CHAPTER 88: MIND GAMES

The formation was simple—too simple. Orc style.

Archers to the rear with heavy wood-crafted bows and thick mana-tipped arrows. Mid-range fighters with spears, glaives, and scythes forming a protective wall. The front lines bristled with axe-wielders and swordsmen, their tusks gleaming under torchlight as they pounded their chests.

Not a single dagger among them. Leon smirked faintly. ’Figures. Too small for their pride.’

The strategy was obvious. The mid-range would shield the archers while the long-range poured a storm of arrows. Then the close-range brutes would crash in to finish the kill.

A sound strategy against beasts. Against a lone human, even better.

Against Leon? It was suicide.

Leon sighed, twirling his crystalline dagger once in his grip. Then, without waiting for them to fully settle, he blurred forward. His body was a phantom, streaking across the savannah ground.

First, archers. Always archers. Weak, but damn annoying.

The mid-range Orcs surged to intercept, roaring as they thrust their weapons forward. Spears glittered in the moonlight.

Leon smirked. His dagger glowed as he infused it with mana and void essence. Black light licked the blade’s edge, twisting the air itself.

"Void Slash!"

His arm swept across. A crescent arc of black destructive force roared outward, a slash that seemed to tear through space itself.

The Orcs barely had time to blink.

SWWWOOOSH!

The void arc cut through their line, cleaving flesh, bone, and steel as if none of it existed. Blood sprayed. Screams tore through the night. Half a dozen Orcs fell in an instant, their bodies torn apart before they even hit the dirt.

Silence.

The crowd froze. Even the army hesitated. Orcs, creatures of pride and bloodlust, gulped visibly. Their hearts pounded, their instincts screaming that the boy before them was no ordinary foe.

Even the Generals frowned. Their tusked jaws clenched tightly. To think this human had been holding back during their spar, toying with them while they gave everything... It was humiliating.

Leon’s lips curved upward. That hesitation—that heartbeat of fear—was all he needed.

He grinned like a madman. His aura flared wildly, oppressive and suffocating. "KIIYAAAHHHH!!!" His roar split the battlefield, primal and violent, sending a chill down every Orc’s spine.

Then he moved.

The long-range fighters barely had time to nock their arrows before Leon was upon them. His dagger flickered once, twice—by the third heartbeat, their throats were open, blood gushing into the dirt. One after another, they fell, unable to resist. Within a single minute, the entire rear line was decimated, their bodies collapsing in heaps of pixels and gore.

The Orc army faltered.

The survivors looked at one another, fear in their crimson eyes. For the first time, hesitation gripped them—not the hesitation of strategy, but the hesitation of prey staring at a predator.

The axe-wielding General saw it too. His expression twisted with fury. He raised his weapon high and bellowed incomprehensible words to the army: "@$%#%&%¢£€^¥°℅[℅=^¢€$%&!!!"

The sound was guttural, powerful, a war-cry laced with mana.

Leon didn’t understand a word. He didn’t need to. He watched with narrowed eyes as the words ignited the army’s pride. Their eyes burned once more. Their hesitation shattered.

With renewed howls, they surged forward at full speed, charging like a tidal wave of steel and flesh.

Leon spun his dagger in his palm, void energy whispering hungrily across its crystalline surface. His grin widened.

"Good," he muttered. "Come, then. Let’s finish this."He soon closed the distance between him and the roaring Orcs and the real massacre began.

Their eyes were red, their tusks gleaming, their weapons raised high. They charged with reckless courage, the kind only born from pride and desperation. But to Leon, they looked like ants rushing into fire.

His first slash cut down three. His second, two more. He weaved through their formation like a phantom, his body twisting and flowing with the Divine Thief Dagger Sutra, each strike fluid yet merciless. Blood splattered across the savannah ground, soaking the dust into mud.

At first, he had been annoyed. The Spear-wielding General had shouted and somehow rallied the army’s broken morale, turning their hesitation into a suicidal frenzy. Leon had spent valuable time and effort instilling fear into them, carefully chipping at their pride until hesitation weighed them down. Then, in one moment, all that advantage was gone.

’Charismatic brat... eat your fucking charisma, bastard,’ Leon cursed inwardly, grinding his teeth.

