Unlike Maxine's party, the soldiers remained next to the wall, their job was only to protect the city walls. The first clash happened between her team and the closest Cthulhu, which were the typical ones but seemed more cooperative as they quickly surrounded the team of six and threw long javelins.

The young-looking mage, Tula, retaliated almost immediately, his lips spelling one incantation after another at an insane speed. The ground became slippery, making half of the nearby Cthulhu fall then, it transformed into mud before instantaneously hardening, immobilizing the targets.

The Red Tower did indeed disable the skills of Tula, however, this world is still considered a Magic world that has an abundance of Mana. As long as he repeats the necessary incantation, it is still possible to use a weaker version of his usual skills, however, this method doesn't work on everything. Ultimate skills that can obliterate half of this Cthulhu army should be inaccessible.

Maxine and the rest followed, each taking out five to six enemies at once. The flashiest ones were the green-haired woman and the armored dwarf, each taking a direction and started a destructive rampage.

The leader, even without her sword and martial skills, she was able to devastate the enemy lines, beheading several of these monstrosities with one swing. It has to be said that her sword mastery is nothing to scoff at, it should be a level above Sword Saint but a bit lower than Sword God.

In the other direction, the dwarf's axe rumbled as it struck the ground, splitting the earth and opening a bottomless hole that swallowed all the targets around him. Unlike their teammates, the thief, priest, and the shaman didn't attract much attention as they withheld their power and acted with caution.

The priest rarely attacked and preserved the stored Holy Energy for emergency situations. As for the thief, he was like a ghost, appearing behind the large Cthulhu and slitting their throats with one clean slash.

"What's the deal with the one at the back?"

Arthur stared at the guy with blue tattoos, wondering what he's doing exactly. Instead of attacking or supporting his comrades, he went around and erected some runic pillars that were half of his height. They surrounded him like a circle and once he started chanting with his closed, they vibrated and flashed with the same color as his tattoos.

"Shamans are basically people who forsake their consciousness for a much greater affinity for all the elements. They lose the chance to reach a high cultivation stage but for players, they rely on Levels so it's a win-win situation. In addition to having a vast arsenal of strong elemental skills, they can summon totems that act like a stationary turret shooting targets."-Quad-Spirit

"Yes yes, I know that but isn't it supposed to be impossible to use skills?"

"Shamans, like druids, communicate with the nature therefore, the only skills they have are meant for support. He doesn't need the System to unleash offensive and defensive skills, which are mostly reliant on those small totems."

In a minute or so, more than a hundred Cthulhu were defeated, however, Maxine's group couldn't stop the full assault of the enemy forces. Their attacks were devastating but the more they killed, the more Cthulhu surrounded them, elevating their threat level from the alien's point of view.

Thousands of Cthulhu rushed at the city walls, soon clashing with the soldiers, causing the ground to start turning red and the smell of blood to scatter across the whole battlefield.

As they advanced too much, Maxine and her comrades were at a great disadvantage, especially when the strong variants of Cthulhu made their appearance. One of them was very familiar to Arthur, a tall monster with a humanoid form, a skin that resembled a Dark Elf and two golden eyes. it held a red bow and looked exceptionally calm as it pulled the metal string, resulting in an arrow of light to start forming.

His target was Maxine's party, which seemed to be unaware of it. Back in Riarravar, Arthur fought this kind of Cthulhu, which is able to talk and assess the situation quite well to determine whether it's better to flee or fight.

Fifteen seconds quickly passed by and a whistling arrow that was over 4m in length was fired at the small and crowded area where Maxine and co were. The blow will not only kill its kin, it's bound to get rid of its enemies too, or so thought the massive Cthulhu Archer.

Right before the arrow was about to hit them, Maxine jumped in the air and stabbed her sword exactly at the top of the arrow made of light. It seemed to be such a simple movement yet it managed to instantly divert the arrow in the opposite direction, sending it back to the shooter.

The golden-eyes monster swayed to side, dodging the incoming arrow then he started bombarding the players with more arrows, weaker than the first one but much faster. A downpour of arrows descended upon the team, some successfully hit the dwarf, who drifted a bit far from his comrades, and the rest was blocked by a thick layer of water cast by Tula.

The armored dwarf was unharmed even after getting hit, he cursed out loud then swiftly got up and madly spun around, sending all the Cthulhu around him flying in the air.

As for the bow-wielding Cthulhu, its arrows were blocked by Tula and, to make matters worse, it became the main focus of the four totems erected by the Shaman. These small, unimpressive runic pillars each released a uniquely colored smoke before unleashing thin beams of light right at the monster.

Before it could dodge or react, the beams hit its chest and created fatal gaping holes, ending the Cthulhu's life within seconds. This wasn't the end of this totems as after pausing for ten to fifteen seconds, they fired again, taking dozens of Cthulhu at once and clearing the area a bit.

****

As the participants saw how well Maxine's team was doing, they joined the fray and started killing left and right, though some had awfully effective methods. Amongst them, Arthur noticed a guy standing atop the wall and throwing javelins made of light. The shocking thing was how fast he's doing it and how powerful they actually were.

Before the first javelin reaches its target, the second and third ones were already thrown. Not only that, the light javelin would vanish only after it impaled three to four Cthulhu. This lancer was wearing a long robe which covered his head and hid his face.

Arthur had seen him in the waiting room, he was chatting with two other people also wearing white robes. His supposed comrades were nowhere to be seen, however.

'It's such a shame that I can't use Appraisal.'

With that precious skill, he'll be able to inspect everyone and know a few things. Judging based on appearance won't work and there's no telling who wishes to harm him amongst all the present contestants.

"Master, here they come!"

As the Quad-Spirit spoke, a group jumped from the wall, they were all enveloped by a thick grey fog but you could still their silhouette. Arthur didn't need a confirmation to know that it's Forne and the rest.

The fog was the result of Celes' Physique and the red particles enveloping it was the infamous destruction magic.

Indeed, when the group amidst a clustered group of Cthulhu, the area exploded, leaving a large crater. This wasn't the end as ground heavily shook then, like an eruption, a lot of magma sprung from below, melting the monsters in a diagonal line.

Without wasting any time, they dashed at the Sky Door far away, wrecking everything in their way. Whether it was the tall Cthulhu Archers or the gargantuan club-wielding ones, they didn't stand a chance against them.

The Void Behemoth took the front, its body becoming massive, bigger even than Cthulhu dragging the door. It spat purple orbs which expanded in size then exploded, devouring everything in the area, literally leaving nothing but an eerie emptiness.