Free Web NovelChapter 490: Cluster of Points
Before engaging, Moon turned his focus from the clearing to its surroundings. He scanned the trees, the bushes, the rocky outcrops, looking for the ones who had hidden and never engaged. freewebnøvel.coɱ
He found two.
One was tucked behind a thick cluster of foliage to the east, almost completely concealed from the four in the clearing. The other was lying flat on the ground beneath a fallen log to the west, his body barely visible even to Moon.
’Better to deal with them now, before they catch on to the chaos and try to opportunity-snipe.’ Moon thought.
He dropped from the tree silently, his concealment rune no longer active. His feet touched the forest floor without making a sound, the soft earth absorbing his landing completely.
Then, Moon began moving toward the closest hidden Evolver, the one tucked in the bushes who clearly thought he had escaped notice.
The Evolver crouched in the foliage, his eyes fixed on the four in the clearing. He was so focused on tracking the fight that he never sensed the figure approaching behind him.
Moon stopped two meters behind the hidden Evolver. His staff materialized in his hand.
He struck the back of the man’s head in a single, controlled motion. Weaponmaster amplified the force precisely, calibrated to knock the target unconscious without permanent damage. The man slumped forward without a sound, his body going limp in the bushes.
Moon caught him before he hit the ground.
He hoisted the unconscious Evolver over his shoulder and moved silently away from the clearing. No one noticed him leave. The four in the open were too consumed by their own fight to register the disappearance of a man who hadn’t been making noise to begin with.
A hundred meters away, in a small hollow shielded by rocks, Moon set the man down on his back.
Then, he splashed water across the man’s face. The Evolver jolted awake with a sputtering gasp, instinctively trying to sit up.
He couldn’t.
Moon was sitting on his chest. The man’s wrists were bound together, pinned beneath one of Moon’s hands. A dagger pressed lightly against the skin just above where his hands were tied.
The man’s eyes went wide.
"Do anything stupid and your hands are gone." Moon’s voice was calm, friendly in a way. "That’ll cost you a couple hundred million to fix at your current strength level. Long recovery too. What do you think? Is it worth it?"
The Evolver’s brain caught up to the situation in stages. The grogginess from being struck. The realization that he was pinned. The dagger against his wrists threatening to take way his two greatest assets.
He shook his head rapidly.
"Good." Moon nodded. "Transfer your points. My candidate number is on the display. You know what to do."
The man’s hands trembled as Moon eased the pressure enough for him to access his watch. He tapped through the menu with frantic, shaky fingers.
[+20 Points]
Moon’s display updated.
"Now surrender."
"What? Please, I—"
"Surrender."
The man pressed the button. His watch chimed and dimmed, signaling his elimination.
Moon stood up, brushed off his clothes, and walked away without another word, leaving the man trembling in the dirt.
He repeated the same process with the second hidden Evolver to the west. The man under the log never even saw him coming.
Two opportunists, removed cleanly from the bracket. Forty additional points added to Moon’s total.
By the time he returned to the clearing’s edge, the situation inside had changed.
The four had become three. One of them was on the ground, eliminated already. The remaining three stood in a loose triangle, watching each other warily, exhausted from their fights.
Moon waited behind a tree, ready to wait for an opening.
Then one of them spoke.
"Hey. Listen." The mage on the left lowered her staff slightly. "Let’s just leave."
The other two turned to look at her.
"All of us have made good points already." She continued. "We’ve been fighting for nearly half an hour. We’re all exhausted. We’re all wounded. There’s no guarantee any of us walks away from this if we keep going. But if we stop now, we all have enough to easily make it into the next stage. Right?"
The other two exchanged glances.
The man on the right lowered his sword. "She has a point. I’ve got over a hundred points already. That’s a guaranteed spot in the top two hundred."
"Same." The third one, an archer, slowly drew the tension out of her bowstring. "I’m done fighting. Let’s just go our separate ways, we will finish this the next time we meet."
The three of them nodded at each other, a fragile truce forming between them. They began to step back from each other, lowering their weapons fully, preparing to depart in different directions.
Moon stepped into view from the treeline, revealing him completely.
"I never said you could leave."
All three heads snapped toward him, frowns forming on their faces.
They had been keeping their senses sharp. With this much noise, they expected to feel anyone approaching from at least fifty meters away. Yet this young man had appeared at the treeline as if materializing from thin air, and not one of them had felt him until he chose to be seen.
A single thought formed in all three of their minds at the same moment.
’He’s not weak.’
But rather than fear, the thought sparked excitement.
They had spent the last hour fighting fifteen people for scraps. Now a stronger opponent had walked into their clearing on his own.
"Before we go our separate ways." The archer pulled her bowstring back, a sharp grin spreading across her face. "Why don’t we share his points first?"
The other two nodded unable to hide their own smiles.
"One more round of fun for me." The swordsman said, raising his blade.
"And then we leave." The mage agreed.
None of them said no to more points. None of them considered themselves weak.
He looked young. Even if he was a Third Star Evolver, three peak Second Stars working together could handle one Third Star without major issues. And he couldn’t possibly be a Five Star Evolver at his age. The fight made sense to them, three on one, was a fight they all expected to win, even if they were all a little fatigued.
