Chapter 137: Leon Against Kaelen (6)

Kaelen Vance collapsed.

His body hit the floor with a heavy, lifeless thud. Thick, dark blood poured freely from his eyes, his nose, and his ears, staining the ruined earth. His skin was charred a deep, sickening black, and the air immediately filled with the acrid, nauseating smell of burnt flesh, ozone, and melted iron.

The tyrant who had ruled the Eastern Checkpoint with an iron fist, who had butchered his own men for a fraction of stolen time, was dead, reduced to a smoking, broken husk at Leon’s feet.

The clearing fell completely, oppressively silent. The only sound was the distant, rushing roar of the blue mana-waterfall and the soft crackle of Kaelen’s cooling armor.

Leon stood over the corpse for a long moment. He didn’t feel a surge of triumph or a rush of adrenaline. He felt only the cold, necessary satisfaction of having permanently eliminated a threat to his sanctuary. Leon did not revel in slaughter; he simply executed the required protocols to maintain order.

He turned his gaze away from the burnt remains, his dual-colored eyes tracking the subtle, panicked vibrations in the ambient mana near the edge of the clearing.

Sienna, the Level 30 Support Mage, had not fled.

Paralyzed by the sheer terror of watching her Guild Master—a man who had just forcibly evolved to Level 73—be systematically dismantled, tortured, and instantly killed, she had collapsed behind the trunk of a shattered tree. She was curled into a tight ball, her hands pressed desperately over her ears, her staff discarded in the mud, weeping uncontrollably in the shadows.

Leon did not step toward her. He simply projected his voice, layering it with the absolute, crushing authority of the Steadfast rank.

"Step out of the shadows," Leon commanded.

Sienna flinched violently, letting out a choked, terrified sob. She knew she could not hide. The man standing in the clearing possessed senses that defied reality. Trembling so violently she could barely support her own weight, she crawled out from behind the shattered tree, her knees sinking into the damp mud. She didn’t dare stand up. She kept her head bowed, staring at the ground, fully expecting an attack to instantly erase her from existence.

"P-please," Sienna choked out, her voice a ragged, broken whisper. "I didn’t want to come here. I swear it. He forced us. He killed Silas. Please, please don’t kill me. I’m just a... I haven’t hurt anyone."

Leon looked at the weeping mage. Her mana signature was completely devoid of the malicious, consuming taint that had filled Kaelen’s aura. She was a pawn, dragged across a sector by a tyrant, and she posed absolutely zero threat to the Azure Scale valley.

"I have no interest in your life," Leon stated coldly, his voice echoing in the quiet night.

Sienna gasped, her shoulders sagging in disbelief, though she still didn’t dare look up.

"But you will not remain in this valley," Leon continued, his tone hardening into an absolute, uncompromising decree. He pointed a finger at the smoking, burnt corpse of Kaelen Vance lying in the dirt.

"You will take the body of your Guild Master. You will drag it out of here, and you will leave. You will return to whatever miserable place you came from."

Sienna nodded frantically, tears streaming down her face. "Yes. Yes, I understand. I’ll take him. I’ll leave."

"And know this," Leon added, the air temperature dropping several degrees as the sheer, overwhelming pressure of his aura flared one final time. "As long as I reside in this territory, you will never set foot in this village again. If I see your face, or the face of anyone bearing the crest of the Crimson Dawn, I will not offer a warning. I will simply erase you. Am I understood?"

"I understand! I swear it! We will never come back!" Sienna cried, scrambling forward on her hands and knees.

She reached the burnt, heavy corpse of Kaelen. Gagging at the sickening smell of charred flesh and ozone, she desperately channeled her remaining mana into a low-tier levitation spell.

The magic struggled under the dead weight of the high-tier armor, but she managed to lift the body just enough to drag it. She didn’t look at Leon. She didn’t look at the ruined estate. She simply turned and dragged Kaelen away, her boots slipping in the mud as she fled back toward the southern entrance of the valley, desperate to put as much distance between herself and the Steadfast god as humanly possible.

Leon watched her go until her mana signature completely faded from the perimeter of the village.

All threat was permanently neutralized.

Leon turned his back on the treeline and walked slowly back toward the ruined remains of the bamboo estate. The front half of the house was completely destroyed, the bamboo walls shattered outward, the mahogany furniture scattered across the grass.

Through the massive, gaping hole in the wall, Snow Valestorm slowly pushed herself up from the floorboards.

Her white hair was disheveled, covered in dust and splinters. A thin line of blood trickled from her lower lip where she had bitten it to maintain her silence under Kaelen’s crushing gravity. But as she looked at Leon stepping through the ruins, her crystalline blue eyes were not filled with fear or trauma. They were filled with an overwhelming mixture of awe, relief, and absolute devotion.

Leon stepped over the broken threshold, his heavy boots crunching on the debris. The cold, terrifying aura of the executioner instantly melted away, replaced entirely by the grounding, protective warmth of the man she had married.

"Are you hurt?" Leon asked, his voice soft, dropping his gaze to the blood on her lip.

Snow let out a breathless, wet laugh, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. She didn’t hesitate. She launched herself across the ruined floorboards, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in the heavy, dark fabric of his mantle.

"I’m fine, baby," Snow whispered fiercely, clinging to him as if he were the only solid object in a fractured world. "I’m perfectly fine."