Still, even as annoyance flickered in his mind, his lips curved into a cold grin. So what? With or without courage, you’ll still die. All your rage, your pride, your desperation... none of it matters. No matter how much you roar, no matter how hard you try—you can’t kill me.

The first wave crashed into him. He cut them down like grass. The second wave charged—heads rolled, bodies fell. His daggers spun and slashed, a seamless dance of death. He was a machine, tireless, relentless, dripping in gore.

Blood drenched his body, clinging to his silver hair like strands of crimson thread. His clothes were tattered, painted in dark stains, yet his movements only grew sharper.

Everywhere he passed, heads fell, limbs scattered. He was a storm of steel, the embodiment of death itself.

The crystalline daggers in his grip glowed faintly, drinking greedily from the rivers of blood. The moment droplets touched their surface, they sank and vanished, leaving the blades as clean and gleaming as if they had never been stained.

Leon noticed. He wasn’t surprised. He knew the daggers were alive in their own way, hungry. He had seen it before. But every time, the sight sent a strange shiver through him.

With a sigh that almost sounded bored, he blurred forward. His speed was monstrous. His next victim didn’t even realize he had died until his head was already tumbling from his shoulders.

Another. Then another. Then two at once—one pierced through the chest, another decapitated in the same motion.

Minutes bled into slaughter.

By the time silence returned, the field was a graveyard.

A silver-haired boy stood amidst the carnage, seventeen at most, his grin feral and unhinged. His clothes clung to him in tatters, his hair matted with gore, his eyes alight with the madness of battle.

Surrounding him in a half-circle stood seven Orcs—taller, broader, far more dangerous than the rest. Their weapons gleamed wickedly in the pale light. Six carried swords, heavy and jagged. One, towering and scarred, gripped a massive axe that seemed to hum with suppressed power.

At Leon’s feet, the corpses of hundreds of Orcs dispersed slowly into pixels, their bodies vanishing like smoke, leaving only the scent of blood behind. The ground was painted red. The air thick with iron.

The once-boisterous army was gone. Wiped out. None had survived.

Leon tilted his head back and laughed quietly, his grin sharp as a blade. His eyes locked onto one specific Orc among the seven—the one who had once injured him during the spar.

"We meet again, pals," he drawled, voice casual, mocking, as if they weren’t standing in a field of corpses.

The Generals grunted in unison, tusks bared. They tightened their grips on their weapons, their muscles tensing. A storm of killing intent radiated from them.

This time, they weren’t going to hold back.

In the spar, they had shown restraint. They had avoided killing blows. Now? They surged with bloodlust, rushing at him without hesitation. Their pride demanded his death.

Leon only smirked wider. "So you heard what I told your King... or whatever the hell he is to you."

They gave no reply. Only roars.

Blades flashed. The clash began.

Leon dodged effortlessly, his body weaving between the deadly arcs of steel, and spoke almost lazily as he moved. "Tell me, after hearing that, do you really think you’ll escape?"

No response. Only snarls. Only steel.

He slipped under an axe swing, pivoted past a sword thrust, his daggers carving shallow lines across their armor. His words didn’t stop. "You think you’ll live through this? You think your loyalty means anything?"

Another dodge. Another deflection.

He chuckled darkly. "He sent you to die. Every last one of you. Do you know why? Because if by some miracle you survive me, he’ll kill you himself. That’s the truth."

The Generals stiffened. Rage boiled in their eyes. They fought harder, faster. His words struck something raw. Their strikes grew more desperate, less disciplined.

Leon’s grin stretched wider. His voice lowered into a growl. "I was the stronger one in the spar. He knows it. He knows I can kill you. That’s why he gave me the honor instead of doing it himself."

The Orcs roared, their pride cracking under his words. Fury overtook reason. Their auras surged as one. In perfect synchronization, they activated their bloodlines.

The air warped. Their muscles bulged, veins glowing faintly with white light. Their eyes gleamed with unnatural brilliance. Their killing intent spiked to suffocating levels.

Leon exhaled slowly and activated Light Steps. His body blurred, his speed doubling, tripling. He became untouchable. Even with their bloodline active, even with their roars shaking the sky, they couldn’t catch him.