Void Reaper: The Essence Apocalypse

Chapter 46 46: I’m the one killing you!

Leon smiled at the exact moment the red boar smashed into yet another building and the structure collapsed with a thunderous crash. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Without hesitation, he kicked off the ground with everything he had and launched himself upward, slamming down onto the massive monster's back with an impact that would have shattered the bones of an ordinary human.

The instant his feet touched the beast's body, a wave of heat crashed into him, violent and overwhelming, like stepping straight into a jet of superheated steam under crushing pressure.

"Fuck…this burns…what the hell is this?!" he cried out involuntarily, his face twisting in agony as pain exploded through his body. The steam pouring from the boar was so hot it felt like it was trying to melt him alive.

The sensation was maddening.

His coat protected most of his body, but from the knees down it felt as if his legs were catching fire. The only reason he was still able to stay on the beast's back at all were his Shadowstep Walkers, rare-grade boots, but even through them he could feel the material softening, warping, beginning to melt under the extreme heat.

Grinding his teeth and fighting back tears torn loose by sheer pain, Leon forced himself forward at full speed, almost running along the boar's back until he reached its neck. He knew he had no time to hesitate, no chance to search for a better spot.

The creature's entire body was covered in thick, dense red fur that looked less like hair and more like layered armor. Leon understood perfectly that trying to break through that protection anywhere else would take far too long, even his daggers would need time he simply didn't have. Every extra second meant more pain, more heat, a greater chance of losing his balance or blacking out.

So without slowing for even a moment, he charged straight for the neck, the one place where the monster's defense seemed even slightly less impenetrable, ready to gamble everything on a single, final strike.

Leon held his breath, as if afraid that even inhaling would intensify the pain already pushing his mind to its limits. He tightened his grip on both daggers until his knuckles turned white, then threw himself at the beast's neck with a feral determination that could no longer be called calculated.

He began to slash.

Not elegantly more Like a madman.

He drove the blades in again and again at the same spot, at blistering speed, pouring his agility into every movement. His entire body moved in the rhythm of brutal, chaotic fury. The daggers cut through flesh with shocking ease, but the sheer scale of the monster was overwhelming. Each individual cut meant almost nothing.

So Leon didn't stop.

He kept carving, tearing away chunks of meat, ripping fibers apart, forcing the wound deeper and deeper. His arms blurred, moving so fast they were little more than streaks of motion.

ROOOAAAR!!!

The beast screamed.

The pain drove it into madness. Its enormous body thrashed violently, slamming into nearby buildings, trying desperately to scrape off the thing destroying it from the inside. Each movement triggered fresh explosions of concrete and debris.

Leon felt the world begin to spin. His jaw clenched so hard it ached as chunks of stone smashed into his face when the boar hurled its back against another wall. A moment later, he felt warmth spilling down from his forehead as a thick stream of blood flooded his right eye, painting the world red.

For a fraction of a second, he thought he was going to pass out.

He bit down until he tasted blood, the sharp pain in his jaw briefly cutting through everything else. And instead of pulling back, instead of letting go, he drove himself even deeper, screaming at the top of his lungs, wordless, senseless, like someone who had long since stopped fighting with reason and was now fighting on pure will.

For a heartbeat, the world seemed to blur, as if someone had violently twisted the focus. Sound collapsed into a single, low hum. A disturbingly calm thought crossed his mind:

If I let go now, I'll just… fade out.

"No…" he rasped through clenched teeth.

He bit down harder, pain flaring through his jaw, drowning out the heat, the tearing muscles in his arms, the pounding fear. And instead of retreating, he plunged in again, screaming hoarsely, without coherence, without restraint.

"Die…"

"Die, you bastard…"

"Just…just a little more…!"

The cuts grew deeper. More savage. No longer driven by precision, but by raw fury and motion. Hot, sticky blood sprayed over his body, coating his hands, his face, his coat. The fabric began to scorch, visibly damaged, as if even it couldn't withstand the heat. Meanwhile, the monster's roar twisted into something unnatural, long, broken, desperate, less rage than a dying wail.

