The red cloaks swarmed towards Leon, though none managed to land an attack on the swordsman, every swing of Wavecutter reaping a life, severed heads stomped beneath boots as the soldiery mobbed their enemy, each man determined to be the one that would strike Leon down. Their commander had retreated, turning tail and fleeing to the back line.
Leon looked forward to her death, to repay her continual cowardice with exquisite agony.
The armour of the enemy was shifting as they fought, fresh protections appearing and disappearing, weapons changing in both form and function. The dungeon was growing desperate, it needed a hard counter to stop Leon from deviating further from the script.
It wasn't having any successes, Leon's power was jumping up too rapidly for any counter to be effective for long, his blade slicing through steel and emerging unchipped, returned to its scabbard for only a moment before claiming another neck.
The flood of bodies thrown at him only served to give the swordsman the fuel he needed to truly ignite his potential.
"Ebb and Flow boost activated: X2.00 to Power and Speed."
The dungeon wasn't able to easily compensate for such a drastic boost in power, leaving Leon to scythe through the soldiers like they were stalks of wheat. He couldn't keep track of the number of men he cut down, advancing ever onward, a tent at the back of the army his goal.
Behead the snake and the body dies, take out the commander and rout the army.
A whistle in the air was all the warning Leon got of an incoming attack, relying on his increased Speed, he turned and fled, a quick leap backwards taking him over the dead and dying, back to the edge, where the solid ground met the bridge. The spear buried itself in the leg of the man Leon had been about to cut down, a centurion stepping forward, clad in familiar steel, another spear in hand, arm cocked back, taut and ready to release.
The new centurion let loose a roar alongside his spear, the weapon letting out sparks thanks to the bolts of lightning which clung to the spear tip.
"Archers! Fire!"
The sky turned black, a mass of projectiles blotting out the sun, a crackling spear rocketing towards Leon. The swordsman's world slowed, his sword already flying through the air to intercept the inbound javelin, his blade clashing against the spear's point dead on, the force enough to send Leon flying back towards the bridge, his arm numb yet unbroken. He scrambled further down the bridge after noting the inbound projectiles, cursing himself for leaving Bladeless so far away.
The deflected spear had been sent skyward, joining the arrows in their descent as they perforated the bridge, a few particularly well-aimed barbs digging into Leon's back as he pulled Bladeless from the ground, shielding himself behind the huge weapon, absorbing the arrow storm's mighty force.
When the arrows stopped he dropped his weapon, eyed up the centurion and recognised a pattern. Number two hundred. It had been mere minutes and he was already a fifth of the way done. Pulling the arrows from his back Leon let the wounds bleed- they hadn't hit anywhere too sensitive and he could hold off on healing for now.
The centurion was still eyeing him up, clearly torn between rushing in and ordering another bombardment. Leon decided to force a decision.
"At least a tenth of you are dead, right? Guess that makes me the Decimator of the Blazing Sun- a pretty cool title, but I can do one better than that. Eradicator of the Blazing Sun. Sounds much cooler, eh? You're next mid-boss number two, here I come!"
Kicking off the bridge with all his speed, Leon closed the gap between himself and his foe, rushing over the crushed remains that littered the muddy field, launching a High Tide and splitting the centurion cleanly in two before the man could give the order to attack. For all of the elite soldier's might he amounted to no more than another notch on Leon's blade, another kill added to the count.
The sun continued its arc through the dungeon's sky, dyeing the artificial firmament a dusky red, as the swordsman carved through men like a hot knife through butter, each centurion challenging him with a fresh elemental spear. Leon saw spears of flowing water and of staid earth. Blazing light, and swirling darkness. A spear made of blood and bone, that had done more than just whistle as it approached, the grotesque weapon screamed in pain before exploding into fragments of bone. Like a primitive fragmentation grenade.
The scariest one had been from centurion number nine. This spear, which had appeared ordinary, he had chosen to dodge by a hair's breadth, arching his body backwards until he was parallel to the ground and allowing the spear to pass over his chest. It impacted against a dead man behind Leon and corroded him to liquid, then to gas. The man's vapours drifted away and Leon had made that centurion a priority target, cleaving the man apart before he could throw another spear.
He'd learned a few things over the last two hours. The dungeon couldn't throw anything truly unbeatable at him. It was limited to steel armour and Leon had no problem cutting that apart with his current strength. The mana circuits it employed were primitive, limited to slight increases that gave the soldiers a minor boost to Speed, Power or Constitution. There was no difficulty now that he had taken the challenge head-on, though he doubted many others would be able to replicate his method.
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With his Power quadrupled thanks to his Insight of Water's Power, Leon was able to blitz the enemy army, their quantity unable to stand up to his quality.
The battle had progressed in ebbs and flows, Leon tearing a path towards the tent at the back line only to be forced into a retreat, any ground gained swiftly lost to the endless stream of soldiers. The increased power of his circuit came with downsides- it was cannibalising his body at a greater pace in exchange for the increased uptime. He had to retreat and stuff himself with food to keep fighting, his body burning the energy to combat the continual strain it was under.
