Chapter 25 – Epic Battle with the Beast
Leon exhaled slowly, gaze fixed on his trembling hand.
It wasn't trembling from fear. Not anymore.
It shook because something inside him was buzzing—raw, electric, alive.
Mana.
But not like before. Not the flickering candlelight of survival. Not the shallow pool he'd learned to conserve drop by drop.
This... This was a sea. A storm. No—a world.
The moment the cocoon had merged with the core inside him, something fundamental had changed. He could feel the threads now—of ice, wind, flame, stone, lightning, shadow, and more—woven through his very blood. He didn't just hold mana.
He was linked to it.
As if the elements themselves whispered beneath his skin, waiting for his call.
I am not going to run out of mana anymore.
His fingers curled into fists. The air around them crackled faintly.
A grin broke across his face—wide, sharp, a little dangerous.
His shoulders relaxed, but his spine stood straighter than ever.
No more rationing. No more hesitation.
You're mine now.
A hum of power vibrated faintly through his chest, resonating with that ever-expanding core inside.
Across the chamber, the creature stirred. It had watched the display—the soft bloom of light, the shattering cocoon, the seamless absorption.
Now, for the first time, it leaned forward on its throne. Its eyes narrowed.
And Leon saw it.
Pressure. Rising. Growing.
The creature's aura no longer idled like coiled amusement. It was sharp now. Focused. Lethal.
The massive hammer that had rested lazily at its side was now gripped tight in both hands. It sat, still composed—but its knuckles strained.
It saw him now. Not as a toy. But as a threat.
Leon's eyes didn't waver. He stepped forward once. Slow. Measured.
Their gazes met.
Something unspoken passed between them.
Recognition.
Then—
Flash
The throne was empty. The air split like thunder. It moved.
But Leon had already moved, too.
His body blurred from his spot, twin daggers in hand, both wrapped in wind so dense it hummed—a keening whistle just under hearing, like the breath of a storm waiting to land.
Adept-level enhancement surged through his veins, mana threading muscle, bone, reflex.
He didn't dodge. He met it.
Clash
A shockwave erupted from the collision. Stone cracked beneath their feet. Wind howled.
And for the first time—Leon didn't fall back. He held. Eyes silver. Breath steady.
Letting the monster know: This time, he was ready.
The impact faded. Silence followed—just for a heartbeat.
Then—
Crumble
The stone beneath the creature's feet cracked in a spreading web. It slid backward.
One step. Two. Three. Four. Five.
It came to a halt, boots grinding against the floor, hammer lowered just slightly.
Its obsidian arms trembled. Barely. But unmistakably.
And in its eyes—just for the briefest second—
Surprise.
Leon didn't move. Not even a flinch.
The wind coiled tightly around his form, dissipating the backlash of the collision with surgical precision. He'd layered it just before contact—a spiraling shell of pressure—and it had absorbed every ounce of kinetic force.
No recoil. No drag.
He hadn't moved an inch.
He stood exactly where he had struck.
Poised. Breathing steady. Unscathed.
More than the monster—he was the one left surprised.
Not because it staggered—but because it had endured.
His breath caught.
He'd met the charge head-on, wind-infused daggers spinning at high velocity, his body hardened by adept-tier enhancement, his timing flawless—
And it was still standing.
It wasn't flung.
It wasn't torn in half.
It wasn't even bleeding.
It took it.
Leon blinked. Then snorted. Then laughed.
Once. Twice.
Sharp and breathless.
"...Are you kidding me?" he muttered.
His voice echoed in the chamber.
The absurdity of it hit him full force.
This is supposed to be a Class Awakening trial dungeon?
This is a joke.
This isn't a trial. It's a damn execution arena.
He grinned through the hum of wind around his shoulders, his silver eyes gleaming.
"That thing is a beast," he whispered.
His stance lowered. Focus sharpened.
And I'm going to crush it anyway.
The clash resumed with thunder.
Leon and the creature collided again and again, a storm of movement and momentum, each strike echoing like a siege bell through the throne chamber.
