Chapter 50 - 49: Burnout
The sky catches fire.
Literally. Heat waves ripple upward from Tobias like liquid mercury, distorting the air so violently that neighboring buildings shimmer like mirages. Windows crack in patterns before exploding outward in glittering cascades.
Tobias surrounds himself with a tornado of flame that scorches the ground in a fifty-foot radius. The very air becomes toxic, oxygen burning away faster than lungs can process it. Leon tastes copper and ash with every breath.
His armor has melted to his skin in places, metal fused with flesh in ways that’ll leave interesting scars if he survives. Blood trails down his face, mixing with sweat that evaporates before it can drip. Both his Elite Mage and Assassin zombies flicker like bad reception, their spectral forms barely holding together.
Civilians flee in blind panic. Smart move. Emergency sirens wail across the district as Hunter Association teams mobilize for containment. Leon wonders if they’ll arrive in time to collect his ashes.
Despite feeling like microwaved meat, Leon’s mind remains analytically cold. Tobias is burning through his own body to generate this power. Every technique costs him more than the last.
The S-rank’s movements have lost their perfect fluidity. Stress fractures show in his flame aura—tiny inconsistencies that speak of a system pushed beyond safe parameters. Leon recalls medical texts about Flame Berserker physiology where it said that The body can only channel so much fire before it begins to cook from within.
This is his only chance. Outlast the burnout or become barbecue.
Leon sends mental commands to his zombies. Not for victory, that ship sailed when Tobias turned the training ground into hell’s waiting room. But for strategic provocation.
His Assassin zombie vanishes into smoke and heat distortion. The Elite Mage begins suppressing fire with concentrated frost spells, each one designed to force a powerful counter-response. Leon positions himself to maximize Tobias’s energy expenditure while minimizing his own chances of spontaneous combustion.
The strategy is desperate but calculated: make Tobias use his most powerful techniques repeatedly. Force him to burn hotter, faster, deeper.