Group 7's end was inevitable. After the leader and the only other member of the group died looking after the tower died, they had no one else to protect it and in the next hour, the tower was destroyed by the monsters.
Ning felt a sense of unease when he saw how quickly the tower was destroyed. It only took 2 monsters to do so, and that was very much likely after numerous upgrades from the group.
If it were his tower, it would be destroyed by a single monster no doubt.
As the 1/10 number grew to 2/10, he cautioned his group to be extra careful. Especially Drake who was hiding behind the tower. Ning made Issi stay with him just in case.
Afterward, Ning looked through the grid of screens again and realized how empty it looked.
Most of the groups had either lost their members or were away to do their own thing.
There was barely any group with more than 3 members protecting their tower at the moment.
All except for group 2. They still had all 5 of their members still lying about.
The group consisted of 3 women, 1 man, and surprisingly a Lion. The lion was massive and had wings, but that was all Ning could tell from the screen.
He didn't how intelligent it was or how strong it was. Heck, he couldn't even tell what it's powers were as no one in that group ever needed to do anything with the Lion simply swatting the monsters away like flies.
Surprisingly, however, the leader wasn't the Lion but rather a girl at the back. He couldn't tell the features from high above, but he could tell she was quite young. Perhaps not older than 20 years, if her looks were anything to go by.
A new monster spawned and Ning quickly dealt with it. He got 14 points, but he didn't care about it as much as he would have previously.
The competition had changed from being about points to being about survivability.
As time passed by more and more people started dying, and soon Group 8 was out of the competition as well.
While the leader was fighting with a monster, someone sneak attacked and killed them. In the chaos of his leader's death, the other person in the group was attacked by the monster and wounded heavily.
There was no one else there to protect him, so he died as well. As such that group ended up being destroyed by that monster.
The monsters were now so strong that the tower alone wasn't able to protect it. As such, Ning started wondering if he should also put points into it.
'One of us should go and kill that monster to get its gem,' Ning thought.
Just as he was thinking that a purple ball of massive energy launched his way from the forest. Ning ducked his head just in time to dodge the ball of energy.
To his dismay, the ball landed on the tower and Ning felt horrified. He hurriedly arrived next to the tower with his Upgrades panel open to upgrade the health points but when he saw the tower, it still had the 1000 points from the start.
"The tower doesn't register attacks from the other contestants as damage?" Ning thought to himself.
Drake and Issi were on the other side and quickly came towards Ning to see what the commotion was about.
Ning looked back at the person in the forest angrily and rushed in to kill him.
The blue-skinned man that used the attack was weaker than Ning would've imagined him to be. Given how strong the attack felt, he was surprised the blue-skinned man wasn't stronger in his defense.
He was like a glass cannon and quickly died in Ning's hands.
Ning swiftly returned to his group and looked at the grid but someone had already defeated the monster of Group 8 and acquired their gem.
The game was getting tougher and tougher.
Now, there were more and more people that vied for the free group space to kill any monster that spawned on it.
Derel had completely dominated the group 5 area to be her own. Similarly, other groups got the group 7 and group 8 area as well.
Group 1, Group 2, and Group 10 were the only group with 2 gems right now. They were likely the ones to win this match.
But Ning didn't think that to be true at all. After all, group 2 was still an enigma to him. Since a single beast had been fighting for the entire group, he didn't know what the other members' strengths were like.
When the night arrived, Drake was back to being usable again.
"Take care of yourselves, I'll go meet with Nova and see if she needs anything," Ning said and turned to leave.
"Leader, are you sure you want to go towards her? I saw someone kill himself when he was getting close to her," Drake said.
"Oh, someone died already? Well, don't worry me. I'll be fine," Ning said and left to see Nova.
Along the way, he kept his guard up and also looked at the screen to make sure there was nothing wrong with his team. He saw Issi and Drake standing alert and ready to fight.
He saw Derel simply standing around, bored as no one wanted to come towards her to fight.
He saw group 2 which was still full of its members. And then, he saw Group 4, whose leader just died.
Ning stopped and watched with confusion as to what was happening. For some reason, there was some argument in the group and that was leading them to fight amongst each other even as the monster attacked.
As he watched and walked, soon the group started to crumble from the inside and in the end, no one survived the monster.
'What the hell happened there?' Ning thought and finally reached Nova's location, but there was no one in the area.
It was as if she was gone.
