Chapter 323 - Elimination.
According to the descriptions of the beast hordes that attacked the city during the beast tide, they attacked in neat order, just like humans would do.
He had imagined the leaders of each type of beasts would lead their species into battle, but from what he had just seen from the dormant beasts, his imagination was wrong. High-ranking beasts could control weaker ones of any species.
[How is it possible for high-ranking beasts to control beasts of totally different species?]
"Obviously the beast tide." Blake answered.
[Doesn't it feel strange that beasts gain such a useful power during the beast tide?] The system asked.
'Yeah… If I was in the position of the thing behind the beast tide, I would want to unit all beasts under one command.' Blake said.
[This shows that the thing behind the beast tide is sentient to a certain level. Why I said it is a combination of both is because, apart from the beast tide controlling the beasts to attack cities, they are still able to act and make decisions that would take would take when they were still normal.] The system explained.
During the 5 days of monitoring the beasts, the system had noticed that the beasts had only gotten bolder apart from that, nothing else. Wargs and alphas still cared about each other and attacked in sync, solitary insects like the armored praying mantis still preferred fighting solo.
"Nice job you guys." At this point, Blake's team had returned to the wall and Major Reeves congratulated them for completing the final exercise.
'Huh?' Blake turned to his right only to see Serhan's team being escorted back to the wall by the special ops.
"You guys only had one job, defend till I return!" Serhan screamed at his teammates.
"Ahm!" Major Reeves cleared his throat, reminding the barking Serhan of his presence.
"Have any idea of what happened?" Blake whispered to Luciano because he had missed out on how Serhan's team had been eliminated due to his conversation with the system.
"They got attacked by 3 knight rank armored praying mantis. Serhan had managed to kill one with a fusion spell and was facing the 2nd one all alone, but one of his team members facing the last one was saved by Major Reeves." Luciano narrated with an indifferent expression.
"Are the second-year teams that useless?" Blake asked with a raised brow.
"To some extent, yes. The reason they lost was that Serhan was the only one that had a fusion spell fast enough to not be dodged by the insects. As for the rest, they were as good as sitting ducks." Luciano explained.
"I think they would still have loss..." Blake said.
"I agree, because of the hive mind the fusion spell won't work again." Luciano read Blake's mind.
"Listen up…" Major Reeves called the attention of the students.
"The goal of the exercise was to access your performance if your team was in a position where they had to save a member." Major Reeves said. "In a real situation, the stranded member would have no idea of how he/she would be saved and in the case of the rescue team, a lot of things could go wrong. The stranded teammate is meant to defend as long as possible, and the rescue team should be able to make adjustments to their plans on the fly."
"For all those thinking I wanted to make them lose by releasing the armored praying mantises, you are correct. I wanted to release them to go after both the defenders and rescue team, but lucky enough I had a change of heart and decided the right time was when the rescue team and the defenders met."
"At this point, I am regretting that decision. You guys should have been eliminated earlier so that we could focus more on the 3 teams that were worth watching." Major Reeves snorted at the teams that had failed to complete the exercise.
"Moving over to the only team that had passed the exercise." Major Reeves turned to Blake's group. "As I had done in the previous exercises, I had given them a more difficult task. Not only was the beast concentration on their side greater than the other 1st year teams, but 3 knight rank armored praying mantises were released on them instead of 2 just like the other 1st year teams."
This caused everyone in Blake's team to turn and look at each other in surprise. This was because when they looked at the other battlefields it was only 2nd-year teams they saw and they were all facing 3 knight rank armored praying mantises.
Blake knew that some part of the exercise wouldn't be the same as other teams, but he hadn't expected it to be both beast concentration and the number of armored praying mantises.
"Their defense was absolute perfection and the attacking team was unstoppable. That is why they would be receiving a perfect score of 10 points." Major Reeves said as he began grading every team.
The teams that had failed to save their stranded teammate have graded 0 points, while those that had gotten to their teammate but were eliminated by the armored praying mantises were graded 5 points.
As for Serhan's team that had killed one of the knight rank insects, they were grades 7 points, putting them in second position.
"Just like I promised on the first day you guys arrived, I would reward the team with the highest points. As for the teams that weren't able to get up to 30 points you all will be sent back to the school." Major Reeves stated causing ash corps to escort 3 teams back to the school. 2 teams were from 2nd year, while the last one was a 1st-year team.
'That moron would surely get a beating of his life.' Brian couldn't help but comment in the mind link when he saw the face of the 4 man team filled with anger.
'I think they should have quitted a long time ago because it was as clear as day that they would be eliminated.' Castiel said.
When one of their team members had been sent back to the school by Major Reeves, the exercises given to them were still those of a 5 man team.. So everyone had seen their elimination coming.