Ashton was a bit taken aback by the fact Nathan was so blatantly breaking the rules and yet he was getting off without any punishment. But then again, he was from a noble family so Ashton wasn’t all that surprised either.

‘Looks like the director can be bought too. The more I live within them, the more and more I start to hate them.’

As for Nathan, he was busy sinking himself into the treasure trove. Weapons, potions, tomes. Everything Ashton knew about was there right in front of his eyes. 

Ashton wasn’t that big of a fool to wait around for Nathan to sort through the items. And now that Rion and Rami were out of the competition, they could not attack him. Thus, without wasting another moment, Ashton leapt at him.

However, the next second, Nathan threw a tome at him. All of a sudden he was shrouded in black smoke, compromising his vision. Nathan must have wanted to take advantage of this situation and shot a continuous barrage of arrows into the smoke.

There was no way the bastard was getting out of there without being eliminated or heavily injured. Or so Nathan thought.

As the smoke began dissipating, Nathan’s eyes were left wide open with horror. he had expected to see a broken, bloodied and defeated Ashton in front of him, but there was no one there. Not a single soul. As for all the arrows he had shot, they were stubbed into the tree behind the smoke. 

“What the hell?” Nathan blurted out, but that was all he could do.

As a result of not holding back, Nathan was out of arrows and only had a small blade on him. But more importantly, his target was nowhere to be seen. Which wasn’t a good thing to say the least. 

Frantic, Nathan began looking all around him. But the result was the same. His opponent had disappeared.

“That coward did a runner… no worries. I will catch him eventually and put an end to him.” Nathan shook his head and walked up to the tree to retrieve the arrows. 

Unsuspecting of what was waiting there for him. Ashton wasn’t someone who would run away from a fight. Hell, he fought two bloodsuckers all alone and managed to overwhelm them, who were known as werewolf hunters. 

Overwhelming the odds was some kind of a joke to him at this point. A joke just like he was about to make one of the arrogant bastard right below him.

As Nathan pulled out the last arrow from the tree, he felt something rustling above. There was no time for him to load the arrows, so he quickly pulled out his dagger. But he was too slow. He didn’t know what happened, but a moment later, he found his head firmly planted on the forest floor by someone.

“You! How did you-“

Back when Nathan threw the smoke bomb at Ashton, the latter truly lost his sight but not his calm. Rather than panicking and messing up, Ashton quickly switched to using his [Perception] ability. 

He knew Nathan would try to finish him off why the smokescreen was still active and thus used the smoke to his advantage. With the help of the whip, Ashton was able to climb onto the nearest tree mere moments after the smoke bomb exploded. 

There he waited for Nathan to show up as he knew he would have to retrieve his arrows if he wanted to continue hunting other players. Nathan thought he was playing Ashton, but it was the other way around this entire time. 

“Shush! If you keep talking, I just might have to rip your tongue off.” Ashton hissed into Nathan’s ear before forcefully taking the dagger out of his hands.

Ashton used the dagger to hit and break the chest piece, forcing Nathan to get eliminated. 

“Nathan Marcello has been eliminated!” The announcer announced, “Ashton Bismark is on a killing spree! Additional points would be provided to the one who takes him out! The Location of the leading examinee will be provided to other contestants at an interval of 15 minutes.”

Everyone in Zone 5 was stunned. Someone had just managed to score back to back eliminations just like that. That too all by himself!? 

“The hell? Why do you have to announce it like that?” Ashton cursed in an annoyed tone.

He was hoping to listen to the first part of the announcement, but the latter part was completely unexpected. After all, not everyone in the zone would know about him… and essentially, the announcement had painted a target on his back.

His vision was still compromised and he was able to win against Nathan just because he knew how he would behave in a certain situation. Also, [Perception] wasn’t all that effective either as he had already been fooled once by the Marcello brothers while depending on the ability alone. 

No matter how Ashton tried to see it, it felt like someone was desperately trying to screw him over. At this point, he heard a cackle coming out of Nathan’s mouth. It was obvious that fcker was happy. Ashton would have been happy if he was in his place too. 

“Looks like you are as good as dead, you filthy common bastard.” Nathan snarled, “But don’t worry. Your troubles won’t end just by getting eliminated from the competition. The Marcello family will make your life miserable outside the academy as well-“

As Nathan kept blabbering on and on, Ashton couldn’t keep his cool anymore and kicked him with all of his strength. Which was enough to dislocate Nathan’s lower jaw, rendering him incapable of speech. 

“You talk too much.” Ashton shrugged his shoulders and began walking away. He couldn’t stay there for long as everyone would probably start hunting him soon. 

The situation was so painful that Nathan wanted to scream. But he couldn’t even do that. His jaw was stuck at an odd angle. In his pain and rage, Nathan tried to attack Ashton even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to… 

But by this time, the curse finally lifted off of him and Ashton was back to his full strength. He could sense Nathan chasing after him, so he did what any sensible person would do. He stepped out of the way, letting the mad man bang his head on the tree and effectively letting Nathan knock himself out.

“All bark and no bite? Interesting.. Now I need to get rid of this blindness before someone finds me.”