Chapter 231: EX 231. Critical Master
If Leon had a dime for every time he muttered shit, he’d be a millionaire by now. The number of situations that word had slipped from his lips made him feel like the universe had a personal vendetta against him. But this, this was the worst yet.
Because this wasn’t some abomination or some overpowered beast. This was his talent. His pride. The very thing that made him a calamity to anyone stupid enough to stand in his way, and a fony was wielding it like second nature.
It infuriated him. Not quietly, not beneath the surface. He let that rage bleed into action.
With his stats flaring from the burned points, Leon roared forward. The copy mirrored him, their auras colliding like twin storms as their blades crashed. The impact shook the void itself, cracks spiderwebbing beneath their feet as the duel spiraled into pure chaos. No arts. No Force. Just raw strength, pure skill, and the weight of their boosted bodies colliding.
Steel shrieked against steel, sparks scattering like wildfire. Every clash was heavier, sharper and more reckless than the last. Neither yielded an inch.
But Leon wasn’t discouraged, not yet. He still had something left. An aspect of his talent that wasn’t skill-based, but probability-based. A little gamble written into the very core of [Attack].
Critical Master.
It was simple, brutal, and stupidly dangerous. Every strike he dealt carried a chance—a 10% boost that triggered often enough to make his blows hit harder than they should. But the real prize? The random critical. An unpredictable surge that could magnify his strike by any number, their was no pattern or logic.
Only Luck. Nothing but luck.
Leon grinned despite the chaos as he traded blows with his mirror.
So what if it’s similar to Russian roulette? He lived for this kind of gamble.
The thought made his blood boil, not with fear, but exhilaration.
"Let’s see how much luck you’ve really got, fake."
****
Since the day Leon awakened his talent, the feature that gave him the most headaches wasn’t the burn mechanic or even his extreme arts. It was his Evo Points.
That cursed system was tied directly to his random critical hits, with a condition so absurd it felt like a joke: each new Evo Point had to come from a random critical stronger than the last one. And the funny thing? After everything, after abominations, trials, and endless battles he had only ever earned two.
Two.
Sometimes he wondered if it was rotten luck, or if the system itself decided Evo Points were too dangerous to hand out lightly. Either way, he’d long since stopped hoping for them to drop in his lap.
Right now, he didn’t care about an Evo Point. What he needed was a critical hit—just one—to tilt the fight in his favor and crush this imitation.
But there was the problem.
The copy had his talent too.
Which meant the gamble went both ways. Whoever’s luck hit first would control the outcome.
Their swords screamed against each other, strike after strike, each probing for weakness that wasn’t there. Every feint was countered. Every shift in footing mirrored. It was like fighting his reflection in a broken glass, fragments of himself twisted just enough to be dangerous.
Then it happened.
Steel met steel, and a notification blazed across his vision:
[Critical ×50.]
Leon’s blood ran cold.
The copy’s grin spread wide, cruel and mocking, its eyes gleaming as though to say better luck next time. The force behind its strike surged beyond reason, tearing through Leon’s guard. His sword shattered in his grip, the fragments scattering as the blade’s edge tore across his flesh. Pain erupted, hot and sharp, blood spilling fast.
The attack should have cut deeper, ending him there. But Leon twisted, planting a desperate kick against his double’s chest. Using the clone itself as a platform, he flung himself back, landing in a broken skid across the void-scape. His body burned, blood pouring freely.
The copy didn’t pause. It charged, blade leveled, eager to finish the job.
And for the first time in this battle, it looked like Leon was about to lose.
The copy closed in, blade glinting, ready to split Leon’s skull in two. But Leon’s expression didn’t shift. their was no fear, no anger, no thrill of battle.
Just pure, cold focus.
His mind had never been this sharp, not once in all the fights he had fought. That was the edge of death for you, it stripped away everything useless. And Leon knew, deep down, that falling here would mean something worse than death.
So he did the most obvious thing left to him.
A flicker of text burned across his vision:
[Stress Multiplier ×60]
Leon didn’t hesitate. He funneled every last multiplied attack point, into a single stat.
The clone was already upon him. Its blade was a breath away from severing his head when it suddenly froze mid-strike.
"...What?" the copy muttered, confusion breaking its cold grin.
The void itself rippled around Leon, waves of unseen power radiating outward. Then the notification appeared before his eyes:
[Force Affinity Tier III >> Tier IV.]
But the tier rise wasn’t what made the clone freeze. No, this was something rarer. Something only those who breached the fourth tier could wield.
Leon’s lips barely moved, his whisper sharp as a blade.
"Domain."
The next instant, a crushing weight exploded outward. A storm of raw Force swallowed the space, merciless and absolute. The clone was ripped off balance, slammed into the ground with bone-cracking force. The void itself groaned under the pressure, as if reality didn’t want to contain the sheer dominance Leon had just unleashed.
And Leon stood at the center of it all, unblinking, his domain pressing down like judgment itself.
****
Leon was never the type to leave victory to luck. Banking on a high critical after so many had failed to land would’ve been nothing more than a gambler’s fallacy. No, his real play had always been the Stress Multiplier. That was the boost he needed, the trump card hidden beneath the chaos. If it triggered, the battle was his.
But to reach it, he first had to stand on the razor’s edge of death. That was the condition. That was the price.
The fatal wound the copy dealt him? It wasn’t just blood and pain, it was the key. The moment his body buckled, the multiplier surged alive, and with it came the chance he’d been waiting for.
Leon didn’t waste it.
He did the only thing that made sense. He funneled everything, every multiplied point, every ounce of his strength, into his Force Affinity. And in that instant, the barrier that had held him back shattered.
Force Affinity Tier III>> Tier IV.
The airless void quaked as power bled outward. Leon’s jaw tightened, eyes narrowing as he spoke the word that sealed the battle:
"Domain."
And the world answered.