*Content Warning: This chapter contains mature themes, violence, blood, and morally dark actions. Reader discretion advised.*
Leon stared up at the distant thrones where emperors and empresses watched him like hunters eyeing a wounded beast. His breath came out ragged, white in the cold air.
"I hate to admit it," he muttered, "but that damn old emperor was right. After fighting that god, I'm exhausted."
Yet something about that battle nagged at him. The God of Lightning's final blows had not been as heavy as they should have been. Every strike crashed like thunder, but beneath the fury Leon had sensed restraint—chains on a storm.
*He was holding back,* Leon thought. *He couldn't use his full power. Why?*
There was no time to unravel it now. Master was nowhere in this world. For the moment, Leon had only himself—and the echo of divinity still humming inside his battered body.
"At least he didn't use any healing ability," Leon whispered. "If he had, I could've copied it… Damn god. Did he know something like this would happen?"
Still, the battle had not been pointless. His muscles remembered the god's movements, the cadence of each swing, the timing between flashes of lightning. With the Limitless Mimic Physique, he could imitate fragments—enough to defend, enough to kill.
Above, Emperor Zephyrion Starbon's voice rang out like a verdict. "You all heard it. That demon's disciple is exhausted. We end him here."
Another emperor rose—Kaelen Stromspire of the Eternal Zenith Empire. "If we are agreed," he said coldly, "then heed our command. Kill that disciple of the damned demon."
The fear that had filled the eyes of swordmasters and assassins began to melt away, replaced by greed and bloodlust. Faced with a wounded god‑slayer, they convinced themselves he was no more than a crippled beast.
King Solarian Duskfell chuckled darkly from his seat. "I kept silent to hear how these old foxes think," he murmured to his advisors. "But if my soldiers are the first to cut that brat down, all glory will belong to my kingdom."
On the scarred plain below, banners snapped in the wind as thousands of cultivators prepared to move.
Leon tilted his head back, gaze sweeping over the watching rulers. "You're all being ridiculous," he called out, voice hoarse but steady. "Fine. Come at me. Don't think you can take me down just because I'm a little exhausted. Bring it on."
The gathered emperors bristled.
"What are you waiting for?" Zephyrion roared. "Take him down!"
The world moved.
Every swordmaster, assassin, and sect leader surged forward. Killing intent turned the air into a suffocating swamp. Techniques lit the battlefield—sword auras, shadow steps, waves of fire and ice.
Leon swallowed. "Ah, damn it… Just how many are there? A hundred thousand? No… at least three hundred thousand. How the hell am I supposed to win against that?"
They fell upon him like a tide.
***
The first blade came from above, a swordmaster descending with a falling‑star slash aimed at Leon's skull.
Leon's eyes sharpened. His feet shifted in the exact pattern the God of Lightning had used to weave through thunder. His body swayed left, then right—moving half a heartbeat before the strike completed.
Steel carved an afterimage where his neck had been.
Leon's hand flashed up, fingers curling like a lightning claw he had once barely survived. He seized the swordmaster's wrist and twisted. Bone cracked. With the same motion, Leon drove the man into the ground and stomped on his throat.
As the swordmaster's body hit the ground, Leon tore the man's blade from his limp fingers and tightened his grip around the blood‑slick hilt.
"First," he breathed.
Twenty more replaced him.
Aura arrows sliced toward him. Leon raised his arm, mimicking the god's lazy backhand that had once shattered his ribs. Invisible force gathered along his forearm; the arrows splintered against an unseen wall, fragments whirling away in a storm.
A spear thrust from his blind spot. Leon twisted, letting the tip graze his ribs instead of pierce his heart. Blood blossomed across his side. In return he stepped in close, borrowing the god's lightning‑step footwork, and drove his fist into the spearman's chest.
Thunder whispered through his knuckles.
The man's chest imploded.
More came.
Blades brushed Leon's shoulders, thighs, back. Each near‑miss left a new cut. He fought like a flicker of stolen lightning—never as bright as the original god, but still far beyond what mortals expected.
"Is this it, God‑slayer?" a swordmaster sneered as their weapons clashed. "You look more like a half‑dead dog."
