Chapter 600: Moon Outlaw
Tom nodded, "Yes. Moon was the one who figured out Klein’s plan somehow."
Sierra looked at Tom in bewilderment, "How? How could he know it?"
Tom shrugged his shoulders in response, "That boy works in mysterious ways. I didn’t get much information about the how."
"And you believed him?"
He gestured expansively with one hand.
"Klein was watching the field and would have noticed if Moon sent me a warning through open channels, Moon sent the message through Kael instead. Three words. Klein. Traitor. Moon. That was all he sent. He trusted that I would understand what those three words meant without needing any additional context. I received the message. I understood, re-positioned and intercepted Klein’s lance. Besides, if you knew Moon like I do... you would believe him too."
Tom’s grin widened.
"That boy is terrifying, Sierra. Genuinely terrifying. What he did today put us, Ascenders, into shame. I dare say, he is the sole reason we are still standing intact right now. Without his help across the entire battlefield, the conclusion to this war would have been gruesome."
Sierra’s eyes widened slowly.
She stayed silent for a long moment, processing.
Then she nodded.
"I’ll make sure to thank him too. Personally."
"You should."
"When this settles down."
The two of them exchanged small, tired smiles.
Above them, Samuel’s frustrated shouts continued as he scanned the surrounding regions for a trace of Klein and Ace that they all knew he wouldn’t find.
◇◇◇◇
After stepping through the gate, Moon found himself in the now-familiar main hall inside his base on the floating island.
The renovated stone chamber greeted him with its warm ambient lighting and the faint smell of the cooking fires burning in the communal areas beyond. Compared to the battlefield rubble that was filled with the smell of iron, and destruction, this was peaceful. A safe zone he had carved out for himself and the freed Evolvers he had liberated not so long ago.
He exhaled slowly.
"I still have thirty secon—"
Suddenly, Moon’s breath caught in his chest, the words dying in his throat.
His eyes widened, the whites suddenly threading with fresh red veins. His vision blurred in an instant, the familiar chamber dissolving into a hazy smear of colors he couldn’t focus on. His body broke into a sudden, torrential sweat that soaked through his clothes within seconds, as if the sun had appeared directly above him and was pouring its full heat onto his skin.
’What... what is happening. It’s not time yet.’
The thought came out fragmented. His internal timer had said thirty seconds. He was supposed to have thirty seconds.
The Life Burn aftermath wasn’t supposed to arrive this early.
But his body wasn’t listening to the timer.
The pain arrived in a rolling wave from every one of his acupoints simultaneously.
His cores began to burn him from the inside.
The spiritual energy that had been packed into his acupoints during Life Burn was now trying to leave, and the exit was not smooth. Every channel in his body felt like it was being scoured with a hot brush. His mana channels convulsed, and his nerves lit up with pain signals that his brain couldn’t process fast enough. His muscles clenched in involuntary spasms.
Moon dropped to one knee.
He cast Cleanse.
The purifying wave washed across his body and dissipated into the burning storm without touching it. He tried Minor Mend, but it did nothing for the burning.
’Not... enough. This is worse than I thought it would be.’
His stomach heaved, his face went pale beneath the sheen of sweat. His remaining hand pressed against the stone floor, trying to hold his weight up.
The burning spread from his acupoints into his entire body.
His heart began to feel like it was being squeezed by an invisible rope. His lungs struggled to draw in air past the tightness in his chest. His vision darkened at the edges, tunneling inward until the world beyond his immediate surroundings had vanished.
He tried to force himself to stand but his legs wouldn’t respond.
Moments later, his remaining knee gave out. He fell forward, his shoulder hit the stone and his head followed a fraction of a second later.
His eyes rolled to the back of his skull. His last conscious thought was to summon Mirage to protect him, but he was unable to, his mana refusing to leave his body.
Then everything went dark.
◇◇◇◇
Five minutes after Moon passed out, an Evolver came walking down the corridor toward the main hall.
He was one of the freed captives, a lanky man in his late twenties with tousled brown hair and calloused hands from years of hard labor before Moon’s team had saved him. His face carried the slightly distant, dreamy expression of a man whose thoughts were somewhere else.
He was thinking about his daughter.
’I can’t wait to see the little girl. She’ll be waiting up for me. She always waits up when she knows I’m coming home from a shift. I told her I’d bring her back one of those honey-cakes from the bakery. She’ll ask about it the moment I walk in, ’Papa, where’s the cake.’ Every time.’
He smiled slightly to himself as he turned the corner into the main hall.
Then he saw the body on the floor.
His smile vanished.
He recognized the figure immediately, Moon’s face was facing him. A face that was impossible to not recognize.
Moon.
The Evolver’s heart lurched in his chest. He rushed forward, dropping to his knees beside Moon’s collapsed body. His hands moved quickly and professionally, checking for any signs of life.
Thankfully, the quick check made him sigh in relief.
"He is alive... but his heartbeat is really weak, and his breathing is faint and shallow..."
Moon was purple around the mouth and nose. Circulation was failing.
The Evolver’s own pulse skyrocketed, he couldn’t think about watching Moon die. Especially after everything he had done to the people of the floating islands.