The team moved into position. Every Evolver found their assigned cover and went silent. The floating island’s wind was the only sound left.

Moon stood at the cave entrance alone. He looked at the intertwined network of runes one final time, then placed the beast corpses he had been saving inside. He arranged them carefully throughout the cave, ensuring the bodies were spread across the blast zone. Then he added the corpses of the prisoners who had been beyond saving, the ones whose minds had been too far gone.

He stepped out, walked to a safe distance.

~BOOM~ ~BOOM~ ~BOOM~

Dozens of explosions detonated at once as the timer reached its end. The cave collapsed inward before erupting outward, sending a column of fire and smoke up in the sky. Dirt and rock flew in every direction. The shockwave flattened the grass in a thirty-meter radius and shook the ground hard enough to crack the stone beneath it.

The sound of the explosions carried for kilometers.

When the initial blast settled, the scene was exactly what it needed to be. Blood, flesh, and bone scattered across the scorched earth in every direction. Beast remains, indistinguishable from each other in the aftermath. Chunks of armor. Fragments of weapons Moon had pulled from his ring and tossed in before the detonation.

It was a gory, convincing massacre.

Nearby trees caught flame. Smoke continued to billow upward in a thick black column that could be seen from anywhere on the island.

Five minutes passed when silhouettes appeared at the treeline.

Three figures emerged from the shadows, moving cautiously toward the blast site. They stopped at the edge of the destruction and looked down at the blood, bones, and flesh scattered near their feet.

One of them spoke.

"They fell for it. Lukas did a good job."

Moon had prepared for this.

Before the explosion, he had positioned his team in a wide perimeter around the blast site. Every Evolver was hidden behind boulders, trees, and rocky outcrops, forming a net that the three figures had walked directly into.

The three checked the wreckage, stepping between the scattered remains, searching for survivors to finish off. Their guard was up, but their attention was focused on the blast site, on the bodies, on confirming the kill.

"Now." Moon whispered.

The Evolvers emerged from cover simultaneously.

The three figures froze. Their eyes swept the surroundings, counting the faces that had around them.

They had walked into a trap.

"Ha! The boss got them!" The brute laughed, slamming his fist into his palm. "Like lambs to the slaughter!"

"Did you see their faces?!" The tank grinned, lowering his shield slightly.

"Focus!" The archer warned, his voice rising in worry, "They haven’t surrendered, they are still dangerous!"

The archer’s warning came a heartbeat too late.

The three Evolvers didn’t hesitate to attack.

Their mana flared simultaneously, surging outward in a wave of pressure. All three cast their spells in unison, aiming directly at the brute and the tank who had dropped their guard.

Moon saw it coming, conjuring an earth wall that erupted between his teammates and the incoming spells.

At the same time, the two mages in Moon’s team launched their own attacks to intercept.

It wasn’t enough.

The three attackers were First Star Evolvers. Their fire spells tore through the earth wall. The intercepting attacks from Moon’s mages splashed against the fireballs and dissolved, outclassed in raw power.

These mages were clearly three of the finest subordinates the woman had.

The spells struck the brute and the tank head on. Despite their high defence stats, and skills, both of them died instantly. Their bodies vanished, consumed by flames hot enough to melt stone.

They respawned a moment later, gasping, stumbling, eyes wide. The phantom pain of being burned alive was still searing through their nervous systems. The brute clutched his chest. The tank dropped to one knee.

The three First Star Evolvers didn’t press the attack.

They ran.

All three sprinted toward the treeline, their bodies flickering with enhancing items that increased their speed.

They weren’t interested in fighting so many Evolvers.

They had confirmed the trap, assessed the odds, and made the only smart decision available to them.

But Moon wasn’t going to let them go.

He raised his hand and the Thunderclap Raiju formed in seconds. Moon released the crackling wolf toward the fleeing trio.

The three sensed the overwhelming presence of the wolf approaching. Without slowing down, all three turned and cast simultaneously. Three powerful fireballs, each with a diameter of nearly ten meters streaked back toward the incoming wolf, colliding with it mid-flight.

The impact was massive.

Fire and lightning warred against each other in a blinding explosion. The Raiju lost considerable power, its speed dropping as it tore through the fireballs..

Despite that, it didn’t stop.

The diminished wolf burst through the remnants of the fire spells and struck the slowest of the three before he could cast another spell.

The lightning detonated across his body, and the man screamed as current ran through him. His legs buckled. He hit the ground and rolled, smoke rising from his clothes, his body twitching.

The lightning chained from the injured mage to the other two. Both of them staggered as the current passed through their bodies, but they managed to remain firm.

It slowed them down. That was all Moon’s team needed.

Arrows streaked through the air from the archer’s position, striking one of the fleeing mages in the shoulder.

Spells from Moon’s mages followed, fire and wind crashing into the counter spells of the retreating trio.

Two of the warriors had also closed the gap on foot, their physical speed outpacing the mages who had no movement skills to fall back on.

The three were powerful.

First Star Evolvers with horrifying magical prowess. But they were mages, and mages weren’t built to outrun warriors. Not when the gap in raw physical ability was this narrow

Meanwhile, the injured mage on the ground refused to stay down.