Apart from Zyon and the others tearing through their prey, close enough yet separated by dunes and distance, Leon’s group prowled the wastes.
They moved in a loose formation, not too close, not too far. Each step was asured, their gazes sharp, senses stretched to the limit. The Deathland was not forgiving, ambush could co from beneath the sand or above the horizon, and not one of them dared to relax.
The atmosphere was... decent. Simply quiet. They didn’t waste words. Silence weighed between them, broken only by the crunch of boots on sand and the occasional hiss of shifting grit.
"Targets ahead," Leon finally broke the silence, his tone firm, steady. He slowed, turned his head just enough to et their eyes. "Everyone stay close. I’ll handle the front line. You wait, and finish them off once I’m done."
His hand lifted, finger pointing outward. Two hundred ters ahead, half-buried in sand and creeping along with eerie synchronization, a cluster of Dissect Scorpions road.
The girls followed his gaze. None of them spoke, but their nods ca quickly, one after another.
None of them wanted to fight the monsters head-on. They weren’t built for it. They knew it, Leon knew it.
Evelyn was an alchemist, a crafter of tonics and poisons, more dangerous behind a workbench than with a blade. Healing, buffs, debuffs—her arsenal was subtle but invaluable.
Celeste, by contrast, carried no weapons of note at all. Her sharpness lay in her tongue, her instincts, her ability to sway people or pick them apart. A social predator rather than a battlefield one.
Mia was a healer through and through. She wasn’t ant to be anywhere near the frontline, her strength lying in recovery and support.
And Verena, her eyes always flickering across the terrain, was a trap specialist. Wires, pits, explosives—unconventional, ticulous. She fought her enemies by making the battlefield itself betray them.
They were thinkers. Planners. Not brawlers.
That was why Leon stood at their head. He was the blade. They were the shadows behind it.
But why train if they weren’t going to fight? Well because rank mattered. Even if none of the girls fought directly, being higher ranked ant higher stats.
And in this world, stats weren’t just numbers. They were raw, exponential strength. Enough to tilt a fight before it began. Even the worst fighter, if ranked high enough, could crush a lower one through sheer difference.
For the coming war, that difference was everything.
Leon’s eyes never left the scorpions. His companions’ nods were enough.
He exhaled once, the faintest mist escaping his lips despite the desert heat.
Then his right hand lifted. White frost flickered across his palm, sparks of crystalline light crackling to life. The glow sharpened, stretched, and in an instant a katana of pure frost glead in his grasp.
His grip tightened. His eyes narrowed.
Step.
Whoosh—!
The sound ca a split-second later.
One heartbeat, he stood before the girls. The next, he was gone—sand scattering in his wake. In a blink, Leon was in front of the scorpions, his blade already in motion, the sunlight flashing across its length.
Shnning—!
The katana carved a perfect arc. Ice surged from its path, coating chitin in white frost, slicing through their segnted forms. A sharp wind of cold rolled across the sand, crackling in the heat.
The scorpions convulsed, their jagged limbs twitching, ice forming across their shells. For a heartbeat, it looked like Leon had cleaved them clean apart. Their bodies trembled, cracked—
—and then held.
The fragnts didn’t fall.
Of course they didn’t.
They were Dissect Scorpions. Their very nature was dismbernt. Their parts hovered unnaturally, suspended above the sand, bodies already existing in segnted pieces.
Leon’s strike had shattered so limbs, broken a few shards of chitin—but that was all. The scorpions were still alive.
Still moving.
Their claws clicked in eerie unison, jagged stingers snapping down with dry cracks. The sound echoed across the dunes like bones snapping.
"Tsk."
Leon clicked his tongue, the sound sharp against the howling desert air.
This was his first ti truly clashing with a Dissect Scorpion. He knew of them, of course. He’d studied their habits, glimpsed their grotesque forms while hunting for Deathworms, even stalked them from a distance on patrol.
But fighting them? Feeling the weight of their strange existence pressing down on him? This was new. And the new always ca with its own lessons.
The scorpions did not waste ti. Their dissected, hovering body parts, segnted legs, jagged pincers, serrated tails, and plated shells—flared outward, gleaming under the sun. They buzzed with unnatural life, clicking and rattling in a rhythm that made the sand tremble.
Then they moved.
