Author's Note: Unedited Chapter ---------- "Decline," Gustav repeated himself. "But I can win this guy," Teemee said with a tone of indignation, "I already even beat him and his group," Teemee added. "You had my help," Glade chimed in. "Still, I'd definitely win," Teemee voiced. "Decline," Gustav shook his head. Teemee was about to retort again when Aildris held his shoulder from the side while shaking his head. "You should know by now that every decision Gustav's make has a reason behind it... you may not be aware of the reason but you should know that whatever it is... its definitely a solid reason," Aildris chided. After hearing this, Teemee decided to back down. "Alright then," He sighed before declining the challenge. waaaahhh~ Chatter! Chatter! Chatter! -"Did he just decline the challenge?" -"I thought that Teemee guy was one of the strongest on earth's team," -"If that is so why would he decline?" -:Planet Xionsi is strong but they are not close to earth's level," -"Then why would he decline?" The spectators and reporters discussed about the reasons why Teemee could have declined but they couldn't figure it out. Only Gustav knew why he told Teemee to decline and he didn't want the others to know. Gustav recalled the incident with Axiler. A Xionsi elder was leaving after concluding transaction with Axiler the moment they arrived. Gustav didn't know exactly what the Xionsi elder purchased from Axiler but he was leaning on it being an item that would boost the strength of the Xionsis in this battle challenge. The Xionsis have performed pretty good so far so Gustav's suspicion was even higher. If they still bore a grudge on Teemee for defeating them in the Viondur Egg Challenge, there was no doubt that they wanted to use a win to redeem themselves. A lot of planets under the alliance had massive egos after all. Gustav didn't want to risk it so he had Teemee decline. Axiler was no longer on the planet so Gustav was sure that no one would be able to acquire his services in the future. if they were to meet in future challenges, Gustav wouldn't mind if Teemee chose to battle them but for the current challenge, he wouldn't allow it. "Damn it! That little vermin declined," Orimon cursed as he played with the trinket on his finger. "I'll challenge the other one then," He decided before picking earth again. On the earth's participant area, everyone stared at a particular person as they noticed the same challenger had picked their planet again. "Why is this dude so obsessed with us?" Fildhor's face scrunched up as he voiced out. "He definitely has a bone to pick with us," Teemee shook his head. "Considering we've had a few run ins with them and they've been on the losing end each time, it kinda makes sense," Matilda chimed in. "Should I accept?" Glade turned to Gustav while questioning. "Decline," Gustav shook his head. Apparently, Glade had been challenged this time. Gustav's suspicion had already increased at this point. Usually other participants would pick a different planet and opponent altogether after anyone declines that challenge request, yet Orimon challenged yet another participant from earth. Glade wasted no time in declining after Gustav told her to. Under normal circumstances there was no doubt that these two could defeat Orimon but Gustav was skeptical this one time and for good reasons. "Damn it, i shoud have gathered enough points before challenging any of them," Orimon had a look of frustration after the second decline. He didn't challenge any of them since because he had way lesser points but as the challenge continued, he accumulated points. However, they also accumulated more points during the challenge so despite increasing the number of points he had, he still couldn't meet up. He thought they'd at least accept his challenge since both of them were sure they could defeat him. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as he expected. Orimon went on to pick a different planet to challenge, knowing he had lost both targets. "If anyone from Xionsi challenge any of you in the future batches, decline," Gustav voiced out. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂 "We should?" Teemee asked with a confused expression. "Yeah..." Gustav decided he was going to be the only one who would accept their challenges moving forward. That was only if they challenged him instead of the others. The group nodded in understanding despite wanting Gustav to explain his decision. Knowing Gustav, they didn't push it since he tended to keep things to himself. The batch continued and Orimon battled a considerably weaker opponent which of course brought him victory. Gustav didn't notice anything off with the battle bit he still stuck to his decision. As the batches continued, Angy, Phinx and Abesos had another turn before the day finally came to an end. After the 112th batch, the computerised systems didn't pick the next batch of participants. Everyone could see the podium where the Handler was standing, slowly rise above the ground. At this point, only around one thousand five hundred planets had not completely depleted their points and gotten disqualified along the way. However, it was now time to tell whether or not these planets had enough points to continue participating in this challenge or not. Tension permeated the entire arena as many participants hoped and prayed that their efforts wouldn't be in vain. While a lot of them were worried, planets that already had a high number of total points were unbothered. "It is time... I will now be revealing the required number of points accumulated to remain in the challenge. As mentioned earlier, planets who fail to reach the required number, will be immediately disqualified from IYSOP," Handler One voiced out. -"We'll be fine, it's just 10,000 points, we have enough," Some participants whispered to themselves with looks of relief. "The required number of points to remain in the challenge is, 17,000," Handler One announced with a loud voice. Gasp~ Waahh~ Chatter! Chatter~ The entire arena erupted with noise after the revelation that left a lot of participants with looks of disbelief and hanging jaws. -"What? How the hell is it 17,000 points?" -"This cannot be," -"The collector told us we needed to have only 10,000," -"Shit we got wrong information," -"We only accumulated 15,000," -"Damn it we have only 11,000," -"Captain, I thought you said we'll be fine?" Many planetary group broke out in lamentations as they stared at the screens above which displayed lists of the planets who accumulated enough points. A lot of them could see that their planet names were missing from the list but this was to be expected since they didn't accumulate enough. 'That darned collector!' A lot of them were cursing the same person internally. It was the person they had bought iformation from. "How come the collector said 10,000?" Orimon questioned the Xionsi Captain. "Who knows? Probably an error. It doesn't matter to us, we have enough points," Captain Illumo voiced while staring at a part of the scoreboard. ----------------- << Planet Xionsi - 31,000 Points >> ---------------- He could see that they had climbed the ranks and reached 221. Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Participants began vanishing very quickly from the arena. These were obviously the disqualified planets who didn't meet the quota. Gustav could hear all of the rukus around him and he knew a good chunk of the complaints were from those who bought information from Axiler. The misinformation had played a role in causing their disqualification since Axiler gave them a number that was 7,000 lesser than the actual number of points. A smirk appeared on his face as he looked up at the scoreboard. Earth was still in first position despite not being the planet that accumulated the most points during this challenge. -------------- << Planet Earth - 76,201 Points >> << Planet Draconet - 61,900 Points >> << Planet Ozis - 59, 400 Points >> << Planet Indulus Prime - 57,000 Points >> << Planet Oxlrk - 55,300 Points >> << Planet Tribetes - 54,900 Points >> << Planet Diov - 54,000 Points >> << Planet Hixto - 53,500 Points >> << Planet Osiris - 53,400 Points >> << Planet Xillion - 52,000 Points >> << Planet Klaxosape - 51,900 Points >> << Planet Orion - 50,100 Points >> << Planet Ghundabault - 48,000 Points >> .... -"The big three position remain unaffected," -"Indulus Prime is coming real close to that third spot," -"So many groups didn't get up to 17,000 Points," The spectators were astonished at the current situation. Close to a thousand planets had gotten disqualified. Only 572 planets were left in the competition. IYSOP started with nearly three thousand planets and now it was down to nearly a quarter of that. The competition was slowly coming to an end yet things were only going to get more intense from henceforth. The participants area now had way lesser numbers than before making it look a bit scanty. However, there were still over eleven thousand participants left. This wasn't a small number but compared to the sixty thousand participants that IYSOP began with, it was a considerably lesser number. "The Battle Challenge shall resume tomorrow and by the end of the challenge, there will be another disqualification round," Handler One revealed.