Leon also had to contend with keeping his circuit under control. If he didn't control the rampaging stream of energy in his body firmly, then it would explode outwards with enough force to kill him. This was how he had spent the last two hours, cutting through swathes of weaklings, desperate to claim the commander's neck yet never quite reaching his goal, thanks to the same power that had allowed him to change the scenario.
Taking a single injury was grounds enough to force a retreat- Leon was burning his Health pool too quickly, even a small gash in his arm was enough to greatly accelerate the drain of his life. Once he was back behind Bladeless, wolfing down his rations, the arrows would strike the few that reached him ricocheting off his blade. The bridge resembled a pincushion by the time Leon was setting out on what he imagined would be his final charge.
There were only a hundred men left, each one clad in full plate, wielding standard weapon loadouts. The spear, the bow and the tower shield. Only the bow posed a threat to him now.
It was as he charged the last of the Blazing Light Clan's army, body and mind ragged and worn, Leon felt himself enter a familiar state. The world itself, reaching out to impart a small fragment of itself to him. He felt it in the wind, the tender caress of the air around him as he drank it in, fuelling his lungs with the life-giving oxygen they needed.
That wasn't all though- he felt his existence displacing the air around him. He felt the arrow that was flying towards his neck and knew where it would impact based on the shifting pressure. The smallest of changes, shifting his body to the right and the arrow flew past.
"Insight Gained- Air's Pressure- Early Shallow Level."
He would examine it later- for now he had a battle to finish.
They broke against him as always, his Speed and Power too far beyond what the Tutorial's power curve had dictated was acceptable for the dungeon to wield. With his conquest nearly complete Leon spared a glance at his armour.
The leather set had served the swordsman well. Now its service was at an end. Tattered and torn, the armour offered the swordsman no more protection than his clothing did. A replacement would be hard to source, though Leon had faith the issue would resolve itself. Once he could work a forge he would smith his own armour.
The last man fell to Leon's onslaught of Tidal techniques, the swordsman bellowing his challenge to the tent.
"Nine hundred and ninety-nine dead men. Get out here coward, let's make it an even thousand!"
The tent was blown apart, the crimson commander emerging from the tattered cloth, spear drawn and burning with blazing fire. Upon her back she carried a greatsword, igniting Leon's greed. He'd claim the sword once she was dead, for now he had to focus. Leon felt her threatening aura descend on the battlefield of corpses, his steps forward through the mud field the battleground had devolved into more carefully considered than before, keeping his guard up as he approached one of the few places devoid of any obstruction.
The two sized each other up before one chose to break the silence. The commander spoke, her voice eerily calm and composed for one who had witnessed her army torn apart by one man.
"Once more you surprise us Ku Kulin- we thought your lands ripe for the taking, your warriors weak. Clearly, we have been misinformed. We will settle this then, warrior to warrior, here and now. You have the honour to duel Helia Invicta, First Spear of the Blazing Sun."
She stood there, still unblemished and pristine but from the waves of mana she was emitting Leon knew she was more than a cut above her centurions. Using Tsunami right away was tempting- but then he grew curious. How did he stack up against this warrior?
"You'll have the honour to die by my hand. All these pretty words can't change the facts. You let your men die, you're a coward and I'll take joy in killing you. Put on a good show before you die."
For all the extreme speed at his disposal, the insane boost his mind currently operated at under thanks to his boosted stats and his latest insight that he suspected was aiding him in detecting air fluctuations, Leon still failed to dodge the spear.
She gave no indication, no warm-up. One second the spear was in her hands, the next in his chest. Worse, it hadn't missed the mark. Leon's heart had been destroyed in the attack, though Leon was far quicker to react to the foreign object this time.
The spear was out and his heart regenerated as quickly as he could force it to, the process draining him of nearly all his energy. He had enough left in the tanks to fight for a few minutes, nothing more. The pain was secondary to achieving victory.
The enemy had broken her arm in the throw, the limb hanging limp at her side, her other arm already going for her greatsword, the blade blazing with the sun's fury as she approached, Leon's blade still in its sheath.
He'd gotten an answer at least- this enemy outclassed him. Utterly and completely. A humbling realisation.
Regardless of this realisation, Leon recognised that it was time to end this.
Planting himself firmly, assuming his Tsunami stance, and pumping all his power into his arm, Leon prepared to slice the commander in half, across her waist.
Wavecutter left its scabbard, meeting the commander head-on, easily parting her top from her bottom, the residual force from Tsunami enough to kill her. As expected, her armour had been unable to resist his might.
Leon's arm was mangled, shredded beyond repair when his slash was completed but he did not heal it.
He hated himself at that moment. That dungeon had been revelatory, his weaknesses on full display. His lack of proper combat experience and his dependence on a borrowed style. Problems to be addressed, as soon as possible.
Never again.
Never again would he be forced to end a fight so prematurely.
Never again would a worthy foe face such an ignominious end