[Last Episode: [He stepped into the center of the ground, settled into stillness, and the first, quiet test of the entire month began.]
Chapter 137, Episode 137
『Next day』
[The Heart Star — The Arena]
[The stands were packed by midmorning, tighter than Leo had seen them even during the tournament — word had clearly spread overnight, the specific electric buzz of a crowd that smelled something significant coming]
[King Julian stood at the raised platform overlooking the sunken ring, Kira and Maya flanking him, and raised both hands for silence]
King Julian: People of the Heart Star! Yesterday, a stranger claiming to be level fourteen erased twenty billion soldiers and four seasoned commanders without so much as drawing his blade properly. Today, we settle the matter of what he truly is.
[The crowd roared.]
King Julian: He will face all eight of my Generals. At once. If he wins—he proves himself worthy of whatever claim he's making. If he loses—
[His eyes flicked toward Leo, standing calmly near the ring's edge.]
King Julian: —he will be executed, here, for the crime of deceiving this crown.
[The crowd's roar sharpened into something hungrier.]
[Kira leaned toward her father, a thin, satisfied smile on her face, and spoke just loud enough for those nearby to hear]
Kira: He won't last thirty seconds without his sword.
[She'd tucked Shatter Nebula away somewhere in her own chambers the night before, confident, certain, operating on the assumption that whatever terrifying thing Leo had done to the army and the four commanders had come from the blade rather than the man holding it.]
Kira: A Level fourteen and unarmed against eight Generals who've never lost a single match between them. This should be quick.
[Maya, beside her, wasn't smiling at all.]
Maya: Father, this isn't fair. He saved this entire kingdom yesterday.
King Julian: And today he proves it wasn't a trick, or he pays for the deception. That's more than fair, Maya. That's mercy.
[Maya looked toward Leo, worry plain across her face, and he caught her eye from across the arena floor — offered her the smallest, calmest smile, the specific reassurance of someone who genuinely wasn't concerned about anything happening today.]
[Leo, internally]
Leo: She's worried. That's sweet. Also unnecessary.
[The eight Generals descended into the ring, spreading into a loose formation around him — Storm and Fenris flanking left, Michael and Morris right, Guinn and Doherty behind, Violet and Emily holding the rear]
Fenris: This is either the bravest or the stupidest thing I've ever watched a person do.
Leo: Probably somewhere in between.
Michael: You erased an army and four commanders yesterday. We've had all night to think about that, and we've decided we don't believe it was really you.
Leo: That's fair. I wouldn't believe me either.
Guinn: So today, we find out the truth the honest way.
[Leo rolled his shoulders, entirely relaxed, hands still loose at his sides.]
Leo: Go easy on me?
Storm: Not a chance.
Leo: Worth asking.
[The crowd's cheering swelled into a single, unified roar as the referee raised a flag and dropped it]
[Michael struck first — a lance of pure light aimed to end things quickly, and Leo simply wasn't where it landed, stepping aside with the same unhurried, casual motion he'd used all through yesterday's tournament]
Michael: He's fast.
Fenris: Then let's see how fast.
Fenris — Time Compression.
[He folded the space around Leo, trying to slow him relative to the rest of the ring, and Leo felt the attempt land, felt the specific pull of temporal manipulation trying to take hold — and simply walked through it, unbothered, the compression sliding off him like water off stone]
Fenris: That's not possible. Nobody shrugs off Time Compression.
Leo: Sorry.
[He didn't sound sorry. He sounded, if anything, mildly apologetic in the way you'd apologize for accidentally stepping on someone's foot.]
[Morris's void magic surged next, a swallowing field meant to erase whatever it touched — and Leo let it reach him, let it wrap fully around his arm, and simply flexed his hand until the void unraveled on its own, unable to find purchase on whatever it was trying to erase]
Morris: He's immune to Void Erasure???
Doherty: Try elemental, then. All of it, together.
[She unleashed fire, ice, lightning, stone, and wind simultaneously, a full elemental barrage meant to overwhelm through sheer variety, and Leo simply moved between the gaps, weaving through five separate elements with the loose, easy grace of someone dodging raindrops rather than lethal magic.]
