"That crown is what will send us to the next round, so I cannot let you leave with that," Issi said.
Ning wanted to stop him from blocking her because he understood her problem a little, but Issi was right. If they let Nova leave right now, then there was a chance they wouldn't pass at all.
Ning didn't worry about dying, but rather about what would happen if he were to be killed. There was a reason the system had cautioned him after all.
"The-Then I won't go far away," Nova said. "But I do need to be away from here so that I don't ruin everything."
Ning thought for a moment and asked, "Do your powers work while you're asleep?"
Nova nodded.
"What exactly will they do?" Ning asked curiously.
"Only bad things," she said without missing a beat. "It always leads to people dying around me regardless of my wish."
"Seriously?" Issi asked as he took an unconscious step back.
"Ooh, quite the little worm we have here," Derel said. "Do you know how far your powers work?"
Nova shook her head. "It used to be a lot, but over the couple of years I lived alone, my powers seem to have faded. Now, I think…" she carelessly turned her head around and looked at the trees in the distance.
"That far," she said as she pointed to those trees. "It should be fine if I'm over those trees. Maybe a little more just to be safe," she said.
Ning thought for a moment and said, "Alright, go into the forest and wait for my signal. If any one of the 9 groups loses, I will give you a signal, in which case you can come running to the center of the group where we can get a gem for you."
Nova thought for a bit and shook her head. "There will be many that will vie for the gem, I-I don't want to kill more people," Nova said.
"Tsk! This little worm is a mess," Derel said with a hint of dissatisfaction on her face.
"Let her be, leader. She can come towards the end after we all have a gem," he said.
Ning sighed. That was his only choice. "Alright, you can go," Ning said. "Be sure to come when I call for you."
"I will," Nova said and ran away.
Ning remained standing, not sure what else to do now. He turned around and asked, "I don't suppose you can tell me what your powers are?"
"Don't bother asking me, leader," Drake said from the side. "If I'm not fighting a human, the most you can expect from me is superior strength and regeneration," Drake said.
"Well, that should be somewhat helpful," Ning said, half-believing his own words. He then turned to Issi and asked, "can you do anything else from what you showed me?"
Issi thought for a moment and said, "Yes, but it will be a last resort type of thing."
"And you?" he turned to Derel.
"Fire," she said simply. "I can use fire."
"Only fire?" Ning asked a little disappointment.
"Lightning too, but mostly just fire," she replied.
"Okay, I guess," Ning said.
"What about you?" Derel asked Ning.
"I have way too many little ones to explain," Ning said. "You will see after I fight."
"Ooh, keeping secrets huh?" Derel said with a sly smile.
As they all waited, time slowly passed by. Ning's full focus remained on the two panels in front of him.
He kept looking through all the different groups to see how bad their competition was.
When the timer hit 5 minutes they all finally got ready as it was about to start.
In fact, Genesis himself came back during the final minute and count down the last few seconds aloud.
"3… 2… 1… Begin!"
As all 49 different people waited with bated breath, light flashed about 100 meters in the direction where Genesis stood.
Far in the distance, Ning saw something appear. He had been expecting a giant beast or some hideous monster.
However, when the first thing that appeared was a small, seemingly harmless rabbit, he had to stop and analyze the situation.
'Is that the monster? Or are we bring tricked?' he thought. He expected the first few rounds to be easy given how there was an element of progression. But not this easy.
Just as he thought that something bright red flew past his face, leaving a hot air trail behind him.
When he came out of his daze, he saw the rabbit in distance explode into meaty chunks and a 'Defeated!' word hung in the air.
Next to that word, something else came up.
14 points.
"Stop dazing around, our lives depends on this," Derel said from the side as she put down her hand that had just thrown the fireball.
"Right, sorry," Ning said. The cute little rabbit really had caught him off guard.
He looked back at the 14 points that now also showed up on the Upgrades panel.
'We barely wasted any time and still, we were the 4th group to kill it, huh?' he thought to himself.
He looked at the screens of the other groups and saw that everyone had finished fighting. Now, they would have to wait half an hour for the other monster to arrive.
In the meantime, Ning looked back at the upgrades and asked, "Should we upgrade the tower or the turrets?"
"What's the point?" Derel asked. "We can kill the monsters before they even reach here."
"That's true," Ning said, "but what else are we going to spend it on then? Certainly, we don't want to make it difficult for ourselves by increasing the monster's level right?"
"Who knows?" Derel said. "We might get so bored that we will have to do just that."
"What about the spawn time?" Drake asked from the side. "Wouldn't making it spawn faster give us more points in general?"
"Hmm… that's not a bad idea," Ning said out loud before realizing the problem with that idea.
"Wait… that shouldn't work at all. Did Genesis screw up?"
