Chapter 64: Dryads
Nodding his head, he turned to the officials in line before asking them to begin.
The officials stepped forward one after the other and called out the numbers of the team that they would be evaluating.
Surprisingly, Instructor Nathan was the one who called Ivan\'s group.
The six of them immediately found their way through the crowd and approached their morning training instructor who led them out of the lobby and toward one of the elevators.
They arrived at the fifth floor, and instructor Nathan led them to a white room with sleeping pods, which he asked them to enter after giving them a briefing on how things were going to be.
They would be taken to a random location or even zone where they would have to face different creatures that would require the work of a team. Their objective was to defeat the monster while making sure everyone got a fair share of action, trying to go solo was not allowed.
After Ivan and the others entered the sleeping pods, instructor Nathan went to stand in front of a large screen that came out from the ceiling of the room. It displayed footage of Ivan\'s group in a forest region.
The training has begun!
...
Ivan and his teammates appeared in what appeared to be a forest with tall trees and a mountain range. The fresh wind brushed against their skin, and the smell of nature filled their noses.
Butterflies flew from flowers to flowers while birds soared in the air.
"This…is where we\'ll be holding our training?" Someone muttered as they all looked around them, observing the area.
The place where they had appeared was a clearing in the middle of the forest with tall trees surrounding them on all sides. They were confused as to what to do next since this place didn\'t look anything out of the ordinary at all; it looked just like a peaceful scene from a movie.
\'The instructor should be watching us somehow since he\'ll be evaluating our performance; I will have to avoid showing too much then; luckily, it\'s a team mode training,\' Ivan thought to himself while observing his surroundings with sharp eyes.
"Since we were not told exactly what to do next when coming, we should go look for clues," Rose, the swordswoman, suggested.
The others nodded in agreement.
" Should we split up then? We\'ll be able to cover more ground that way" Susan asked.
"No, we should stay together. We don\'t have any means of contacting each other from a long distance here; it\'ll be troublesome if we run into dangers while separated," Joseph said while shaking his head.
Ivan, who had yet to say anything nodded in agreement with Joseph.
\'Not bad, they can at least use their heads\' Ivan thought before looking to the side with narrowed eyes.
Unlike Joseph and the rest, who were yet to even enter the Mortal King rank, Ivan was a True King Nexulyte, thus allowing him to sense better than them.
"Prepare to fight!" Ivan suddenly said and at the same time, he summoned a card before turning it into a sword that floated beside him.
The others were confused by his words and actions, they could not see a reason why they should get ready for a fight when there were clearly no enemies around; but considering the reputation of the other party and his level of strength, they obeyed regardless and each of them prepared to use their abilities at any moment.
Seconds slowly ticked by, ten seconds passed ever so slowly and it felt like hours to Joseph and the others. Was Ivan perhaps mistaken and there wasn\'t any danger?
Just when their doubts were about to settle deeper, countless glowing green eyes began to appear from behind the shades of the trees.
These pairs of glowing eyes were so many that they counted over twenty at a glance, and there were still more!
Coming from under the shades of the trees, they realized that those glowing green eyes belonged to Dryads.
With bodies of trees, long branches for hands, and legs like many roots that moved like countless snakes, these Dryads stood at heights of over seven meters.
"Dryads should have expected such monsters in such a place" Camellia flashed a wry smile.
The faces of the others turned serious as well; Dryads were troublesome monsters, especially when they were on their turf.
"It\'s no use thinking about it, try to kill them as fast as possible. We\'ll need to find a place that\'s not surrounded by trees" Ivan said solemnly.
As long as they remained here, the Dryads would be able to slowly recover and more Dryads would come join the fight as time went on.
Creeeee!!
One of the Dryads let out a piercing sound before rushing forward with its many roots, it raised its arm and swiped its many branches at Mari.
"Look out!" Camellia reacted.
Throwing her hands forward, thick vines burst out from the ground before wrapping around the arm of the Dryad, and then a wave of Camellia\'s slender arms, the vines tossed the seven-meter-tall Dryad away.
The rest of the Dryads also charged at them; soon, the clearing was completely surrounded by Dryads.
Ivan jumped forward, his sword slashed before him, and he chopped a Dryad into two halves.
Upon landing, Ivan sent out a punch.
BOOM!
A Dryad was sent flying back and slammed into another Dryad behind it, but they quickly got up after a few seconds.
Seeing that it was impossible to punch these creatures to death, Ivan summoned another card and turned it into a sword before welding it; he went into a chopping spree as he cut down one Dryad after another.
The rest were equally doing their best too to kill the Dryads.
Susan had summoned a group of skeleton warriors, only that these were low-level skeleton warriors. They were nothing compared to the ones in the tomb of ten thousand graves.
These skeleton warriors wore no armor and carried bone swords, their eyes flickered with darkness as they charged out toward the Dryads.
Crash!!
With a wave of their branches, the Dryads would send one or two skeleton warriors flying away and crashing into other Dryads or skeleton warriors.
The skeleton warriors would shatter into clusters of bone but would quickly reassemble before picking up their swords and charging out again.
Pak! Pak! Pak!
Sounds of their bone swords cutting at the bodies of the Dryads filled a part of the clearing.
A skeleton warrior suddenly jumped on the head of a Dryad and stabbed its bone swords into its face.
Creeeee!!
The Dryad let out a piercing screech, it grabbed the skeleton warrior from its face and threw it away in anger.
Crash!!
The skeleton warrior was thrown for over twenty meters and only stopped after smashing into a tree. It met the tree head first, causing its shiny skeleton head to shatter upon impact.
The darkness in its eyes immediately died out and the skeleton warrior was unable to stand up again, remaining just a cluster of white bones on the ground.
"Tch!"
Susan clicked her tongue and gritted her teeth in pain, she waved her hands again and summoned another group of skeleton warriors to join the fight.