The Leprechaun did not move for several seconds.
The battlefield remained frozen around him, the air thick with the scent of blood and broken earth.
Cain’s body still stood upright a short distance away, headless, crimson spilling down the front of his chest before soaking into the cracked ground.
The severed head had already struck the earth and rolled onto its side, pale face turned toward the dark sky.
The tentacles had stopped.
Completely.
The silence pressed in.
The Leprechaun slowly straightened, wiping a thin line of blood from his knife with the edge of his sleeve. His smile faded into a faint frown.
"That’s... it?" he murmured under his breath.
He tilted his head, studying the corpse carefully.
"How co that was too weak?"
His eyes narrowed, bright green irises glowing faintly as he scanned the body again.
"Don’t tell you were magically strong for real and only your attacks were impressive," he muttered. "That would be disappointing."
He walked a few steps closer to the headless corpse, boots crunching over shattered bone fragnts and monster remains. The ground was littered with pieces of beasts Cain had destroyed monts ago.
The Leprechaun crouched slightly, examining the blood flowing from the neck.
"Hmm."
He leaned closer, eyes sharp.
"That cut was clean. Too clean," he said softly. "If you were truly powerful, your body should have reacted."
He looked over his shoulder at the heaps of monsters Cain had slaughtered earlier.
"That’s pretty disappointing," he muttered, almost irritated. "All that show, and you fall that easily?"
He stood upright again, lips tightening.
For a brief mont, doubt flickered across his face.
Then—
A cold wave brushed against his back.
Not wind.
Not mana in the air.
A presence.
His smile disappeared entirely.
His eyes widened slightly.
He felt it clearly.
Sothing stood behind him.
Close.
Too close.
Slowly, carefully, he turned his head.
There, just a few steps away, stood a tall vampire figure.
Pale skin.
Long dark hair.
Crimson eyes glowing faintly.
And a smile.
Not wide.
Not mocking.
Just calm.
Steady.
Watching him.
The Leprechaun’s heart thumped once in his chest.
He had not sensed this approach.
He had not felt any movent.
For soone like him, that was wrong.
He spun fully around—
But there was nothing there.
Empty air.
The broken forest.
No one.
"Huh?" he whispered. "Disappeared?"
His brows furrowed.
He turned back toward the corpse.
A strange sound filled the air.
High pitched.
Distant.
Like bats crying in the dark.
The Leprechaun’s eyes flicked upward instinctively.
Then he looked back at the body.
It was gone.
The headless corpse.
The severed head.
Both gone.
The ground where they had lain was empty.
"What’s going on?" he said quietly, tension creeping into his voice for the first ti.
The ground beneath his feet trembled.
Without warning, crimson shapes burst upward from the earth.
Tentacles.
More than before.
Longer.
Sharper.
They shot toward him like spears.
His body blurred instantly as he vanished from his position, reappearing several ters away on a jagged stone.
"Yes," he breathed, grin returning slowly. "I knew you wouldn’t die like that."
Another wave of tentacles erupted from beneath him, forcing him to leap again.
But this ti, there were twice as many.
They ca from every direction.
Above.
Below.
Behind.
The forest floor cracked open as crimson blades burst forth in rows.
The air whistled with their speed.
He blinked repeatedly, his body flickering from place to place, narrowly evading impalent each ti.
The attacks did not slow.
They did not hesitate.
They grew faster.
More precise.
More relentless.
The Leprechaun’s grin widened, though a bead of sweat slid down his temple.
"Now this feels better," he laughed, dodging sideways as five tentacles struck the space he had just occupied. "You had worried for a second."
A tentacle curved midair, chasing him instead of striking straight.
He twisted mid flip, barely avoiding its tip.
Another intercepted his landing spot.
He vanished before it pierced through.
The ground was no longer solid.
It had beco a field of living crimson spears, rising and falling in waves.
The Leprechaun threw a small vial onto the ground.
It exploded into thick gray smoke, swallowing the area in seconds.
He grinned within the cloud.
"Let’s see you track now."
He reduced his presence, dampening his mana signature while moving silently through the smoke.
But the tentacles did not slow.
They did not hesitate.
They pierced through the smoke with unerring accuracy, slashing exactly where he moved.
One grazed his coat, tearing fabric.
Another sliced a lock of his hair.
His eyes widened slightly.
"They’re not relying on sight," he whispered.
He blinked out of the smoke, landing atop a cracked tree trunk.
The tentacles followed imdiately, shredding the trunk to splinters.
Another series of endless attacks began.
They no longer ca in waves.
They overlapped.
Continuous.
One would thrust forward while another swept low, while a third curled from behind, while a fourth dropped from above like a falling blade.
He phased through several, turning ghostlike as before, but the sheer number forced him to maintain constant motion.
He laughed louder.
"Yes, yes! That’s it!"
His body flickered repeatedly, ghost and solid alternating as he navigated through the crimson storm.
The attacks adjusted.
When he phased, tentacles stabbed through anyway, waiting for the mont he beca solid again.
When he blinked, others were already aid at where he would reappear.
"Interesting," he muttered, eyes shining. "Very interesting."
He twisted midair, narrowly avoiding three blades converging at once.
"Your control isn’t coming from one place," he realized aloud.
He landed briefly on a stone pillar, breathing lightly.
"So many directions. So many angles."
The tentacles rose higher, forming a spinning do around him.
He disappeared again, reappearing outside the do before it could close.
He laughed, but there was sharpness in it now.
"You’re not one body, are you?"
He closed his eyes briefly while still moving, trusting instinct to avoid imdiate strikes.
Tentacles scraped past his coat.
He extended his mana outward in pulses, splashing it across the battlefield like waves of green light.
Each pulse spread wider.
Farther.
He continued evading while sending those pulses out again and again.
"I’ll find you," he murmured. "Where are you hiding?"
He focused harder.
The tentacles did not feel unified.
They felt... scattered.
Controlled from different nodes.
Different cores.
His mana brushed against faint signatures buried beneath the ground.
One here.
Another there.
Small but real.
His grin widened slowly.
"Ah."
He ducked under a horizontal slash and phased through an upward thrust.
"Multiple anchors."
He increased the intensity of his mana pulses, flooding the battlefield while continuing to dodge.
One by one, he began identifying the sources.
A faint ripple beneath a broken rock.
Another beneath a mound of corpses.
Another hidden inside a hollow tree trunk.
"Clever," he admitted softly, eyes still closed. "Very clever."
The tentacles grew more frantic, striking faster as if sensing his discovery.
But he was already tracing the threads backward.
Following the flow of blood mana.
Toward the true origin.
Finally—
He opened his eyes.
A sharp gleam flashed within them.
He turned his head slightly toward a seemingly empty patch of cracked earth behind a fallen tree.
His grin returned, slow and wide.
"Found you again!"
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