The holder of the Dragon bloodline, Zach, was standing in the midst of countless abyss corpses in silence with his sword pierced deep into the ground. His lonesome back, coupled with the scene of carnage around him created an indescribable atmosphere.

Sensing someone's arrival, Zach only glanced at Emery for a second before shifting his gaze back and closing his eyes once again.

On the other hand, the Commander of the Magus Alliance's group approached Emery and the others when he noticed their arrival. However, a look of disappointment appeared on the bulky, bearded man's face as soon as he realized how many of them there were.

"There are only six of you?"

Emery was unfazed by the rude reaction and just calmly replied, "Unfortunately yes, Commander. The others were unable to leave their post because they needed to protect the gathered survivors. But if you really need more people, I can-"

"Don't bother!" Raynor interrupted, not giving Emery a chance to finish his words. "We don't have any more time to wait for them. Their presence probably wouldn't make much of a difference anyway." After saying those words, Commander Raynor turned and walked towards his two assistants, ignoring Emery who was standing there with a calm expression.

The two assistants both possessed the cultivation of Crescent Moon magus.

The woman with silver hair that cascaded down her back was called Bellain and was the one who came with Emery's platoon when they descended on this planet. As for the other person - who was a tall, skinny man with dark skin - there wasn't much Emery knew about the other party other than his name, Kenneth.

Since their first meeting inside the transport ship, Commander Raynor had clearly shown his dissatisfaction about the Magus Academy intervention and involvement in this mission. From the attitude just showed, it seemed he was still annoyed with it.

Annara, who was standing a step behind Emery, whispered words, a warning.

"We have to be careful, most magus would not speak like this to a privilege acolyte. There's something strange here."

Emery didn't say anything. He just nodded and put Annara's warning in his mind.

About one and a half hours later, other people started to arrive at the gathering spot. The ones Emery recognized were Vida Themari, the Bird of Prey, who had come together with the possessor of Tiger bloodline Rofos Tigerson.

There were three more people who arrived later on. Although they came from Platoon 2, which Zach was the leader of, these people didn't seem to have any intention of working together with the latter. They, for some reason, kept their distance from the Dragon bloodline's protege.

Emery realized his [Spatial Gate] spell should be the fastest means of transportation to come to this place.

With the way the acolytes from Platoon 2 acted around Zach and the fact that the Dragon bloodline was already here by the time he and his group arrived, Emery suspected Zach might have been spending his time hunting the Abyss creatures in the area near the Sacred Mountain, or even been following Commander Raynor's team from the start.

In the sea of corpses in the surrounding area, Emery could see there were more stage 2 Abyss creatures than stage 1. Situated near the source of this Calamity - the Sacred Mountain - it was only normal for the Abyss creatures to be much stronger than the ones Emery found along the way.

This was also probably the reason why Zach was able to maintain his first rank in the personal ranking that he had maintained from the beginning until now.

Soon after, a big group of people arrived at the gathering spot; this time, they appeared with grandeur. Eight privileged acolytes came together on top of a flying golden disk led by one female figure Emery quickly recognized - Jinkan Nephilim.

However, to Emery's surprise, there were no other Nephilim with her. Instead, there was a combination of platoon one and Zach's platoon's two acolytes who had come with her.

Emery couldn't imagine what had happened between the two platoons in the past nine days to result in this spectacle.

On the other hand, this was probably the reason why the Nephlims were able to dominate half of the top five group points ranking.

Seeing the situation and indescribable atmosphere, Emery was just glad he wasn't involved in the middle of them.

When Jinkan arrived, the previously haughty Commander Raynor showed a completely different kind of attitude towards her. Apparently, the man was not that bold and stupid to mess with the descendant of one of the twelve biggest factions of the universe.

On the other hand, Jinkan gave off a certain aura that was somewhat suppressive, even as she spoke to Commander Raynor politely. "My apologies, Commander. I was wondering if we could wait for Eesho for a bit. He's currently occupied by something, but will definitely arrive soon enough."

Emery could see how Commander Raynor's expression changed. He was obviously conflicted by the female Nephilim's request. But eventually, the man decided to go along with her wish.

After that, Jinkan turned her head to where Emery was and gave a sharp gaze as well as a faint smile, before walking toward him. In response, Emery simply raised his eyebrows.

"I can see you did well for the past nine days." The female Nephilim said, starting the conversation. She then glanced at the five people standing behind Emery, before opening her mouth again, "I didn't expect you to be the leader type either, how unexpected you can even control this little one."

The one Jinkan pointed out was of course none other than Arcana. The kid-looking seemed to become angry at her words but did not dare to voice out his anger either against the powerful faction.

Emery stared at the blonde hair Nephilim and said calmly, "What do you want?"

Hearing the question, the girl surprisingly chuckled for a while. "Hahaha, if I did have something I wanted from you I would have already taken it." She was silent for a second before saying, "For now, let's hope we can help each other."

After saying that, she turned around and walked back to her own group, leaving Emery confused as to what she meant by her last words.

Moments later, instead of seeing Eesho arrive at the gathering spot, a strong tremor once again occurred and violently shook the mountainous area they were currently in.

Commander Raynor turned to those who were present and said, "Another wave is coming! Prepare to fight!"