Steel met stone. Wind met fire.
The monster moved like molten iron—massive, brutal, and unnervingly fast for its size. Its hammer carved arcs through the air that would crush anything in their path, each blow a small earthquake. But Leon met them all.
He didn't land a single hit. Not at first.
His daggers glanced off the obsidian skin. The monster dodged just enough, parried just enough. A twist of its wrist here, a shift of its stance there—and Leon's blades passed air or kissed armor.
But—Every. Single. Time.
Leon held his ground.
The moment their weapons collided, the monster staggered. A foot slid. A shoulder tilted. A knee buckled slightly under pressure.
Every impact favored Leon.
The wind around him—layered, rippling, whispering—blunted incoming force and reflected it outward in bursts of sonic pressure. His feet didn't slide an inch. His aura didn't flicker. He was the eye of a hurricane built of mana and discipline.
Still, no cuts. No blood.
Leon grit his teeth as he danced away from a sweeping horizontal blow, the hammer shrieking as it tore a crater into the obsidian floor.
Still no openings...
The creature's strength was monstrous. But its control?
Terrifying.
That thing's fighting me like it's done this before. Like it's studied me.
He twisted sideways, avoiding a downward smash, then used the recoil to spring upward. His daggers sang through the air—right at the neck—
Clang
The monster's elbow intercepted, redirecting the blade.
He dropped, rolled, deflected another strike with crossed daggers.
It's learning.
Leon landed, back-skidded, re-centered himself.
His eyes narrowed.
Then—a whisper to the wind.
He reached inward. Deeper.
And released more.
The mana around him surged.
The wind howled.
A spiral wrapped around his limbs, ankles, forearms—forming bands of twisting air so tight they shimmered like glass blades in motion.
Acceleration.
He vanished from sight.
The monster blinked.
Then—
Crack
A blur of silver and wind struck its side. A clean cut. A shallow line across the hip, smoke rising where dagger met dense flesh.
Leon zipped behind it, wind screaming in his wake, and struck again—slash to the calf.
The monster snarled and turned—but too late.
A third hit across the back.
A fourth at the ribs.
Each wound barely surface-deep. But they were wounds. Real ones.
And they were accumulating.
Now you're bleeding.
Leon's smile didn't reach his eyes.
He shot forward again—blades coated in vibrating wind—crossed for a chest-strike, but this time, the monster didn't meet him.
It jumped back. Hard. Sliding nearly ten meters with a massive exhale, its breath now tinged with steam.
Leon stopped mid-step.
The air changed.
So did the temperature.
A hiss like coals being drowned echoed across the chamber.
Then—
Fire.
It bloomed around the creature like a divine flare, coating the obsidian skin in flickering red-orange heat. The hammer pulsed in its grip—veins of liquid magma running through the handle—and fire coiled along its head like a beast waking up.
The throne behind it cracked under the heat. Flames spiraled to the ceiling.
Leon narrowed his eyes.
So that's what you were hiding.
The creature raised the hammer again—this time, not to swing. But to ignite.
With a roar that shook the walls, it charged.
The hammer came down like a meteor.
BOOM
But the strike didn't connect.
Because Leon had moved.
He met fire with ice.
His right dagger surged blue—a spike of crystalline cold bursting forth, colliding with the flame in a hiss of steam.
His left dagger slashed upward, wind-accelerated, catching the monster under the ribs before it could react.
The creature howled as frost crawled up its side, extinguishing some of the fire.
Leon didn't stop.
Wind whipped his body around in a spinning arc—daggers slashing, ice forming along their edges mid-swing, colliding with the monster's burning defense.
Fire versus Ice.
Speed versus Mass.
A storm versus a volcano.
And Leon?
Was winning.
His body blurred between strikes. Each movement was refined, controlled. He layered wind for speed, used ice to deflect heat, struck low to slow it, high to disorient.
One cut became two.
Two became five.
The beast was bleeding now—steam and embers leaking from every gouge.
