Tower Defense (3)

*Bam!*

Using her right fist, Liu Ying's struck the back of the student in front of her. At the same time, she jumped aside, barely avoiding the sword coming towards her neck.

Just then, though, the student in front of her suddenly stumbled. For an instant, his expression became dazed, as though he was distracted.

Making use of that opportunity, Aya emerged from the shadows. She wielded her twin daggers lie two claws, attacking the neck of the student.

Immediately.

*Bam!*

The barrier protecting the student broke, triggering a mental shock that knocked him unconscious.

Then, he collapsed on the ground.

Liu Ying, Aya, and Princess Elwha panted heavily as they watched that. When they were sure that he was not going to stand up anymore, they finally put on relieved expressions.

"Finally…"

"Mm. We did it."

"Yeah, but this one was pretty strong, huh."

Liu Ying nodded with a bitter smile. In fact, they barely managed to defeat him.

The proof of that was the blood leaking from Liu Ying's lips.

After the stairs to the second floor were blocked, Bloed triggered the traps in the first floor.

A strong electric shock, followed by a deafening sound, and a curtain of fog that blocked the student's sight were activated in quick succession. Once the traps were triggered, the students on the first floor were left in a stunned state. Although none of them was knocked unconscious, several of them lost their battle ability.

It was then when Liu Ying, Aya, and Princess Elwha appeared. They wore visors that allowed them to see through the fog and were followed by several B-Rank robots as they attacked the students on the first floor.

The plan was to make use of the effects of the traps to take down the students on the first floor as quickly as possible.

They first attacked the most dangerous enemies. In just a few seconds, they managed to defeat three of the four A-Ranks on the first floor.

The problem was the last one.

To the girls' surprise, this young man managed to avoid their attacks and even fight back when his sight and hearing were affected.

Of course, he was noticeably weaker than usual. But even so, he was an entire rank stronger than the girls!

Although the girls were as strong as normal A-Ranks, a late-stage A-Rank was not an opponent that they could defeat easily!

Left with no other choice, the girls decided to take care of the other students first and leave him for last. Unfortunately, someone had to stay behind to hold him back and stop him from interfering with the other battles.

In the end, that work was left to Liu Ying.

The demon girl unleashed her entire strength, even using her aspect and [Silent Touch] to go against the A-Rank student, but she was quickly suppressed. Even when the A-Rank student's sight was mostly blocked, and his hearing was impaired, he somehow managed to lock on Liu Ying and attacked her furiously.

It was then that Liu Ying remembered that she was in Academy City, the place where the geniuses of the entire continent gather.

And obviously, this guy was one of these geniuses.

Liu Ying focused completely on defending, and she was even forced to use the [Blink] ability in her boots to escape danger several times, but in the end, she managed to last until Aya, Princess Elwha, and the robots took care of the rest of the students.

After that, the three girls joined hands to fight the A-Rank student. Finally, and after five minutes of a tough battle, they managed to defeat him.

"What should we do now?" Princess Elwha asked aloud. "Are we going to chase after the ones on the second floor?"

Just then, a voice replied through the earpiece in their ears.

[Return to the top floor and rest. Perhaps you will have to fight again later.]

"Understood, Bloed." The three girls nodded. "By the way, what is the situation with the other group?" Liu Ying asked.

[You don't need to worry about them. Sara is taking care of it.]

…

Meanwhile, the remaining students of [Call of the Wild] were advancing through the second floor of the tower.

This time, though, they quickly met trouble.

A few minutes after they entered the second floor, they realized that their surroundings were covered by a thick fog.

The fog was so thick that they could barely see two or three meters ahead. They could barely see the path in front of them.

The worst part of it was that they could not get rid of it. One of the members of the party tried to use wind magic to blow the fog away, but it returned not even ten seconds later. In the end, and after several failed attempts, he decided to stop trying to conserve his mana.

Oscar, however, knew that the worst part had not come yet.

He was clear that this fog was perfect for ambushes. If they were attacked in this situation, several members of his group could be defeated.

Fortunately, most of the people in this group were A-Rank students. It was not easy to defeat them even if they were attacked suddenly.

Moreover, they had their guards up right now, so it was not easy to take them by surprise.

By this point in time, each one of the members of the group had gotten rid of their relaxed attitude. They had realized that the club that they were facing this time was more dangerous than they expected.

However, no matter how much they waited, the enemy did not attack.

Oscar frowned. To be honest, he would have preferred if the enemy attacked them.

This silence and the thick fog was making him tense and paranoic. Every second that passed made him more nervous.

Just then, he heard a soft thud.

It was a very soft sound, so soft that he barely heard it; but for some reason, he felt the hair of his neck standing up immediately.

One of the members of the group spoke up at that moment.

"L-Leader, something is wrong."

"What happened?"

"C-Camila is gone."

Oscar was stunned. Immediately, his face changed.

"Dammit, it's her! Everybody, put their backs against each other and watch your surroundings!"

The club members followed Oscar's orders without hesitation.

Their nerves became taut, waiting for the incoming danger restlessly.

But after waiting for five minutes, nothing happened.

"L-Leader?" One of the club members asked nervously.

Oscar wrinkled his brows.

"Everybody, check the person beside you. Tell me if someone is missing."

"Leader, I can't find Andre."

"Sea is not here either. Dammit, what happened?"

"Lucia is gone as well!"

Oscar's face turned ugly. Three more people had disappeared silently without any of them noticing anything!

Moreover, one of them was an A-Rank!

"Sara! Come out! I know it's you!" Oscar shouted, but nobody replied to him.

Just when he thought that she was not going to reply, a change happened.

All of sudden, a scream of pain came from one of the A-Ranks!

Oscar moved immediately. He charged in the direction of the scream and released a wave of mana, trying to hit the person behind the attack!

A startled voice came from the empty space. All of sudden, a figure materialized from nothing, using a dagger to slice apart Oscar's attack.

The figure looked at Oscar calmly. Then, with an indifferent expression on her face, she retreated in the fog, disappearing from Oscar's senses.

At the same time, Oscar heard a soft thud behind him.

The student that Sara attacked just now had collapsed on the ground, unconscious.