Near Tsubaki's workshop.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions kept echoing overhead through the workshop district.
Glancing back at the destruction his magic had left in its wake and the sheer racket each blast made, Leon's expression under his hood turned pained.
"Fire magic is brutal, sure, but the noise level is absolutely ridiculous!"
He grumbled internally, feet never slowing, cutting a sharp turn around half a collapsed wall.
"Can't even do something on the quiet around here..."
"Fireball!"
BOOM!
"AAAAHHH!"
Every time he rounded a corner, he'd spin back and lob a few fireballs, sending his pursuers tumbling.
Mind scattered across a dozen stray thoughts, Leon kept up the fighting retreat.
After a stretch of chase, he'd finally drawn the enemy into an abandoned section of the workshop district.
Broken walls and tangled weeds. Whatever this place had been used for, it was long derelict now. Leon wasn't surprised. His own District 7 had plenty of wasteland like this.
Whsh whsh whsh!
He'd barely planted his feet among the ruins, barely caught his breath, when several cloaked and hooded Evilus members closed in like shadows.
Then the masked leader rattled off a few quick hand signals. The survivors fanned out fast, fluid, a half-circle formation locked in around him in the blink of an eye, pinning him against a tottering wall.
Leon's eyebrow ticked up, a flicker of surprise running through him.
He'd figured Evilus for a disorganized, clueless rabble.
Turns out... maybe not so much.
From their execution, these were clearly trained elites.
That encirclement alone, drilled that tight, wasn't something you pick up overnight.
"Tch, nice spot though."
Leon sneered, voice deliberately rough and lowered.
"Saves us the trouble of finding you a burial plot!"
"Fireball!"
A fireball the size of a truck tire formed and tore through the air, screaming toward the densest cluster of enemies!
"Hm?"
The instant the fireball left his hand, a sharp spike of danger shot up his spine. Leon's heart lurched!
His toes dug in and he kicked backward like a bolt of lightning!
Fwp!
A poisoned short blade slashed past, almost grazing his waist, the wind of it snapping at his cloak!
Presence Concealment? He's got a skill to erase his presence? An assassin? Leon's heart pounded, cold sweat soaking his undershirt.
His peripheral vision whipped across the blind spot, and he caught a figure that had slipped in behind him without a sound!
Faced with this cheap-shot ambush, Leon narrowed his eyes. As the dagger came in, his left foot sidestepped in a flash, hips twisting, body spinning, and he slipped past the attacker by a hair!
In the split-second their bodies crossed, Leon's eyes glinted, his lips moved, and he silently mouthed the name of the spell.
"Scorch!"
"GAAAHHHH!"
Flames erupted off the enemy out of nowhere. The burning pain ripped an inhuman scream out of him, the dagger clattering to the ground!
Leon used his momentum to plant his feet, then pivoted and drove a kick in, the impact flinging the man away like a torn sack!
He didn't even look. Arm up, elbow bent, palm locking instantly onto the tumbling ball of flame.
Hummm.
A crimson magic circle flared and spun in his palm!
"Fireball!"
BOOM!!!
The bursting fireball slammed dead center into the burning human torch!
A horrific explosion rolled out with the smell of charred flesh. The screaming cut off cold.
All that remained was a twisted lump of cinders and scattered sparks.
"Tsk..."
Casually wiping out someone roughly at Lv.2 didn't stir so much as a ripple in Leon's chest.
With his current base stats, plus his Development Abilities and skills stacked on top, if one fireball didn't do it, two would.
In the face of overwhelming raw power, technique and ambush looked pale and laughable.
He was confident he wasn't going to waste much time here.
Clearly the other side didn't have the durability to tank his Fireball at full strength.
One Scorch-boosted fireball and they were off to meet the reaper.
"You... you bastard!!!"
Not far off, the small group leader charging in at full sprint watched his right-hand man get vaporized before his eyes. The face behind the mask drained of color, the ferocity in his glare overwhelmed for the first time by raw terror.
"M-Monster!!"
Leon answered with a flat, toneless incantation.
"Fireball."
"Fireball."
"Fireball."
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
The fireballs tolled like funeral bells, blooming mercilessly through the weed-choked ruins.
Each blast brought building debris crashing down and fresh screams of terror.
Fractured walls groaned and toppled in the flames. Fresh scars burned into the scorched earth where the weeds had been.
...
Against Leon's stat advantage, his cheat-tier instant casting, his distance control, all of it.
The other side couldn't make trouble for him. They couldn't even get close.
The fight ended absurdly fast.
In under ten minutes, of the twenty-plus Evilus "elites" who'd attacked at Tsubaki's workshop and chased him all the way here, the only one still breathing was the group leader pinned hard under Leon's boot on his shoulder, ground flat into the dirt, with little fires still catching and burning across his body.
