Chapter 577: Only Conclusion
Moon squeezed every thought in his mind.
Every angle he could think of.
And yet, he couldn’t find the answer.
There was something he wasn’t seeing. Some variable outside his current field of information. The dark organization was betting the entire operation on a lever he hadn’t identified yet, and he wouldn’t identify it in the next two minutes without significantly more data than he currently had access to.
He forced the thought back.
Time was still running.
He couldn’t solve it now. But he could still contribute to the current engagement while he waited for the answer to reveal itself.
His eyes moved back to Alaric.
The Light Sword Saint was still locked in his exchange with Ace. Neither of them had gained ground. Alaric’s mana reserves were high enough that he could keep this up for hours if necessary, but a stalemate at Ace’s tier still cost him focus, resources, and attention that could have been directed elsewhere.
Moon couldn’t jump into the exchange directly. His current tier was still below theirs. Even in Life Burn, wading into a duel between two peak-tier fighters would only make him a liability.
But he could distract, he could support and force Ace to divide his attention.
His remaining hand rose.
Lightning began to crackle in his palm. His mana rising and condensing the current into the same shape it had taken a few times before during this battle.
The lightning Raiju began to form.
Its jaw was splitting on a silent snarl and its eyes were burning white. Moon invested a large portion of his mana into this attack, knowing that his spell needed to be incredibly powerful to distract Ace, even for a heartbeat.
Moon locked eyes on the distant exchange between the two fighters at the center of the arena.
The wolf finished forming beside him.
He held it there for a moment, ready to release.
Moon released the wolf.
Raiju flashed across the sky in a streak of purple that most of the fighters around him couldn’t track. The wolf shot forward at a speed that devoured distance, its body twisting mid-flight to weave through the structures of the arena.
Ace felt it coming.
He didn’t turn his head. His body was still committed to the exchange with Alaric, his daggers still moving gracefully. But his smile suddenly widened slightly.
"Seems like the little friend over there is getting impatient."
Alaric’s blade came around at the same moment.
The prodigy had been waiting for exactly this opening. Feeling the lightning attack approaching, Alaric had already began building his own strike in parallel, timing it to arrive at Ace’s position from a completely different angle in the same second that Moon’s wolf did.
The two attacks converged.
Alaric’s blade came in from Ace’s front. Moon’s wolf came in from Ace’s flank. Both strikes committed to the same instant, both aimed at gaps in Ace’s defensive coverage that a single fighter shouldn’t have been able to close simultaneously.
Ace’s hands moved.
The first dagger caught Alaric’s blade with a scraping deflection that redirected the strike upward and past Ace’s shoulder. The second dagger came around in an impossibly quick arc and met the lightning wolf at the exact instant it lunged.
His dagger caught the wolf on the flat of the blade and swept it sideways in a beautiful re-direct. The raiju’s momentum carried it away from Ace’s body, tearing through empty air rather than his ribs.
Before Moon could control the wolf to turn back, Ace’s dagger followed the wolf’s path for a fraction of a second, and in that small time period, his dagger went inside the wolf.
The wolf’s shape wavered. Moon immediately felt his control over the Raiju waver greatly.
Ace’s blade destroyed his spell.
Moon tried to pull the wolf back.
Ace’s dagger tapped it once more, and the lightning wolf’s shape dissolved into a diffuse cloud of purple current that drifted harmlessly into the surrounding air. The current dissipated within two seconds.
Moon’s frown deepened.
’He managed to completely block the attack without any harm.’
Moon’s face darkened from the wasted casting. Yoha continued to cut through targets on the northern flank.
His eyes stayed on Ace.
’How is he this strong?’
The question hurt to hold. Because there was a comparison forming underneath it, and the comparison was the thing Moon had been facing all day.
’We were both Awakeners just months ago.’
If Ace was Jonathan, then Ace had been a peak-level Awakener when Moon first met him. One whose class Moon hadn’t been able to copy for reasons Moon had never fully understood. Months later, Ace was standing at a tier of power that could make Moon’s most powerful ranged attack seem weak.
Moon’s own path had been abnormal in every measurable way. He had killed two Supreme Rank beasts. He had walked out of an S-Rank gate with treasures the kingdom didn’t know existed. He had accumulated super lives.
He had cleared a Second Sanctuary spirit pavilion. He had received a B-Rank sword from an Ascender sponsor.
He was at his absolute peak of power with Life Burn active, and yet... he couldn’t even deal with Ace.
That gap didn’t make sense.
’Just what are they feeding him?’
Moon’s teeth pressed together.
The uncertainty crept back in.
He had been certain earlier. Ace was Jonathan. His Classless skill’s failure to copy proved it. He had felt it in his bones the moment their eyes had met.
But now, watching Ace display this level of power, watching him hold his own against Alaric, watching the sheer scale of the gap between what Ace should have been and what he was, Moon wasn’t sure anymore.
Because if Ace was Jonathan, then Jonathan had grown from an Awakener like himself to something that could stand toe-to-toe with one of the strongest Surpassers in less than a year.
Moon could only find one possible conclusion to this display of terrifying power.
’He has... a legendary skill. Likely an offensive one.’