Chapter 673: Hidden Secrets? Moon is a monster!

The team pounced on the stunned beasts, hitting them all once.

All kinds of weapons tearing into the paralyzed targets. Kayn’s blades tore through one of their thick necks, and Vela’s hammer dented another’s skull with a swing of her hammer.

Elsa’s arrows found two more, and Marek’s shortsword drove deep. In the span the stun held, they heavily injured two of the five and killed three outright.

They would have taken all five, but the rest of the horde surged in to intervene, other beasts crashing into the team’s flank and forcing them to peel off before they could secure the last two kills. The two injured survivors staggered back into the mass, heavily wounded but alive.

Moon was already moving, his sword crackling, closing on the two that had escaped before they could recover.

*****

The battlefield became Moon’s stage and he was the spotlight.

He fought like a war machine, his sword the center of everything. Lightning threaded through his blade and burst from his palm.

Fire broke across the beasts whenever cold-armored hides needed cracking. And his controlled beasts moved around him like extensions of his own body, the Fire-Prowler and the Grizzlers and the battle spirit peeling enemies away, creating openings, drawing attention off him so he could slip into the gaps and kill.

He never truly stopped moving. One beast fell to his sword, and he was already pivoting, throwing a bolt into the next before stepping past a charging Grizzler that his own beasts intercepted before it reached him.

Kill after kill, smooth and relentless, each death flowing into the setup for the next.

[You have killed a Level 60 Five-Star Arctic Grizzler]

[You have gained 3,340 Lives]

[You have killed a Level 59 Five-Star Frost Stalker] [You have gained 2,910 Lives]

The notifications flickered past faster than he read them.

Nina fought at the edge of the pack, and between her own exchanges she kept stealing glances at him, and what she saw shook her.

Can the River of Paths truly make a mage move better than an elite swordsman?

She had heard Alaric’s speech. Everyone had, by now. It was common knowledge across the kingdom, the revelation that fighters could reach beyond the confines of their class through the River of Paths, learning disciplines that should have been closed to them.

But the breakthrough was recent, and knowing it was true was different from watching it happen.

Moon was a mage, someone who was meant to be standing at the back of the team casting his spells. And yet, he was cutting through Five Star beasts with a blade better than she could as a knight, his footwork cleaner than Kayn’s, his sword flowing between targets without a wasted motion.

Common knowledge dictated that Moon shouldn’t have been able to do that. Yet he did.

There might be more things they’re hiding, she thought, parrying a claw and driving her weapon into a Stalker’s flank. Maybe Surpassers aren’t the only ones who can enter the River of Paths. Maybe that’s the real secret.

She knew Moon and Alaric were connected. Through a mutual, Selene, Alaric’s sister, the two of them had crossed paths and, apparently, shared more than a passing acquaintance.

Two geniuses, one an established Sword Saint’s bloodline and the other a rising storm the whole kingdom was watching, and between them they had figured out things the greatest fighters of the age had never touched.

Just how monstrous are you two?

She watched Moon decapitate a Grizzler with a single clean stroke, then step past the falling body and throw a bolt of lightning into the next beast without breaking stride, moving like water finding its way down a river stream, unhurried and unstoppable all at once.

[You have killed a Level 61 Five-Star Arctic Grizzler]

[You have gained 3,505 Lives]

[You have killed a Level 60 Five-Star Frost Stalker] [You have gained 3,020 Lives]

Moon’s fire spirit dragged a beast to the ground and pinned it, and Moon’s sword took its head before it could rise.

His Fire-Prowler drove one more into a Frost Pillar, and the ice spears skewered it where it stood.

A Grizzler broke toward Elsa, and Moon’s controlled Grizzlers slammed into it from the side, buying the seconds she needed to loose an arrow through its eye before retreating away.

Every piece moved in concert. The beasts, the spirit, the pillars, the team, and Moon at the center of all of it, orchestrating the slaughter while going through it himself.

The horde quickly lost their lives. No longer intimidating the team of Evolcers who grew more confidence and power.

Thirty-five became twenty. And twenty became ten not long after.

Moon kept killing without a care in the world.

[You have killed a Level 62 Five-Star Arctic Grizzler]

[You have gained 4,024 Lives]

The last beast fell to Moon’s quick feet and sharp sword, dropping to the snow with lifeless eyes, joining the rest of its horde in death.

Moon stood amid the carnage, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. Fighting through thirty-five Five Star beasts while directing his own menagerie and keeping watch over his entire team had drained him more than he let show. Coordinating everything at once, took a toll that pure combat never did.

The battle had gone well. His team had walked away with minor injuries at worst, nothing a potion and Marek’s healing couldn’t mend. But it had been a hard fight, one that could have turned dark at any moment.

He looked out at the field of corpses, then toward the distant spire.

"Good job, everyone. But we don’t have time to rest. We need to leave now."

One knee in the snow, and her hammer planted like a crutch, Vela couldn’t help but say, "Do you not see the state we’re in? We can barely stand upright. Give us a minute to catch our breath before you march us off again."

Her breaths came in heavy pulls. Around her, the others were in no better shape. Kayn had collapsed onto his back. Nina sat hunched over her knees. Marek and Theo, were leaning against a collapsed Grizzler each.