Leon stared in shock and horror at the Gorgon, his eyes locked with hers, gold and dark sea green. She had slit pupils like a reptile, which made a degree of sense given her serpentine lower half, and as her mouth opened in what seemed like surprise, Leon could see a pair of long sharp fangs that rather uncannily resembled the fangs of a vampire, though hers were quite a bit longer.

And then, her demeanor suddenly changed like a switch had been flipped. Any surprise on her face vanished as a predatory gleam entered her eyes. She smiled, baring none of her teeth, and her voice rang in their minds like a lightly resonant bell.

[What have we here…? Three young things have wandered into my domain…]

Her voice was soft and soothing, a voice more suited to a lover in an intimate situation than a deadly monster at the edge of the world. For Leon, it only served to highlight the stark dissonance between her human and serpentine halves.

The Gorgon paused as she stared at the three of them, seeming to revel in the shock that her appearance caused, which gave Leon enough time to compose himself and to examine his companions.

Valeria, despite being the weakest of the three, seemed to be doing the best of them, at least mentally speaking. As a fifth-tier mage, she had little idea just how powerful the Gorgon was.

Maia, on the other hand, stared at her twisted kin with nothing short of terror, her aura chaotic, her legs shaking as she took a couple of steps back.

Speaking into her mind, Leon said in a tone as comforting as he could manage, [I’m still here with you, no matter what.]

Maia froze for a moment, then seemed to straighten up. The terror written all across her face swiftly vanished, replaced a second later with steely determination and the silent threat of violence if anything should happen.

And then the Gorgon’s voice whispered into their minds again. [Who are you, and why have you come here?] As she spoke, she slowly began to slither toward them as if the surface of the lake were solid ground.

Leon’s heart began to race as he noticed that she didn’t seem at all perturbed by Maia’s presence—at least, she didn’t seem to fear Maia’s power. Leon did notice, though, that the Gorgon seemed far more interested in Maia than she did in either him or Valeria, which he thought was a small mercy given the obvious differences in power between them. Still, he was hardly comforted, but he figured that it would probably be best for all of them if whatever this situation was could be solved without violence. He was a far cry from recovered from the fight with the ice wraiths and fighting a Gorgon who was at least of the eighth-tier was high on his list of things he did not want to do right now.

He stepped forward and put himself between the Gorgon and Maia and said, “This is your territory? We apologize if we’re trespassing, we’ll leave if our presence offends…”

The Gorgon’s eyes found his once more, and his pulse quickened in response. For all his seventh-tier strength, he felt like a minnow trying to stare down a shark before those eyes.

[An introduction would’ve served you better,] the Gorgon said, finally reaching dry land and lazily continuing to slither toward them. [Is that not what you humans do when they first meet? Tell each other their names?]

“My name is Leon, if that matters. While it’s true that humans exchange names when meeting, I don’t expect to learn yours.”

[Of course you don’t, you look like you’d know all about my kind,] the Gorgon replied, her tone coming quite close to sarcasm. [I can smell you from here, you and that Naiad reek of each other.]

The Gorgon finally paused not too far away from them, but more than close enough for all three to feel the pressure of her presence, to feel threatened by her proximity. If they were going to run, Leon knew, their chances of surviving such a decision was on the cusp of guaranteed failure, if they hadn’t blown past that point already.

Leon was about to respond, but Maia approached and laid a hand on his shoulder, silencing him immediately. She nodded to him and he stepped back while she stepped forward. Leon also noticed that Valeria had come closer as well, looking more than a little nervous given how Leon and Maia were acting.

A moment later, the Gorgon made a look at Maia that had Leon thinking she spoke into Maia’s mind and didn’t include him or Valeria.

Fortunately for him, Maia cut him in on her end.

[Yes, he’s my mate,] she said, a protective glare entering her eyes as she faced down the Gorgon.

The monster then stared at Leon again, an almost hungry look in her eyes. A second later, Leon felt Maia’s aura spike in intensity and killing intent began to radiate from her without restraint. Even Leon found himself growing a bit weak in the knees under it, while Valeria beside him was barely able to remain on her feet.

[He’s my mate,] Maia repeated as droplets of water coalesced around her body in a clear display of intention. If the Gorgon made any moves against Leon, then Maia would stop it.

Leon, of course, had no desire to just watch that happen, so he started to channel his own power and righted himself. He’d move to help his lover in her battle, he just hoped that Maia was powerful enough to not need it that badly.

Turning his attention inward, he asked Xaphan, [Demon… can you tell how strong that one is?]

He felt Xaphan’s attention come back to him, then a pulse of his magic senses leave his soul realm, all while the Gorgon seemed to be speaking with Maia. A moment later, Xaphan responded.

