The creature was already across the arena, desperately working to purge itself.
This is the only chance I’m going to get.
He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t pause to assess his own state more carefully or pull the severed arm from his chest.
Leon scread—not from pain, but to force every last drop of focus into what ca next—and lunged forward across the arena.
"FREEZE!!!"
Not shouted. Not whispered. Sothing in between—a word spoken with complete, absolute conviction through a bloody mouth, infused through his Leximancy with every fractional asure of his spatial racial trait pushed beyond anything he’d attempted before.
The effect was imdiate.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as several blood vessels in his head burst simultaneously from the exertion. Tears of blood welled at the corners of his eyes. His mind went partially numb—a sensation like static consuming the edges of his thoughts—and he bit down hard on his already-bleeding lip, drawing fresh blood in a mouth already tasting of copper, using the sharp physical sensation to keep himself anchored and focused.
The creature froze mid-flight.
Not ice. Not physical restraint. Sothing deeper—a spatial lock or sothing even more primal, a force of the universe that arrested its movent at the fundantal level, holding it suspended with an expression of absolute horror frozen across its pale features.
Leon’s bloody hand gripped his blade.
Holy energy surged into the weapon—not carefully, not controlled—it flooded in like a burst dam, more than he could properly direct, the overflow spilling from between his fingers as raw luminescent force. The sword responded with a deep, sustained buzzing that sohow carried a quality that felt almost like enthusiasm, the runic symbols along its length brightening from their previous faint glow to sothing noticeably more visible.
The sword’s shape beca almost unrecognizable.
Too much energy for the blade to contain cleanly—it blazed like an elongated torch, fiercely radiant, throwing off waves of heat and light that had nothing to do with fire. Where his right hand gripped the hilt, fragnts of muscle fiber had torn free from the sustained strain of channeling such volu through one limb, and at places along his forearm, bone was briefly visible through split skin before the healing force closed it again almost imdiately.
The creature, suspended and helpless, watched him approach with eyes that communicated pure, undiluted terror.
Its healing had stopped entirely. Its flowing energy was arrested. Even its thoughts had slowed to a crawl—it could perceive what was happening in a fragnted, disconnected way but had completely lost the capacity to respond.
Leon arrived in front of it in a single step.
The monster’s taphorical heart sank.
Leon raised the blazing sword above his head and brought it down.
In the heat of the mont—without planning it, without consciously deciding to—he used Sky Breaker. Not the way he’d used it before. Before, it had always operated purely through mana. This ti, with holy energy flooding the blade alongside mana in a way he’d never attempted, the technique felt different—not quite the familiar form, but carrying a faint, recognizable echo of it.
Sothing to explore later. Right now, it was simply the technique his hands rembered when his mind couldn’t think clearly enough to choose.
The blade descended slowly—not from lack of speed, but because the force involved was so absolute that for both Leon and the creature, sothing in their respective perceptions stretched the mont.
The cut traveled from the top of the creature’s skull downward.
Everything the blade touched ca apart—cleanly at first, then as the holy energy worked alongside the spatial cutting force, the separated material began to sizzle and break down at a level beyond simple physical severance. Brain, bone, the dense muscles of its torso, the organs within—everything was bisected and sizzling as the blade completed its full path.
For a normal observer with ordinary senses, the entire strike would have appeared instantaneous.
Then the mont ended.
The system chid in Leon’s mind—a clean, singular tone—and the tower’s notification floated into view.
Leon exhaled.
Then vomited a mouthful of blood.
His sword tip dropped to the arena floor, the blade’s blazing energy fading as his grip loosened slightly, and he kept himself upright through sheer stubbornness—one hand resting atop the severed limb still embedded in his chest, his body bloody from more sources than he could currently inventory, trembling with a subtle but real vibration he hadn’t shown during the actual fight.
The wounds on his body began closing—but slower than before. Much slower than the rapid second-by-second healing he’d demonstrated throughout the battle.
A couple of minutes, probably. Maybe a bit more.
He glanced down at his state.
Covered in blood, bone briefly visible in two places on his right arm before the flesh crept back over it, a severed limb sticking out of his chest like the universe’s most inappropriate decoration, trembling slightly, healing at a pace that would take minutes rather than seconds.
If anyone ever heard the details of this fight and was told his recovery ti from it was "a couple of minutes," they would probably need a mont to process what category of being they were dealing with.
Unkillable roach didn’t quite cover it. Sothing more like: an unkillable roach that sohow enrolled in cultivation and beca a problem for people several ranks above it.
He’d have to work on the description later.
While the healing proceeded at its slower pace, Leon wasn’t idle.
He directed his remaining holy energy toward systematically eliminating every trace of the creature—muscle fragnts, shards of bone, the blood scattered across the arena floor. Not burning in the conventional sense, but sothing he’d discovered during the battle itself: at sufficiently high concentration, holy energy could induce a kind of molecular dissolution—breaking matter down at levels below what simple combustion could achieve.
It required focused application and wasn’t cheap in terms of consumption, but he could manage small amounts without excessive strain.
He worked thodically until not a single trace remained.
In this battle alone, he’d burned through approximately one-tenth of his total accumulated holy energy reserve.
Given that the reserve represented years of continuous accumulation amplified by ti dilation, one tenth was not a trivial amount.
Worth every drop.
The system notification pulsed for his attention.
[Calculating Trial Assessnt...]
[...]
[Floor 1 Trial Rating: EX Rank]
Leon paused.
EX Rank? I’ve never heard of that rating before. Not in anything I’ve ever encountered.
He stared at the notification for a mont, processing.
Then the next line appeared below it.
[Calculating Reward...]
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