Skill Hunter -Kill Monsters, Acquire Skills, Ascend to the Highest Rank!

Ike lifted his hands to his mouth. "Mag!"

Feathers drifted down from overhead. Mag dropped from the sky and landed behind him. "What?"

"Go ask Relin about this round. Ask her what the format is. Get every detail you can out of her. If she won't talk, go hunt down the female scout… Nett. She's pretty bad at keeping secrets. If you poke her a few times, you should get her to spill a few too many details."

"Got it." Mag jumped into the air again, winging off.

The three columns of monsters approached. These ones loomed over the lower trees, their heads brushing against the upper branches. They were even more muscular than the previous batch, somehow. Bone spurs jutted out of their knees, elbows, and shoulders. Their eyes shone with ember-red light. Four horns curled from their foreheads, and they carried molten-hot weapons that somehow still held their edges, despite being so hot they lit the trees on fire as the monsters approached. Mag's wind blew, helping to keep the fire in check, but as opposed to before, where his wind easily blew the fire away, now the tempest struggled to keep the wind at bay.

Ike raised his sword. Without having to ask, Wisp stepped up beside him. He nodded at her, grateful. He couldn't take these on alone any more than she could. With the two of them, they could at least stem the flow of enemies. With three even stronger monsters coming at them all at once, he wasn't stupid enough to think they could completely prevent them from reaching the castle walls. But slowing them, only allowing one or two to reach the wall at a time, that counted as a win to him. After all, this was exactly why he'd retreated here: so that the castle's defenses could take on some of the weight on the battle.

"Ike!"

He glanced up. Mag hovered overhead, his brows knitted in concern.

"What is it?" Ike asked. The monsters rushed in. He dashed toward them, meeting their attack with one of his own.

Mag hesitated. Below him, Ike and the monster clashed. Electric sparks danced around Ike, while embers flew from the monster. The overwhelming power of the River-Splitting Sword welled up in Ike's blade. He slashed out. His sword cut through the monster in front of him, and gashed open the monster behind it as well.

"So?" Ike asked, stepping back for a moment to recirculate his mana. Wisp leaped in, kicking back the next two monsters so they tripped into one another, giving Ike a little breathing room to talk and recover.

Mag shook his head. "She says this round never ends. Or rather, no contestant has ever overcome this entire round."

Ike hissed in a slow breath. "Not what I wanted to hear. Mag, tell Relin to get her men on the battlements. We're going to need the castle's support. Once you do that, fly loops of the territory. The second someone else's castle falls—doesn't matter whose—lead them to my castle. We'll hold this castle with everyone together."n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

If no one had ever survived this before, then it was foolish of him to split their forces. The monsters would overwhelm any one of them alone. He could only hope that all of them together could hold all the monsters together.

But honestly, it made a lot of sense in his head. He and Wisp couldn't fight continuously. Neither could anyone else. They were mages, and didn't need food, drink, or sleep, but that didn't mean they didn't need rest. They needed to recharge their mana and smooth their mana flows from time to time. With everyone split up like this, all the teams would be in the same position of being unable to rest. With everyone consolidated in one castle, they'd be able to rest and fight in waves. Experience new stories on empire

His plan of keeping all the castles alive had made sense for the first round. Better everyone fight their own share, beat the round, and not have to take on multiple castles' worth of monsters. But that paradigm made no sense with endless enemies. It just meant their forces were split, and everyone wore down at the same rate. Which was why he was switching paradigms.

Of course, no one would just give up kingdom and retreat to his castle. Rufus would probably kill him at the mere suggestion. But that was exactly why he was having Mag watch over the other castles and grab their participants when the castles fell. The inhabitants would have already lost the battle for kingdom by dint of losing their castles. With their lives in his hands, he'd be able to pressure them into fighting legitimately, in the case of Rufus, anyways; in Scar and Vi's cases, he was pretty sure they'd be smart enough to figure out it was best to fight with him anyways. Rufus was the only one who struck him as haughty enough to ignore base reality and replace it with his arrogance.

Then again, I don't know Vi well. She could be the same way. He shrugged to himself. It didn't matter, in the end. Either they realized that he was helping them out and keeping everyone alive, or he threatened them with death if they didn't comply. He had a plan in both cases, so there was nothing to worry about. Besides, he didn't strictly need all four teams to survive. He needed at least two to survive, himself and one other, but aside from that, the other teams just bought him more manpower and more time to rest. In the ideal case, all four joined him, and they all gained the maximum rest and recuperation time, plus there was more total manpower to fend off future, no doubt larger monsters.

It is problematic that we'll all have to fend off four times the monsters, but honestly? Better to fend off an insane number of monsters for a short time than endlessly fight… well, it'll still end up as the same insane number of monsters, after all the other castles fall. It's literally only a bonus to collect everyone at my castle.

Ashes rained down on him. Searing heat beat against his face. A monster slammed both fists down toward Ike's head.

Ike leaped back, narrowly dodging the hammer punch, then darted in again. A quick swipe took the monster's hands at the wrist. He landed on its arms and charged up them to take the monster's head. He flipped backward, only for a huge axe to sweep toward his neck. He kicked off for another flip, dodging the axe. Before the monster could follow up its strike, Wisp dashed in. A loop of pale red thread wound around the monster's throat. As Wisp darted away, the thread went taut. Bright red blood sprayed, and the monster's head went flying.

"Got your back," she said, racing away on one of the threads she'd strewn across the field.

"Thanks, Wisp." Ike stretched, then readied his sword once more. All his planning was for the future. Right now, they had to hold the line against these monsters. If too many got past, and his castle was the one to fall, he put his life in someone else's hands. And he knew Rufus wouldn't be as charitable to him as he was planning to be to Rufus.

But that's life, isn't it. Sometimes, you've got to extend a hand to the asshole just to survive. Once he was out of here, he'd make a point of never seeing Rufus again, but for now, his best route was to ally with everyone to make it out alive.

After all, no one else had survived this round. But maybe, just maybe, with the right plan… he could.