Leon parried with the same angle he had once used to survive a divine spear, the force rebounding into his opponent's arm. "Keep barking," he hissed, shoving forward. "Let's see which dog dies first."
He cut the man down with his own blade.
Assassins flickered in and out of shadows, chains and daggers seeking his throat. Leon answered them with imperfect copies of divine speed, leaving phantom afterimages that took hits in his place. Each dodge cost him blood, breath, and what little strength he had left.
Mocking laughter followed him across the battlefield.
"Look at him! He's staggering already."
"God‑slayer? He's just a lucky coward who stole a victory."
"Bleed for us, boy! Every drop of your blood is a step toward our glory!"
Leon gritted his teeth and kept moving. He stepped into sword arcs at the last moment, letting them slice skin instead of sever limbs. He turned their momentum against them, using the god's grappling patterns to break necks and shatter joints.
For every wound he received, ten men fell.
Time blurred into a red haze.
At some point, the corpses formed mounds. Blood mixed with the scorched earth, turning the ground into black mud that sucked at his boots. Severed limbs and shattered weapons lay scattered like abandoned offerings.
Leon's arms felt like stone. His lungs burned. The divinity he had mimicked was fading, the echoes growing dimmer with each desperate use.
Another swordmaster lunged at him, beard matted with sweat. "Fall already, brat!" he shouted, sword whistling. "You can't swing that borrowed power forever!"
Leon met the strike head‑on.
Their blades crossed. The shock tore open half‑healed wounds along Leon's side, sending fresh blood pouring down his waist. He coughed, tasting iron.
"You're right," he rasped.
He shifted his grip.
"But I only need it… long enough."
He stepped in, copied the god's final overhead strike on a smaller scale, and cut the man from shoulder to hip.
***
By the time his body finally refused to move, silence had begun to ripple across the battlefield.
He stood in the center of a ring of corpses. The once‑roaring army had thinned into scattered clusters, men backing away with horror dawning in their eyes. The stench of death was suffocating.
Leon's vision swam. *How many…?*
He forced his eyes to focus on the sea of armor and fallen flags.
*I've killed more than I can count… at least two hundred seventy thousand…*
His knees threatened to buckle. Another step, another swing, and his muscles might simply tear apart. The Limitless Mimic Physique screamed in protest, having burned through reserves no human should have held.
If he stayed, they would eventually overwhelm him by sheer numbers.
"I have to flee," Leon muttered. "I've killed more than enough already. With the little strength I have left… I can't win another round. I'll run. As far as I can. Don't look back."
He gathered the last flickers of stolen lightning that still tingled in his legs.
Then he ran.
He became a blurred streak across the ruined field, leaving behind only a gust of wind and the faint echo of thunder under his feet.
***
On the distant platform, emperors and empresses watched in stunned silence. Words died in their throats.
More than two hundred seventy thousand soldiers—swordmasters, assassins, elite cultivators—lay dead on the ground.
Whole kingdoms had been gutted in a single, suicidal assault.
What remained of their armies stared at the retreating figure with blank faces. They had thought they were hunting a wounded beast. Instead, they had fed themselves to a monster.
No one shouted to give chase.
No one dared.
***
Leon staggered through a dark forest, branches whipping against his torn clothes. Every step felt like walking on broken glass; every breath scraped his ribs raw.
"I… I wonder why I killed them," he whispered. "Was it because I was afraid of dying? Is that why I chose this path?"
He leaned against a tree, sliding down until he sat in the dirt. Blood smeared the bark behind him.
"Was it really worth it?"
The night did not answer.
Leon closed his eyes, head tilting back against the trunk. "Master," he murmured, voice barely louder than the wind. "Did I… do well?"
Silence.
"If you can hear me… please… answer."
Only the rustle of leaves and the distant rumble of far‑off thunder replied.
***
**Author's Note:**
If you reached this point, you're a real one.
How did Leon's choice here feel to you—monster, victim, or something in between? Drop a comment (even just an emoji) and tell me what you think about his fight and his doubts. Your feedback really helps and keeps the motivation high for the next chapter.
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