Chapter 335 - 335: Three paths
Inside a dark wet cave, Leon's gaze shot to his sides where his beast Actualization and Levi sat beside him, not far away.
The air was damp and cold, the kind of cold that clung to clothes and settled into bones.
The walls were slick with moisture, dark stone that caught no light, offered no warmth.
They had entered the grounds of the three hydra immortal's inheritance.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"Okay."
Leon stood up slowly.
He brushed his palms across his wet robes, flicking the excess water from his sleeves before looking around.
The cave was vast enough that the darkness swallowed the far ends of it whole.
It was split into three areas, each stretching outward into its own separate path.
Three tunnels.
Three directions.
He stared at them for a moment without speaking.
From what Altor had inferred, the inheritance test was meant for a member of the hydra clan. The three headed hydra immortal had wanted more than anything for a member of his bloodline to rise in his place, to carry on what he'd built.
Unfortunately, every member of that clan was dead.
Gone.
Not a single one remained.
Leon exhaled once through his nose and without a second thought, walked forward.
Calmly.
His footsteps fell quiet against the wet stone as Levi and the Actualization mirrored his movements, rising from their positions and advancing alongside him through the cave.
[You have entered the inheritance ground of the great hydra. Three tests lay before you. Pass all three and become the next great hydra. Fail one and die.]
The announcement came without warning.
Leon's brow furrowed.
He stopped walking.
His eyes moved quickly, scanning his surroundings before diving inward, turning his attention into the space of his own mind where the system lived.
Those words hadn't come from there.
It hadn't come from Altor either. But the voice, the structure of it, the weight of it, sounded close enough to create a chill of caution that settled behind his ribs.
'Is this another plot from that old bastard?'
He stood still for a moment, searching through his inner self methodically. Probing for anything hidden, anything foreign.
Nothing.
Truly, that announcement hadn't come from the system. It was something different entirely. Something old. Something baked into this place itself.
"I can't go back anyway."
He said it to himself quietly, not to Levi, not to the Actualization.
The oath between himself and Altor was still firm. It pressed against him like a brand, invisible but undeniable. He didn't need to be reserved here. There was no angle for betrayal inside a bound contract.
So he let go of the caution.
Just for a moment, he released it, and walked forward.
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—woosh
A figure appeared.
Large. Serpentine. Humanoid in shape but wrong in proportion, its body scaled and coiled even in a standing position, one hand gripping a shield and the other braced around a long spear.
It blocked the path directly ahead of Leon without fanfare.
To the left, a giant wall of ice had risen from the ground, solid and near-blinding even in the dark cave, and it pressed against Leon's Actualization like a sealed door.
To the right, Levi stood before a massive pool of what could only be described as eroding blood. It churned slowly, eating at the edges of the stone around it.
One test per path.
This was the inheritance of a being once called immortal.
Naturally, it would not be easy.
Leon's gaze swept over all three tunnels in a single second before locking back on the serpentine figure before him.
'I have to multitask.'
He could trust Levi. That wasn't in question.
But the Actualization was another matter. It was powerful, but it was still a beast born from his own energy. It didn't think. It didn't adapt. It executed.
He'd have to manage it while handling his own path at the same time.
His hand moved.
A small, unassuming knife appeared in his left hand, its blade dark and thin, nothing remarkable about it to look at.
—boom!!
He moved.
Like an arrow releasing from a fully drawn bow, his body crossed the distance in an instant and appeared at the side of the serpentine demihuman, blade already angled, already driving toward the gap between its scales.
The creature reacted faster than a thing that size had any right to.
Its shield arm swung hard, rotating the broad face of the shield directly toward Leon's position, pressing with enormous force into the narrow tunnel space, trying to crush him against the cave wall.
Leon read it.
He'd fought in cramped spaces before. Small corridors, collapsed ruins, half-flooded chambers where there was no room to breathe let alone swing wide.
In spaces like this, he was king.
"Blood extensions."
—burst!!
A surge of blood erupted from him, dense and controlled, and it intercepted the shield, absorbing the slam, buying him the fraction of a second he needed.
But this wasn't enough as the beasts spear lounged forward and tore at Leon's shoulder causing him to move back in a hurry.
"Hmp!!" Frustrated, His left hand dropped toward the grimoire holstered against his side. Small. Unassuming. Something most fighters would overlook entirely.
He touched it.
Drew a single strand of the strange, corrosive energy stored inside and threaded it directly into the serpentine beast.
The reaction was immediate.
The creature felt it.
It lurched back, putting distance between them, its shoulder already blackening at the point of contact, the scales darkening and beginning to deteriorate at the edges.
Leon didn't allow the retreat.
—step. step. step.
He followed without pause, closing the gap the creature tried to open, and buried the knife into its neck before it could raise its shield again.
The blade went in clean.
Gnaw!!!
The creature fell.
Its hands shot to its throat in a panic, fingers scrabbling against the knife's handle, its weapons clattering to the wet stone floor as its legs gave way beneath it.
It didn't get back up.
Before long it was still.
Leon straightened and a notification blinked into view.
[You have slain 1/20 guards.]
His eyes stayed on it for a moment.
Twenty.
'Of course.'
He didn't waste time standing over the body.
He reached down and picked up the fallen spear first, testing its weight with a single motion, then closed his fingers around the shield's handle, lifting it from the ground.
Heavy. Well-made. He could work with it.
In the dark ahead, something stirred.
Then more somethings.
A set of serpentine humanoids rose from the blackness of the tunnel in silence, their eyes catching no light because there was no light to catch. They simply materialized out of the cave's depth, moving forward with the same mechanical steadiness as the first.
They didn't rush.
They didn't growl.
They just came.
Leon exhaled once.
He shifted his weight, dropping his stance low, spear in his right hand, shield raised and angled at the front, body side-on to the approaching line.
Like a spartan.
"Survive."
He said it quietly, almost to himself.
Then they were on him.