CHAPTER 29: LIGHTS OUT

Khal Ran through the forest at an extremely high speed, dodging the trees in his path. Behind him flew Merlin, sticking close to him and just high enough to stay off the ground.

"So What now?" Merlin asked. "Are we going after your siblings and the others from Crescent Moon Academy?"

"No, Its not time for my siblings as yet," Khal replied. "If i was to just take them out, it would look like they were just victims of the secret realm/s glitch and I, the F-grade Awakened, somehow managed to take them out.

Khal Continued. "The great houses involved would definitely force all the blame onto me to cover their tracks; already being accused of cheating also doesn’t help my case.

Merlin stared at Khal confused, sweat beading off her face. "Knowing that, how are you going to take them down whilst avoiding being blamed for all this?"

Khal smirked, speeding up his pace. "You’ll see."

Merek said the slaughter truly began on the third day, but it was near the end of the first day that they were left in the dark. After a pop-up notification came up, saying that all viewing within the secret realm would be paused until a major change is made to the rankings.

Khal came running towards a cliff; without any sense of stopping, he jumped right down, landing at the bottom with a BOOM before quickly picking back up his speed.

If i were to make huge waves within the rankings, then i can make viewing within the secret realm possible again, revealing Crescent Moon’s slaughter and clearing myself of any accusation of cheating.

"Hey, can you slow down!" Merlin shouted from behind Khal, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Still running, Khal turned his head a bit to look behind him to see Merlin struggling to keep up.

"I don’t know if you can tell but im not as physically gifted as you; i can’t just run through the forest like you can." She continued her rant. "I have to use float to keep up with you, and float uses a lot of my mana, especially at this speed. I’ll soon be completely out of mana!"

Khal chuckled, not slowing down. It’s just a little further; hold out a little longer. Merek said it was somewhere around here—"

Everything around Khal started to slow down, the hair on his skin standing up vigorously.

Danger.

Khal thought, quickly turning his head to the right, where his senses were screaming ’Right there.’

An Arrow made of mana was coming right towards him, only a few inches away from his face.

KABOOM!

It exploded, causing an explosion around 4 meters wide, destroying everything in that radius. In a tree at a distance of around 100 feet from where Khal and Merlin were, was two students, both kneeling on separate limbs, wearing Cresent Moon Academy uniforms.

"Got ’em!" shouted one of the students, holding a bow made out of his mana and wearing goggles over his eyes.

"Nice one, im pretty sure that’s your best shot yet; killing them from a hundred feet away is crazy." Replied the other with a wide grin on his face.

"What school were they from and how many points did you earn? He asked.

The student with the bow paused for awhile, confused he began fidgeting with his notification screen, constantly reloading it.

"That’s weird."

"What is it?" Replied the other student.

"I don’t know why but i haven’t gotten an eliminated notification as yet; aren’t they supposed to be instantaneous?"

The other student widened his eyes, confused as well. "But that would mean they’re not dea—"

FWOOSH!

Khal jumped up the tree, right next to the one with the bow; he pulled his fist back, clenching his jaw.

RIGHT CROSS—BAM!!

Khal’s fist sunk into the side of his head, crushing his skull before sending him flying towards a tree."

CRASH!

He smashed into it, breaking the tree in half and leaving him twisted on the ground.

[Hexen West Eliminated!]

The other student watched in horror; his mouth practically dropped to the ground. Shaken up, he tried to stand up and run; he slowly turned his head to look behind him only to see Merlin looking him dead in his eyes, lightning sparking from her hands.

PURPLE LIGHTNING—PZZT!

The lightning hit him in his chest before spreading out through his body.

"AH AH AHHH!" He screamed out, his voice constantly breaking from the shock. He fell from out of the tree and dropped with a THUD. His body was left curled up on the ground, the entire outer layer of his body completely fried.

Clap, Clap, Clap

Khal walked over to Merlin, slow clapping, with a slight grin on his face. "Your purple lightning is much stronger than a couple days ago.

Merlin looked down on the ground with a frustrated look on her face. "Yeah, maybe so but im still nowhere near as strong as i need to be. Besides, I didn’t get a good look at his uniform and since i burnt it off, we don’t know which school they’re from."

Khal shook his head. "Don’t worry about that; I didn’t even need to see to know they were from Crescent Moon, this is their territory after all."

Merlin, visibly confused, looked over at merlin and raised an eyebrow. "Territory? Are you talking about what Merek told you about?"

"Exactly," Khal replied.

*Flashback*

"Tell me about where Araon and the rest of the Crescent Moon students are based." Khal asked Merek, his expression serious.

"It’s complicated." Merek Replied. "They took over south of the secret realm, wiping out most, if not all, of the monsters in the area." He continued.

"From the information I’ve gathered, there are six camps creating a circle around their main base, where Araon and Rose operate."

"Each of the six camps has one of Crescent Moon’s top students running a unit there; the camps with some actually dangerous people is camp 1, which is run by Ragan Hellstien;

Camp 3 Which is run by Elden Lannister or by his alias Night Xiao; and lastly, Triple X, [XXX].

"How exactly do you know all of this, how can we trust your word?" Merlin asked, still skeptical about Merek.

Merek looked down at the ground, locking his hands together. "I may not look it but when i put my eye patch on, my personality changes completely. I’ve fought more Crescent Moon students than anyone else; I’ve even fought with Ragan before.

"Since he couldn’t beat you i have nothing to worry about, where is his camp located? Khal asked.

*Present*

"So you plan on fighting your way from camp to camp and then go fight your siblings? We only have a few more hours before the exam is finished; we don’t have the time." Merlin, slapping her palm in her face.

"There is no need to go from camp to camp; we just need to attack one, and the rest will come running, for example, them over there."

Khal pointed behind him; Merlin, curious, looked at what it was to see tens of Crescent moon students coming their way.

"Quite the crowd, huh?" Khal, his tone sarcastic. He turned around to face them, with Merlin standing next to him.

The group of Crescent Moon students reached them, standing only a few feet away from them. one of the students stepped forward, looking around to see the burnt body on the ground.

"You two are quite bold, coming into our domain and killing one of our people." He spoke, his voice filled with rage."

"It’s actually two, young lord. While we were heading here, we saw what we think is Hexen, dead, lying on a broken tree. We’re not sure it was him because his face was almost completely destroyed." Another one of the students spoke up from the group.

The one leading them, face twisted with anger. "You both won’t be leaving here alive; don’t even dream of a quick death."

Khal’s expression became cold as he slowly walked towards them. "You seem confused. The people that won’t be leaving here alive... Is all of you.

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Back in camp 1

Ragan sat on a rock, holding his spear as he looked up at the sky. "The secret realm is so boring; this crap needs to hurry and be over with.

"Boss!" One of the Crescent Moon students came running towards him before falling down to the ground with a THUD.

Ragan turned around, visibly annoyed, clenching his jaw and gripping his spear tightly. "The fuck do you want?"

THe student quickly got up off the ground. "We have a huge problem, boss! Two people that we identify as Merlin Leywin of the Leywin family And Khal Dragul, Big Boss Araon’s brother, has been slaughtering their way to camp; almost half of the people here have already been killed!"

Ragan stood up with a wide sinister smile on his face, his pupils shifting, constantly changing forms like a drop of water.

"Khal, you say? Maybe today won’t be so boring."