Leon could taste it.
The shift in power, the mass of energy flowing into Jin, strengthening him.
His now exposed face ran red, skin flushed under might beyond his capability.
For all his borrowed might, one fact rang true.
It wasn't enough.
Clenching and loosening his grip, Leon watched the flow of divinity gutter out, a cap sealing the power of a god within mortal flesh.
The barrier protecting Jin's comrades gave Leon a good view of the infighting already occurring, the martial artist threatening the spearman, her hands beating futilely against the ward keeping the tagalongs from interfering in Leon's duel.
Jin met Leon's eyes, Leon taking it as an invitation to goad.
"So who are they to you? Your precious battle buddies? You getting frisky with the one banging on the barrier? Jin you dog! You owe me one then. Could've killed her instead of the mage. Guess I'll kill her last- after I break your body when you're capable of nothing more than watching? I'll make sure you're looking in her eyes while I gouge them out."
The holy warrior's face remained emotionless.
He didn't move, didn't respond- so Leon kept pushing.
"Actually, wait. I'm supposed to be evil right? So you're the good guy, right? The hero, chosen by a god to purge all Earth's evils? Well, a hero needs a traumatic backstory right? Let me gift you one Jin."
Leon's use of his name focused Jin's rage on his next words, Leon's grinning visage and casual tone unfitting for the foul acts he promised.
"Won't kill her then. A fate worse than death, that'll work much better. Can't go wrong with the classics. What's her name?"
Jin opened his mouth, only for Leon to cut him off.
"Doesn't matter. I got a name in mind. Casca. You recognise it Jin? Hell, who knows- she might enjoy getting Casca'd. How's that for evil? Feeling motivated yet?"
He wouldn't have done it.
But his words got the effect Leon wanted.
Jin's swift realisation of exactly what Leon had threatened to do broke the stalemate.
With a roar, the Chosen Of Krona charged.
Halberd and blade collided, the reverberating ring merely the first note in a song of battle.
Of brotherhood lost.
For all his fury, Jin couldn't crack Leon's defensive bladework.
The swordsman had fought alone whereas the holy warrior had fought with his friends.
Leon had polished his skills in life and death combat from the first day, mastering his own body's energy flow to keep himself standing where lesser men would have given in to the pain.
Against a foe of equal power, Leon could not be beaten.
Jin stood far from equal.
His strikes were wild, the sort of combat employed against beasts.
Leon hardly broke a sweat, batting aside Jin's furious assault with causal ease, taking hits on his armour when dodging or parrying proved untenable.
Watching Jin's face spasm with fury disappointed Leon.
He had guesses at Jin's motivations.
Through the exchange of blows, Leon slipped through barbed words.
"We met six years ago. You hate sushi, but you eat it anyway. When we were eighteen we cut our palms over an open fire and clasped hands. Brothers, bound in blood. More like bloodshed now. I'm no illusion Jin. No demon wearing your friend's face."
Jin's weapon wavered, slamming into tarmac instead of steel.
A broken man looked at Leon and spoke, the dominant tone, the snark all bled out of him.
"Why?"
Hands still ready to respond to the slightest movement, Leon deigned to answer.
"You swung first. I swung back. That's all it comes down to. I can't let anyone think I won't punish aggression, not even you Jin. We're done here. Go. Get stronger, then come take revenge for this humiliation. I'll accept your challenge anytime."
"What happened to you, Leon? Your spirit- it screams for blood. How could you become so evil?"
The pity on Jin's face stirred Leon's rage.
"Nothing happened. This is who I am; who I've always been."
Unsheathing his blade to punctuate his statement, Leon continued.
"A swordsman. A killer. Just a man seeking the fight that will either kill me or take my swordsmanship to higher heights. Anyone who gets in the way gets put down. Call me evil, if that makes you feel better."
Slamming Wavecutter back into its sheath, Leon smiled, a smile with too many teeth that failed to reach his eyes.