[She’s a powerful eighth-tier being. If I had to guess, your fish girl is the weaker of the two.]

Leon clenched his jaw, unsurprised and not reassured.

[Thanks,] he said as he refocused back on what was happening. It seemed to him that the Gorgon was being quite long-winded with Maia, since his river nymph lover didn’t seem to be responding, but her aura didn’t diminish in the slightest, indicating that at the very least, no accord had been reached. Based on how much the Gorgon was staring at him, too, he figured that he was the subject of at least some of what she was saying. He also felt a few threads of killing intent, giving him the impression that unlike what happened between him and Maia when they met, this Gorgon probably wasn’t going to restrain herself if she wanted to take something from him.

Finally, Maia spoke again—or, at least, let him in on her side of the conversation.

[I’ve heard about you from my mother,] she said to the Gorgon, eliciting a look of surprise, the first reaction that cut through the Gorgon’s attitude since their exchange began. [I am a Naiad born of the Empress of Saron. He is mine and I am his; I will not allow you to take his blood, no matter what you say.]

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The Gorgon grimaced at the mention of Maia’s mother, or who Leon assumed was her mother, and her aura seemed to dim. Her reptilian eyes swept over Leon and Valeria once more, lingering for a moment on Leon.

In that moment, Leon knew exactly what was going to happen. He saw it in the Gorgon’s eyes. He didn’t wait for the killing intent to hit him, he just acted, drawing his sword and calling upon what few scraps of power he could command.

He moved not a moment too soon, for an instant later, a stony fist burst through the ground and slammed into him. With his power coursing through his veins, Leon was able to take the hit well enough, and a second later he let loose with a blast of lightning out through his legs, shattering the stone fist to the sound of deafening thunder.

Valeria, who had been next to him, drew her weapon, too, and prepared to face off against the Gorgon. Maia, however, moved first, summoning another of her serpentine water dragons in less than a second and letting it charge the Gorgon. Then, before the first hit the creature, she conjured another from the lake behind the Gorgon and had it charge, too.

The Gorgon derisively smirked and built a pair of stone walls to cover herself, the stone snapping into place just as the water dragons were about to crash into her. Instead, they hit the walls with tremendous force and immediately lost cohesion, collapsing back into formless water. The walls then slid back into the earth to reveal the Gorgon still standing there, her lips turned up in an expression of dismissive mirth as if bragging that the attacks had been so weak that she no longer needed the walls to protect herself.

A moment later, four hands made of stone erupted from the ground at Maia’s feet and wrapped their fingers around her calves, anchoring her in place. Or at least, they would’ve, if Maia hadn’t immediately melted her legs down into water and slid out of their grasp, reforming her legs a couple of feet away.

However, Leon’s thrill at seeing his lover instantly escape was dampened when bright red magic-rich mana began to spill from small lacerations in her legs. These cuts seemed barely flesh wounds, but he’d never seen Maia injured even that much, before.

His face turning into a deep scowl, Leon channeled his magic power into his weapon, letting it fill with all the silver-blue lightning he could summon. At the same time, Valeria began to summon floating icicles and hurling them at the Gorgon—to little effect, unfortunately, as they shattered upon hitting the monster and left no visible wounds—while Maia summoned a third water dragon and sent it charging at her foe.

The Gorgon smiled, seeming utterly unfazed at the power being brought down upon her. A wall of stone spikes burst from the earth and skewered the water dragon, tearing it apart and sending the water washing into the lake. Valeria’s ice was barely a nuisance, so they were largely ignored even as they hit the Gorgon’s body and shattered.

Leon’s lightning, on the other hand, drew her attention. He felt her gaze turn from Maia to him like a ton of bricks, her killing intent almost disrupting his attack before he managed to get it off. However, he barely managed to hang on and prevent his power from uselessly crackling out of his sword.

He just kept charging, letting the blade start to glow silver again as it absorbed his lightning. It wasn’t going to be much, definitely not a match for the last attack he threw at the ice wraiths, but he wasn’t just going to stand there and let his exhausted comrades fight without him.

Fortunately for him, Maia waved her arm and brought into being several more water creatures, having seen her dragons being torn to pieces. A stag, a lion, a tiger, and a bear all appeared before her and charged in separate directions toward the Gorgon, demanding her attention and keeping her from disrupting Leon again.

The stag and the bear charged headlong at the monster, but the Gorgon sneered at the water beasts and their straight-forward attacks. Before the stag could lower its head and bring its antlers to bear, a stony arm exploded out of the earth beneath it with such force that the conjured creature was turned into a cloud of water droplets. The bear fared little better as a stone claw ripped into its flank faster than it could react, causing it to collapse back into a wave of water.

