Back pressed to the cypress wood, Leon felt another arrow slam into his cover.

Judging from the frequency of the projectiles, more than one lizard besieged his position.

Leon rolled his shoulders, preparing to break from cover.

His new mana circuit kept his steps light, the uneven terrain hardly an impediment as he raced towards the archers.

The thick reeds did little to hide their occupants, a pair of scouts, bows drawn. Stone arrowheads attached to rough wooden shafts.

Hissing in a tongue the System refused to translate, the archers locked on to Leon as he tore through mud and muck, blades at the ready.

Two projectiles loosed as one, the clang of metal on metal as Leon’s right hand sheathed his blade, a scream of steel and stone as his white scimitar sliced one oncoming arrow in two.

The second arrow Leon caught mid-flight, holding it in his hand for only a moment before twisting on his heel and blasting it back into a lizard’s face.

While the survivor nocked another bolt, the swordsman closed the gap between them and sliced the creature’s throat open.

Spewing blood, clutching at its open wound, the lizardman dropped its bow, the spray of blood rendering Leon’s scimitar invisible.

A small mercy, that the creature didn’t see the curved blade slam into its throat again, this time severing vertebrae and ending its life.

Drawing Scream once more, Leon stored the corpses and continued on, cleansing Silent of the gore that obscured its blade.

Despite the oppressive heat, muggy air and the lingering sensation that he was being watched, Leon felt excited. The desire to forge another Unique core into a blade spurred him deeper into the mossy heart of the swamp.

The ambush came suddenly, a unit of four spear-wielding assassins leaping from tree branches, polearms aimed to impale the intruder.

The tips pierced empty air; their prey already moving to counterattack.

Rolling through the muddy water, Leon’s scimitars sliced through a lizard’s legs.

The creature’s hiss of pain ended as his blades shifted and rose through its chest, a spray of gore coating both swords and swordsman.

One blade burst into crackling flames, the other vanished save its hilt.

One lizard recovered quicker than the rest, spear flying at Leon, blow parried and opening taken, a blazing scimitar tearing open the creature’s chest.

The true devilish nature of Scream became obvious as Leon kept his blade in the wound, watching how the enchantment functioned on living flesh.

Every droplet of blood fed the flames, the wound unable to cauterise thanks to the relatively low heat and the uneven application.

With a twist of the blade, Leon drove the burning sword upwards, into the lizard’s trachea, Silent twirling in his other hand, parrying an attempt on his life from another assailant.

He hadn’t known the lizards could look shocked.

Wrenching his blade free, Leon punished the attack with a double slash, the first opening up the creature’s skull, the second sending its brains splattering across the swamp.

A single lizard remained. Smaller, possibly younger than the rest. Irrelevant information- once the Swamp Lord died, its brethren would go alongside it.

Quaking in the ankle-deep water, the lizard dropped its weapon, surprising Leon by choosing speech over violence, kneeling a short distance away from the blood-soaked swordsman.

“I surrender. I beg for your mercy human.”

It might have worked- not on Leon, but the strategy had merit. The lizard may have discarded its weapon, but Leon knew its jaws and tail would claim his life should he show weakness.

A little reminder and a show of force to any stalking lizards watching on, Leon threw his head back and laughed at the kneeling beast.

“Aw, how cute! You think you’re people! Newsflash monster- my mercy isn’t for the likes of you.”

He punctuated his statement by crossing his blades across the lizardman’s throat, beheading it with a theatrical flourish.

God, did it feel good to be back on the battlefield.

Leon felt like he’d finally started scratching an itch he’d let fester for weeks.

Now that he had his finger on the source of his irritation, he’d scratch his skin bloody.

Deeper and deeper into the mire and closer to his target, the resistance growing more pitched as he travelled.

His next challenge came as a wave, not of cold-blooded bodies but a literal wave, the swamp’s waters rising at the behest of a robed lizard, flanked by a pair of more heavily armoured warriors.

They’d miscalculated badly, Leon sprinting at the closest tree, kicking off it in a jump that carried him over the water, landing on the closest lizard, swords buried in the creature’s eye sockets.

Burning flesh exploded out as Leon danced past a bolt of water magic, parrying the lizard warrior’s curved greatsword, blades locking the metal in place and wrenching it free of the monster’s grasp, an invisible scimitar snaking into the creature’s open mouth, its attempt to bite down on Leon its undoing.

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Another bolt of water tore forth, this one impacting against Leon’s armour, splashing ineffectually off his steel protection. The magic stung though, both his pride and the skin beneath.

He took his time with the mage, first taking its arms, then its legs. Finally, he took its head, a bloody trophy he tossed into the disquieted waters, leaving the lizard nugget to rot.

That display got their attention, a veritable army emerging to engage him. Each step brought another ambusher, each ambusher became another corpse.

They unknowingly fed Leon’s appetite for destruction, his swords moving faster and faster as he travelled.

The Demon’s Dance only grew more deadly as Leon executed it, the Corrosive Venom enchantment of his blades eating the wounds of any who attempted to limp away. They either died in battle or died clawing at their wounds, the venom crawling along their veins, burning their organs until their hearts gave out under the pain.

Sinking into a haze of violence, Leon only rose from the fugue when the village came into view.

Relatively small, each tree house expanded vertically, housing constructed to be functional, decorated sparsely with trinkets and baubles.

Signs of a culture, a people.

One Leon would be snuffing out.

Strung between the trees, rope bridges connected the arboreal dwellings, the lizards preferring to avoid the ground.

Grooves cut into the trunks of select trees to form ladders, a mob of lizards bristling overhead at the intruder, hissing in their savage tongue.

In his wake lay the broken and bleeding, muddy water clouded with lizardman blood.