Leon didn't smile. Not yet.
Because he knew what it meant—
The creature was getting serious.
And I'm still not done.
Chapter 26: Epic Battle with the beast (2)
Chapter 26 – Epic Battle with the Beast (2)
Flames clashed with frost in a war of wills.
The chamber groaned beneath it.
Heat burst with every swing of the monster's molten hammer—waves of fire licking across stone, boiling air with each strike.
But Leon didn't yield.
He moved like a phantom—fluid, sharp, untouchable.
His daggers flashed silver and blue, coated in elemental ice that hissed with every deflection and condensed wind around it to make it razor sharp. Steam howled from the collision, veiling them in a fog of boiling mist and shattered mana.
Their duel was no longer just violence.
It was elemental war.
And Leon was winning.
Barely.
But undeniably.
Each exchange left the monster scorched from its own fire and slashed by Leon's cold steel. Thin trails of glowing blood now patterned the obsidian hide—cut across shoulders, thighs, ribs. Not deep enough to disable, not fatal—but mounting.
Wounds that stayed open.
Because Leon's ice didn't just slice—it clung.
It seeped in. Froze tissue. Slowed regeneration.
It made every next movement harder for the beast.
Leon's eyes tracked every twitch of its muscles. Every shift of weight. Every flame that surged around its limbs.
Faster.
That word echoed in his head with every heartbeat.
More wind curled around his frame, boosting his footwork, layering his reflexes.
Sharper.
Ice curved across his blades, refining edge into precision.
And every time they clashed—
He dug deeper.
His breath steamed in the heat. Sweat evaporated the instant it left his skin. But he didn't falter. His heart was calm. His grip was unshakable.
And his mind?
Laser-focused.
You're strong.
The thought wasn't praise.
It was a warning.
To himself.
Because this wasn't over.
Even as he pushed the monster back, even as his strikes landed, Leon could feel it—that pressure hadn't peaked yet. The creature still had more.
But so did he.
He stepped through flame, spun low, and slashed across the beast's abdomen.
Another cut.
Another hiss of steam.
He darted back before the hammer's backswing could crush his skull.
His wind shield screamed as fire licked past his cheek, searing the air just inches away.
But the cold never faded.
It hung in the chamber now—his ice turning the once-fiery domain into a mist-laced battlefield.
The balance had shifted.
Leon knew it.
So did the creature.
For the first time since their battle began the creature—
It took a step back. Not to dodge. Not to reposition.
But to reassess.
To breathe.
Leon exhaled slowly.
He didn't grin.
He didn't taunt.
He just lifted his dagger.
And stepped forward.
Because the next cut?
Was going through.
Leon's breath sharpened.
Wind shrieked around his daggers, screaming like a storm through narrow steel. Frost crawled up the blades, denser than ever—ice so pure it shimmered like crystal, refracting the heat haze in jagged halos. The daggers looked less like weapons now and more like extensions of a myth—short swords of elemental fury, vibrating with killing intent.
He adjusted his grip.
Felt the buzz climb up his arms.
Power. Precision. Purpose.
The monster across from him sensed it too.
Its foot slid back—just an inch.
Just enough to say: I see it.
But Leon didn't slow.
Because the creature was doing something else.
Both hands came together, forming a cradle of rising flame.
Mana swelled. The chamber warped.
A sphere of fire began to take shape in its hands—small at first, but growing. Condensing. Coiling into gravity. Not just fire. Not just heat.
Mass.
A miniature sun.
Leon's silver eyes narrowed.
No.
He vanished.
The wind broke.
He shot forward in a blur of speed that blurred the air around him, his cloak ripping with the momentum. His foot struck the ground once—just once—and the rest was flight.
The ball of fire wasn't finished.
It didn't matter.
The creature hurled it anyway.
A half-formed sun screamed through the chamber.
Leon didn't flinch.
He didn't even blink.
He brought his blade down.
SHRAK.
