Chapter 662: Hundreds...Hope Lost?!

A few hundered meters away from Moon’s group, and at the base of the Black Ice Spire, was a gathering of beasts.

A hundred, at least, maybe more, gathered around the base of the spire in a loose, restless mass.

Frost Stalkers prowled the perimeter in packs whilst Snow Creepers, the six-meter apex predators lumbered among them, several of them. And there were others, beasts the team didn’t recognize, larger things, stranger things, all of them clustered around the black spire as though drawn to it, guarding it, or admiring it.

What made the gathering more terrifying was the fact that every beast was guaranteed to be a five-star Evolver rank due to the Gate’s peak B-Rank evaluation.

The team stood on the rise, staring down at the horde, and for a long moment nobody spoke.

Moon’s eyes swept across the mass of beasts, across the black spire rising behind them.

"Seems like we reached the final destination," he said quietly. "Quick enough."

Nobody paid his words any heed. They were too busy processing the sight before them.

Moon glanced at his team, finding a change in their eyes. A hint of demoralization that hadn’t been there before.

A hundred Five Star beasts gathered around a dark spire had its way of draining hope out of even elite fighters.

Demoralized fighters made mistakes, and mistakes in a place like this got people killed. Realizing this, Moon knew that his next words needed to be measured.

He needed to take action before the team lost all hope.

"This is quite the overwhelming sight." The words pulled their attention off the horde and onto him. "But it’s not impossible to deal with. In fact, with the right approach, we can turn this into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Nina’s eyes changed first. The demoralization cleared as she remembered exactly who was standing on the rise with her. This was the fighter who had survived attacks from Surpassers, who had shared a battlefield with Ascenders, who had saved their entire team out of an S-Rank gate when they were all unconscious.

’If he says there’s a chance, then there’s a chance.’

She spoke before anyone else could.

"Please, tell us, how do we defeat more than a hundred beasts of our rank."

Moon grinned.

"It’s quite simple, but before I answer just yet, let me ask you all something first. Tell me. Do beasts like each other?"

The team blinked at the question before Theo answered, "No. Not usually. Different species compete for territory and food. Even the same species will fight over dominance and mating rights. The only reason a group this size holds together is if something is forcing the equilibrium. Proximity to a shared resource, a dominant apex keeping order, or an environmental pressure binding them."

Moon’s smile widened.

"Exactly. So all we need to do is break that equilibrium." Moon said, pointing his index finger towards the cluster of beasts.

"Whatever is holding those beasts in balance around the spire, we disrupt it, and hell breaks loose as they turn on each other. A hundred Five Star beasts tearing themselves apart, and we sit back as the third party and let them do our work for us. We can watch, we can pick off the survivors, or we can walk in afterward and collect the rewards without taking on the whole horde at once."

The demoralization evaporated as quickly as it arrived.

Hope returned to the team’s eyes, brighter than before.

Moon’s plan was the kind of plan that turned an impossible fight into a manageable one, and every one of them recognized it. They could finally see a path rather than a wall.

Then Marek asked the question that mattered.

"It’s a good plan. But how do we break the balance without revealing ourselves? The moment we act against that horde, they’ll turn on us instead of each other. I can’t think of a way to disrupt them and stay hidden at the same time."

Moon grinned.

"Why don’t you leave that to me? I will handle that" Moon turned his gaze toward Theo, the team’s assassin.

"Your armor helps conceal your presence. Correct?"

Theo nodded, though confusion crossed his face. "That’s correct?"

"Can I borrow it for a few minutes? I want to do something."

Theo hesitated. The armor was a core part of his kit, tailored to his class, and handing it to another fighter in the middle of a hostile environment went against every instinct a specialist carried about their gear. But something in Moon’s confidence removed the hesitation. He nodded slowly, unclasped the low-profile armor, and pulled it off, handing it over.

Moon put it on. Then he began walking down the rise, toward the distant cluster of beasts.

"Stay here. I’ll be back shortly."

The team watched him go, uncertain what he intended. They all wanted to stop him, but his confidence made them think twice before doing so.

Moon walked in the open, closing the distance toward the horde, until he was roughly twenty meters ahead of the group.

Then, under the watchful gaze of all six of his teammates, Moon activated Camouflage and vanished from all eyes.

To his team, Moon simply ceased from existence, as if he was never there to begin with. It happened so quickly, that one of them missed it when they blinked.

Moon’s presence dropped so far below the threshold of perception that his teammates’ gazes slid right off the spot where he had been.

The team stood frozen in shock.

Nina’s mouth had fallen open without restraint. Most shocked out of the team was Theo. As an assassin, he knew how difficult it was to hide your presence from those at the same rank.

Everyone’s first thought was Theo’s armor, "Your armor has an invisibility effect?" Vela asked, finding that as the only plausible explanation to what they just witnessed.

Theo shook his head immediately, his own eyes wide, staring at the empty snow where Moon had been standing a second ago.

"No. It doesn’t... It simply diminishes the wearer’s presence. In the hands of an assassin with exceptional stealth, that might be enough to replicate what we just witnessed. But a mage doing this..." He hesitated, staring at the vacant stretch of snow. "I don’t know how he did it."

The rest of the team stared with him. Nothing disturbed the snow where the mage had vanished.

Nobody had an answer.

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Author’s Notes: Thanks to your support, we are back in top 10, but we are very close to dropping out again, let’s try stay here. Please donate your golden ticket to this book if you enjoy it, and thanks again <3