Chapter 100: EX 100. Astral Ascent
As the smoke from the explosion began to settle, the shattered earth hissed with embers and warped heat. Amidst the cratered terrain, something moved, a heavy, dragging shhhhk sound cutting through the fading echoes of destruction.
Out of the swirling dust stepped a demon unlike any other.
Its skin was a shade of ashen gray, stretched taut over a hulking frame carved with dark, pulsing markings that weaved like corrupted veins across its body. Its face was broad and square, the jaw heavy like a stone block carved from malice itself. Four jagged black horns jutted outward around its glowing red eyes, two on each side, twisting like ancient blades carved from bone. Its armor was deep black, dull and scarred, shaped not by design but by carnage, welded into its body as if the demon itself was a weapon forged in war.
It carried a greatsword longer than a man, serrated and crude, dragging behind it like a guillotine chained to its arm. Each movement it made left gouges in the ground beneath, the sword screaming a low metallic scrape as it carved through stone.
As it stopped at the edge of the destruction, its glowing eyes swept over the battlefield, and it growled in a voice thick, broken, and twisted with barely-human syllables:
"...Cap...ture..."
A low, rattling command, more instinct than thought.
And across from the towering monster, standing amid fractured earth and flaming debris, was Leon Kael, his form bloodied and battered, but unbowed.
His once-pristine combat armor was torn and scorched, plates shattered and hanging loosely, exposing the deep, fresh wounds carved into his flesh. Yet his eyes remained steady, ice-cold and burning with unrelenting purpose.
Around him and his squad, a faint astral glow shimmered in the air, a spectral upper torso of a celestial warrior, translucent and divine. This was Astral Ascent, an art he’d retrieved from his family’s collection, intended as a foundation for the personalized style he planned to create.
"A-rank..." Leon muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing on the demon’s overwhelming aura.