Not in separate strikes, not in the chaotic manner one might expect from fragnted creatures. No—they moved in unison, a hive-mind in shattered bodies. Their pieces spun, swirling, the air thickening with tallic sheen.
Shrrk—shrrrk—shrrrk—!
A maelstrom blood in the heart of the desert. Sand whipped up, pulled into a cyclone of shimring grit and steel. With twenty Dissect Scorpions combining their forms, a monstrous storm rose in seconds.
The horizon blurred. The wind howled. Visibility shrank to nothing but screaming sand.
In front of the chaos, Leon stood perfectly still. The storm bent the air around him, tugged at his coat, whipped his hair sideways—but his stance was rooted, his eyes locked on the raging vortex.
And then, a smirk.
The corner of his lips curled upward, sharp and confident. He exhaled once, then lifted his hands. The frosted katana dissolved into mist, particles of ice dispersing into the air. Leon clasped his palms together, fingers interlocking with deliberate finality.
"So," he muttered, voice low but clear, as though he were speaking directly to the storm itself, "you’re going to make a sandstorm, huh? Cute." His grin widened into a wolfish sneer. "How about I show you mine?"
Laughter spilled from him—loud, unrestrained.
His body ignited with incandescent light, a bluish aura flaring across his skin, searing bright under the sun. Dark wisps bled out from the glow, spectral and heavy, warping the air. His very presence pressed against the storm like invisible hands.
The cyclone faltered.
The scorpions’ maelstrom stuttered in its rotation, sand freezing mid-whirl, like the entire desert had been stuffed into an unseen cage.
Then the change began.
Frost.
Tiny flecks of white shimred in the storm’s heart, like fragile snow petals caught in impossible winds. The first flake lted before touching sand, but more followed. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. The storm of sand beca a storm of frost.
And then it beca a blizzard.
Whooooosh—!
Snow roared into existence, shredding across the dunes, the desert heat drowned beneath feral cold. The scorpions struggled, their segnted forms thrashing against the impossible climate, but their storm was no longer theirs.
It was Leon’s.
The air bit with sub-zero chill. The world turned white. And within that whiteout, the Dissect Scorpions froze mid-rotation, their dissected limbs locking solid in midair, their buzzing silenced into crystalline stillness.
They hung there—grotesque popsicles, suspended in the air with no anchor, no escape.
Minutes dragged on, the blizzard raging with more ferocity than even the desert storm it consud. The dunes hissed under sheets of frost. The storm finally collapsed, snow dissolving, air stilling. Silence reclaid the desert.
The Dissect Scorpions remained—suspended chunks of ice-coated armor, frozen mid-motion.
Leon released his clasp, exhaled once, and with a casual flick of his wrist, the frozen carcasses drifted through the air toward his companions.
The girls, who had watched wide-eyed from a safe distance, were struck speechless. Evelyn’s lips parted in a soundless gasp, her hands tightening.
Celeste’s usual smirk faltered into sothing caught between awe and disbelief. Mia’s eyes shimred, torn between admiration and unease. Verena, of all of them, had her hands clenched so tight her knuckles whitened.
Five frozen scorpions hovered before them, their segnted remains floating obediently, like gifts delivered by so frost-born tyrant.
The girls shared glances, crooked smiles, each one hesitant but unwilling to waste the opportunity.
Weapons slid free—swords, staves, daggers, anything they could raise.
And with simple strikes, they shattered the corpses. Frozen limbs broke apart like brittle glass, spraying into glittering shards. The fragnts fell, sparkling as they caught the light, until the ground was littered with nothing but frost-dust and silence.
The blizzard was gone. The storm silenced. And only Leon stood there, smirking at the trail of destruction he had sculpted from nothing.
"Well... This was fun," Leon chuckled to himself. He turned around and waved his right hand toward the girls. "Hey! Did you guys get your exp?"
Celeste answered him, "Yeah... I guess." She paused for a beat, before puckering her lips. "Ahh, Also Leon if you wouldn’t mind... Can I ask you a question?"
Leon tilted his head in disbelief, his mind churned with questions about what she could ask. Eventually, he asked. "Depends on the question. If it’s sothing I can asnwer, then sure. I would."
Celeste bit her lips, tension palpable over her face. But after taking a sigh, she asked. "By any chance... Do you enjoy tornting your enemies?"
"Hahahahaha," Leon laughed. He couldn’t understand why Celeste was so insecure about the question. With a straight face, he replied. "Yes."
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