Jerdin couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had heard many rumors about Leon, but never expected the boy to be this powerful.

Who would have thought that a boy, not even an adult yet, could mercilessly dominate his enemies like this?

Amidst the battlefield, filled with the stench of blood and decay, the slaughter was unfolding. The ones falling were all blood magicians.

Every time Leon’s sky-blue robe fluttered among the blood magicians, another enemy fell.

Jerdin maintained his defensive magic while watching the scene unfold.

It wasn’t impossible.

The blood magicians charging at him were of the Advanced Special rank. If he wanted, Jerdin, a Mystery-ranked magician, could easily take them down.

However, he was focused on protecting his comrades, preventing him from fully engaging in battle.

'To be honest, I don’t have the confidence to fight like that...'

What Leon was doing seemed more like a warrior’s role than a magician’s.

The black-haired boy was fighting on a completely different level than a typical Advanced Special-ranked magician.

In addition to the wooden sword in his hand, ten wooden swords floated around him, as if they were alive, attacking the enemies. Between the gaps of the floating swords, electric orbs crackled, surging toward the enemies. As soon as they dodged, the swords would swoop in and finish them off.

It was as if the wooden swords could predict the enemies’ movements, reaching them a step ahead of time.

The blood magicians tried to rush Leon together, but their attacks missed again and again.

The boy had total control over the flow of battle.

Nearly thirty blood magicians fell one by one, his flawless execution making it seem like every move was calculated perfectly.

Jerdin felt both admiration and shock.

To display such skill at this age.

And this wasn’t just the typical level of an Advanced Special-ranked magician.

Before long, the tide of the battlefield had completely turned.

Now, the number of blood magicians left was fewer than that of the extermination squad.

Only five remained.

Jerdin no longer saw the need to keep layering strong defensive magic.

He redirected the mana flowing into his shield.

Mana gathered in Jerdin’s arm.

“Move aside!”

Leon, who was locked in close combat with the blood magicians, quickly dodged, allowing Jerdin’s spell to sweep through the remaining enemies. Since all their attention was focused on Leon, they had no time to react to Jerdin’s attack. They were instantly engulfed by his magic and vanished.

It was then that Leon looked over at Jerdin.

‘Is he disappointed?’ Jerdin wondered, briefly closing his eyes and opening them again.

Through his fluttering robe, he could see Leon catching his breath for a moment.

It seemed like a misunderstanding.

Then, as if they had planned it, Leon and Jerdin rushed toward the Mystery-ranked blood magician that Pauline was battling.

“What the...!”

The blood magician, who had been relentlessly attacking Pauline’s shield, was startled by the sudden joint assault and retreated.

His arms were reinforced with solidified red mana, making them as hard as steel.

Having been focusing his attacks using his enhanced arms, he was caught off guard by the surprise attack.

Pauline, who had been on the defensive, seized the opportunity. She quickly channeled her mana, casting an ice spell in the direction the blood magician retreated. Ice spread across the ground, freezing the blood magician’s legs in place.

His legs were frozen in an instant.

Jerdin was already preparing his own spell.

He unleashed a powerful surge of mana, sending a magical storm to engulf the blood magician.

The Mystery-ranked blood magician screamed as he was caught in the storm, but his wounds healed just as quickly as they appeared, as if he were immortal.

Just as the blood magician tried to escape the storm, Leon rushed in and drove his wooden sword into the man’s chest.

“This... can’t be...”

The blood magician’s face paled, and his body collapsed lifelessly to the ground.

Leon, having absorbed the core of the Mystery-ranked blood magician, pulled out his wooden sword.

Jerdin and Pauline, thinking the battle was over, approached Leon.

But Leon walked straight past them toward the squad, stopping directly in front of Ferrick.

The golden eye symbol on Leon’s forehead still glowed.

“Why... why are you...?” Ferrick stammered, staring at Leon in confusion from behind Jerdin’s protective shield.

“Why do I sense the same red mana coming from you as from the blood magicians?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Ferrick protested.

“I can see it. Even though you’re concealing it right now, I can see that you’re using the same mana as the blood magicians.”

Ferrick jumped in shock, his face flushed with panic.

“That’s absurd! How could you even detect such a thing?”

Ferrick’s objection made sense. Without displaying his mana, how could anyone detect it?

But Leon, with a firm expression, pulled something from his pocket.

It was a lightning shackle.

Without hesitation, Leon clamped it onto Ferrick’s ankle.

Crackle!

“Ugh...!” Ferrick tried to gather his mana to resist, but the electric shock quickly rendered him powerless.