"You're not worth killing. Not yet. You can still get stronger. But, if you don't leave I'll have to cut you down Jin. So go."
Jin's face hardened as he retreated to his compatriots, the group vanishing in a blast of green light.
A single tear rolled down Leon's blood-soaked face.
He allowed himself that tear.
Just the one, then Leon pulled himself together.
On his dream to stand at the pinnacle, Leon swore- that the god who had corrupted Jin would die by his blade.
The cracked road and pools of blood stood as the only physical remnants of Leon's battle against his friend.
The mental toll would stay with the onlookers, with the children who'd watched a man behead another in broad daylight.
Leon had hoped to team up with Jin, for them to be two against the world, as it had been in the days before the madness began.
That hope seemed childish in retrospect.
They'd both changed after the Proving Grounds, been changed by their experiences.
He hoped Jin had believed the lie- that Leon had truly morphed into a creature of capricious cruelty.
The truth would have been far more damning- that he'd killed a man in anger and felt regret only that he'd been seen doing so.
His back remained hunched as blood dried on his skin, hardening into dark red lines.
War paint, painted in war.
An omen of things to come.
The bloody metallic taste in his mouth snapped Leon into action.
His surviving family had heard, hell maybe seen some carefully curated montage of what he'd done.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The difference between seeing it on television and seeing it on your street would hammer it home for Liz, make her realise he'd been right.
Leon couldn't stay near them.
His mere presence endangered them, as Jin's sudden attack had proven.
The pain of his broken bones spurred him onward, down the street and out of his family's life.
In his heart, he knew it to be cowardice.
The revelations- years having passed in what had only been a month for Leon, the existence of a niece and nephew and the absence of his parents had Leon sufficiently whelmed.
Jin's appearance and unwarranted antagonism overwhelmed him.
So Leon ran a plan of action forming as he did so.
The battle, the blood-stained fields of the dying and the dead were where he belonged and he knew someone capable of pointing him to a fight.
The last cooked chicken from his storage ring vanished down his throat as Leon kept walking, footsteps taking him back to his parent's house.
The remainder of the soldiery milled around, still loading up their vehicles after their failed attempt on his life.
He watched as two men took a smoke break, crouched in the bushes he listened for actionable intel.
"Hey. You heard?"
"Heard what?"
"Ramirez is on toilet duty for a month- only allowed to clean 'em using his toothbrush."
"That'll teach him to take shots at the guy who coulda killed us all."
Both men took long drags before speaking again, suffering through smoke and tar in exchange for the buzz of nicotine.
"Figures the top-ranked guy would blow us off like that."
"Lighten up, Commander claims we nabbed a few recruits among the lower ranks. Few willing, few blackmailed and a few with persuasive family. Should help the brass clean up the undesirable elements."
"So- what's your take on him?"
"What? The guy who shrugged off .45 ACP to the inside of his throat? My take is we need to be long gone when he comes back. Command tells us to fight him again, I figure it'd be easier just shooting ourselves man, less painful."
"Commander's right over there, why don't you go tell him that plan? Guarantee you'll wind up on toilet scrubbing duty alongside Ramirez."
The soldier received no reply from his comrade, dropping his cigarette in slack-jawed surprise as he turned to witness Leon's hand closed around the man's throat.
Leon watched the grunt's eyes go wide with fear as he spoke.
"Get me the guy with the megaphone."
Ten minutes later Leon found himself being served coffee in a hastily erected gazebo, armed guards blocking the entrance, Leon's blood-encrusted boots dirtying the plastic table he'd kicked his feet onto.
A projector whirled on the table in front of him, Megaphone- whose name Leon refused to commit to memory or spend any time acknowledging- had been making calls, though that seemed to be wrapping up from the way he slammed his phone down on the table.
Leon sipped at his coffee. He would have preferred water but the caffeine buzz would keep him sharp.
Megaphone's hawk eyes locked on Leon, bald head glistening with sweat as he spoke.
