Chapter 423

Chapter 423: Nasty set-up!

Among all 5 teams, Blake’s team was the 1st to make it into the castle, and since they were on the 1st floor, they decided to explore the lower and underground parts of the castle.

Their train of thought behind this decision was that the underground was the best location for the flag because it would be easier for them to get surrounded.

With Blake’s speed in disabling arrays, they were able to quickly breeze through the underground rooms, storage space, dungeons, and so on.

On seeing that there was no flag underground, Blake activated spatial corridors that led them to the spatial mark he had made at the window.

[The heat signature of the fingerprints on the window stool is meant to have gone cold by now.] The system said.

“People entered through this window not too long ago.” Blake said to his team.

“How do you know that?” Serhan couldn’t help but ask.

.....

“By sensing the temperature of the window stool. Parts of it are warm, and that can only happen if someone recently touched it.” Blake explained.

“So what do we do now?” Castiel asked.

“We follow them.” Blake said

“How? Shoes have almost no heat signature.” Serhan said in a frustrated tone.

They were the first to enter the castle, but people were now in the lead because they wasted time searching the underground part of the castle.

“Don’t worry about that, just follow my lead.” Blake said in an unbothered tone.

‘Where is the other group that entered through this window?’ Blake was unbothered because if there was someone that could locate anybody it was him.

With the Locator skill activated, Blake turned towards the path they had gone through, before turning the other way and moving forward.

Blake and his team were right on the track of the Nystrom twins, but the speed at which they were moving, made them feel that Blake was not too sure of the direction he was moving in.

“Whichever team that got in through the window is in the lead. So shouldn’t we be moving faster?” Serhan asked.

In the past 2 years, Serhan had come to accept that Blake was better than him in almost everything. So instead of antagonizing and planning against him, Serhan decided to focus on himself and regain his father’s favor.

This was why he was trying his best to win the competition or at worst not get eliminated in the first round. That was the reason he was uncomfortable knowing that people were ahead of them.

“No need to rush, not only would there surely be ash corps protecting the flag, but they would also have to deal with disabling the traps and alarms.”

“Besides they already know that we are inside the castle since the window was wide open. So when they realize that none of the traps and alarms in their path have been disabled, they would become weary and might even set a trap of their own.”

“So like I said, there is no need to rush.” Blake said.

Blake’s explanation did not only wow Serhan but also everyone in the arena.

The decisions he had been making right from the start of the competition not only tempted prominent noble families and the ash corps to recruit him after the competition but also made the adventurer association give him even more privileges and benefits to keep.

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...

Blake continued following the Nystrom twins’ trail until they got to the staircase that led to the last floor, that was when revealing light blinded their eyes and undid the concealing effects of Darkbringer.

In microseconds, their eyes readjusted, but that was when they saw that they were surrounded by ash corps from both in front and behind.

“Where did they come from?” Blake’s team couldn’t help but wonder if they had missed a trap that alerted and teleported the ash corps to their location.

It was then that Blake’s eyes lit up for a brief second before he suddenly jumped forward and grabbed the heads of the Nystrom twins before releasing large voltages of electricity that caused a golden barrier to protect them.

It was only then that the 20 ash corps disappeared revealing that it was an illusion.

“How did you know it was an illusion?” Damon asked as he let out a sigh of relief.

“I was certain that we didn’t trigger any alarm, so immediately I saw them I used my heat senses and sure enough I could only see 2 more heat signatures.” Blake explained showing everyone that he had studied all of his opponents and put every scenario into consideration.

Blake knew there was no way the system would miss a trap. So he found it fishy that ash corps appeared out of nowhere, but it was all thanks to the passive ability of Ivory that helped him escape from the illusion so quickly.

“I have to say, that was a nasty plan from them.” Damon couldn’t help but admit it.

The Nystrom twins had planned to eliminate every single one of the participants on the staircase before going for the flag. This would have eliminated all chances of being taken by surprise when they were fighting the flag’s defenders.

After thanking Ivory, Blake and his team climbed up the wall to the last floor, but it was then that the system detected the presence of ash corps patrolling the corridors.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t a problem for Blake’s team thanks to the darkness.

‘Why take them down, when they would help you stop your opponents.’ Blake thought as he and his team walked on the ceiling to avoid a collision.

After 2 minutes the group reached the entrance to the solar room, but with mana vision on they saw that the area in front of the door had an array that would disable their concealment.

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