Kairo's mud clone suddenly froze, its clay eyes widening as a violent tremor rippled through its dense structure. "Oh... my goodness."
Leonhart turned his head sharply, his hand resting on the hilt of his heavy blade. "What's wrong, Kairo? What's happening to the grid?"
"Uhh... my central mana reserves," Kairo rasped, his voice cutting through the stone link with a sickening friction. "They are dropping rapidly. The baseline nerf from this world's system is aggressively suppressing my core output now. Leonhart... I have to leave the frontline parameters entirely to you. Go back upstairs and handle things on your own. I will stay down here and make sure I systematically rescue every single one of these prisoners. I need you to buy me the necessary time."
Leonhart didn't even wait for the clone to finish its sentence. His adrenaline was already hitting a terminal, suffocating peak. The crimson silk of his royal robes whipped wildly against his boots as he turned on his heel and sprinted back toward the upper surface layout.
ROAR!
A savage, guttural battle cry tore out of Leonhart's throat as he burst back into the open courtyard of the Grand Drama Hall. The scene before him was an absolute wall of steel. Thousands of remaining low-tier royal soldiers, desperate court nobles, and bloodblinded civilians were holding heavy halberds, broadswords, and spiked clubs—all of them locking their manic, bloodshot eyes directly onto him.
But instead of backing down, Leonhart roared right back, charging headfirst into the endless wave entirely alone.
Down in the shifting subterranean bunker, Kairo leaned heavily against the central terminal screen, his chest heaving as he watched the tactical feed. A cold, analytical question crossed his mind: Why? Why is he completely unafraid of death? What is the core variable driving his psychology?
Up on the blood-soaked steps, the crowd of low-tier soldiers let out mocking, arrogant laughs as the lone twelve-year-old kid sprinted toward them. "Look at this little noble rat! What is a single low-tier child supposed to do against an entire military line?!"
Leonhart's golden eyes flared with a blinding, absolute conviction.
"I fear absolutely no one but God!" Leonhart screamed, his voice echoing off the marble pillars like a thunderclap. "And God sent me here to personally tear your entire network apart and save the innocent! Now prepare to die at the hands of the slave of God!"
DING.
Deep within the moving underground bunker, a crisp, gold-rimmed interface window flashed directly in front of Kairo's pale face.
[CRITICAL SYSTEM UPDATE: LINEAGE ANOMALY DETECTED]
Target Unit 'Leonhart' has achieved peak emotional and biological synchronization. Hidden Variable Unlocked: Angel Affinity has successfully awakened.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]: Enjoy the show.
Kairo's eyes instantly locked onto the glowing monitor screens, his breath catching in his throat.
On the surface, Leonhart clashed with the vanguard line.
CRUNCH.
With a terrifying burst of raw, unmitigated physical power, Leonhart swung his heavy blade in a vertical arc, cleanly splitting the first charging armored soldier completely in half from head to groin.
Three more royal guards lunged from his blind spots—one striking from the left, one from the right, and an elite vanguard leaping down from a stone balcony above. But supercharged by the residual emerald mana Kairo had gifted him, combined with a sudden surge of pure, primal testosterone, Leonhart's reflexes hit an impossible metric.
He didn't just parry; he countered every single vector simultaneously. He spun on his heel, using his raw, monstrous strength to literally rip a guard's helmeted head clean off his shoulders with his bare hand. He violently pivoted, his blade shearing through the legs of the right-hand attacker before bringing his sword down in a manic, repeating frenzy—slashing the same soldier's chest plate over and over again until the steel buckled into a bloody slurry.
ROAR!!!
Leonhart threw his head back, letting out a monstrous, beast-like roar that shook the very foundations of the Drama Hall.
The surrounding crowd violently froze. The mocking laughter instantly vanished, replaced by an icy, paralyzing terror. The civilians and lesser knights began stumbling backward over their own dead, their faces turning completely pale.