His chest heaved violently, gasping, writhing in silence, face twisted, but he was pinned like an ant staked to the earth.
Leon stood over him, the hood's shadow hiding most of his face. Only those pitch-black eyes were exposed, staring down at the beaten enemy underfoot with undisguised contempt.
"Don't move."
He pressed down a bit harder, shoulder bone creaking audibly under his foot. His disguised, roughened voice carried a trace of amusement.
"Lv.2? No... nearly Lv.3? Evilus really is stacked with talent, huh? Sending elites like you on petty thug work? Feel like telling me what you're after?"
"M-Monster..."
Blood spraying from his mouth, the group leader forced the word out through gritted teeth.
Monster?
Leon's eyebrow arched, and he broke into a grin.
"Forget it. You might want to talk, but I don't actually want to listen."
"Just clutch your fear and disappear."
BOOM!!!
Killed Evilus soldier. Experience +29.
"Ptooey."
Looking at the human charcoal on the ground, Leon spat, calmly patting out the sparks on his cloak, then slowly raised his head.
Catching the approaching footsteps that weren't even trying to be quiet, Leon's eyes narrowed.
Military police? Fast response.
With that thought he tossed one more fireball at the corpse and, under the cover of the flames and the blast...
He turned, tapped off with his toe, and vaulted lightly over the collapsed wall, leaving nothing but a blurred silhouette of a black cloak for the newcomers to see.
"That was...?"
"Hey, st...!"
Alise and the others, having just traced the trail of destruction from Tsubaki's workshop, caught only that fleeting figure out of the corner of their eyes. Arm still outstretched, Alise was about to shout "Stop," but the presence had already vanished completely from their senses.
"Damn it, he got away." Kaguya gripped her sword hilt tight, frowning in frustration.
"Tsk, what a scene. Absolutely brutal. Gives Tsubaki a run for her money. Look at these Evilus bastards, burnt past recognition. If not for the distinctive uniforms, I couldn't tell who they were."
Lyra crouched low, carefully inspecting the wounds on the corpses, clicking her tongue.
"Don't any of you feel like you've seen this before? This scene, it's oddly familiar."
Ryuu, still masked, her pale blue eyes sweeping the area, slowly overlaid the memory of what they'd seen on Floor 7 of the Dungeon.
"It's like that time on the 7th Floor, isn't it? Fire magic, same level of brutal carnage, same modus operandi." Kaguya's eyes narrowed, a cold laugh escaping.
Alise got to her feet, expression calm.
"The methods are savage, but judging from this person's actions, they're clearly on our side. Still, since they didn't stick around to meet us, that means they don't want to. Either way, that's good news I suppose."
At that, Lyra tossed her "grenade" from hand to hand, a teasing smile on her lips.
"I've met plenty of types like that. Usually it's someone with something they can't say out loud, so they just mask up and do their thing. This passer-by is obviously one of those."
Alise swept her gaze around, pausing briefly on the cratered, blackened pits. Her expression sobered as she clapped her hands.
"Alright everyone, let's get to work. Since they left the cleanup to us, we shouldn't slack on it."
"Especially since Evilus committed this many people to this. Even a Lv.3 officer, plenty of Lv.2 elites. Stirring up something this big, they've got some ulterior motive."
"Figuring out what they're after, that's what we've got to dig into next."
Ryuu kept her face taut and instinctively took a deep breath.
The next second, the oncoming wave of burnt stench, too strong for even her mask to filter, sent her into a violent coughing fit.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
The girl glared at the wreckage on the ground with disgust, visibly rattled.
Catching her reaction, Kaguya's eyes sparked with mischief, her tongue sharp.
"Come on, Ryuu, a little scene like this and you can't handle it? Truly a noble elf warrior."
"You..."
Seeing the two about to go at it again, Lyra sighed.
"Alright, alright, I know you two are close, but can we work first? If you want to debate, you can put on your show back at HQ in front of Lady Astraea."
Ryuu, about to fire back, swallowed the words, locking eyes with Kaguya. The two of them huffed in unison and turned their faces away.
"Hehe, with you two around, no matter how heavy the mood, it lightens up fast."
Alise said with a smile.
"Who's close with her!" Kaguya and Ryuu snapped at the same time.
"And you two say you're not close." Lyra spread her hands, tilting her head with an amused look.
"Hmph!" Ryuu and Kaguya huffed again, perfectly in sync.
Alise and Lyra exchanged a glance and couldn't hold back their laughter.
Right at that moment, Shakti, a step behind the rest, came into view.
"Alise, Kaguya, Lyra, Ryuu! What... what happened here?"
"Well, it's kind of a long story," Alise answered.
"Then keep it short," Shakti replied without missing a beat.
...
...
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