The first wave has started

"There was also this unfair thing. The first wave starts before even all the participants can get together at one place or communicate. Well even if they did there would have been hardly any progress.

" Klautz lamented as he took his stance.

It was then...

Dark black balls appeared out of thin air as they floated two feet above the ground. And in the very next moment, all of them fell together as they crashed with the ground making a ticking sound as if they were hollow shells.

*Tik*

The curled up giant spheres opened as they showcased their true forms. They turned out to be monsters who had curled up into a sphere.

They looked somewhat like an armadillo but much larger. If they could stand on their two feet they would have been three fourths the height of an average human. With a black shell instead of the usual brown and a long and thin mouth like that of an anteater, these bloodsuckers were quite an annoying bunch when attacking in swarms.

"Take your positions!

"

Verona readied her bow standing in the middle while Selena took the rearguard to watch out for their backs. The monsters, noticing the trio turned their attention towards them, pulling themselves with their small legs making them seem as if they were crawling like snakes!

They were running in short bursts of covering almost 5 - 8 metres in a second and then pausing to catch a breath as they aimed their tunnel-like mouths towards the sky. They moved like crocodiles as they tried to get into their enemies blind spots.

"It's time to fight!

"

These giant armadillos had quite a strong shell on their back so Klautz had to pierce it from the front, preferably its guts to get better kills. Selena tries to do the same but her strikes were clumsy leading to a lot of misses. Nevertheless, she was holding out better than expected.

'What are her stats,' Klautz thought but the next moment he shrugged as he brushed off the thought as they didn't seem to be anything extraordinary.

A group of five monsters surrounded Klautz.

*slash*

He cut off their mouths making them unable to suck onto any being for blood. With a kick to their abdomen, he flipped them over, exposing their bellies.

*swish*

He pierced his sword selling out their guts and with a gush of blood splashing out the monster died.

"Screech!

" They screeched in pain as they died. In response to their pain, more of their brothers charged towards Klautz and his group, ignoring the blood of their brothers that Klautz had spilt. Unlike the monsters Klautz had killed till now these monsters refrained from cannibalism which showed how united their packs were.

Agility 1

Klautz was happy he was getting stat points from killing these beasts. In hell, killing a monster had a slight chance of dropping such a stat point. One can be incredibly lucky or one can be incredibly unlucky in a day. But all in all the good days cancel out the bad ones making it a matter of perseverance instead of luck to grow in strength.

Unlike the others Klautz wasn't interested in killing humans in this stage, humans dropped no stat points. He was only interested in the last survivor prize. While there did exist a prize for most kills, he deemed aiming for two prizes at the same time to be impractical as you had to spend a lot of resources and face exhaustion if you were to go on a killing spree.

This gave Klautz one advantage which he probably never sought out. He had a team and didn't need to kill them to claim his prize! This means his odds were better than 90 per cent of the participants if one were to not count the disparity in stats, his stats having already crossed the 50s.

Having a team means his team members could divert the attention of these monsters. If it were strong boss-type monsters like back at the Trial Of Control those two would only have held him back coming in between his fight. But it was a completely different thing with monsters like these that tend to hunt in packs.

They diverted while he killed them which is much better than solo where all the monsters would have all of their attention on him. This was a new experience for an ex-ninja like him who had mostly done solo missions.

Little by little the swarm of black armadillos were getting thinned on their side. But what was happening in other places was still a mystery. These monsters were spanning across the whole island.

In a matter of a few minutes, Klautz had killed a few scores of these monsters thanks to his effective methods.

*Slash*

Strength 1

"That was the last one,

" Klautz whispered.

It was the last one of this pack and around their attack range rather than the last monster. If all of the armadillos would have been killed Klautz would surely have got a system message. If Klautz was planning to kill more of these, which he indeed was, he would have to go to other areas to hunt them.

The group proceeded with that goal in mind. Filling up waters in their bodies they got hydrated properly before beginning their travel across the central island. Every time a herd of armadillo came in their way Klautz would pounce upon them and would go on a killing spree.

"Screech

"

Klautz had finished off two herds of them but still no sign of any other human. Only packs of giant armadillos. A pack of theirs had around 40 to 60 of these beasts.

"Most people escaped through the escape portal or died. It would be weird if there were too many of them.

"

***

Author:

Creation is hard for authors. Cheer me up with your power stones!

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