Jerdin and Pauline turned their bewildered gazes toward Leon.

“Care to explain?” Jerdin asked.

“It’s a power I possess,” Leon replied calmly.

“I see. We’ll verify it later,” Jerdin said, not pushing further, as Leon’s abilities had earned him a certain level of trust.

Since Ferrick wasn’t part of their school, there was no harm in restraining him for now.

Leon glanced at Lucas, briefly considering whether to harbor the same suspicion toward him, but found nothing out of the ordinary. With that, he deactivated the Glory of Creation, and the golden eye symbol faded.

Leon, nearly depleted of mana, was about to step back and rest when Jerdin blocked his path.

“Have you been hiding your skills?” Jerdin asked.

“I just didn’t have the opportunity to show them,” Leon replied.

“I see.”

With that answer, Jerdin had nothing more to say.

Seeing the exchange, Leon spoke up.

“Shouldn’t we inspect the bodies?”

“Hmm... yes, let’s do that.”

Unfortunately, they found nothing of value on the corpses either.

Leon’s face showed clear disappointment.

Jerdin took stock of the situation, checking on the remaining members.

Three Advanced Special-ranked magicians had fallen to the blood magicians, leaving seven, including two Mystery-ranked magicians.

Beyond the fallen Mystery-ranked blood magician lay a long, open passageway. The other side was blocked by a wall.

There was no choice but to press forward.

After confirming once again that there was no response from the communication orb, Jerdin led the squad down the corridor.

The others followed behind.

They had been walking for some time when Jerdin suddenly stopped.

“This is...!”

He sensed a powerful surge of mana.

It was the shockwave of two clashing forces of immense power.

“Someone is fighting nearby!”

“If it’s this strong... it must be the Seventh Elder.”

The shockwave was on a different scale from anything they had encountered before.

The problem was that one of the forces felt overwhelmingly large.

“The Seventh Elder... is he losing?”

Leon, too, sensed the oppressive wave of mana.

If a senior Elder of the Insight rank was being overpowered, this was no ordinary situation.

Leon immediately summoned Kito.

[Kito, come out.]

[Now?]

[Yes, I need your strength.]

As soon as Leon spoke, Kito emerged from his orb, his massive gray wings unfurling and filling the corridor.

Leon climbed onto Kito’s back.

 

The Seventh Elder quietly navigated the passageways alone. Since descending to the second basement level, he hadn’t found any further stairs, leading him to believe that this might be the final level of the hideout.

Though the passage seemed like a maze, it all led in one direction, allowing him to proceed without much difficulty.

After some time, he encountered a fork in the road.

The Elder took the left path first, only to find an empty space at the end.

It looked as if the room had once been filled with objects, but now only traces remained on the floor.

Using a detection spell, he found nothing unusual.

The Elder brushed his hand across the floor, but after finding no clues, he shook his head in frustration.

Returning to the fork, he received reports from the other squads. They, too, had encountered branching paths.

Before coming to the hideout, the Seventh Elder had been briefed on the blood magicians’ lair.

According to the information, there were about twenty blood magicians hiding in this base.

The hideout wasn’t supposed to be large, so the Elder hadn’t expected much. However, blood magicians needed to be eradicated simply for existing, which was why the mission had been organized.

‘For only twenty blood magicians, they’ve made this place unnecessarily complicated...’

Suspicion began to creep in. Perhaps they were hiding something else. There might be other clues about blood magic to be found here.

With that thought in mind, the Elder entered the right passage.

Before long, he came across a wall of dirt blocking his way.

The Elder felt something was off and instinctively cast another detection spell.

Certain that there was something wrong, he pulled a white thread from his robe.

The thread quickly dispelled the illusion, revealing a hidden path.

The Elder cautiously floated down the newly revealed corridor.

At the end, he found an old altar.

It was empty.

Suddenly, heavy footsteps echoed through the space.

Thud.

A wet, sticky sound followed, as if something thick was clinging to the floor. The Elder instinctively turned his head.

“So, you’re the one who woke me.”

The voice was low and resonant, dominating the space.

The Elder quietly steadied his breathing as he faced the man before him. The man’s long black hair hung heavily over his shoulders, and he walked barefoot toward the altar, his feet soaked in blood.

Wherever the man walked, a vivid red trail was left behind.

The Elder raised his guard to its highest level. He couldn’t gauge the man’s power, even as a senior Elder himself.

He had come here expecting to deal with a few blood magicians, but the situation was turning out to be far more dangerous than anticipated.