[The crowd's cheering had started to falter, replaced by a confused, uncertain murmur]
『 Spectator: He hasn't attacked once.
Another: He's just... dodging 』
[Leo caught Guinn's incoming chaos bolt on two fingers, letting it dissipate harmlessly against his palm, and offered the eight of them an easy, patient look.
]
Leo: You're all very strong. Genuinely. I mean that.
Storm: Then why haven't you hit any of us.
Leo: Because if I actually hit any of you the way I want to, there wouldn't be an arena left standing afterward. Or a kingdom, probably.
[Violet, straining her Divination against him for the third time and getting nothing back, narrowed her eyes.
]
Violet: That's an excuse or are you trying to make a mockery of us?
Leo: It's really not.
[He caught Emily's star-charged strike on his forearm, absorbing the impact without flinching, and gently redirected it into the ground instead — a small crater forming where the energy dispersed, considerably less destructive than what would have happened if he'd let it hit him directly and answered in kind.]
Emily: You redirected that. You didn't block it. You redirected it, cleanly, like it was nothing.
Leo: It kind of was.
[He moved, finally, with something closer to intent — not fast in the way that would have registered as a blur, just fast enough, and tapped Storm on the shoulder with two fingers the same way he'd handled the General back at the tournament yesterday]
[Storm skidded back several meters, caught himself, and stared at Leo with genuine, dawning alarm]
Storm: That barely touched me and I felt it in my bones.
Leo: I'm holding back a lot.
Fenris: What.... how
Leo: You really don't want to know.
[He caught Michael's next strike on his palm, held it there for a moment — the light straining, pressing, entirely unable to push past the simple, unbothered pressure of Leo's hand — and let it dissipate on its own.]
Michael: That's my strongest attack. My actual strongest. And you just held it in your hand like it was warm sunlight.
Leo: It kind of was.
[The crowd had gone almost entirely quiet now, the earlier hunger for a quick execution replaced by something closer to unease.]
[Kira's composure, up on the platform, had started to crack]
Kira: This isn't— he's supposed to be losing—
[King Julian, watching with narrowed eyes]
King Julian: He hasn't struck a single one of them properly. He's toying with us.
[He said it slowly, the earlier mischievous certainty draining out of his expression, replaced by something wary.]
[Fenris drew back, gathering everything he had, time magic wrapping thick and dense around his blade]
Fenris: Enough dodging.
Fenris — Absolute Chronal Strike.
[The strike came fast, folding three separate moments into one to guarantee the hit — and Leo simply caught the blade between two fingers, the same casual, effortless catch he'd used on everything else, and held it there]
Fenris: What the heck??
[He pulled. Nothing happened. The blade didn't move an inch.]
Leo: That was a good technique. Genuinely well built.
Fenris: Let go of my sword.
Leo: Sure.
[He released it, and Fenris stumbled back from the sudden absence of resistance.]
[Guinn, Morris, Doherty, Violet, and Emily all converged at once, a full, coordinated assault meant to overwhelm through sheer combined force — chaos and void and elemental fury and divination-guided precision and star-charged light, all of it arriving simultaneously]
[Leo raised one hand]
Leo: Intrestinf combination of attack
[The combined assault met an invisible, unassuming barrier and simply dispersed in an instant]
[The eight Generals stood in the wreckage of their own combined effort, breathing hard, staring at Leo, who hadn't moved from where he was standing]
Leo: I could keep doing this all day. Genuinely. I'm not tired, I'm not straining, and none of you have come close to landing anything.
[Michael, quietly, almost to himself]
Micheal: He's not even using magic against us. He's just... existing near our attacks, and they stop working.
[Up on the platform, Kira had gone from confused to furious, her earlier smugness collapsing entirely]
Kira: TRY HARDER!
[Her voice cracked across the arena, sharp and desperate, and the crowd's murmuring cut off entirely, every eye turning toward her.]
