Chapter 496 - The Halon Effect

Chapter 496: 496 - The Halon Effect

While Lisa and Lohan advanced through new territory, on the other side of the map, in a grove of silver trees where the shadows were so dense they seemed solid, a group of six members of the Astralis Requiem was facing a pack of spectral wolves that, until last week, would have been considered practically impossible for a group of that level.

Kai was on the front line, breathing hard and with a smile of pure disbelief on his face, as a creature that looked like a wolf made of gray smoke leapt toward him with its jaws wide open.

On other days, he would have backed off, or tried to dodge, or taken the bite and cursed out loud for the next thirty seconds. But that day, he simply raised his arm.

The bite struck the surface of the dark blue armor that covered his whole body, and the sound that came back was that of a hammer hitting dense rubber, dry and muffled, with no pain at all.

"I still think this is bizarre," Kai commented, looking at the monster that was still trying to bite his arm without managing to pierce anything. "I’m getting bitten and I only feel tickles."

Beside him, Jenny let out a nervous laugh as she spun to dodge another wolf, and the armor covering her body, so light and flexible it barely got in the way of any movement, shone with a soft wave of golden light.

"Don’t complain," she said, and her next strike, a quick, precise thrust, went through the spectral wolf’s body with a power she had never felt before. "Enjoy it while Halon is in a good mood."

What they called "armor" was actually the dark, shining layer of gelatin that Lohan’s clone, which had been accompanying the group since the start of the morning, had spread over each of them.

But the word didn’t do justice to what it really was.

The covering fit each person’s body with the precision of a second skin, divided into layers that absorbed and distributed impacts, and between those layers, small channels of golden light ran like veins, connecting the whole set to an invisible source of energy.

After Halon’s evolution, the number of clones he could form had also increased, meaning each group could now take more than one clone out for the day’s hunt!

And that energy didn’t serve only to protect. Every time one of the guild members attacked, the layer covering his hand, arm or weapon pulsed, and the strike came out with an intensity that seemed multiplied by two, sometimes by three, with a golden glow that left trails in the air.

Devon’s spells, which used to need seconds of concentration, now came out almost instantly, and the gravity waves he fired warped space in a way that even he was impressed.

And the clones didn’t serve only as armor for the guild members.

During combat it also did something else.

Every time a monster got too close to one of the more fragile members of the group, two or three thin, translucent filaments came out of the nearest clone and wrapped around the creature’s paws and snout, immobilizing it completely, without hurting it, without piercing, without causing any damage.

It was as if a pair of invisible hands held each monster in place so that the Players could calmly choose the moment to strike.

"Hey, Halon," Devon called, pointing at a spectral wolf hanging upside down, swaying by its paws, its red eyes wide with frustration. "Could you just... finish this one? I’m out of mental energy and wanted to save some."

The clone, which before couldn’t even communicate with the group because of the distance and lack of direct means of communication, now, after the evolution, was able to answer in a joking tone.

"Negative. This one’s yours. I’m just holding it."

"You’re so cruel."

"I’m a helper."

Devon rolled his eyes, but raised his hand, and the void magic that came from his fingers crushed the trapped wolf in a single silent pulse. A wave of experience rose through his body, and he smiled, satisfied, even though he didn’t want to admit it.

That was, after all, the biggest difference, and the reason the guild members were, for the first time, leveling up faster than any other group of Players they knew.

Halon never attacked.

He protected, amplified and restrained, but left every final blow to the others, so that the experience stayed entirely in the hands of those who had made the effort.

It was a rule he had set on the first day, and which he kept with an almost stubborn discipline.

At the end of the day, when the group returned to the guild headquarters tired and sweaty, with a pile of items in their backpacks and their experience bars advancing in a way they still had trouble believing, Dylan was waiting for them in the lobby with a scroll in each hand, and an expression that couldn’t hide his excitement.

"I need to show you something," he said, before they even had time to sit down. "I spent the whole night doing the math, and I swear I checked it three times. Look."

He spread the scroll across the table, and the group crowded around, curious.

"The average daily experience of all guild members has increased by at least thirty five percent since Halon went through his evolution," Dylan explained, pointing to a column full of numbers. "Some groups went up more, others less, but the average, even counting the slower groups, came out above that."

"Thirty five," Jenny repeated, and her eyes widened. "That’s a lot."

"It’s absurd. And that’s not even the most interesting part." He flipped the scroll to show another column, and his voice dropped lower, almost reverent. "Because the experience gain comes along with more monsters killed, more items collected, and more gold and materials going into your inventories. And since all of that is converted into real credits..."

He let the sentence hang, and no one dared to breathe.

"The Players who were already earning well, the ones farming around three hundred to four hundred credits a day, are now making between four hundred and five hundred fifty," he finished. "And that’s without any change in equipment, play time, or fighting style. The only difference is the clone’s help."

The silence that followed lasted three whole seconds.