The world split in light and steam as the ice-wrapped dagger cleaved the sun in two. Fire collapsed around the cut, splitting like a bursting core. The pressure screamed—but Leon was already through it.
His cloak smoked behind him. His skin hissed from the near-burn.
But his eyes were locked on one thing:
The throat.
The monster's hammer came for him again—angled from above, screaming downward, a burning guillotine.
He twisted beneath it.
Let wind carry him past the arc.
It missed.
He didn't.
His dagger surged forward, ice crackling along the edge. His body turned, shoulder aligned, every muscle ready to follow through—
This is it.
Right through the neck. Over.
Then—
Nothing.
His arm stopped.
In mid-motion.
Just inches away.
The blade didn't touch.
Didn't slide.
Didn't pierce.
It froze.
As if space itself had thickened—solidified.
Wha—?
He pushed harder.
His foot slid.
His spine strained.
But the blade wouldn't move.
It shook violently in his grip, held fast by an invisible wall that coiled around the monster's neck like a shield of absolute pressure.
The air was thick.
Not from heat.
Not from magic.
From something else.
His dagger screamed. Cracks laced the ice.
The monster's skin under the jaw cracked, too—slivers opening from the force of the strike, shallow cuts blooming from sheer impact pressure—
But it wasn't enough.
Leon's eyes widened.
"No..."
The flames surged around the monster's chest.
Leon backed away instantly, the wind whipping under his feet to carry him back just as the creature's aura exploded outward in retaliation.
A pulse of flame ripped through the air where Leon had been, incinerating stone, turning mist to ash.
He landed ten paces back, breathing hard.
Eyes locked.
Blade lowered.
Heart racing.
The creature straightened slowly—jaw split, smoke trailing from its wounds.
Its hand lifted, wiping a trickle of glowing blood from its cheek.
Then it smiled.
Leon's hand tightened on his hilt.
That... wasn't a defense skill.
That was something else.
A layer of power forcefield that didn't let me through.
The first taste of true resistance.
Not from the hammer. Not from fire.
But from whatever made this creature what it was.
He steadied his breathing.
The monster's laughter never came.
Just silence.
And one shared truth between them:
This fight wasn't over.
Not even close.
Leon narrowed his eyes.
The creature was huffing.
Its obsidian chest rose and fell, steam curling from the seams of its cracked flesh. The cuts on its body hadn't healed. The flames around its form had dulled. Even its grip on the hammer had changed—tighter, yes, but slower. More deliberate.
It was tired.
Not done.
But close.
Leon didn't smile.
He didn't taunt.
Because even now, the memory of that invisible force choking his blade mid-strike haunted his muscles. He could still feel the phantom pressure—like existence more than the creature itself had gripped his wrist.
He wouldn't give it a second chance.
He didn't need one.
Because this time?
He wasn't aiming for the throat.
His eyes flicked upward.
Above.
Far above.
The ceiling stretched into shadow, high enough that the edges blurred in heat and smoke.
But there—nestled in the dark like a divine blade waiting to fall—
It hovered.
A spear.
No—a weapon of judgment.
Shimmering with pale, arctic light. Sculpted from pure, compressed ice, its form smooth and flawless, tapering into a cruel point that could pierce the heavens. Surrounding it, coils of wind twisted like living serpents, dragging the ambient air into a roaring spiral.
A weapon crafted not just with mana—
But with intent.
Leon had forged it in silence. While fighting. While dodging. While surviving.
Every movement, every breath—he had funneled mana upward. Slowly. Quietly.
Preparing.
His eyes flashed silver.
The monster noticed.
It looked up.
And for the first time—
Its expression changed.
A flicker of realization. No longer just reading Leon as a threat.
Now it saw him as something else.
A predator.
Leon extended a single hand toward the sky.
The chamber trembled.
The wind surged.
The ice spear ignited in blue light.
"I had said I was gonna crush you like a bug. Now it's time to prove it," Leon whispered.
His voice dropped to a whisper of steel.
"Try everything you can to stop it, you beast."