With the minions out of the equation, the contestants jumped to the fray hoping to uproot the tree as soon as possible. However, both Johnny and Nicole had to constantly watch their backs. After the stunt one of Sonya's teammates pulled earlier, they were worried those basta.rds would try to jump them as well as soon as the quest was over. Especially now that they had lost one of their people.
None of them had witnessed what happened to the one who attacked Arnold, but they knew it was pretty bad judging from the notification warning them about misconduct that they received. Maybe that was the reason why the rest of the twin's gang was pretty agitated. Since the assailant was associated with them, Sonya and her group were penalised and had 50 quest points deducted from their accounts.
That right, they were being given points based on the damage they did to the tree and points were deducted for any misconduct on their part. The gods will probably rank them on the basis of the points they got. Which meant that the points they received would decide their fate in case they weren't able to uproot the tree, as it was already mentioned that the two contestants having the least points would get... eliminated.
That was the foremost reason everyone was giving it their all. No one wanted to get eliminated fearing that the gods might actually decide to 'eliminate' them from the world. Nicole and Johnny had teamed up to gain as many points as they could, and even if none of them could view how many points the others had, Nicole could guess the two of them had more or less the same amount.
"What the hell is he doing!?" Nicole cursed before ripping through yet another layer of the tree, "He won't receive any points if he doesn't stop slacking off now!"
Nicole was a bit worried about Arnold. She knew he did what he did for the sake of the planet, but Sonya and the others did not share the same sentiment as him. If they did then, firstly, they wouldn't have sent a member of their team to attack him and secondly, rather than working individually, they would be working together to take the da.mn tree down. But all of them were busy hogging all the points to themselves.
"I'm sure he has a plan." Johnny huffed in between punching the tree, "He is not one to slack of without any reason. For now, the best we can do is to ignore him and focus on collecting points."
"Yeah... how many do you have, if you don't mind me asking?"
"356, and you?"
"429."
"Damn... after throwing so many punches... I only got that much?"
"That's why I was worried about Arnold!" Nicole exclaimed, "I hope the spectators have given him some points for what he did back then. Or else, he is fcked!"
"Less talking, more punching!"
***
On the other side of the battlefield, Arnold was wondering about the significance of the quest points as well. And it didn't take him long to put two and two together. The more points he had, the higher he was ranked. It was as simple as that.
'So I need to get these quest points and that's it?' Arnold asked system sama but didn't receive a proper reply, 'Oh come on! You gotta help me out here!?'
[No can do. The quest started, the gods are watching. You're on your own.]
'Typical.' Arnold thought to himself, 'Since I got this many points without damaging the tree, I can only wonder how many points others got. Should be more than 750, I guess. Since they are actually doing some damage to the tree unlike me.'
"Let's go and get some more points then." He flexed his shoulders before rushing away to help the others give some payback to the tree.
However, when he arrived there, he was not expecting to see a pitiful sight. Only Nicole and Johnny were the ones working together why the rest were busy doing whatever they wanted. Arnold didn't whether he was disappointed or angry with them.
He wanted to teach them all a lesson especially Sonya and her bast.ard team. Not because one of them went against the rules and tried to kill him, but because he was angered by their blatant disregard for their planet. Who knew what would happen to the planet if they were not able to get rid of the tree, and yet those idiots were busy doing their own sh.it.
However, before Arnold could do anything about it, another announcement was made.
[10 minutes before the quest ends.]
"What? But there wasn't supposed to be a time limit, right?" The woman bearing the shield bellowed, "How is this fair!?"
Her teammates soon joined in a protest but Nicole and Johnny kept going at it without break. Arnold wasn't surprised by the sudden change in the quest. These were gods who only seek entertainment from them and they would do anything to get their money's worth.
In fact, it was suitable to say that to the Gods, they were just like strippers. They were throwing points at them because they were being pleased by them. Now, that the routine has gotten repetitive, they wanted to get as much out of them as they could. Hence the time limit.
Arnold still wanted to get rid of the tree, but even he wasn't foolish enough to assume that they would be able to get rid of the tree within that time frame. So the best thing he could have done was...
"Asterios, hand me your hammer." He instructed the minotaur who obediently did as he was told, "If I can't uproot it, then I guess I'll send it back to where it belongs."
The next moment, Arnold summons Scylla out and climbed on top of her. He wasn't an expert, but Arnold was aware of a little bit of botany and if he had to guess the weakest part of a tree, it wasn't the lower trunk but the stem axis which was located higher. As long as he could locate the ideal point and strike it hard enough, in theory, it should snap the tree in half. It was similar to snapping a human's spine.
"Scylla full speed to the top!" Scylla heeded her master's command and went straight to the sky in one giant leap.
[6 minutes before the quest ends.]
"Faster!" Arnold yelled once again.
As they were making their way to the top, the tree was getting noticeably slimmer. But it wasn't slim enough for Arnold to attack yet.
[2 minutes before the quest ends.]
"Just a little bit more..."
[1 minute before the quest ends.]
"That's it!" Arnold exclaimed and activated <Rapid Flash> to increase his momentum while using <Berserker's Rage> to boost his strength. He would only get one shot at this so he had to make it count. But that wasn't all, the hammer was build to alter its size upon the user's will.
"Maxima!" Arnold yelled the code word needed to activate the hammer's ability and it grew ten times heavier than it had been before.
[10 seconds before the quest ends.]
In the meantime, people below were doing what they had been doing till now... wasting their time. However, just as the timer was about to go to zero, they all heard a loud explosive noise coming from the skies. It was the single loudest sound they had ever hear. But they weren't the only ones to heard that... every single being living on the planet could hear the sound as well.
"Unbelievable..." Nicole mumbled as a notification flashed in front of her eyes, "He actually did it..."
[Congratulations on destroying the World Tree! All surviving members are advised to start preparing for the next round of the <War of the Worlds>!]
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