Snow Mountains, Ice Region:
"And done!" Sarah slashed a giant mammoth into two and said.
William patted Philia on her shoulder. "Good job."
Philia nodded lightly. "This is the last one."
"Hm. Just a minute." William's figure blurred and he reached the palace on the peak in a moment.
Previously, it was full of high and peak level 6 beasts.
Now, there was not a single soul inside.
The walls of the snow palace was pure white and reflected him as he climbed the huge stairs and reached a special room.
The giant mammoth was guarding this room.
Opening the door, he found the flag as expected.
Besides the flag, there were also other treasures.
William checked them and shook his head in disappointment. They were pretty useless.
He covered himself with mental power and propelled himself out of the palace and down the mountain.
In a second, he appeared in front of the teammates and flaunted his flag. "We got it!"
Just as Sarah was about to respond, her comm buzzed. "Charles…he eliminated all the..Beep!"
William's smile froze and Philia's face turned colder.
"Attacking messengers isn't honorable." William said.
Peak level 6s attacking peak level 5 was just shameful.
Even though the teams didn't say it explicitly, they agreed not to attack other teams' messengers.
Sarah knit her brows and said. "We're long past talking about honorable actions."
William opened his mouth but no words came out.
Yes. Attacking eleven members attacking one guy was anything but honorable.
It was pretty hypocritical of them to talk about honor.
"What do we do now? Go to the Vine Forest and suppress him?" Philia asked.
Sarah thought for a moment and shook her head. "No."
She glanced at William and Philia with a helpless expression. "Like it or not, we're first or second weakest team. Going there is just asking to be eliminated."
"But if Charles recovers, won't we all be done for?" William asked with an unwilling expression.
He knew they were weak. But truth wasn't always pleasant.
"Ashtarh or Xavier teams will go and check it out. If it's really an emergency, they'll contact us." Sarah said, hoping the emergency to never arrive.
"Besides, Charles is heavily injured. Even if he healed a bit, his strength would be far from his prime. Let them fight it out." She said.
William opened his mouth in shock and clicked his tongue. "Wow. Sarah, that was pretty evil of you."
"…not evil. I just want to keep a high chances of winning." Sarah said slowly.
She was fully aware that her chances of winning were less than 5%.
Every one in the teams was a third year. They were also stronger than her, even if not by a huge margin, but by a significant one.
"Well, I don't know why, maybe intuition, but I don't think we'll win." William said, scratching his cheek.
"Don't jinx it." Philia elbowed him.
"Ouch." William flinched in pain and rolled his eyes. "I'm not trying to. But I got a weird feeling about this."
"Hm?" Sarah raised a brow.
"A few minutes ago, I was on the top of the peak to lure out a beast. Then…just for a moment, I thought someone was watching me from another peak." He explained.
"…" Philia remained silent.
"Forget it." Sarah waved her hand and said. "The mountains are dangerous anyway. Let's go to plain and wait for some time. We'll decide our next move based on Charles' news."
From the beginning to the end, their danger was Beast horde.
Thankfully, they managed to avoid it by not causing any commotion in the mountain tops.
*** **** **** ****
Xavier team exited the Psychedelic Region and entered the Central Plains.
Right after they got the message regarding Charles, they decided to rush to the Vine Forest.
It was risky, but necessary.
If Charles recovered, they could kiss their chances of winning goodbye.
Of course, Xavier knew he and his teammates could be injured, leading to their loss of combat power.
But he was hopeful that Ashtarh Team would also come.
And so, they reached the Vine Forest shortly and rushed to the core area.
Core area was dangerous and Xavier hoped that Charles faced difficulties and injured himself.
Then Xavier would gladly eliminate him and remove this dangerous variable once and for all.
*** **** **** ****
Shortly after Xavier team left, Ashtarh team reached the central plains.
They decided to check out Charles, but right when they were about to enter the Vine region, another message arrived.
"I was in the middle of something, but I found traces of blood outside the islands! Helia team has left the islands. I'm going to Vine Forest and check on Charles."
Ashtarh read his sister's message with a frown.
He tried contacting her, but he got no response.
"…is she eliminated?" He narrowed his eyes.
She couldn't even send a message before being eliminated. And she went to Vine Forest, so…
"It was Charles, huh." He took a deep breath and shook his head.
He was going to fight Charles, but not for this reason. It was Ahri's decision to scout on Charles. She must bear the consequences.
Of course, he'd compensate her.
"What do we do now?" Maissa titled her head and asked with a smile. "We can go to Charles or we can go to Laden Burrows and get a flag."
Tiama didn't speak and waited for Ashtarh's decision.
Ashtarh considered the options and said. "Ice Region."
"Huh?" They were both taken aback.
"Helia escaped. Since she did, she got the flag already. Think about it, they only have two members but still got the flag almost at the same time as us. No, they were slightly quicker."
Maissa's eyes lit up. "So their injuries must be heavy."
Ashtarh nodded. "So where would they go?"
"To the safest place." Tiama answered, earning a glare from Maissa.
"Hm. Since she doesn't know about our location, she wouldn't dare to venture into Thunder Region or Psychedelic Region.
With news of Charles possibly recovering, Vine Forest is also a big no."
"Why Ice Region? Why not laden burrows?" Maissa asked.
"…I saw Helia fight Sarah in the banquet. She was pretty scornful of her. Even before the trial began, she mocked Sarah's team. She thinks Sarah team is weaker than hers."
"Inflated ego, kek." Maissa covered her mouth and chuckled.
"Back to your question, there's a high possibility that either us or Xavier team would go to Laden Burrows for the flag.
So, she picked the safest bet. Whether she confronts Sarah or not, she's safe."
Maissa crossed her arms. She was still unconvinced. "It's all your conjecture, anything could happen."
Tiama narrowed his eyes and checked the messengers list.
Some of them sent info from time to time.
There were some, however, that sent the reason they were eliminated—like opposite team's massagers fought me, I overlooked a danger and was attacked by a beast, etc.
He asked all their messengers to reply.
Shortly, everyone replied except those already eliminated.
His eyes brightened and he said. "I checked the messages from all our messengers.
Except for the eliminated, only four didn't reply.
Of the four, the three sent their last message thirty minutes ago and the fourth one's last message was six minutes ago."
"The message is [Hel]."
Ashtarh shrugged.
The messenger didn't have time to type out the full message before he was eliminated.
Maissa said begrudgingly. "F-Fine, let's go."
Ashtarh team entered the Ice Region.