"Mr Knox. Mind telling me why you're here? You were... emphatic, in your refusal to work with us"
Raising a finger, Leon continued sipping exaggeratedly for longer than could be considered polite, sighing in contentment as he drained the last of his brew.
"Information."
The projector's image splayed across the cloth walls of the gazebo, an assortment of military officers now visible to Leon, the laptop's camera showing him in all his macabre magnificence.
Leon spoke first, ignoring their looks of disdain.
"Vermin and mongrels, it's your pleasure to have me at your service today. I'm sure Megaphone already informed you of how your attempt to deal with me went. No hard feelings, promise. Someone else made a go at me, as you can no doubt tell. I give it high odds one of the civilians filmed how that went, feel free to hunt down the footage on your own time. Spoilers- I taught them a lesson and only one man lost his head. That's a win in my book."
Leon let that fester for a moment, let them digest it before delivering the second half of his pitch.
"Despite my distaste for all institutions of power that aren't me or subordinate to me, I'm willing to do you all a solid. Supply me with everything you have on a god named Krona and the man serving as her chosen. In exchange- a life. I'll kill anyone you want. I'd advise you pick someone like me, someone worth my time to kill."
He'd left the blood mask untouched, his presence amplified by the casual display of savagery.
Aggravatingly, the military commanders ordered the audio muted on Leon's side, meaning he had to watch their argument proceed in silence.
Humour gave way to boredom, so Leon began prodding at Megaphone.
"Hey. They tell you anything about what's happening tomorrow?"
Megaphone looked torn between wanting Leon dead and pleading for mercy, before choosing to answer with the same polite cordiality that he always employed.
"It's need to know Mr Knox. I rank high, but not that high."
"Wanna know? I got a pretty good idea of what's heading our way. Hell, I'll tell you for free."
Hesitation, followed by a nod from the man.
"We're prime real estate. Last estimate I heard we had around ninety factions parked outside our home. Ranging from [H] up to [F], they're gonna be looking to enslave humanity and conquer our world. Some of them at least, the rest just want the resources. I got a few names too- ones on my hit list. Hedonic Path, Shepherds of the Flock and The Four Elements Cult. The path and the cult are just power-hungry- the shepherds though, they care about ruling us. They're also slavers, so y'know. There's that."
Tossing his mug, Leon placed both elbows on the table, the plastic cracking under the weight of his armour.
"Things are gonna get bad Megaphone. Dark. There's no U.N, no court of law we can take these invaders to. No accountability to anything except your own conscience. Human rights go right out the window the second a ten-foot-tall mantis man decides human meat is on the menu. You got family, a wife, maybe a daughter?"
A shaky nod from the military man, his eyes boring into Leon's watching for any sign of deceit.
"I'm gonna give you one guess what happens to them when an alien shows up and you're too weak to protect them. It rhymes with grape. Which, coincidentally, is what they'll do to your head. They'll pop it, with all the effort it takes you or I to crush a grape, then take their prize on your cooling corpse. Our ancestors lived like hunter-gatherers, taking what they could from a frightening and inhospitable world they did not understand. Half a day. Half a day until we're back to square one, with armies of invaders killing us for the crime of existing. Hunting and gathering and quivering in fear at the world beyond our campfire"
At some point Megaphone had unmuted Leon's microphone, the full attention of the meeting on Leon's growing rant.
"That'll be you and yours and every other maggot too weak to do what must be done. But not me! Never me. While you cry and scrape and beg for every scrap of mercy they deign to grant, I'll be out there, in the dark of night fighting and bleeding and fucking winning against monstrosities and evils that dwarf me in their capacity for cruelty. Every right you insects take for granted, the right to live, to be free is one no longer guaranteed. Unless you fight. That's what I do. I do it for me. I do it because I like it, I've grown to enjoy the bloodshed, the death, the look in a creature's eyes when you cut through their heart or their neck, the way the lights go out for the last time. Now give me what I asked for and then give me a name."
