In less than a second, Leo had already decided. There was no hesitation, there never was. He wasn't the kind of man who could stand still and watch someone die, not when he had even the slightest chance to intervene. His jaw clenched, breath tightening in his chest as he deactivated his bracelets, the heavy enchantments collapsing in an instant.
The moment the weight vanished from his body, his entire figure blurred, snapping forward with a speed he could never reach while wearing them. The air cracked around him as he pushed his body to its limit.
Ahead, the monster had already closed the distance to the shield-bearer. Its posture shifted, its body lowering with predatory intent as it raised its sword for the killing strike. But then, its head jerked slightly.
It felt him coming.
A heartbeat later, Leo flashed into existence at the creature's right flank, his sword already mid-swing. The blade carved a vicious arc meant to cleave the monster cleanly in half.
But the creature reacted with impossible precision.
Its entire body twisted, rolling its torso downward and to the right, avoiding the slash by a margin so thin the air between blade and the body trembled. And as it dodged, the sword in its hand snapped toward Leo with a speed so vastly superior that, for an instant, it seemed to cut time itself, blurring past Leo's guard and slicing clean through him.
Leo's body split, But instead of blood, only shimmering fragments blew apart.
It wasn't him.
The figure dissolved into motes of illusionary light, the attack cutting through nothing but air.
It was a phantom.
Leo's real form had shifted behind it at the same instant of his attack, concealed beneath an illusion he had built and refined over the last two years, a technique meant specifically for moments like this. He used it to exchange places with a phantom the very second he struck, masking the transition flawlessly.
The monster's blade had hit only a decoy.
Leo's real sword was already descending from behind, a clean, lethal slash aimed directly at the creature's exposed neck, But once more, the monster's reaction was unnervingly sharp.
It dropped straight down, folding its legs with unnatural agility, ducking under the blade. Leo's mouth curved, not in irritation but in a sharp, tense smile. This was exactly what he wanted.
His sword halted mid-motion.
Paused.
Then snapped downward again.
He hadn't put his full strength behind the first swing on purpose. He needed the blade light enough to stop it instantly and redirect. He had built a trap inside a trap, a surprise hidden inside another surprise, because he already knew the creature was capable of dodging the obvious.
And his blade came down just as the monster tried to rise.
But the creature moved with even greater reflexes than he expected. With a powerful kick of its legs, it launched itself to the back, leaping into the air with explosive force, and while airborne, its free hand whipped forward.
A sphere of white fire burst from its palm.
Leo barely had time to snap Thorn into its defensive form. The sword expanded violently, metal swirling and unfolding around him until it formed a curved barrier, thick and protective like the shell of some great beast.
The fireball slammed into Thorn's shield-form and detonated. The impact rattled Leo's arms and sent a shockwave through the place, but the shield held.
It only took a heartbeat for Thorn to retract back into its normal shape,But the monster was already gone.
A scream tore through the air. Leo spun, eyes widening.
Behind him, above the ground, the shield-bearer hung suspended, lifted by the monster's sword that had been thrust straight through his chest.
The man's body twitched once. Blood spilled down the blade. And the monster's head turned slowly toward Leo, its eyes gleaming with cold triumph.
The monster let out a laugh-like sound as it ran toward the sword man, a harsh, distorted noise that was like mockery given form. It wasn't just attacking, it was taunting Leo, flaunting how powerless it thought he was.
Leo had far too much experience to be provoked by something like that. He forced a deep breath into his lungs, steadying the surge of anger and instinct, letting his mind sharpen. Then he charged forward with his fastest speed, boots striking the ground in a rapid rhythm that barely sounded human. His sword swept through the air in a vicious arc, yet it cut only empty space. The monster had already slipped aside, fluid and effortless, leaving the blade slicing through nothing where its body had been only a heartbeat earlier.
Leo didn't pause. He pivoted, shifting his weight in an instant, bringing his sword around to meet the incoming counterattack.
Steel met steel.
The collision was brutal. The monster had dodged with ease and swung back in the same motion, and when its sword met Leo's, the impact was overwhelming. Leo was thrown back like a stone launched from a catapult, no, like a meteor hurled into the darkness. His body vanished into one of the shadowed passages, swallowed whole by the maze's dim, unsteady light.
The monster's sword was wrapped in fire, pale flames licking around the blade like hungry fingers. The force of that single strike had been enough to burn the sword man who stood close by, scorching his armor and searing into his flesh in an instant. Heat rolled off the impact like a wave, catching even the nearby archer; flames licked up his arm before the elf woman sprang into motion. She leaped above him, hands glowing, and pressed healing magic into the wound to stop the fire before it consumed him completely.
For a moment the monster simply watched the darkness where Leo had disappeared, its head tilted slightly, as if amused by the idea that a human could survive that blow. Then it turned smoothly back toward the remaining three, sword lifting again, flames shifting like a second, whispering aura around it.
Far away in the shadows of the passage, Leo stumbled to a stop, boots skidding as he forced his momentum down. The collision had been brutal, but not enough to break him. And he had enough. Two members of that group were already dead, and if he didn't act now, the rest would follow.
He had planned to save this for the most crucial moment. That moment had arrived.
His hair began to pale, whitening strand by strand until all color drained away. His veins bulged beneath his skin, glowing faintly, pulsing with unstable power. Even after two years of training, holding this form was difficult and he could feel the strain immediately, like fire crawling through his muscles. But there was no hesitation in him.
He pushed off the ground.
The maze floor exploded beneath his feet. Dust and plant fragments burst upward in a small shockwave as he shot forward, easily ten times faster than before, so fast that his silhouette blurred into streaks of white and red.
