”Yes,” Nova said in between her tears.

”But why?” Ning asked, unable to find a reason why she would do that. “How were you even there in the first place?”

”I ran,” Nova said. “As fast as I could.”

Ning remembered watching on the screen in the last few minutes of the competition. One of the members of the Group 3 was capable of creating a barrier that blocked the attacks of the Midnight Phoenix.

Since the competition’s end had been so abrupt, Ning wasn’t able to understand what had happened, only that they had won.

Just not having to fight with the damn bird again had been reason enough for him to celebrate. In between, he forgot to even think about how their victory came about.

Now that he did, he noticed how truly confusing it was. One moment Group 3 was fine, and the other moment it was over.

If given the opportunity, Ning would totally assume that the man with the barrier had failed in between which led them to have lost the round.

However, now that he knew the reason, it made so much sense.

”Why did you do it?” Ning asked. “Did someone force you? Did someone kidnap you and take you away again?”

Nova shook her head. “I did it to protect you,” she said.

Ning was stunned again. “What?” he asked. “To protect me?”

Nova nodded. “I saw through the screens. You were attacked by the bird and it tore off your leg. The only way to protect you was for us to win the competition, so I went to Group 3’s location and… and they killed themselves,” she said.

”I looked like I was going to lose?” Ning asked. Now that he thought about it, he really was going to lose. If not for Derel appearing at the last moment, he would’ve surely lost.

Ning crouched down in front of her and wiped her tears. “You don’t need to cry,” he said. “Since you killed them for my sake, those deaths are on me. Not you.”

”But… but… I killed them,” She said.

”I know,” Ning said. “But you did it out of good intentions. While that doesn’t change the fact that you did kill someone, but it does make your act that much less horrible.”

”Re-really?” she asked.

”Yes,” Ning said.

Nova sniffled a bit and stopped speaking. “You ran all the way to the 3rd group’s location right?” he asked.

Nova nodded.

”Then you must be really tired. I’m sure your legs are hurting quite a bit,” he said.

”Yes, they are,” Nova said and looked at her leg, assuming it to stop hurting, but it didn’t.𝗈𝒱𝓁xt.𝗇𝓔t

Somehow, that little thing made her happier than anything Ning could have ever said. “Yes, they hurt a lot.”

”You should go rest. There should be other rooms in the house,” Ning said.

Nova nodded and left.

After a few moments, Drake looked back at Ning and said, “You have quite a way with words, Leader.”

”One of the benefits of having lived long,” Ning said.

”Well, then you must be many times older than me, cause I can’t speak that well yet,” Drake said. “If I was in your position, I might have just said she did the right thing.”

”That is neither what she wanted to hear, nor what she needed to,” Ning said. “Look after her while you’re here okay? I’ll go gather my energy back.”

”Understood, leader,” Drake said with a salute and slumped back down on the bed.

Ning sighed and left the room to go out of the city. Along the way, he couldn’t help but think just how close to losing he was.

What would have happened if he lost? What if the bird destroyed his body, and while it regenerated, it then destroyed the tower.

What would have happened then? Would he have been killed by Genesis? That likely wouldn’t kill him, but what then?

That would’ve killed Drake, Derel, Issi, and Nova for sure. And when he too was killed and didn’t die, Genesis would find out for sure that there was something wrong with him, and soon find out that he didn’t have a soul.

As someone that made a system, he would be very thrilled to find the host of the energy system in his hands to experiment on.

After that, it was only a guess as to how long Ning would have to be kept by Genesis.

Maybe a thousand years? Ten thousand years? A hundred thousand years?

For someone like him, a hundred thousand years was likely nothing but a blink of an eye. But, to Ning who to go find his woman and disciples, that was a very, very long time.

’I can’t afford to lose,’ he thought. ‘Even if it means having to let everyone else die, I cannot lose.’

Ning walked out of the gate and suddenly stumbled against someone that was standing there.

He was about to disregard the person, thinking it was a fake human, but when he saw no question mark on the top of his head, Ning gave a closer look.

He saw a young man with bright blue eyes and slightly brown hair in front of him. He was just half a head shorter than Ning and looked quite young for someone to be fighting amongst these groups.

”My bad,” Ning said.

”It’s fine, I was in the wrong too,” the man said and tried to walk away when Ning suddenly grabbed his shoulders.

Ning had to immediately let go of the shoulders when he felt some jolts of electricity hurt him.

”Sorry,” he said when the young man gave an offended look. “I just wanted to ask if your group is in this city too?”

The young man finally looked at Ning closely and remembered, “oh it’s you, from the other group.”

”Yes, i—”

”Yeah, I won’t be answering the questions of my enemy,” the young man said and went towards the forest outside in a certain direction.

Ning looked dumbfounded, but quickly stopped worrying and took one of the paths to the forest as well.