A woman's voice came through the laptop speaker, clipped and professional though tinged with disgust.
"Krona. A being claiming to be a goddess of justice, healing and sacrifice. Holds her devoted to high moral standards. A key player in Earth's tutorial, we suspect she seeded her faithful among the guides. Those influenced by her devoted killed any engaging in perceived wrongdoing. Participant Jin Amano caught the god's eye by leading his full contingent through the first five days, accepting an offer to become her Chosen- a Class rumoured to have no level cap at the cost of expunging all previous progress he'd made. Five of Jin's companions died in the final battle against the Volcanic Monarch, his party did not engage with the Trials and while their levels are high, their gear is shoddy. Of his cohort, only Amano poses a credible threat."
She paused, before continuing, allowing Leon to digest the information.
"We would like you to kill a woman calling herself the Gore Drinker. Our loyal operatives have already incapacitated her- scheduled arrival is in five minutes. Thank you for your co-operation, Mr Knox. The Federation will remember your service."
Leon looked, singling out the speaker's face among the many displayed to him.
"Why?"
Confusion with disdain barely concealed beneath.
"We believe her name speaks for itself, Mr. Knox. She turns bodies into sludge. Then drinks them."
Nodding Leon kicked his feet off the table.
"Good enough. See ya around, assuming any of you live through the week."
Megaphone stood at Leon's side, hand hovering over his firearm as they awaited the arrival of the prisoner.
"So Earth's bigger now right?"
The question caught Megaphone off guard, though he concealed it well.
"That's what command says. The barrier the aliens put up stops us from going up to check and our satellites have been wonky ever since- eggheads say everything's changed."
"How's gravity work then- y'know since the planet's bigger? Actually, day and night can't be twenty-four hours anymore either can they?"
"Magic, Mr Knox. That's to both. Don't know how it works, don't really care anymore."
Leon took a good look at Megaphone- for all the authority at his command, he looked young.
"I hear that. After a while, you stop noticing all the magical bullshit. Must have been tough growing up during all this."
Megaphone pawed his uniform pockets producing a cigarette packet.
With stable hands, he offered one to Leon, who refused having never enjoyed the head rush of nicotine.
Lighting up, Megaphone answered Leon's unasked question.
"Anarchy. Chaos. Bad years, bad years for everyone. Land masses getting bigger knocked out internet, water and electricity- hell the roads got torn up. Everyone fought for themselves. I beat a man bloody over a mouldy loaf of bread on my eleventh birthday. Federation rolled in after a couple years but the planet's gotten too big for one government to effectively rule. Whole continents that didn't exist twenty years ago, filled with who knows what."
Leon allowed the man to trail off into silence as the helicopter came into view, still a black speck on the horizon.
"If it's any reassurance Megaphone? I probably won't remember needing to kill you. Second the barrier drops you should abandon your post with every man that'll follow you, start hunting monsters and delving into dungeons. Chase power because it's all that separates you from a grave. You also might want to stand back while I do this- gore tends to splatter."
Megaphone crumpled the cigarette beneath his boot and with one final look left Leon to his business.
They kicked his target out of the helicopter, her arms and legs lashed with chains.
The blades of the vehicle muted her frenzied screaming, though soon she noticed Leon and as the chopper retreated the Swordfiend heard the threats of the Gore Drinker.
"Yeah keep looking pretty boy, I'm going to drink your liver and suckle on your heart!"
A wild ragged woman with chipped teeth and blood-soaked rags, Leon ignored her futile threats and appraised her with his bloodline.
Another weakling.
All will to fight went out of Leon as he approached.
She watched, thrashing growing ever more manic as he approached, hands on his blade.
The blow struck and her life ended.
Wiping his sword on the corpse's soiled garments, Leon sheathed his blade, the sun creeping down towards the horizon behind him.
Soon he would get the fight he deserved.