"This... this might be the real one," a soldier stammered, dropping his spear in absolute panic. "He's way too powerful! He's not a clone! Run!"
Leonhart roared again, the sound echoing like a apex predator in an open field. The remaining low-tier line completely broke, turning on their heels and frantically sprinting away from the crimson-robed monster.
Suddenly, a heavy, suffocating pressure dropped over the courtyard.
Leonhart stopped his pursuit, his golden eyes narrowing as his combat instincts flared. "So... we finally have a strong General stepping into the grid, huh?"
SWIF.
An elite Royal General, utilizing a high-tier Assassin's Step skill, completely vanished from the upper balcony and remanifested directly in Leonhart's blind spot. His dagger flashed like lightning, aiming a lethal, horizontal slash straight at Leonhart's exposed windpipe.
But Leonhart's awakened parameters fired instantly. He ducked his head back at the absolute last microsecond, the blade grazing the air millimeters from his throat.
The General instantly transitioned into a brutal, heavy counter-punch aimed directly at Leonhart's jaw. Leonhart snapped his forearm up, the impact of the block throwing a shockwave through the dirt. Without missing a beat, the General drove his secondary blade forward, aiming a lethal feint directly toward Leonhart's liver—before suddenly rerouting the trajectory mid-swing straight back toward his skull.
Leonhart anticipated the shift. He dipped his shoulder beneath the arc, his massive, conditioned hands shooting out to firmly grab the heavy, armored General by the leg.
With a roaring burst of pure, unbridled kinetic force, Leonhart lifted the massive, fully-armored man completely into the air and slammed him violently down into the solid cobblestones.
BOOM.
The stone cracked. Before the General could even process the impact, Leonhart grabbed the same leg again, lifting his massive frame and slamming him down into the ground a second time.
Without a shred of hesitation, Leonhart brought his blade down, cleanly severing the very leg he was holding. He dropped his sword, mounting the pinned General's chest, and began driving his fists down into the man's iron visor.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
He punched him over and over again, the raw mechanical force of his fists shattering the steel helmet, driving the metal plates straight into the General's skull. He didn't stop until the man's teeth were violently flying out onto the dirt and his entire facial structure was rendered completely flat and unrecognizable.
Leonhart slowly stood up, covered from head to toe in the crimson essence of the empire's elite vanguard. He grabbed his broadsword from the dirt, his golden eyes burning like twin suns as he glared at the remaining palace shadows.
"WHO'S NEXT?!"
Ten elite royal guards materialized from the shifting dust of the courtyard, their flawless, synchronized formations locking Leonhart into a perfect tactical circle. Their black steel armor bore the heavy gold crest of the inner palace.
"Finally," the lead vanguard whispered, his voice cold and echoing through his iron visor. "We've located the original asset. Secure the kill."
Down in the subterranean bunker, the primary terminal monitors flashed a critical red warning. Kairo slammed his fists against the stone console, screaming into the communication array as a violent spasm wracked his chest. "Oh, noooo! Leonhart, I have absolutely zero mana left in my active reservoir to reinforce your position! Survive! You can do this!"
Kairo collapsed to his knees, coughing up another thick stream of dark blood onto the stone floorboards. "Uhh... I shouldn't have been this reckless with the deployment variables..."
On the surface, the ten elite guards looked down at the twelve-year-old warrior as if they had already won the macro-game. But Leonhart didn't give them the satisfaction of fear. As the first three vanguard units lunged forward with high-speed spear thrusts, Leonhart moved with absolute, fluid mastery—skillfully parrying every single incoming vector, his heavy broadsword sparking violently against their black steel.
Inside the moving bunker, Kairo stared at the real-time combat feed in complete, paralyzed shock.
"Wait a second..." Kairo muttered, wiping the blood from his lip. "I didn't know his baseline metrics were this insanely strong. Is this a residual side effect of him surviving the extreme atmospheric pressure of the Forbidden Land? If so... then why didn't I get completely overpowered from the transition? Wait, I was overpowered until the system structured my profile. System... will I get a massive combat power-up in the future?"