The beast slammed its back into yet another building.

The world shook violently. Leon's shoulder smashed into torn flesh, but he didn't let go. He screamed even louder, as if trying to drown out both pain and fear at once.

"Look at me!"

"It's me!"

"I'm the one killing you!"

The blades never stopped. Their rhythm turned manic. Leon was half-buried in the shredded neck, choking on steam and the stench of blood, still screaming, no longer certain whether the sound was coming from his own throat or just pounding inside his skull.

"Fall…"

"Just fall already…!"

And then, suddenly, he felt it.

The resistance gave way.

Something inside ruptured. As if the structure holding the monster together simply collapsed. Leon was blasted free along with a wave of hot blood and torn tissue, flung out the other side of the neck. He hit the ground hard, rolling several times before skidding to a stop, gasping, one eye forced shut by blood and pain.

With trembling hands, he lifted his head.

He saw massive sheets of blood pouring from the catastrophic wound he had carved with hundreds, thousands, of slashes straight through the beast's body. His breathing was short, broken, almost hysterical, as if only now his body was beginning to grasp what it had survived.

The red boar was still standing.

But it was swaying, an empty shadow of itself.

With its final breaths, the beast looked at him. In those enormous green eyes was everything at once, hatred so dense it was almost tangible, fear it had never known before, and a weariness deeper than pain. Its body had nothing left to draw strength from. Leon stood before it drenched in red, smeared with its blood, looking less like a man and more like something that had crawled out of a slaughterhouse.

For a single moment, the world froze.

Then came a massive BOOM as the giant boar finally lost its footing and crashed to the ground, shaking the entire area. Even then, its massive head remained turned toward Leon, its gaze locked on him, as if refusing to accept defeat even now.

Leon didn't step back.

He stared straight into the beast's eyes. There was no relief there. No triumph. Only a manic hunger, a raw, unsettling readiness, as if he could leap forward again at any second, plunge deeper still, as if this wasn't enough.

His body leaned forward slightly, both daggers raised, looking like he was already preparing for another round of a fight no one else wanted anymore.

The beast understood.

It drew in the last scrap of air from its shredded lungs and let out one final howl, devoid of rage, heavy and broken, the cry of something that had only just realized it was truly dying.

A moment later, its head fell lifelessly to the ground, striking the concrete with a dull thud.

Leon stared at the corpse in disbelief, as if his mind couldn't keep up with what his eyes were seeing. As if he still expected the massive red shape to move again, the chest to rise with another breath, the green eyes to flare with one last surge of fury.

He had really done it.

The thought felt heavy. Almost uncomfortable.

Moments ago, he had been on the verge of losing consciousness, drenched in blood, his body wrecked by pain and mana exhaustion. And now he stood before the corpse of a First-Order beast, a monster that could have ruled this territory if the world had tilted even slightly differently.

And then he did something completely irrational.

He threw his head back toward the sky, ignoring the fact that noise meant death in this world, ignoring the risk of drawing more monsters, more nightmares, and roared.

A wild, hoarse scream tore from his throat, stripped of words or meaning. It was pure, raw emotion exploding outward, something he could no longer hold inside.

It wasn't a cry of joy.

It wasn't a cry of triumph.

It was the roar of a being that had survived something it never should have survived. The roar of an ordinary human who hadn't even undergone his first evolution, yet had killed a First-Order entity. Something most beings in this world would never accomplish, no matter how long they lived or how far they evolved.

That scream held everything, fear, pain, rage, relief, hunger for strength, and the savage satisfaction of defying logic, the system, and common sense. Of still standing. Still breathing. Still looking down at the world when moments ago he should have been dead beneath the rubble.

The echo of his roar bounced between the shattered buildings of the campus, carrying far and wide, as if the world itself needed to hear that someone had just crossed a line.

A line beyond which there was no returning to being a "normal human."