Chapter 170: Safe Zones

After yelling out his strategy, for a moment, it felt like it had fallen on deaf ears, when he noticed a set of people moving according to plan.

They didn’t stop for the beast and simply swung their weapons its way. And when the beast aggro was pulled and it chased after them, another pair behind took out the beast while swinging their weapons at the nearest beast.

It was when this set of people began moving according to the plan that the rest of the candidates began moving accordingly as well.

Kaelen hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now he realized the reason his plan was followed earlier was because this set of people unanimously approved of it.

The candidates’ eyes had always been on their backs, and Kaelen had noticed them earlier as well. Both at the introduction, when they’d stood out from the crowd, and earlier when they effortlessly tore through the hordes while on their feet.

He didn’t know who these people were, but from the looks of it, they didn’t need his plan to defend themselves, but seemed to be on the same page as him because they were smart enough to understand that the more people alive, the more everyone’s survival increased.

They could slice through the beast in barely a second before they kept moving, but chose to go according to plan because they probably realized the other candidates were following their footsteps, which made Kaelen wonder just who they were on the universal scale.

That was when someone screamed out to the rest of the group.

"I think I found one! An exit."

Kaelen snapped his head in the direction of the woman and followed her gaze into the horde, where a holographic blue cubic square large enough to hold a few people inside had appeared right in the middle of the dead zone. But on closer inspection, the beast didn’t run into it and split along a Y-axis to run around the cubic square and advance.

Kaelen didn’t need to ask to know what that was.

A safe zone.

Though they looked small enough to contain no more than seven candidates inside, Kaelen’s mind went into overdrive to figure out the catch, when a few more began spawning indiscriminately across the wilderness.

One spawned right in the middle of the candidates, and they didn’t hesitate to rush inside for safety. But the moment they stepped foot inside, the blue turned red.

The blue cubic square turned red when the first person’s foot touched the border of the safe zone, and remained blaring red as more candidates jumped into it. When, for a split second, it turned blue as another candidate entered, it turned red again after another entered and didn’t change back as more people forced their way through.

Kaelen’s eyes widened as he immediately understood.

It was a number-based safe zone. Since they all had the same size, they probably could only hold and protect a certain number of people. Any more or less made it turn red.

He hadn’t been counting to know how many were inside when it turned blue, but the more pressing question was what happened when it remained red.

He didn’t have to wonder for long when a pack of beasts broke in and lunged at the candidates inside, tearing them apart without repercussion.

"I understand it now..." he mumbled to himself with a cold, amusing smile.

Each time candidates found a safe zone and entered, but happened to be more in number, they’d have to sacrifice the number of people necessary to keep themselves safe.

No one would want to be expelled, and this might result in candidates killing themselves for a spot inside the safe zones.

Brutal.

It hadn’t happened yet, but the moment candidates realized the mechanics, the true game would begin.

Kaelen didn’t plan to help them out on that one, and left them to figure it out themselves as he drew his blades.

He’d been scheming and strategizing so much that he failed to soil his blades with the blood of even a single beast. That was about to change now.

There was no nearby safe zone, and candidates would be required to cut through the horde to make it to one. Make it too early, you die. Make it too late, you die as well. They had to be just the right amount of people jumping inside at once, but he didn’t plan on teaming up with anyone for that.

He was going to make up for all the kill counts he lost while helping the candidates survive, then at the right moment, he’ll take Lysandra to jump into a half-complete safe zone.

He swung his blades just as a beast lunged for him, bracing his arms for impact, when his twin blades sliced through the beast like a hot knife through butter, and the kill notification rang even before it hit the ground.

[You have killed IronJaw the Bone-Glutton]

[10,000× Reward Multiplier Triggered...]

[You have received 280,000,000,000 Evolution Points]

"280 billion per kill?!"

He wasn’t sure if he should be more surprised by the efficiency of his swords or by the amount of evolution points he made from a single kill.

To hell with his hit-and-run strategy. He was going to clutch the beast horde so hard that Kelsey might be forced to increase the difficulty to Hell’s mode.

A wide grin spread across his face as he charged forward and drove his blades into another beast, this one a different breed from the former, but its natural defense was still too weak to handle the Supreme Heaven-Splitting Twin Blades.

[You have killed Rurix the Skullcrusher]

[10,000× Reward Multiplier Triggered...]

[You have received 310,000,000,000 Evolution Points]

After seeing it happen twice in a row, he didn’t stop moving. He swung his blade non-stop without fear of getting surrounded—not out of ignorance or pride—but because Lysandra was right behind, doing the exact same.

As he tore through the horde with brutal efficiency, he kept his eyes and ears open for safe zones and moved towards an unoccupied one.

The plan had changed now.

The heavy tremor suddenly shook beneath his feet, and he swiftly leaped back just as a spiralling maw of teeth drill burst out of the ground. But instead of making a run, he wanted to know how effective his blades would be against its hard chitin.

Without hesitation, he burst forward just as it was about to make a dive underground, and slid on his knees as he raised his sword and brought it down on its thick neck.

Slash—

A silver beam flashed across it, followed by a spray of purple liquid that rained down on the field.

[You have killed Vrak’thur, the Blood-Drenched]

[10,000× Reward Multiplier Triggered...]

[You have received 2,800,000,000,000 Evolution Points]

"T-Two trillion evolution points?!" He blurted in shock and disbelief, but wasn’t given time to dwell on it when the surrounding beasts froze on the spot as the rain of purple blood drenched their furs.

For a moment, he was concerned the blood might be toxic or poisonous as he was drenched in it, when the beasts snapped their heads towards the fallen sandworm and charged at it like a hungry pack of wolves, ignoring the candidates.

He immediately leaped out of the way as they arrived before the sandworm and began tearing into its flesh rabidly, but at the same time, creating several openings for candidates to make a run for the nearest safe zones without getting overwhelmed.

This made Kaelen’s brows shoot up in pleasant surprise as he finally figured it out.

The sandworm probably possesses a special kind of blood and meat that made it high on the menu for other beasts, except it was impossible to ever hunt it above ground.

The candidates were never expected to cut their way through the horde to make it into the safe zones. They were meant to slay the sandworms to distract the beasts and buy them enough time to make it into the safe zones before the beasts wolfed it down to its carcass, which they did at an incredible speed.

In other words, from start to finish, Kaelen had just indirectly helped the candidates survive the first floor with a higher survival rate than probably intended by the dungeon masters.