Night had fallen and Drake was gone. With Nova still sitting in the forest opposite where the monsters used to come from.
So, their group only had 3 people left who could fight right now.
"Do you think it was a good idea to let him go?" Issi asked. "What if he's killed and we lose his crown?"
"It's fine," Ning said. "He looked confident and most likely has some tricks up his sleeve. Besides, if he does die, all I have to do is go to where he died and get back the crown."
"You make it sound so simple," Issi said.
"It is simple, little worm," Derel said from the side. "Now, get back to position and keep your eyes wide for any attacks."
Ning moved 100 meters away from the tower in the direction Nova was at. He had spent an entire night with Nova, and while nothing bad had happened to him, he didn't want the other two to accidentally get too close to her and die.
He activated his heat vision and looked into the forest to see any hints of heat from it. At the same time, he didn't let his attention divert from what he really needed to do.
Get points.
After checking the grid, he saw that no one was missing from any of the groups. However, that didn't mean they couldn't send remote attacks.
So, he never lowered his guard at all.
The next monster to appear was a group of massive hornets, consisting of about 40 hornets in total, each the size of a cat.
Fortunately, Ning didn't have to do anything as the monster appeared next to Derel, who simply created a massive fire and instantly burned all 40 of the hornets.
Ning smiled when he saw the 20 points float in the air.
He checked his grid again and saw that there were quite a few groups that were still fighting the many hornets.
When his eyes fell on the 5th group, he saw that they were the most troubled of all.
"Hah! That must be Drake's doing," he thought to himself and sat back on his spot as the next monster attack would come 20 or so minutes later.
In the meantime, Ning took out a bit of Aether from his storage and drank it. He slowly absorbed it, being careful not to absorb anything else from the surrounding.
In fact, he was so cautious, that after realizing what the system wanted him to do, he hadn't even breathed the open air, and instead stuck to the breathing technique he had bought from the system to breathe while in outer space.
If not for that, he still had Aether to create air directly into his lungs.
Once he was done absorbing the Aether, he got ready to fight again.
This time, the group of hornets appeared next to him. So, using his Spear domain, he cut through every single hornet at once.
Although it took him longer than it did for Derel to defeat the hornets, he still managed to get 18 points for himself.
With a smiling face, he opened the upgrade list and saw the total points he had gathered in the last 55 or so hours.
950 points.
If the numbers did go up by 5 points for every time he reduced the spawn time by 10 seconds, with his points, he could directly drop the spawn time by 3 minutes.
That would be enough to catch everyone off guard.
But, as Derel said, hoarding the points for when you did need them was perhaps the best option out there.
After thinking about that, he checked the screens again and saw that the 5th group was still struggling to fight with hornets.
He watched the leader, a woman with braided pink hair, struggle to use her technique as she swayed like a drunken sailor.
Not just her, the other 4 also swayed a little.
Ning saw one of the men pick up a stone and somehow forge it into an arrow that he then nocked into a metal bow and shot at one of the hornets, but he missed.
"Haha, what is Drake doing to them?" he said softly as he chuckled. "Is he mixing alcohol into their food and drinks or what?"
Ning envisioned a scene where Drake sneakily walked next to the leader and just as the leader was about to eat something, he put a few drops of very strong alcohol into his food before walking away.
Ning knew that was likely not the case, but he found it funny to think about.
It wasn't just him who saw that of course. All the different leaders from the other groups could see the embarrassing performance of the 5th group.
Ning could see each one staring into empty space with a smile on their face. He shook his head and closed the grid before looking upfront and becoming careful of his surrounding.
Momentary fun was good, but he couldn't get lost in it. Ning brought back his focus to the area and got ready for the next monster that appeared.
As they waited for it, time slowly passed. Then, in front of Issi appeared a big monster at least twice his size.
The monster was a spider with sharp knives for legs. The moment it appeared, it sent out a massive white liquid that semi-solidified to become its webs when it came into contact with the air.
Issi could barely manage to send out a slash of water, and while it did clear the webs from in front of him, the spider managed to appear right next to him and slashed its legs at him.
At the same time, Ning and Derel appeared next to him.
Derel sent out a fire blast onto the spider's face, while Ning cut off all of its legs. Then, for the final attack, Issi jumped forward and sent down a massive water slash and cut the spider in half.
The 3 of them only relaxed when they saw the words '16 points' float in the air.
