Nighttime soon descended on the place where the survival test was being held. The sun-tint orange skies turned a lovely shade of purple before they darkened into ashen gray, revealing the twilight which temporarily lasted.
The entities' steady onslaught continued through the night. Still, with the assistance of the Ice Empress, the three familiars— namely, Gabriel the Summoner, Ryu Ryoko the Black Winged Dragon, and the Ice Empress— worked together to keep the entities out of the camp.
As for Satoshi, he continuously monitored his familiars even though they didn't particularly have a hard time dealing with the entities.
With the help of the group, the camp soon became a bustling place, with an excellent cooking area and sleeping quarters tucked in one corner. The other Disciples also didn't hesitate to share their supplies with everyone. There was always food available and they didn't lack any resources.
It seemed that the first day went in the favor of the Disciples.
...
A couple of hours later,
Since his familiars were having an easy time defending, Satoshi relaxed a little bit and fell asleep. The constant monitoring as well as the stress of managing a huge group was pretty exhausting. Satoshi didn't even realize that he fell asleep.
When he woke up, he noticed that someone was calling out to him. It was none other than Dex, waking him up at half past midnight.
"What's going on?" Satoshi asked, noticing that she was actually lying down on someone's lap. Looking up, he realized that it was Mitsuka who gave him the lap pillow.
"You're awake," Mitsuka said as her face was partially blocked by her bosom when Satoshi looked up.
With his face turning into a nice shade of red, Satoshi coughed as he got up. There were still a couple of Disciples who were awake, they probably have a guard rotation in place since some of them were vigilant enough to keep watch.
Surveying the entire camp, Satoshi didn't notice anything wrong. It was still blanketed by the strong blizzard that the Ice Empress released. As for Gabriel and Ryu Ryoko, they were still fighting outside the blizzard. They assured Satoshi that he didn't have to worry about them.
However, they were too focused on the entities in front of them that they didn't notice the upcoming wave of a new batch of entities. Thankfully, Dex managed to notice it before everything was too late.
With his enhanced senses and the help of Dex's detecting capabilities, they saw the new wave of entities and their upgraded version. Compared to the entities on the first day, they were twice as big, and overall, they were twice as formidable as the first entities.
As if on cue, the entities from the first day disappeared completely and they were replaced by stronger, more formidable entities for the second day. With this, one of Satoshi's theories proved to be true— that the entities would most likely end up looking like his familiar 'Smol' on the third day.
The three familiars who defended the entire camp were surprised that the entities they were fighting suddenly disappeared, vanishing into thin air. And the moment they realized that another wave was coming, it was already right up their face.
One of the entities who was first to appear, jumped upward, grabbing the phoenix (Gabriel's summon) and tearing its wings like a mad animal. It then bit on its neck and decapitated it, shrieking as they come.
Another entity also engaged the Ice Empress, extending its hand as it blew a powerful flamethrower right at her. The attack was so strong that it forced Ice Empress to step back. Confused, her blizzard was deactivated the moment she lost her concentration.
With the blanket of blizzard dissipating, the other Disciples who were on night watch perked right up, wondering what happened. They had no idea what went wrong so they cautiously walked to the edge of the camp to see what was going on.
"Sain, you're up," Satoshi called out, integrating with his chainsaw familiar as he jumped into the fight. The moment he realized that the Ice Empress was having a hard time, he knew that he had to defend himself.
An armor made of chainsaws enveloped Satoshi. The moment he noticed an entity, he swung his hand which instantly shifted into a chainsaw. He and his familiar were in sync with each other so he didn't feel the need to command it from time to time.
The Ice Empress managed to drive out the entity that engaged her in combat. However, she suffered some heavy damage since fire is her type disadvantage. She was totally caught off-guard when the entity attacked. After all, she didn't expect the entities to have elemental magic.
As for Gabriel, he had no choice but to recall the phoenix he summoned since it was almost ripped into pieces. Although the phoenix could revive after dying, it will take a significant amount of time before it did so Gabriel opted to recall it so it could recover.
Instead, Gabriel summoned his other familiars, but they too didn't stand a chance against a single entity.
In just a span of a couple of minutes, the tables had completely turned in favor of the entities.
Ryu Ryoko also transformed into her Crystal Scaled Form since she had a hard time dealing with the entities who continually clawed on her skin. Fortunately, her Crystal Scaled Form minimized the damage incurred upon her.
Within the camp, the ominous shrieks coming from the entities echoed as if to mark the second day of the survival test. It didn't take long before the other Disciples also noticed that the entities had gotten stronger.
There was no need for explanations. On the second day of the survival test, there was no way Satoshi could defend everyone by himself.
"Satoshi, we're here to help," Mitsuka called out, kicking one of the entities away from him.
Satoshi was surprised that Mitsuka managed to easily kick the living daylights out of the entity but he didn't say anything. Instead, he proceeded to hack and slash at the group of entities which relentlessly rushed toward him.
Those who were awake set to work as well, defending the camp with everything they could. And as for the other Disciples who just woke up, they too started helping. The situation had gotten even more urgent and they needed all hands on deck.
On one side, the other Disciples were having a hard time pushing back the entities. However, on the other side, Satoshi was single-handedly defending his front. What a couple of Disciples achieved was just child's play for Satoshi. He was a one-man army, and his defense was even better than the group of Disciples.
Even Mitsuka didn't feel like she was helping at all. Then again, she didn't bother helping the other side. She wanted to remain with Satoshi since she figured that that was the safest place to be.
Still, Mitsuka couldn't believe that Satoshi was actually keeping up with the entities all by himself. He was on par with the group of Disciples just with his tamed beasts alone. Furthermore, all of his tamed beasts were unfamiliar to them, and some of them even resembled humans. It was truly a conundrum for everyone who witnessed the true power of Satoshi.
"Aghk~!"
From a distance, Satoshi and the others heard someone let out a scream as one of the entities got the better of him. He was immediately forcefully teleported the moment the entity tore one of its arms.
The headcount which flashed on the skies went down by one.
Another one fell into the hands of the entities. And another, and another. In a span of two minutes, the headcount went down from 42 to 35.
There were only 35 Disciples left, and the second day just started.
"This difficulty spike is unfair." Bruce Willow grunted, helping out the group of Disciples with his axe.
"Just defend. This is no time to strike up a conversation." Lucy told him. She was in a sour mood since her sleep was interrupted.
Just like the first day, there was no end to the entities that charged at the place. The moment they defeated one, another will spawn right after. It was a crazy game of endless mode.
Some of the Disciples already felt the exhaustion overtaking them and if it weren't for Satoshi, they'd have dropped out of the test sooner than later. They managed to survive this long thanks to Satoshi's intervention. But now, some of them were nearing the end of their rope.
On one side, there was Satoshi defending half of the circle which bordered the camp. And on the other side was the group of Disciples who worked together to defend with Satoshi. Still, the power balance between Disciples and entities slowly tipped in favor of the entities. Once again, a couple more Disciples fell in the hands of the entities, disqualifying them from the test.
There were only 30 Disciples left.
The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr𝒆e(w)𝒆bnovel