Once was bad luck. Twice was a pattern.
New Dawn had no reason to be here. They were first by a mile. Efficient point farming in the mid-range zones was their winning strategy, and they’d been executing it flawlessly for eighteen days. Abandoning that approach to hunt the sa high-level targets as a fifth-place team made zero strategic sense.
Unless the goal wasn’t points. Unless the goal was denial.
His father had ordered New Dawn’s rookie squad to shadow him, to deny Kaiden every viable high-level kill in the northern range while farming those kills themselves as a bonus.
It was exactly the kind of strategic suffocation Magnus Ashborn had built his career on.
Alice’s voice exploded in his head with enough fury to make his vision swim.
The halo above his head pulsed violently, gold light bleeding through the dark before she wrestled it back under control. Her breathing was ragged in his mind, sharp and hot with the kind of rage that only family betrayal could produce.
She stopped.
Luna’s fists were shaking at her sides, Storm crackling across her knuckles in unstable arcs. Calypso’s tail was rigid, her grin gone, replaced by bared teeth that had nothing to do with fun. Aria had landed beside him, her expression the coldest Kaiden had ever seen it. Nyx’s usual amusent was gone.
Even Bastet’s composure had cracked. The Pharaoh’s golden eyes were fixed on the plateau where Mariana’s squad was dismantling their target, and the serene indifference was gone. What remained was the look of an empress whose territory had been invaded.
They were all furious.
"Everyone." Kaiden’s voice was quiet, the sa tone he used when he told Vaelira to rember her place.
The girls turned toward him.
And froze.
Kaiden Grey was angry. Not the cold, calculated anger they’d seen during the Magnus confrontation. Not the dismissive contempt he’d shown Ash. This was rawer, sothing that lived in the tendons of his neck and the white of his knuckles.
He looked more furious than any of them. And what made it truly brutal was how clearly he was holding it back. Every muscle in his body was a leash, and the thing on the other end of it wanted blood.
Luna had never seen him like this.
None of them had.
"The stream is over."
Just like that, the broadcast died. The chat, the viewers, the clips, the engagent trics, all of it went dark.
Kaiden Grey was an awakened fighter first. He’d always been an awakened fighter first. Everything else, the streams, the content, the adult brand that had made him famous and rich and given him the resources to stand where he stood today, all of it was a ans to an end. A ans he enjoyed. A ans he was grateful for. But a ans nonetheless.
His goal in life had never changed. Reach the peak. Beco the strongest. Protect the people he loved so thoroughly that nothing in this world could ever take them from him.
The caras were off. The real business was starting.
"New Dawn has declared war on us," he decreed. "Magnus is using his guild’s entire rookie operation to shut us down."
"There’s a high-tier scout following us. Has been for a while. Talia’s people tried to flush them out and couldn’t." His eyes narrowed.
"Now I understand why. It’s not so operative from Ashbound... It’s a New Dawn rogue, almost certainly one of their best, soone my father lent to the rookie track specifically for this purpose. That scout has been feeding our position, our route, and our target selection to Mariana and Chinedu in real ti. They knew where we were going before we got there because soone was watching us choose."
The girls listened in silence, knowing full well that this was the most likely explanation.
"Ash is a tool. They must’ve offered him the help of this rogue back when he started trying to hunt our targets. But now the rest of New Dawn’s rookie squad is doing the sa."
His jaw tightened.
"I didn’t think Ash had it in him to use a monster battle to ’accidentally’ hurt us if we tried to contest a kill. He’s a showman, and such an act, even if not leading to legal consequences, would hurt his stream. But Mariana and Chinedu’s fighters are different. If my father gave the order, those squads will engineer situations where a stray attack or a ’misdirected’ ability clips one of us during a contested engagent. Friendly fire in a monster fight is nearly impossible to prove as intentional. The Association would chalk it up to the chaos of combat."
He looked at each of them.
"We cannot contest them for kills. It’s too dangerous."
The silence that followed was heavy.
"Then what should we do, Kai?" Aria’s voice was small. The serene smile was gone. "Should we give up and go back to farming lower level monsters?"
"I’m afraid that’s not an option," Bastet growled.
"Yep." Luna’s fists clenched at her sides. "They’ll just do the sa thing there. Fucking clowns."
"Exactly." Kaiden nodded. "If we drop south, they follow. The scout tracks us, the squads intercept our targets, and we spend the rest of the competition watching other people kill our monsters at every level bracket. South, north, it doesn’t matter. As long as that rogue is on us, they’ll always be one step ahead."
He dismissed the overlay.
"So we must do sothing else. Or we pack our bags."
A devilish glint appeared in Kaiden’s eyes. He already had a plan.
...
Author: Has the competition gone on for too long? It’s a major arc with a lot of other stuff happening, it’s not like Kaiden and co spent all these Chapters killing monsters. But I understand if it has been dragging for you. If that’s the case, then I bring good news. Very soon, the arc will end. It’ll go with a very big bang. Everything will be different afterward.
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