Novel Full Chapter 482: The Group of Five [2]
Chapter 482: The Group of Five [2]
Marcus’s expression twisted into a sneer. "You think i’m this stupid? Don’t test me, I don’t mind cutting a finger or two of yours. It’s not against the rules, since you could theoretically continue your life without them, or pay a massive price to regain them...heh."
"No, No! Look, we really don’t have any!" He hurriedly tapped his watch open, showing his points, or lack thereof.
Marcus didn’t believe it, asking the others to show too. When they all showed him their points, he finally believed them.
"Useless. What a waste of time." He looked at the five of them with open contempt. "You’ve been in the tournament for nearly two hours and you have nothing? How is that possible? Even if you’d just walked to your allocated sections, you’d have something. Pathetic trash, you remind me of one you useless classmate of mine."
"We had a total of sixty points," The leader winced as he grabbed his injured shoulder, "before someone stripped us from our points."
"When was this?" Marcus asked, since their injuries didn’t seem old. The fight must’ve been recent.
"About ten minutes ago."
Marcus paused. That detail caught him off guard. Normally, after defeating a competitor, the next step was to eliminate them completely. In the real world, that meant killing them outright so they couldn’t return for revenge. Since that wasn’t possible here, the alternative was to force their surrender and remove them from tournament entirely.
Leaving them alive with no points and the ability to keep playing wasn’t strategically smart. Only an idiot or someone overconfident would do that.
Marcus frowned. The five weren’t elite, but they weren’t the weakest either. Looking at them now, even injured, they were solid Second Star Evolvers with decent equipment. For a single person to do this to all of them required real strength.
He turned to Sarah. "Should we hunt him down? He’s guaranteed to have at least sixty points from these guys. We could climb several ranks with that."
Sarah shook her head, her expression as calm as ever. "There’s no need to chase a fight against an unknown variable. We don’t know his real strength yet. Better to observe."
She paused, her eyes drifting to the five injured Evolvers.
"He sounds like a talented Evolver though."
Marcus turned back to them. "Describe him. Height, build, weapons. Everything you remember."
The leader thought for a moment, his memory still hazy from the pain. "Uh, he was around my height, six foot three. Lean, muscular build. A mage. Mid-length midnight black hair. Carried a staff. His face was... I don’t know, calm. Like he wasn’t even worried about us."
Marcus stroked his chin, running through the list of promising candidates the news channels had highlighted before the tournament. Tall mage with black hair.
"I don’t recall seeing anyone like that listed among the promising candidates."
Sarah’s eyes flickered for a moment, but she said nothing.
"No need to waste time on this." Sarah finally said. "Let’s keep moving."
Marcus nodded and turned to leave. He took two steps. Then, without warning, he spun and unleashed a swordsmanship skill that carved across the five Evolvers in a single sweeping arc. Fresh wounds opened across their already-battered bodies. Two of them collapsed immediately, screaming.
"UGH! What are you doing?!" The leader gasped, blood pouring from a fresh gash across his chest.
Marcus pointed his blade at the leader’s throat. His expression had gone cold.
"Surrender."
"What?! We already said—"
"Press the surrender button on your watches." Marcus said evenly. "All of you. Now."
"Please! We just need to recover, we can still—"
"Better to get rid of pests early on, before they become a problem later. You don’t have points, which means you have nothing left to offer me. The only way you’re still useful is if you remove yourselves from the bracket entirely."
The five stared at him in horror.
"Please, we—"
"Now." Marcus pressed the tip of his blade lightly into the leader’s skin. "Or I keep cutting until your future is destroyed enough that the rules technically don’t apply anymore."
The leader’s hand trembled. Then, with hatred burning in his eyes, he pressed the surrender button on his watch. The others followed, one by one, their eyes hollow.
Five red lights flashed on their displays simultaneously.
Five wrist devices dimmed and went dark.
Marcus turned and walked away without looking back. Sarah followed silently, her expression unchanged, her thoughts hidden behind those steady eyes.
The five disqualified Evolvers sat in the clearing, broken, defeated, and out of the tournament before the second hour was up.
Meanwhile, Moon continued on his path, scanning the terrain for potential targets.
A notification appeared on his watch. His eyes caught the number of candidates briefly. He stopped in his tracks, turning to look back in the direction he had come from.
Five people eliminated at once. The number was specific.
’Those five I beat earlier...’
He couldn’t be certain, but the timing and the count lined up too perfectly to be coincidence. Whoever had stumbled across them must have decided that letting injured, pointless Evolvers stay in the bracket was a liability and had forced them out.
Moon considered turning back to investigate. Then dismissed the thought immediately. The area was too far now. By the time he travelled back, whoever had done it would be long gone. Any trace of the perpetrator would have long since faded.
"1,623 Evolvers left." Moon muttered, reading the updated count on his display. "This number should halve within the next six hours."
The day was still young. The tournament would run for a full twenty-four hours. There was no need to rush.
"It’s early game. Patience."
The zone was massive. Even with over fifteen hundred Evolvers still spread across it, finding them in such a vast area, especially when many of them were actively trying to hide, wasn’t easy. Players hunkered down behind cover, suppressed their auras, moved through dense brush instead of open paths.