The monster saw him. Its head snapped toward the darkness just in time to catch a glimpse of the transformed Leo charging out like a bolt of killing intent. For less than a second, even that creature seemed surprised.
Then it laughed again, a low, delighted, cruel sound, and swung its sword down toward the remaining three victims, ready to finish them.
Leo raised his sword, aiming it directly toward the monster as he sprinted. Even with all this speed, he knew he wouldn't physically reach the creature in time.
But that didn't matter. He didn't need himself to reach the monster.
He only needed his sword to.
Thorn suddenly expanded under Leo's mana pressure, its metal groaning and stretching as if alive. The blade lengthened in an instant, shooting forward like a spear. The tip struck the monster square in the waist, the impact jolting its body with enough force to snap its balance. Instead of driving straight through, Leo bent Thorn's growing shape upward, guiding the blade's trajectory with precision only an illusionist-warrior hybrid could manage.
The monster's molten eyes widened, surprise breaking across its shadowed, twisted features, just as Thorn's rising edge hooked beneath its center of mass. The sudden upward force lifted the creature clean off the ground, yanking it into the air. Its limbs flared in shock, claws reaching for anything to stop the motion, but Leo's controlled manipulation of Thorn offered no anchor. The creature was ripped away from the ground, suspended helplessly for the briefest, perfect moment.
And in that moment, Leo whispered, low and sharp.
"Blood Explosion."
At the command, a sphere of blood bloomed into existence above them, violent, instantaneous, massive. It unfolded like a crimson flower snapping open, swelling outward until it engulfed the monster entirely. The sphere swallowed the creature with a wet, thunderous rush, its surface swirling in thick currents of scarlet energy.
A scream tore from inside, high, distorted, raw with pain, as the spell detonated.
The explosion erupted with brutal force. A shockwave rippled through the corridor, shaking leaves and sending dust rolling across the ground. For several seconds, the sphere churned and roared, flashing with bursts of red light as its destructive energy tore through everything trapped inside.
Then, with a final concussive burst, the blood sphere ruptured.
The monster's body, was hurled out of the dissolving cloud. It slammed into the maze floor a dozen meters away, skidding across the stone before coming to a motionless stop.
The echo of the impact faded slowly, swallowed by the maze's endless dark.
Leo looked at the enemy's broken body for a long, steady heartbeat before turning toward the remaining three survivors. His breathing was rough, his stance still guarded, but his voice stayed calm.
"Are you alright?"
They barely had time to register the words.
Before any of them could answer, a blade punched straight through Leo's chest, so sudden and silent that for a blink, no one understood what they were seeing. The two men and the elven woman froze in shock, eyes widening…
And then Leo's body shattered into fragments of illusion, dissolving like dust caught in a breeze.
In his place, the monster appeared behind him, its stance tense and confused, as startled as the others.
A split-second later, a sword erupted from the hollow space in its chest cavity.
Behind the creature stood Leo, silent, expression sharp, his eyes colder than before.
"I could see you shielding your body inside your flames," he said, voice low.
Before the monster could even twitch in response, Leo whispered.
"Blood Explosion."
The sphere bloomed outward instantly. The elven girl screamed, the dwarf lifted his hammer in alarm, but the blast didn't harm them. Only the monster's agonized roar filled the air as its white flames sputtered, catching and burning out under the force of the detonation.
Leo didn't relax.
He knew this creature wouldn't die easily. His creation spell surged outward, expanding at lightlike speed until it covered the area around them in a faint, shimmering dome. A phantom appeared behind him, already synchronized with his movement, and two teleport circles unfolded, one under Leo's feet, one beneath the phantom.
The maze reacted immediately.
The living walls surged inward, branches thrusting like spears as if trying to crush everything within its reach. Leo's explosion spell brushed against the walls, and the maze answered, pushing forward from all sides.
But Leo moved a fraction faster.
He and the three survivors vanished in a blink, reappearing deeper down another passage. At the same instant, his phantom teleported onto Leo's former position, and was swallowed by the lunging branches as they snapped inward around both the decoy and the monster.
Trapped between the maze and Leo's lingering magic, the monster fought to escape. Its white flames flared wildly as it tried to burn the walls away, but the living maze pushed back, resisting. After a moment of struggle, it released an enraged, guttural howl and hurled a blazing sphere of fire toward Leo and the group.
"Incoming!" the dwarf shouted.
The elven girl raised her staff to cast a defensive barrier, but Leo was already in motion. His hand held forward, released a dense surge of gas that expanded outward in two directions at once.
A thick ring of gas unfurled behind and around the group, forming a protective circle just as the maze's branches lunged inward. At the same time, a second stream of gas shot forward in a straight, focused line toward the monster and its incoming fireball.
Then, with a single thought, the gas ignited.
The circular ring around them blossomed into a wall of blue fire, shielding them from the closing branches. But the forward stream transformed into something far more lethal: a narrow, intensely compressed beam of blue flame, a burning lance instead of ordinary fire.
It pierced outward like a laser. The moment it ignited, the incoming fireball evaporated into nothing. The beam continued through, slamming into the monster and hurling it backward, tearing a scorched path clean through the maze.
The walls ahead collapsed under the scorching heat, burning away faster than the maze could react. For a heartbeat, silence held, but then the branches quivered and began to regenerate, surging forward with renewed aggression.
Leo didn't give them the chance.
His creation sphere suddenly expanded, far larger than before, surging out to fill the dark corridor ahead. The moment it reached the size he wanted, another teleport spell activated.
All of them vanished. Leo, the three survivors, and the sphere itself. leaving only the burning, closing walls of the Maze behind.