Kira: All eight of you! Together! Use everything, don't hold anything back — he's just a boy, level fourteen, he cannot possibly be doing this on purpose—
[King Julian, genuinely startled by his own daughter's outburst]
King Julian: Kira—
Kira: He stole this from us somehow, he must have, there's no other explanation—
[Maya, standing quietly beside her sister, finally spoke, voice small but steady.]
Maya: Sister!. Look at him. He's not even breathing hard.
[Kira rounded on her, but there was nothing to say to that, because it was true, and everyone in the arena — the crowd, the eight Generals standing in their own scattered wreckage, King Julian himself — could see it plainly.]
[Leo, down in the ring, glanced up toward the platform, caught Kira's furious glare, and offered her the same calm, unbothered smile he'd been wearing the entire fight.]
Leo: You want them to try harder?
[He looked back at the eight Generals, all of them tense, all of them clearly recalculating everything they'd believed about this fight in real time.]
Leo: Alright. Let's speed this up a little. Still not going to hurt any of you, for the record.
[He rolled his shoulders, and for the first time since the fight began, actually took one real step forward.]
[Leo stepped forward, and the ring itself seemed to notice it — a faint tremor passing through the stone beneath everyone's feet, the specific quality of pressure building before it's released]
Storm: He's doing something.
Fenris: Get ready.
Leo — Void-Walkers Aura.
[Faint, translucent shapes gathered around him —, just present, a quiet ring of spirits drawn from the space between universes settling into a loose formation at his sides]
Guinn: What are those.
Leo: Insurance. In case any of you get creative.
Guinn: Are those things in between the universe itself??... what kind of devastating power do you possess
[He moved.]
Leo — Restrained Reality Bend.
[Leo was soo fast that all eight Generals felt the specific, sinking realization that they hadn't actually seen him start moving before he'd already crossed half the ring]
[He tapped Morris on the chest. Once]
[Morris skidded back thirty feet, void magic flickering and dying around him mid-cast, the specific unraveling of something that had simply been told, quietly and absolutely, that it wasn't going to work here]
Morris: That wasn't a physical strike.
Leo: No.
Morris: It felt like my own magic turned against itself.
Leo: Close enough.
[Doherty tried next, cycling through five elements in rapid succession, layering fire into ice into lightning into stone into wind faster than any of the previous exchanges — and Leo caught each transition mid-shift, letting the elemental energy pass through his open palm and simply dissipate, one after another, without any visible cost to himself at all]
Doherty: You're not blocking these. You're absorbing them.
Leo: A little of both.
[Violet strained her Divination again, harder this time, trying to read even a fragment of what he was about to do next.]
Violet: I still can't— there's nothing to read. It's like trying to divine the outcome of something that's already decided before it starts.
Leo: That's because it kind of is.
[Kira, up on the platform, watched the exchange with mounting horror]
Kira: This isn't— he's not even using a form. He said 'this isn't even my full strength' and he's still—
[King Julian's expression had gone entirely grim, his earlier confidence replaced by the specific, focused calm of a man who had fought long enough to recognize when a situation had shifted past what conversation could fix]
King Julian: I'm joining.
Maya: Father—
King Julian: Eight of my strongest cannot land a single blow. If this is truly what he is, then either I help end this properly, or we lose everything trying to pretend otherwise.
[He drew the Night Sword.]
[The aura that rolled off the blade the instant it left its sheath swept across the entire arena — the paralyzing dread Matthew had described days earlier, thick and absolute, dropping half the crowd into stunned, frozen silence]
[King Julian descended into the ring himself, joining his eight Generals, and the full weight of the kingdom's combined strength turned, finally, entirely toward Leo]
King Julian: You've toyed with my Generals long enough... play time is over kid
Leo: I have been pretty patient.
King Julian: Then let's see what happens when patience isn't the only thing on the table.
King Julian — Night Sword. Full Draw
[He came in fast — faster than any of the eight Generals combined, the sword's amplification pushing his speed and instinct into something genuinely, legitimately dangerous, every swing tearing visible seams through the air as it passed]
[Leo caught the blade between two fingers again, the same casual catch he'd used on Fenris earlier.
