As Ning and the rest were busy fighting monsters, Drake was back near group 5, getting ready to terrorize them again.
However, he couldn't attack them, not with them sitting behind the tower that would shoot him the moment he got too close to it.
And unfortunately, he had no ranged attacks.
So, Drake waited for an opportunity, which surprisingly arrived rather quickly.
The next monster to spawn for Group 5 was a tree monster with thorns all over its branches.
When it got close, but not too close, it suddenly started throwing out thorns toward their group.
The pink-haired leader immediately used her Chakra to put up a barrier of rock around them to protect each other.
"You useless pieces of shit. Do something," she cried out, but her pale-faced teammates couldn't even open their mouths to speak.
One of the men there tried to move, but before he could even do anything, he swayed like he had the worst hangover of all time and fell back to the ground.
"Urghh!" the leader cried out, but before she could do anything else, she heard a 'TING' sound coming from behind her.
When she turned around, she saw the tree monster's thorn had attacked the tower, and its Health Points which was at 2200, had dropped to 2122 after a single attack.
Another 'TING' sound came and the number lowered to 2047.
"Shit!" she cried out and looked for a way to attack. The monster was too far away, so she had to go out to fight it. Since no one else was going to do it, she had to do it alone.
She used the Chakra in her body to strengthen her body and her mind and keep her from swaying drunkenly.
Then, she sprinted out from behind the defense and ran up to the monster who was starting to shoot the thorns at her.
As soon as she reached it, spikes of rock appeared from around her, moving towards the monster's body.
The tree monster's body suddenly rose higher as its roots pushed it high in the air from where it shot out the thorns again.
The leader took cover beneath the protruded rock and waited for the attack to end. When it did, she immediately sent the rocks flying into the monster in the air.
When she realized that the tree monster was agile, she changed her target to the roots that grew from the ground and attacked it while creating a cover for herself.
It took her about 2 minutes before she could destroy enough of the roots to get the monster to fall to the ground. Then, she created spikes from the ground again to tear into the monster, killing it instantly.
2 points.
That was all she got for the trouble she had gone through.
The leader slumped on the ground, the cover she had created for herself no longer being maintained.
She took long and heavy breaths as she tried to get her fatigue under control. But that didn't happen.
Just then, she felt something both hot and cold from her. When she turned her head, she saw the hooded Drake give a terrible smile to her while his extended finger dove deep into her neck.
She tried to do something, but nothing happened. She felt herself losing energy at a speed that she could understand at all.
"Good job, leader," Drake said in a condescending tone. "But this is as far as you go."
As soon as he felt the significant loss in energy coming from her, he knew she was going to die.
So, putting a little more force into his hand, he crooked his straight fingers, and ripped out the girl's throat, instantly killing her.
The girl fell to the ground as he left go of her and reveled in the new energy he managed to get.
"Finally, after so many years," he said to himself. He quickly took off the cloak he was wearing and looked at his left arm. There were still signs of lacerations there, but they had healed a bit.
"I need more," he thought to himself and looked towards the 3 other participants who were inside the tower's range.
"Tsk! I can't kill them," he thought and turned around to leave. But, just as he did, he noticed something glow in the darkness of the night.
Drake looked back towards the leader and saw the golden crown on her head glowing brightly. No, it was rather the gem in it that glowed.
Curious, Drake lowered his hands slowly towards the leader's crown and touched it. The moment he did, the crown disappeared and appeared in front of the 3 that were leaning against the tower.
However, it was just the crown that appeared there. The gem on the other hand was missing.
As if knowing what had just happened, Drake slowly put his hand on top of his head and tried to touch his crown. He couldn't. His hands would just pass through it.
However, what he could see was the bright white light of the gem reflecting on his pale hand.
'It's here,' he thought with a shock on his face. 'Does that mean their group is gone?'
It didn't seem like that was the case. The 3 were still in the match, but now they didn't have their leader.
'Does this gem then give me the abilities of a leader? Like the screens and the upgrades?'
The moment Drake thought that two screens appeared in front of him, one with the different groups, and one with the upgrades.
The upgrades showed that he had about 1200 points, which didn't seem like the case for this group. Even his group couldn't have so much. So, he realized that he was seeing the upgrades on his own group with points he now owned from the leader of this group.
The upgrades were also grayed out for him, probably because he was not the leader.
"Wait, if I have their leader's gem and points, how are these 3 going to make upgrades?" Drake wondered.
That was when he realized that they couldn't. They were now without a way to upgrade their tower to defend themselves.
Perhaps, that was the exact moment that every other group truly understood just how valuable their leader was.
