Chapter 139: Five Days (2)

Two more Shadow-Stalkers erupted from the canopy above, diving straight down toward Snow.

Leon moved. He didn’t use Abyssal Stride. He simply stepped in front of her, raising his longsword in a blindingly fast, upward horizontal arc. He didn’t swing to kill; he swung to parry. The flat of his void-steel blade perfectly intercepted the razor-sharp claws of both diving beasts simultaneously. The sheer kinetic deflection broke their downward momentum, stalling them in mid-air for a fraction of a second.

Snow didn’t hesitate. She knew Leon would create the opening. She thrust her heavy buster sword upward, impaling the first beast through the chest, before ripping the blade sideways to violently cleave the second out of the sky.

The two monsters disintegrated into a shower of gray, localized system data, the residual mana raining down over them.

Ding!

[Experience threshold reached.]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 50!]

[Milestone Reached: Mid-Adept Tier Achieved. Base attribute scaling has been permanently increased by 15%.]

Snow let out a massive cheer. She dropped the heavy tip of her buster sword to the stone floor and threw her arms up in absolute victory. The brilliant, golden light of the level-up washed over her, completely restoring her stamina and physically expanding her mana core.

"Level 50!" Snow laughed, turning to Leon with a radiant, ecstatic smile. "Halfway to Steadfast, baby!"

Leon chuckled softly, dismissing his training sword to his spatial inventory. He walked over to her, reaching out to brush a stray lock of white hair from her flushed, sweating cheek.

"You are progressing at a terrifying rate, Snow," Leon noted, genuine pride coloring his deep voice. "Reaching the Mid-Adept tier before the first elimination cycle even begins places you in the absolute top percentile of the surviving player base. Your physical output is finally beginning to catch up to the lethal geometry of your weapons."

"And it’s all thanks to you," Snow murmured, leaning into his touch, her blue eyes soft and entirely devoted. "I would have been grinding Level 40 mobs for a week if I was doing this alone. You’re the best combat partner a girl could ask for."

"We are a team," Leon replied simply, pressing a brief kiss to her forehead. "Your strength is my strength."

While Snow had benefited greatly from the venture, rocketing through the levels, Leon’s own progression over the past five days had been surprisingly stagnant.

He looked around the basin, his Origin Eyes passively sweeping over the dissipating corpses of the Shadow-Stalkers and the heavily armored boars they had slain earlier in the afternoon.

He hadn’t extracted much in terms of new, usable talents.

Surprisingly, most of the monsters they had encountered in the deeper, uncharted zones of Sector 12 happened to be mid-to-high Adept level entities that he had already encountered and thoroughly harvested during his early days operating near the border areas of Sector 4.

He had fought Iron-Hide Bristlebacks, Shadow-Stalkers, and Venom-Weavers weeks ago. His SSS-Rank Talent Devourer had already stripped the unique innate talents from these specific genetic lineages, meaning the current packs offered nothing.

Still, a Steadfast entity did not ignore resources, no matter how minor.

Leon raised his right hand, allowing the passive pull of his Talent Devourer to activate. A small cluster of dull, gray data motes drifted up from the shattered remains of the Shadow-Stalkers they had just killed.

"Nothing exciting?" Snow asked, leaning casually against the haft of her buster sword as she watched him process the data.

"It seems to be," Leon replied, shaking his head slightly. "These monster variants are identical to the ones I hunted near the Sector 4 borders."

"Well, standard population or not, they give great EXP," Snow grinned, stretching her arms above her head. "Should we call Auris and head to a different zone? Maybe check the northern cliffs?"

Before Leon could answer, the overgrown basin around them began to physically vibrate.

It was a heavy, rhythmic, catastrophic thudding that caused the moss-covered stones beneath their boots to literally bounce. The water collected in the shallow puddles of the basin vibrated with concentric rings.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound of massive trees snapping like brittle twigs echoed from the dense, impenetrable treeline at the far end of the basin. Something impossibly large, and terrifyingly heavy, was moving through the forest, completely ignoring the structural density of the crystalline wood.

Leon’s casual, relaxed posture vanished instantly. His dual-colored eyes narrowed, locking onto the treeline.

He didn’t summon the training sword. He reached to his hip and unclipped the dark, braided leather haft of Epitaph. The Legendary axe materialized seamlessly into his grip, the razor-thin, crescent-moon blade shimmering with lethal, dark silver energy.

"Stay behind me, Snow," Leon commanded, his voice dropping to a low, authoritative register.

Snow didn’t argue. She immediately stepped back, sliding seamlessly into his right flank, gripping her massive buster sword with both hands, her body dropping into a flawless, textbook defensive stance.

The treeline violently exploded outward.

A massive, armored monstrosity tore through the canopy, crushing three steel-dense trees under its feet as it entered the clearing.

It was a rhino-type monster that neither of them had ever faced before. It stood easily thirty feet at the shoulder, its sheer physical bulk completely dwarfing the Glacial Sovereign. But it wasn’t made of flesh. The beast was heavily plated in thick, jagged slabs of compressed granite and pulsing, heavy earth-mana.

Protruding from its snout was a colossal, spiraling horn made of pure, indestructible diamond that radiated an aura of absolute, crushing gravitational pressure.

Leon’s eyes instantly read the data hovering above the beast’s heavily armored skull.

[Hostile Entity Detected: Titan-Horn Siege Rhino]

[Level: 70]

[Rank: Elite Sovereign]

[Zone Modifier: The entity possesses ’Absolute Unstoppable Momentum’. Once a charge is initiated, the beast is immune to all forms of kinetic stuns, physical knockbacks, and spatial redirection.]

The beast let out a deafening, snorting bellow that blew a localized gale-force wind across the basin, kicking up dirt and moss. Its glowing, crimson eyes locked entirely onto Leon and Snow, recognizing them not as threats, but as minor obstacles in its territory.

The rhino lowered its massive, diamond-horned head, its colossal, granite-plated legs tearing deep trenches into the stone floor as it prepared to initiate its unstoppable charge.

Leon gripped Epitaph tighter, his SSS-Rank Eternal Mana already surging through his veins, preparing to utilize the Phantom Weight property to crack the granite armor. A Level 70 Elite Sovereign with immunity to spatial redirection was not a trivial threat.

He glanced back over his shoulder, checking on his wife.

He expected to see the same fierce, calculated caution she usually displayed when facing high-tier elites.

Instead, Snow Valestorm was standing tall. The silver cross-chains on her shorts chimed as she shifted her weight, heavily planting her boots into the stone. She gripped the leather-wrapped hilt of her massive, Level silver buster sword so firmly her knuckles were white.

She wasn’t intimidated by the thirty-foot, granite-plated siege engine.

Snow looked past the monster, locking her crystalline blue eyes directly onto Leon’s intense, dual-colored gaze. The fierce, unyielding adrenaline of her recent level-up burned radiantly in her expression.

She grinned, a wild, beautiful, completely fearless smile that perfectly matched the chaotic energy of the monster waiting for them.