It didn't hold]
[Leo smirked]
Leo: Impressive, not only is it good at amplification, it's also good at instincts and able to speed up the speed of the sword... I must say I am genuinely impressed
[The Night Sword's edge — the blade capable of negating any magic, of guaranteeing a lethal strike against anything in existence — pressed forward against Leo's grip with genuine, tangible resistance, the first weapon all day that hadn't simply stopped the instant it made contact]
King Julian: That's better.
Leo: Good sword.
King Julian: Family legacy.
[Leo released it, stepping back half a pace, and something in his posture shifted — not tense exactly, but properly, genuinely engaged for the first time since the fight began.]
Leo: Alright. That one actually deserves a real answer... let me show you what am capable of...
Leo — Constellation Chain: Bindings of the Zodiac.
[Twelve glowing chains descended from the arena's open sky, each one carrying the weight of an entire constellation behind it, and wrapped around King Julian mid-swing — just absolutely, pinning him in place with a force that made the ground beneath him crack under the sheer accumulated pressure]
King Julian: —what—, those aren't normal constellations....
[He strained against it, the Night Sword's amplification pushing everything he had into breaking free, and the chains held without so much as flexing.]
King Julian: This is— I cannot move at all—
Leo: Just for a second. I'm not trying to hurt you.
[He released the chains almost as quickly as he'd summoned them, and King Julian staggered, catching himself, staring at Leo with something that had gone entirely past anger and settled into raw, unfiltered shock.]
[Fenris, Michael, and Guinn moved together while King Julian recovered, a coordinated triple strike meant to catch Leo in the brief opening — and Leo simply stepped between all three attacks at once, his Cosmic Awareness reading the full pattern before any of them had finished committing, and answered with something gentler than what any of them had thrown]
Leo: Nice try...
Leo — Heartbeat of the Galaxy.
[A rapid series of light beams, synchronized to a rhythm none of them could track, caught all three Generals in quick succession — enough to send each of them sprawling, breath knocked clean out of their lungs]
[Michael, from the ground, staring up at the sky]
Micheal: That was— restrained?
Leo: Very restrained.
Guinn: What does unrestrained look like.
Leo: You really don't want to find out. Neither do I, honestly. I like this arena.
[Storm and Emily tried a flanking approach, wind and starlight converging from opposite sides — and Leo caught both attacks in either hand simultaneously, holding them there, letting the crowd see, plainly, that neither attack was doing anything to him at all]
Storm: He's holding two attacks at once. With his bare hands.
Emily: And not even straining.
[Leo let both dissipate, and looked around at the nine of them — eight Generals and their king, all bruised, all breathing hard, none of them having landed a single meaningful hit.]
Leo: I want to be clear. I like all of you. I don't want this to be the thing that ends today.
Fenris: Then what do you want.
Leo: For everyone to understand that I really am telling the truth about my level being irrelevant. Not fourteen. Not any number your system actually tracks.
[Violet, still trying and failing to read anything from him, finally spoke, voice quiet with dawning realization.]
Violet: You're not lying about the level number. You're lying about what the number means.
Leo: There it is.
[Doherty, Morris, and the remaining Generals regrouped near King Julian, all of them staring at Leo with the specific, shared understanding of people who had just watched every assumption about their own strength collapse at once]
King Julian: Nine of us. Every ability we have between us. And you haven't used a fraction of what you actually possess.
Leo: No.
King Julian: Why.??
Leo: Because I don't want to level your kingdom by accident. I like it here. I like the food. I like your daughters, honestly, even the complicated one.
[He glanced up toward the platform, where Kira stood frozen, and Maya beside her, both watching with completely different expressions]
Kira: Hehe....
Leo: I came here to enjoy myself, not to prove a point. You made me prove a point anyway.
[King Julian was quiet for a long moment, the Night Sword lowering slightly at his side]
King Julian: What are you.
Leo: Leo. Still. That part was never a lie.
[He looked around at the nine of them one more time — bruised, exhausted, thoroughly, completely outmatched — and let a small, genuine smile settle onto his face.]
Leo: Are we done here? Or does someone want to try again?
[Nobody moved.]
[Fenris, finally, quietly]
Fenris: We're done.
To be continued...