A sleek, translucent blue system window materialized right in front of his face.
[SYSTEM RESPONSE]: Only if you work hard. No overpowered, narrative-breaking magic will be granted to your profile. You will only receive utilities and magic structures specifically engineered to help you survive.
Kairo let out a heavy, irritated sigh, slumping against the terminal. "Aww, that's not fair... I want to be cool and execute high-tier martial arts like Leonhart."
The system interface shifted fluidly, displaying a pixelated, mocking troll-face graphic right in the center of the text line.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]: Sorry. The master architecture prefers this clever, clown version of you.
"You've got to be kidding me," Kairo muttered, his eye twitching with sheer irritation.
Meanwhile, the battle on the marble steps reached a fever pitch.
Leonhart ducked beneath a heavy horizontal halberd swing, parrying two simultaneous dagger strikes from his left flank. But the sheer numerical advantage of the elite guard finally found a gap. From the thick shadows behind him, a massive vanguard soldier aggressively lunged forward, wrapping his heavy, armored arms around Leonhart's chest in a tight, suffocating bearhug.
"I have him pinned!" the guard roared. "Take his head!"
But before the remaining guards could drive their blades into the boy, the soldier holding Leonhart suddenly gasped. His grip violently loosened, his knees buckling as he looked down at his own midsection in absolute disbelief. "What... when did that dagger pierce cleanly through my lower armor matrix?"
Leonhart had anticipated the grapple. The moment the arms had wrapped around him, he had already reversed his grip on a concealed trench dagger, driving it backward through the weak joint of the guard's iron hip plates.
Leonhart fluidly ripped the heavy dagger from the dying man's flesh, spinning around just as two more elite guards activated an advanced Assassin Skill. A thick, chemically altered smoke screen instantly erupted across the stone steps, completely blinding the physical field of view.
"Do not break formation!" the lead guard shouted through the haze. "We are trained professionals who have already mastered our spatial senses and sound tracking! He cannot escape our blind spots!"
But Leonhart didn't try to escape. Moving purely on raw instinct and the heightened awareness of his awakened Angel Affinity, he lunged straight through the grey mist. He grabbed the largest elite soldier by the collar of his chest plate, pivoted his weight with a devastating surge of pure testosterone, and executed a flawless, high-velocity Suplex.
CRACK.
The guard's helmeted head slammed violently into the solid cobblestones, shattering his spine instantly.
As Leonhart stood up, he noticed a standard-issue tactical smoke grenade hooked to the fallen soldier's utility belt. Without half a second of hesitation, he pulled the pin and hurled it directly into the remaining cluster of guards.
"The smoke is thickening!" a vanguard yelled, swinging his blade wildly. "Hold your ground until it clears!"
The wind swept across the marble plaza, and the dense, grey haze finally faded away. The remaining guards froze in absolute, paralyzed shock.
The circle was completely empty. Leonhart was gone.
"Where... where did the target go?!"
SWIFT.
Before the words could fully leave the soldier's throat, a shadow dropped down from the high marble balustrade directly above them. Leonhart materialized behind the rearmost guard with a silent, fluid motion, his blade cutting cleanly through the exposed leather wrapping of the man's throat before he could even turn his head.
The remaining soldiers whipped around in panic, but they were already too late. Leonhart was moving like a ghost through their blind spots. With precise, lethal efficiency, his broadsword found every single structural weak point in their armor—severing arterial lines beneath the armpits, crushing windpipes, and driving steel into spinal columns.
Within a matter of seconds, the chaotic sounds of clashing steel completely vanished.
Ten of the empire's absolute highest-tier elite soldiers lay completely lifeless in the dirt, all of them systematically dismantled by a single, twelve-year-old boy named Leonhart.