesis finished counting.
"Are you going to fight me now?" Bellatrix asked.
"No," Nova said, but even as the words left her mouth a sword appeared in her hand.
"Bitch! If you want to fight, just say you want to fight. No need to try and lie here," Bellatrix said.
"I really don't want to fight," Nova said. At the same time, her hands moved and a sword slash made up of Qi moved toward Bellatrix.
Bellatrix barely moved out of the attack's way in time and survived. She looked back at Nova, and now her face was full of anger.
"I am going to make sure your death is worse than anything you could have ever imagined."
Chapter 640 NovaNova was born to a loving father and mother. She also had a loving little sister with about 3 years of difference between them.
They weren't rich, but they weren't poor either. So, living itself was never hard for them.
In their world, everyone was born with a power. The power got stronger with time and usually would manifest fully when they hit their teens.
Nova's mother could create a small fire, and her father could speak directly into another person's mind within a certain radius.
These weren't good enough to get them anywhere in life as a Soul artist, so they were happy with the life they made with their family.
When it came to Nova, however, she never manifested her powers. Even after she was 18, no one could figure out what her powers were.
In the end, the family believed that she was born without one. As such, society shunned her and distanced itself from her.
But Nova didn't care. Yes, she was a little disappointed when she realized she was one of the few powerless people in the world, but that wasn't problematic for her at all.
After her, she still had her family with her.
In her 22nd year alive on that planet, something happened in the nation Nova lived in. They went through a heatwave the likes of which the planet hadn't seen in centuries.
As such, all the crops started dying and their water source started drying. Fires started randomly in the forests and mountains where the plants dried.
Soon, the fire caught on more and more and reached a village near the town Nova lived in.
People went to take care of the fire, but it was way too big already. And the people in the city that could actually help them couldn't make it there in time.
As such, by the time the fire was put out, half the village was burned to ruins and 20 people had died in their sleep.
The souls of those who died couldn't go to the reincarnation cycle and ended up gravitating towards something close by that called for them.
Nova's weak powers.
Nova had the powers of Opposite. To anyone on the outside, it looked like bad luck, but it was more nuanced.
Her powers affected the souls of others and gave them the worst thought possible in the other direction of what they wanted.
Even for herself, her powers forced the opposite of what she wanted.
If she wanted a clean face, pimples would pop out the next day. If she wanted to eat something sweet, it would turn the food salty to her.
If she wanted to have powers like everyone else in the world, it would hide from the world.
But, her powers weren't so bad as they were really weak. In the grand scheme of things, they were powers that could be easily chalked up to a mere coincidence.
That was until it fed on the souls of the dead. Until now, her powers were working on the strength of her broken soul. After that, it suddenly had 20 new broken souls to work with. People had died before around Nova, but never this many, not at once.
As such, overnight, Nova's power increased 20-fold.
The next day, Nova went to the place where she worked as a waiter. Over the course of the day, she started noticing weird stuff.
Overcooked meat, raw vegetables, and stiff bread, however, that was nothing compared to the one man who wished his dish didn't have nuts in it.
With Nova's powers, it did. As soon as the man ate the food, he fell to the ground with a nut allergy. As he was on the ground, he wished with all his heart that he didn't die.
Nova's powers heard what he wished and did the opposite. Within seconds, the man died, and Nova's powers absorbed his broken soul.
When the man died in the middle of the restaurant, the other people who saw him die wished that their fate was never like his.
Nova's powers made sure they were, and it made sure to feed on their souls when they died.
One after another, the people in the restaurant either started dying or started killing themselves.
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Nova was so scared that she ran away from the restaurant. People found out what happened and before she could even reach her home, the other people came to catch her thinking she had killed them all.
She didn't want to fight them, so a sword appeared in her hand. She didn't want to hurt them, so the sword attacked them.
She didn't want them to die too, and so they died.
And so her powers got stronger. Soon her powers started to be more proactive and had people do the worst thing they couldn't imagine themselves doing and do it.
Some husbands killed their wives, some mothers killed their children. Friends killed each other, lovers tore each other's hearts out.
People who were alone killed the only one they could find, themselves.
People who were suicidal started taking other people's lives like psychopaths. In the end, when they were alone, they killed themselves as well.
And as the people died, Nova's power absorbed their souls and increased its reach for both influence and absorption.
Soon, everyone in the nation started killing themselves. Once they were dead, their souls would make her even stronger.
Nova had figured out by now that it was her power that was doing it all. Knowing that it was her powers, she tried to stop it, suppress it.
She only made it work faster and harder.
Everything she wanted, the opposite happened.
Nova was too overwhelmed to think about anything, so perhaps that was the reason why her parents were still alive when she reached home.
However, just because she wasn't thinking about them, didn't mean her powers hadn't reached here.
Nova looked to the side and saw something black and charred on the floor.
Nova looked at her mother and father. Then she looked at someone who wasn't there and she knew what the charred thing on the ground was.
Her mother had killed her sister, and it was entirely Nova's fault.
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