NOVEL NEXT Chapter 105: 30 Vs 1: The Collapse Of Hope!
The makeshift Alliance spent the next few minutes doing what scared recruits rarely had the courage to do: form a plan. Real, coordinated, structured planning. No panicked improvisation. No running blindly. They gathered in a tight circle, breaths steadying as they forced themselves to think clearly.
Bruce was coming for them. That was inevitable.
So the only way to survive was to meet him head-on.
One by one, they reviewed their abilities, class strengths, weaknesses, attack patterns, and synergy options. They arranged themselves the way real squads did: the first attacking unit at the front, built to unleash the opening strike; the follow-up squad positioned to overwhelm him the moment he reacted; and those with defensive, healing, or buff-type classes stationed strategically to keep everyone alive long enough to wear him down.
For the first time in hours, the fear choking their chests loosened. They had formation. They had structure. They had purpose.
They could do this.
They moved out of the cave together, boots crunching against gravel as they spread out across the open terrain, each person taking up a precise position. Thirty figures aligned with grim determination, hearts pounding but eyes sharp.
Every muscle was tense. Every mind locked on the same thought.
They can defeat him. They will defeat him.
They have a plan. They have numbers. They have their classes. They can bring down the monster that had been terrorising them since the trial began.
And then...
The moment Bruce crossed the boundary of their territory, thirty pairs of eyes sharpened.
The air turned heavy, almost liquid, pressing against skin and lungs and nerves. No one breathed too loudly. No one dared blink too long. The tension sat on every shoulder like a physical weight.
Dominic Saviour stood at the forefront, posture rigid, muscles taut beneath his sleeveless coat. His long black ponytail swayed faintly with his breath, fingers tightening around the hilt of his blade. His jaw locked. His gaze never wavered from Bruce.
They had planned this.
They had rehearsed this.
They had staked their survival on this moment.
So the instant Bruce stepped into range, the coordinated first strike launched.
A mental crusher wave detonated in the air, slamming straight into his mind. It was not a gentle psychic probe, it was a deep splitting force meant to tear consciousness itself. A violent assault aimed to stun, paralyze, or at the very least, slow him for a heartbeat.
Before the attack even finished landing, the illusionist layered her spell over it.
The world twisted.
The ground stretched like melting tar. Shadows dripped. Dozens of fake Dominics emerged from the darkness, blades glinting. Illusory beasts stalked forward, eyes glowing with unreal hunger.
The surrounding trees in the area disappeared, swallowed in a warped mosaic of false realities.
For any other Awakened, this would have been instant doom.
Anyone else would have fallen to their knees screaming, mind cracking under the simultaneous psychic and illusion barrage.
But Bruce simply blinked.
Once.
Then, softly, casually:
"Heal."
A faint pulse of golden light rippled across his skin.
It spread outward like a quiet sunrise.
And just like that:
To his eyes, the illusion crumbled into smoke.
The psychic assault dissolved into nothing. They were still there, but they no longer had any effect on him.
His vision snapped back to perfect clarity. His mind steadied. His senses returned in full, sharper than before.
[You've healed]
[You have gained Immunity to Mental Attacks]
[You have gained Immunity to Illusion-Type Interference]
The psychic user felt his throat close.
"As expected…" he whispered, voice cracking as sweat trickled down his chin.
"We knew he would bypass it," the illusionist muttered shakily, her hands trembling. "But still, seeing it happen…"
"Is worse. This is bad, this is really bad," the psychic user finished, breath hitching. The psychic user was close to tearing up.
They had prepared for immunity. They had acknowledged it. If he could deal with Claire Redwyn's psychic attack then he could deal with theirs. But expecting it did not make watching their strongest combined opener get erased by a single word any less soul-breaking.
They were heartbroken, and it had barely been a second since Bruce's appearance, but the follow-up squad was already moving into action.
Everything was happening fast!
Bruce slowly lifted his head.
His eyes sharpened like honed blades, pupils dilating with predatory focus. The sensory recalibration from Heal made every detail of the place vibrate in crystal clarity, heartbeats, footsteps, mana distortions, even fear.
Then he whispered, calm and controlled, in his mind:
'Neural Amplification.'
A soft spark rippled through him, lighting his nerves like an awakening circuit. His neurons fired faster. His responses tightened. Every vibration in the air, every shifting stance, every whisper of mana, he felt all of it at once.
Multiple attacks swooshed at him with blinding speed but Bruce disappeared.
The instant Bruce vanished from sight, the recruits did not even understand what had happened. One heartbeat he was standing there after spotting them, calm, almost bored, and the next, the air itself seemed to tear apart as something dark streaked through their formation.
Most did not see him move. Some thought he teleported. Others assumed it was an illusion. It could not be helped; after all, they had no idea what his class was.
But the truth was far simpler.
His speed was beyond what their eyes could register.
A blur cut through the center of their group, and in that breathless moment, five bodies convulsed at once. A dagger pierced a throat. A wrist twisted and crushed a larynx. A skull cracked loudly against a boulder. A chest collapsed from a palm strike so powerful it caved in bone like dry bark. Another recruit dropped with a hole through his heart before he even realized he had been targeted.
By the time sound caught up to reality, the five corpses hit the ground together, collapsing in a gruesome heap that sent dust rising through the place.
Silence slammed into the remaining recruits.
Twenty-five pairs of horrified eyes stared as Bruce straightened slowly, his expression calm, a faint smile ghosting across his lips as if the slaughter was nothing more than a warm-up stretch.
"Come on," he said, almost encouragingly. "Don't freeze now. The fun just started."