How dare he lay his filthy hands upon Leo's daughter?
Leo's face remained calm. He shook his head gently.
"Crossbridge Academy? That won't be necessary, Lilith."
Lilith froze, the excitement draining from her face, replaced by confusion—and a trace of hurt.
"W…why?"
"Father, that's one of the finest magic academies in the kingdom! Lord Fabian said—"
"What he says does not matter."
Leo cut her off. His tone remained gentle, yet carried an undeniable firmness.
"Lilith, my little star, you deserve a better teacher. And I have already found one for you."
"A better teacher?"
Lilith's confusion deepened. Why had she never heard Father mention this before?
"But… Lord Fabian is a great mage from the capital…"
"A great mage from the capital?"
Leo gave a faint laugh. That laugh carried a kind of lazy arrogance Lilith had never seen in him before—like a dragon passing judgment on an ant beneath its claws.
"Before the teacher I have in mind for you, a so-called great mage of the capital is nothing but an insect."
He took his daughter's hand, his gaze indulgent and utterly confident.
"Do not worry, Lilith. Your teacher will show you what true magic really is."
Lilith stared at her father, stunned. Today, he seemed… different somehow.
She could not put her finger on it.
The same gentle expression as always, yet beneath his words lay a weight, a majesty, impossible to describe.
As though he wasn't speaking of some lofty expert or mighty mage at all, but merely commenting on an ordinary mortal.
Despite her doubts, her trust in her father was absolute. In the end, she nodded.
A spark of anticipation glowed in her blue eyes.
"Father… then let me at least speak with Lord Fabian. I already agreed to him."
"Good child." Leo smiled and patted her head.
"Don't worry about your teacher. Leave it to me. I'll invite your mentor here very soon."
After sending off his still-dazed daughter,
Leo's gentle expression turned to ice.
His awareness rose again—this time with clear purpose.
His mind unfurled like a primordial star-dragon, lazily stretching its infinite form.
Sanctuary Rank Peak perception spread outward in ways never before possible. It pierced the walls of the Oakwood Hall and, with thought faster than light, swept across the entire planet.
His "sight" passed over wide oceans, plunged into blazing desert depths, skimmed across volcanic ranges.
It brushed against the glittering capital, surveying the legendary mages who sat in their high towers, their auras burning like suns or plunging into abyssal depths.
It swept through the dark forbidden lands of the shadow clans—ancient beings stirred faintly, as if sensing a breeze in their slumber, yet unable to trace its source.
It glanced upon dragon lairs where colossal beasts slept, their golden scales faintly gleaming in the dark.
One forbidden land after another, secret places forgotten by history—all were laid bare beneath his effortless gaze.
Magic traps that could annihilate whole adventuring parties, treasures lost for centuries and sung of by bards, taboos shunned even by the gods' own churches…
Now, they were as pages of an open book before him.
For Leo, this planet held almost no secrets left.
Finally, his vast awareness slowly focused, turning toward the far west of the world—
Infinity Ocean.
In the taverns and guild halls of the continent, the name "Infinity Ocean" was always whispered with hushed warnings.
Legends claimed the sea was forever cloaked in undispersing fog.
Any who ventured deep would lose all sense of direction in minutes, as if an unseen hand had erased their awareness of space.
Sailors who returned bore eternal curses, shunned and feared by all.
In worldly rumor, Infinity Ocean was a forbidden zone of life itself, an invisible predator of greed, a byword for madness and death.
But before Leo, such tales were laughably pale.
His perception slipped easily beneath the surface, plunging downward.
Light was devoured swiftly. Darkness eternal.
Pressure climbed in exponential leaps, enough to crush steel into thin sheets.
He pressed deeper still, passing glowing jellyfish swarms, twisted leviathans, and ancient sea beasts slumbering beneath the ridges.
But as he sank further, Leo's all-seeing awareness felt—for the first time—an anomaly.
This ocean… was too deep!
Deeper than the physical limits of this planet should allow.
He probed farther than continental shelves, farther than mantle depth—and still, no bottom.
It was as if the sea were not part of this world's surface at all, but a gateway into some bottomless dimension.
"How interesting…"
A flicker of curiosity stirred in Leo's heart.
He focused, his Sanctuary Rank Peak perception sharpening like a probe, scanning the unfathomable abyss.
And finally, he found it.
It was not a seabed, but a wound—a massive rift cleaving the world, a trench of immeasurable width and unending length.
From it surged not mere pressure or cold, but a primal, violent, bloodthirsty madness.
Even to brush against it was to hear countless howls of hunger and destruction, billions of twisted souls screaming eternally in the deep.
And at the heart of that insanity, Leo perceived a faint yet unyielding green radiance.
A light fighting valiantly against the corruption.
It came from a figure—a woman clad in a robe woven of pale green leaves.
Her golden hair streamed like sunlight, her face breathtakingly beautiful yet tinged with weariness.
Around her flowed powerful runes of nature magic, forming a vast emerald shield pressed down upon the rift, sealing every shred of the horror beneath.
"An elf…?"
Leo's lips curved faintly.
The next instant, his body vanished from the Oakwood Hall without a sound.
…
Far west, Infinity Ocean.
Here was the forbidden zone of life, a realm where even light was swallowed.
At its heart hovered a vast, writhing rift, exuding a cold, greedy aura that annihilated all life.
The woman in green stood above it. From her palms streamed threads of verdant vitality, feeding a withered coral-tree deep below.
And then—
The space before her rippled, as though a still lake had been stirred by a breeze.
Elarielle's brows drew tight.
Her figure darted back like a startled nightingale, retreating a hundred meters.
In her hands, a great green bow of living wood coalesced, its string glowing with golden light sharp enough to rend dragon scales.
She drew it taut, aimed at the sudden figure before her.
"Who dares trespass here?!"