Chapter 24: The Feint Within the Feint
The pulse from the Netherworld Gate was not an attack. It was an invitation. A clarion call of pure, undiluted demonic power, so potent it was a physical pressure against Leo's senses. It was a challenge, arrogant and undeniable, meant for him and him alone. It screamed, I am here. Come and try me.
The abduction of Mei had always been a secondary objective. A test. A way to gauge his response time, his capabilities, his weaknesses. The Void Weave and its Echo-Spore dagger were the real message: We know how you see. We can take it away. This new signal was the next step. They had thrown a pebble to see the ripples. Now, they were dropping a boulder.
To ignore it would be to cede the initiative. They would only escalate, and the next attack might not be something he could intercept. To answer it was to walk into a trap they had undoubtedly spent immense resources preparing.
The logical choice was clear. He turned his Perception toward the Verdant Sword Sect compound. He could feel Mei's Qi, a bright, determined flame amidst the older, steadier fires of the sect elders. General Kaelen's solar-flare energy was also there now, a response to his warning. The compound was on high alert. She was as safe as she could be.
The trap was a calculated risk. The potential intelligence gain from facing a demon powerful enough to issue such a challenge was significant. The EXP would be substantial. And, a colder part of him reasoned, it would draw their focus away from the city, away from Mei.
The decision was made.
He didn't take the main gates. He moved to the city's outer wall, a sheer face of magically reinforced stone fifty feet high. He placed a hand on it, his Perception reading the minute fissures and imperfections in the rock. Then, with a surge of his titanic Strength, he began to climb. His fingers found holds where none existed, digging into the stone like it was soft clay. He moved upward with the silent, relentless speed of a spider.
He crested the wall and dropped into the no-man's-land beyond without a sound. The pulse of demonic energy was stronger here, a sickening thrum that set his teeth on edge. It was a beacon, and he was a needle drawn to its north.
He broke into a run. It was not a human run. It was a low, ground-eating glide that covered dozens of feet with each stride. The [Phantom Step] was too expensive for sustained travel, but his raw Dexterity and Strength made him faster than any horse, any Qi-enhanced messenger. He was a shadow streaking across the blighted foothills, a patch of moving silence in a landscape of whispering corruption.
The land grew more twisted the closer he got to the Gate. The pulse led him to a place his maps called the "Shattered Cathedral"—a vast, natural amphitheater of jagged black rock, rumored to be the site of a great battle lost long ago.
As he entered the canyon, the demonic pulse ceased. The sudden silence was more ominous than the sound had been.
He stopped, his staff held ready. His Perception swept the area. The place was a kill zone. High walls, one entrance. Perfect for an ambush.
"Welcome, Reaper." The voice was a dry rasp, like stone grinding on stone. It came from everywhere and nowhere.
From the shadows of the canyon walls, figures emerged. Not a horde. Five. Each one radiated power that dwarfed the Void Weave.
There was a demon encased in volcanic rock, magma glowing in the fissures of its body—a 'Magma Brute', evolved beyond any he'd faced. Another was a swirling vortex of shadows and sharp edges—a 'Blade Tempest'. A third hung in the air, a pulsating, fleshy orb covered in a hundred weeping eyes—a 'Gibbering Watcher'. A fourth was a sleek, multi-limbed horror that skittered along the walls with impossible grace—a 'Canyon Stalker'.
And at the center stood the source of the pulse. This one was humanoid, clad in ornate, jagged armor of black metal and bone. It held a massive, serrated greatsword that smoked with condensed hatred. Its face was hidden by a horned helm, but twin points of crimson light burned within the darkness of the visor. A 'Dreadknight'. The commander of this elite kill-team.
"You answered the call," the Dreadknight rasped. "Good. The Viceroy wishes an audience. He prefers you broken, but will accept you in pieces."
This was the trap. Not a army. A perfectly balanced, specialist team designed to exploit every weakness they thought he had.
The Gibbering Watcher's hundred eyes glowed. A psychic assault, ten times stronger than the Ascetic's, slammed into Leo's mind. It was a battering ram of madness and pain.
[Tranquil Mind Algorithm at 100% capacity. Filtering...]
The assault crashed against the serene core of his consciousness. It held, but just barely. The psychic static returned, a screaming pressure at the edges of his perception. The Watcher was trying to blind him again, to overwhelm his defenses so the others could move in.
The Magma Brute charged, each step shaking the ground. The Blade Tempest flowed around it, a whirlwind of razors. The Canyon Stalker vanished into the shadows of the rocks, waiting for an opening.
Leo didn't wait for them to coordinate. He charged to meet the Brute. At the last second, he dropped into a slide, passing between its legs. As he did, his staff lashed out, not at the demon, but at the ground in front of it.
The indestructible staff, driven by over 800 Strength, struck a precise point on a specific rock. The rock shattered. The carefully balanced ledge it was part of collapsed. The Magma Brute, mid-charge, lost its footing and crashed down in a shower of stone and molten rock.
Leo was already moving. The Blade Tempest was on him. He didn't try to parry a hundred blades. He activated [Blind King's Dominion]. In the three-meter sphere around him, he didn't need to see. He felt the path of every blade. He moved with infinitesimal precision, slipping between the whirlwind of edges, his staff striking the core of the Tempest—a central, crystalline heart.
The Tempest shrieked as the heart cracked, its form destabilizing.
An arrow made of condensed shadow shot from the canyon wall—the Stalker. Leo sensed the air part a microsecond before it struck. He twisted, and the arrow meant for his heart grazed his arm. It didn't cut; it sapped. He felt a wave of cold exhaustion. A life-draining enchantment.
He gritted his teeth, his monstrous Vitality fighting off the effect. He was surrounded, outnumbered, and they were perfectly coordinated.
The Dreadknight finally moved. It didn't charge. It pointed its greatsword at Leo. A wave of pure negative energy, a cone of absolute despair and decay, shot forth. It wasn't aimed to kill; it was aimed to cripple, to slow, to make him vulnerable.
Leo tried to [Phantom Step] out of the path, but the Gibbering Watcher redoubled its psychic assault, disrupting his focus for a critical half-second. The edge of the decay wave caught him.
It was like being hit by a tide of liquid nitrogen. His right side went numb. His movements slowed. The system alerts flashed in his mind.
[Vitality Compromised! Motor function reduced by 15%!] [Tranquil Mind Algorithm Overload Imminent!]
This was it. This was the trap. They weren't just strong; they were a perfect counter-unit. They had studied him, and they had built a key for his lock.
The Dreadknight began its advance, its greatsword dragging a furrow in the stone. "The Void Weave's report was accurate. You are formidable. But you are predictable. You fight like a machine. And machines can be broken down into their component parts."
The words struck a chord deeper than any attack. Predictable. A machine.
He had been so focused on optimizing, on grinding, on becoming the perfect weapon, that he had indeed become predictable. He fought with maximum efficiency. And maximum efficiency, against an enemy that could calculate it, was a blueprint for defeat.
As the Dreadknight raised its sword for a finishing blow, and the other demons closed in, Leo had a moment of crystalline clarity.
He couldn't win this fight by being better at what he did.
He had to do something illogical.