Chapter 578: Baaron’s approaching death
’He must know about super lives too, and probably the deeper part involving the River of Paths.’
The thought wasn’t reassuring. It was the only explanation that fit the data, and it opened a door onto possibilities Moon didn’t want to look at yet.
If the dark organization had figured out the River of Paths’ mechanics before the Association did, then their entire operation was built on a foundation nobody else in the kingdom understood.
Ace’s impossible growth curve. The bones with unbreakable properties. The confidence to launch an attack that was mathematically losing on every visible metric.
They knew something the rest of the world didn’t.
And they were confident enough in that knowledge to bet the entire operation on it.
Moon glanced back at the fight. Alaric and Ace’s blades were still ringing against each other in the middle of the battlefield.
Moon’s attempt at distracting Ace had failed in the worst way possible. Trying it again would burn mana he needed for the endgame without producing meaningful returns.
He filed the failure away and moved on.
His eyes drifted upward.
The barrier dome shimmered faintly across the sky above the arena. It stretched from horizon to horizon.
The Association had thrown enormous resources into containing this fight. Every attack that missed inside the venue was hitting the dome’s inner surface and being absorbed rather than scattering across downtown New Avalon.
The dome was doing its job.
But it was also trapping him inside it.
Moon leaned toward Emma. His hand drifted to his pocket and activated a small silencing rune. The rune began isolating the sound of their voices from the surrounding air.
"The barrier dome." He said quietly. "Do we have the ability to deactivate it when we want?"
Emma understood the question immediately.
She shook her head.
"We can’t deactivate it. Not from inside. The shutdown protocol requires triple authorization from senior Association leadership. Turning it off would take some time even if the order was already given, and the order won’t be given until two of the Ascenders confirm the fight is over."
Her eyes flicked to his face, "But you don’t need it deactivated. You can leave whenever you want. The dome permits egress to registered Evolvers and Surpassers with the correct authentication tokens. You have one. Alaric registered you before the tournament began."
Moon nodded slowly.
Egress permitted. That was the answer he needed. If Life Burn ran out and he needed to escape, he had a clean exit path through the dome’s outer edge. The dark organization couldn’t chase him beyond the barrier without triggering a full-scale response from the Association’s external teams.
Emma’s hand moved.
She reached into a small pouch at her hip and withdrew a stone. It was round, smooth, roughly the size of a walnut, with faint calligraphy carved into its surface in a beautiful pattern.
Emma handed it to Moon, "This is for you."
Moon took it carefully. The stone was cold in his palm.
"Alaric had me give this to you." Emma said. "It was a last-minute thing. He couldn’t get it to you before the fight started, so he asked me to hold onto it until the right moment."
Moon studied the stone.
He looked up at Emma.
"What does it do?"
Emma’s smile was faint but not playful.
"He didn’t tell me. He said you would figure it out. He also said, and I quote, only use it if the answer becomes obvious."
She held his gaze.
Moon turned the stone over in his palm once, then closed his fingers around it.
"Alright. Thanks for letting me know." He placed the stone in his storage ring. "You know, you could have probably said this sooner."
Emma scratched the back of her head, a sheepish smile on her face.
"I was going to tell you when the time was right. You seemed really focused a few seconds ago, and I didn’t want to break your concentration. So I just waited. And then you came to talk to me about the dome anyway, which made this the perfect moment."
She shrugged.
"Timing works itself out sometimes."
Moon sighed.
There was no fault in her logic. Alaric’s stone didn’t seem to be the kind of tool that had a narrow deployment window. Whatever it was for, it was meant to be used when the situation called for it, not immediately upon receipt.
He nodded once, "Fair enough."
The silencing rune around them pulsed quietly as they both turned their attention back to the surrounding fight. Emma raised her daggers again, ready for the next wave.
Moon spent the next minute cutting down what remained of the dark organization’s forces.
His sword rose and fell in the same motion. His six elements continued to wreak havoc across the battlefield in an array of beautiful colours.
Lightning cracked from his from the tip of his blade. Yoha worked the northern flank alongside him. Emma held the eastern perimeter. The frost pillars fired autonomously behind them, catching the strays that tried to break through from angles the two of them couldn’t cover.
Bodies piled up.
Notifications flashed constantly.
Somewhere between the sword strikes and the incoming reports of Baaron’s collapsing engagement, Moon’s mind kept running the calculations in the background.
Sorting through everything he had seen since the attack began. Every strike, every retreat, every command, every death.
He didn’t stop moving. Neither did he stop killing. The analytical layer of his mind worked in parallel, chewing on the same problem it had been chewing on for the last hour.
Why is this happening?
Ian was dead. Farid and Tom had converged on Baaron, and Baaron was screaming for help across every channel he had access to.
"MASTER! Where are you?! You said you’d be here! You said you’d reveal yourself when we needed you! I need you now, damn it! NOW!"
His voice cracked across the arena, high pitched, broken and completely stripped of the swagger he had walked into this fight with.