Leon no longer walked in the water. The corpses of the slain made adequate platforms, an unusually large dwelling at the centre of the village his destination.

Curiously, he noted the lizards actually displayed sexual dimorphism.

The female lizardmen had scales of much lighter colouration. They also had what looked like breasts, though Leon knew that couldn’t be the function of the chest protrusions unless these lizardmen were biologically divorced from their lesser counterparts.

A smaller form darted into one of the tree houses, ushered in by a pair of non-combatants.

A child.

A monster, he corrected himself moments later. A cruel test designed to push his limits. If the little tyke wanted to die for its species, Leon would oblige it.

Mercy is for people.

Not monsters.

From the Lord’s dwelling, she emerged, a lizard standing a full foot over her subordinate warriors, golden armour matched with a gleaming trident. None of her people’s anger infected her- a cold and evaluating look visible beneath her gilded helm.

First, an inspection.

“Level Twenty-Five Swamp Lord- A Unique being designed as a test of willpower for the Proving Grounds Tutorial’s second stage. A master of water magic and a paragon of physical might, the creature’s real threat lies in its intellectual bearing.

The creature’s golden armour is bound to its flesh, impenetrable to all but the strongest of blades and warded against magical assault.

This being possesses a [G] Grade [Manabeast] Bloodline.”

Leon let his bloodline loose to gauge her, the lizards quieting as his aura settled over the area.

Weak, far weaker than him. Prey to be consumed.

“Well, you’re a disappointment. Let’s get this over with.”

While it tried to respond to him, Leon leapt onto a tree branch, then onto the rope bridge that connected to the Lord’s home, its rebuttal dying alongside the lizard Leon landed on. The rest of the onlookers scrambled, fleeing the demonic swordsman.

Only the Lord and the Fiend remained.

Swaying on the rope bridge, he beckoned the animal forward.

“Come. Put on a good show.”

A deluge of mana followed his taunt, the animal coating her armour and weapon in roiling water mana, a shimmering barrier through which the golden glow shone still.

The Swamp Lord shared the sibilant tone of all lizardmen, though carried herself with a grace and poise that conveyed authority. Sadness tinged her speech.

“It did not have to be this way, human. Our kind and yours need not have come to blows.”

She lied as naturally as she drew breath, trident raised, ready to begin the bout that would end in her death.

Leon knew the truth of the matter.

This was the second test of the Tutorial. One testing not the speed of a participant’s growth but the strength of their convictions.

Leon’s would not be found wanting.

He’d offer no reply, charging forward, the ropes beneath his feet swaying as he ran, twin blades meeting the points of the trident.

The water coating exploded, blasting him backwards, forcing Leon to sheath a sword to grip onto the supports of the bridge.

Once the swaying subsided, he saw his foe standing there, feet still firmly planted on the wooden planks that extended in a semi-circle around its home.

One hand with scaled fingers curled in a ‘come hither’ motion.

So rarely did Leon’s foes make things personal.

The lizard remained blissfully unaware of what line it had crossed.

Dropping back onto the thickly woven ropes, Leon laughed, drawing Scream once more, settling into a fighting stance.

Perhaps this would be fun.

Keeping his centre of gravity low, the swordsman twisted under the thrusting trident, launching his double uppercut.

Screeching metal gave way to hissing pain.

The lizard’s open-faced helmet proved its undoing, Leon’s swords blinding the creature.

Still in the air, Leon lashed out with both his legs, kicking the lizard back into the walls of its treehouse, the wood giving way under the force.

A second passed after Leon touched the ground. Then the lizard emerged from the wreckage and he was upon his enemy.

The gilded armour had very little give in it.

Oh, but very little was not none- his blades forced the gilded protection to surrender, each strike shearing layers away, the water mana exploding with all the same force as before.

Force Leon took head-on, powering through every injury, lost in the thrill of the kill.

So close he could practically taste it.

The foolish lizard had no way to fight back.

He’d gotten too close to stab and within a minute he’d beaten a hole in her armour.

The roar he let loose as he felt cold steel bite into hot flesh gave the enemy pause.

A pause, one he exploited to dig deeper, leaving Silent in the wound and thrusting his own fist deep inside the creature’s stomach, fingers greedily searching for something soft, an organ to rip.

He found it, sweeping the lizard’s leg, his opponent falling to the wooden floor, a trail of intestines coming free in his hands.

Tossing the now useless organ aside, Leon met his enemy’s eyes. She’d dropped her weapon at some point.

“Why? Why attack us?”

All that water mana had taken a toll- the explosive liquid attacks left Leon’s skin shredded, blood pouring from every stretch of his exposed epidermis. Water had burrowed into his body, weakening his bones.

The pain came secondary.

The fight came first.

“Shut up. I’m not talking to a monster.”

Drawing Silent from the grisly sheath he’d left it in, Leon thought about sinking his scimitar into the creature.

A sudden movement stopped him, a male lizardman losing control of the child he’d been holding back, a stone knife in hand, emerging from the Lord’s home.

“Leave my mother alone!”

Impaling the brat on his sword took no effort at all.

The poor little fool ran right into his blade.

A rasping laugh came from his throat as he tossed the limp body aside.

Leon looked sidelong at the dying Swamp Lord.

“Seriously? This was meant to give me pause? Try harder next time.”

The look of indignant rage still lingered on the Lord’s progeny as he sliced its head off, contrasting nicely with the anguished fury on the Lord’s face when he claimed that neck seconds later.

“You have slain the Level Twenty-Five Swamp Lord!”

The surviving lizards vanished in the blink of an eye.

The corpses remained.

Sweeping them into his storage ring, Leon finished his little show with a wave to the audience, a wink and a smile for the Myriad Worlds.

“Like I said, mercy isn't for the likes of them.”

One day, Leon hoped a warrior would quote those words back at him.