The lion and tiger, however, had gone around the Gorgon on both sides in a flanking maneuver, sacrificing the other two to try and get closer to the monster. The tiger moved quicker, leaping at the Gorgon with its claws and jaws outstretched. With almost dismissive ease, the Gorgon used the tiger’s charge to obliterate it, conjuring a stone spike in its path and letting it impale itself upon it.

The lion, in turn, slowed almost to a halt as the tiger collapsed into formless water. The Gorgon didn’t even look at it, treating it as if it were nothing she needed to worry about.

A moment later, Maia unleashed a wave of water out of her body, her eyes wide with anger, frustration, and fear. She didn’t create any creatures to act with a degree of autonomy, she just let loose with all of her power, letting a frightening torrent of water burst from her like a broken dam and rush down toward her foe.

The Gorgon finally chose this moment to move. Her smile grew wider as she charged to meet the wave head-on. Maia’s water hit her with all the force of a fifty-foot tidal wave, more than enough to crush several companies of Bull Kingdom soldiers.

But instead of being crushed, the Gorgon simply melted away into the water. Maia reeled back, her surprise so strong that Leon almost balked at what he could sense through their connection.

A moment later, the Gorgon reformed on the other side of the wave, her serpentine lower half pushing her out back onto the ground where she slithered with horrifying speed right at Maia, her arm outstretched and aiming for the river nymph’s throat.

Maia wasn’t going to be able to respond in time, that much Leon could see plain as day. She had been thrown too off-kilter by the Gorgon slipping right through her water despite Maia’s power saturating it, and Valeria’s continued attacks were so ineffective against the monster that she was being practically ignored.

This was it. There would be no more charging his power. He had to use what he had, even though Leon doubted that it would be enough. By this point, his blade was glowing brightly with silver-blue lightning, and he hoped with everything that he had that it would be enough.

Leon swung the blade, roaring with exertion as he stabbed forward, aiming straight for the Gorgon’s heart.

A blinding bolt of lightning was discharged from the weapon, bathing the surroundings in silver light tinged with blue. It was accompanied by a clap of thunder so loud that the nearby trees flexed and leaves were torn from their branches as the shockwave hit them.

This powerful bolt seemed to hit the Gorgon as soon as it left Leon’s sword, exploding upon her body and turning her into what looked like a vaguely person-shaped pillar of silver-blue lightning.

Leon’s vision went dark for a second or two as he barely managed to keep himself standing after that attack. He estimated it would’ve been strong enough to vaporize the Earthshaker Paladin in one hit under the right conditions despite his relative lack of magic reserves when the fight began, and he hoped that it would do significant enough damage to the Gorgon that Maia would be able to finish the job.

When he refocused and saw the situation, his heart sank. The Gorgon had been stopped in her tracks, but apart from a few light burns across her hands, she seemed otherwise none the worse for wear. In her hands she held a long black rod that continued to crackle and pop with silver-blue lightning, flashing with arcs of lightning as if it were holding a charge. The Gorgon, though, held it as if it were a mundane thing, completely separate from Leon’s power.

[Run!!!] Xaphan suddenly shouted in Leon’s mind. [You can’t beat this creature, even if you called upon my power! There’s no point in staying here to be killed!]

Leon agreed wholeheartedly that they weren’t going to do much against this creature and that it was better to retreat now, while they were still relatively uninjured, but he wasn’t going to just take off and leave Maia or Valeria, both of whom seemed a little stunned by the light and thunder of Leon’s lightning bolt. The only fortunate thing, in fact, that Leon could see was that the Gorgon wasn’t moving to take advantage of the situation. She seemed far more interested in the lightning that danced across the black rod than with Leon or the other two for the moment.

Leon stumbled over to Valeria to see how the silver-haired woman was doing after his flashy attack. She seemed fine, and when Leon lightly rested a hand on her shoulder, she jerked up and seemed to recover. A moment later, Leon was at Maia’s side, desperately crying into her mind, [Maia! Can you hear me?!]

[Yes…] Maia moaned as she righted herself. [I don’t think we can win this…]

[I don’t think we can, either,] Leon admitted. For Valeria’s sake, he said out loud, “Time to run. We can’t stay here and die. We have to run.”

Maia didn’t argue, and Valeria was completely on board with that plan. However, the Gorgon simply sneered and said, [None of you are going to be leaving quite so easily…]

“GO!!” Leon shouted, and all three of them turned tail and ran into the forest, leaving their tents and the camping equipment they’d already prepared behind without hesitation. The only saving grace that Leon could think of was that the Gorgon seemed to primarily be an earth mage, despite her retention of the ability to transform into water, which he knew would slow her down.

He hoped it would be enough for them, in their own weakness, to escape.