Kael and his team reacted instantly to the warning, scattering from their defensive formation just as massive earth spikes erupted from the ground where they'd been standing moments earlier. The stone pillars shot upward with devastating force, each one positioned precisely where a person had been moments before.

The coordinated attack was perfect. The Mountain Bear had forced them to break formation.

And the assassin had been waiting for exactly that moment of stress, and formation break.#

As they scattered, dodging the emerging spikes, the hidden killer made their move.

The assassin materialized mid-strike, their dagger aimed directly at Kael's exposed throat while the prodigy was still recovering from his dodge.

"Got you," a voice whispered from behind the mask.

Kael's expression changed as he sensed the imminent danger. Fire began forming in his hands, but the dagger was approaching too rapidly. He wouldn't complete the spell in time.

"Kael! NO!" Marcus shouted desperately, throwing one of his swords in a last-ditch attempt to force the assassin to dodge and buy Kael precious milliseconds.

The assassin didn't even flinch. The thrown sword passed harmlessly beside them as they remained committed to the killing strike.

Zap!

Lightning erupted from Moon's outstretched hand, crackling across the distance directly toward the assassin's torso.

The killer's eyes widened behind their mask. Sensing genuine danger from the instantaneous attack, the assassin finally aborted their strike on Kael, attempting to vanish into invisibility once again.

But the lightning was too quick. Moon had timed it perfectly, releasing the moment the assassin committed to their attack trajectory, making evasion nearly impossible.

"No. I got you," Moon said with a cold smirk.

The electrical current struck the assassin's body, voltage coursing through his entire body. Their form went rigid mid-dodge, paralysis taking hold instantly. They began falling through the air, their invisibility failing as the lightning disrupted whatever stealth skill they'd been using.

Kael immediately followed up with the defensive fire spell he'd been preparing, redirecting it into an offensive blast.

BOOM!

Both attacks decimated the assassin's weak physical defenses. The combination of lightning paralysis and explosive fire killed them instantly.

[You have killed a level 25 Awakener, James.]

[You have gained 250 Lives.]

The assassin's body vanished, dissolving into light as the re spawn mechanism activated. They reappeared moments later, already trying to escape using the invisibility.

Moon and Kael didn't need discussion or coordination. Both unleashed the same attack pattern immediately. Moon's lightning paralyzed the freshly spawned assassin before they could fully activate stealth. Kael's fireball followed instantly, detonating against the helpless target.

BOOM!

[You have killed a level 25 Awakener, James.]

[You have gained 250 Lives.]

"Quickly, surround the spawn point! He's dead if we don't give him escape options!" Moon shouted as he waited for the third re-spawn.

Marcus and the other warriors immediately formed a perimeter around the area where the assassin kept reappearing. The spear-wielding woman positioned herself for immediate strikes. The support mage prepared to cast his own spells.

Moon and Kael executed the same ruthless pattern twice more. Lightning to paralyze. Fire to kill. No hesitation. No mercy.

[You have killed a level 25 Awakener, James.] [You have gained 250 Lives.]

[You have killed a level 25 Awakener, James.] [You have gained 250 Lives.]

After dying four times consecutively, the assassin had lost many lives accounting for the death penalty in this zone. The debuff from multiple rapid deaths was catastrophic. The assassin was in no shape to survive, let alone pose a threat.

Moon prepared for the fifth execution, lightning already gathering in his palm.

Before the assassin could re-spawn again, a massive roar shook the entire battlefield.

ROARR!!!

The Mountain Bear slammed the ground with all three arms simultaneously, creating spiderweb cracks that spread across hundreds of meters of terrain. The shockwave disrupted awakeners engaging it from range, throwing off their aim and breaking their casting.

Then the beast charged directly toward Moon's group, covering the hundred-meter distance with terrifying speed for something so massive.

Moon's head snapped toward the approaching threat, his mind racing.

Either someone is controlling the beast and directing it to save the assassin, which is terrifying since this is an S-rank creature with intelligence, or the beast is simply smart enough to recognise its ally is dying and choose to intervene.

Both possibilities were equally disturbing.

The ground shook with each thunderous step as the Three-Armed Mountain Bear bore down on them with single-minded purpose.

"Scatter!" Marcus shouted. "We can't hold against a direct charge!"

Moon had seconds to decide: maintain position and risk the bear's assault, or abandon the kill and survive to fight later.

His eyes narrowed as he calculated odds and consequences.

Then he made his choice.

He was going to stay. With the assassin's current state, he was an easy kill to Moon. He simply needed to deploy more mana into his lightning based attacks to get an instant kill.

The man had been granting him a steady roll of lives, 250 for each kill without danger wasn't easy to gain in the current economy of lives.

James spawned once more, his face deathly pale, his breathing haggard. Staring at his life counter, James was shocked beyond disbelief.

"How! How did I lose so many lives!" The assassin's voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.

Moon, positioned nearby and already channeling lightning, overheard the rhetorical question. A thought emerged in his mind as electrical energy crackled more intensely around his hand.

He lost more lives than usual…Wait, what happens when I do kill humans? How do I gain the extra lives... am I stealing five times the lives they would lose in this danger zone?

The realisation was exciting, to say the least. With the Grim Reaper talent multiplying the death penalty of zones by five, Moon had indeed become a literal reaper of lives. Each kill didn't just simply give him five times the lives, but it it harvested said amount of lives and transferred it to him.

Moon released the lightning attack at maximum intensity, pouring substantially more mana into the spell than his previous executions.

ZAP!

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