The bird flew out, but it retained its small size. It knew that it had an advantage this way.
Ning frowned and prepared his spear. He wasn't going to get caught off guard by the bird's speed now.
He looked into the screen in a quick glance and saw that Group 6 was gone too.
Now, only 4 groups remained.
He couldn't watch how the fights were going in the other groups at all. He could only watch the bird in front of him and worry just how the hell he was going to defeat this bird.
Spear Qi filled the area as he created a domain with his intent. Slices of spear-shaped Qi hit the bird but it never could damage it at all.
At the same time, Ning thoughts of ways to fight the beast.
He thought of going invisible and fighting that way. But the bird had divine sense, so that would never work unless he had a way to hide from divine sense as well.
Besides, even if it didn't, going invisible was a bad idea as the bird's target in the first place was the tower.
The only reason it wasn't attacking the tower was that he was distracting it.
'The tower,' Ning thought for a moment and looked at something that hadn't been used before.
The Turret.
Ning immediately put what little points he had into the turret's damage and went in range.
At the same time, the bird moved once again.
Like a bullet fired from a rifle, the bird moved through the air causing multiple sonic booms. At the same time, it left a trail of darkness that tried to burn everything.
Ning pulled out every little bit of speed he could muster and ducked underneath the bird's pathway while at the same time moving his spear to hit the bird.
He was too late.
He barely managed to duck a little, but the spear never made it to the bird. Instead, the bird hit his wrist and was knocked aside due to his strength.
Now that the bird wasn't in its full form, its body was a lot weaker than before.
In fact, just the fact that he had managed to put his arm up before the bird arrived meant that it had become slow as well.
It was still way too fast for Ning, but it had become slow. Unfortunately, its fire remained of the same strength.
Ning let go of the spear on his right arm before the fire on his wrist caught up to it, and instead used it to cut off his own arm.
This was the second time Ning was forced to cut off his own limb today. He was not happy at all.
Without wasting any more time, Ning grabbed the bird with his telekinesis. Now that it didn't weigh as much, he could use it to stop it.
Then, he flew towards it and tried to strike it.
The bird struggled to move, but it was incapable of moving. It didn't know how it was stopped, but it knew it had to be the work of the human in front of it.
So, even as the spear fell towards it, the Midnight Phoenix spewed out a stream of black flame.
Liquid fire shot out of the bird's mouth that directly hit the blade of the spear. Even as the spear got close to the bird, Ning knew it was over.
A bladeless spear went past the bird barely even touching it. Ning immediately let go of the spear in fear of catching the fire that was going up its shaft.
He created another spear using Aether and struck the bird again. But once again, black flame spewed out of the bird's beak, burning away the spear.
Ning frowned and was about to think of some other ways to hurt the bird when the bird suddenly grew in size.
It was back to how it used to be and that meant Ning could no longer control it at all.
Anger flared in the bird's eyes. Even as Ning started creating a portal to run out of the way, the bird spewed out its black flame again.
Ning was still in the unknown of what would happen to him if his body were to disappear.
Would he simply switch bodies to something else? Or would his body regenerate out of nothing?
If that did happen, would the fire disappear after his body was gone? Or would he have to eternally suffer the fires of midnight that consumed until nothing remained?
Whatever the answer was, Ning didn't want to find out today. But… what could he do? How could he run away?
Suddenly, something flew down from the distance and appeared in front of him even as the black flame made its way to him.
Ning involuntarily closed his eyes, not wanting to see the figure in front of him get burned away in the fire.
However, that didn't happen at all. The black stream of fire struck the figure, but it never went past that point. It flew off the side, went downward and upwards, but it never went past where Ning was.
The bird stopped its attack and looked at the person that survived its attack. Its instinct told it this was the first time for such a thing to happen.
"How… how?" Ning held a stupefied face as he asked.
The red-haired, dark-skinned girl turned around to meet his eyes with her own yellow, snake-like eyes. "I thought I told you before. I am immune to fire," she said.
Ning looked at Derel in awe. "But… but that's no ordinary fire," he said.
"Doesn't matter," Derel said as she turned around, back to the bird. "Fire is fire. And if it is fire, it is useless against me."
"I'm sorry for sending you away," Ning said, realizing that he had sent away someone who could fight.
"Stop sulking around. It doesn't suit you," she said. "Get back up and fight. We have some points we need to earn."
