SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 765: The Walking Plain

Leon drove fire at the wounded Marauder’s face.

It ducked behind its raised shoulder. The plates brightened under the impact, bracing along the front of its body while its head tucked low.

He was already moving.

A short spatial step put him beside its rear shoulder, close enough that he could see the narrow joint stretching beneath the edge of a plate. His sword entered there with lightning concentrated along the blade.

The Marauder convulsed.

Leon drove the strike through before it could twist away. Its legs folded, but the energy gathering above the collapsing body warned him that physical destruction alone was not enough.

A red shape began separating from it, taking the outline of an Avatar.

He drew a restrained measure of holy energy from his other Heart and struck that emerging presence. The light burned through its coherence and the consciousness within it. The lingering pull from the body broke.

[Cinderhide Marauder — Slain]

Leon did not stop to admire the notification.

Another creature hit the ground behind him. Stone buckled beneath his feet, and he crossed clear before molten heat flooded the hollow where he had stood.

The remaining three had closed around their fallen companion. One took his attention with a raised head while another sank into the earth, its armored back disappearing beneath a rolling line of broken soil.

Leon sent cold through that line.

The disturbed ground froze around the burrowing creature. He reinforced the ice before its heat could loosen it, holding the body in place long enough to strike upward with earth from beneath its jaw.

The head snapped back.

Its plates defended the outside of that movement. They could not cover the stretched throat at the same time.

Leon put a compressed blade of wind through the opening, then followed with lightning while the body was pinned. The attack took more energy than he liked; he needed enough force to finish, not another wound that would let it rejoin the fight.

When its Avatar tried to separate, he destroyed that presence with holy energy as well.

The other two were already coming.

Leon raised a barrier against the nearer one’s fire breath. Heat hammered across its surface, eating into the strength he supplied. The second Marauder moved around the flank instead of adding its breath to the same point.

He let the barrier fail at one edge.

The opening drew the flanking creature inward. Leon shifted sideways and pulled a ridge of stone across its leading feet. It stumbled toward its companion just as he drove lightning through the space between them.

The creatures collided. Their plates braced, limbs scrabbling against the broken ground.

Leon struck the nearer one’s exposed neck before it could recover. He carried the holy follow-up through the emerging Avatar, then stepped away as the last Marauder tore free.

It came alone, but it did not come carelessly.

Instead of charging straight into his sword, it lowered its body and swept fire across the ground, forcing him to move while it kept its vulnerable joints tucked beneath its plates.

Leon answered with earth. A wall rose behind it, cutting off its retreat. When it turned to break through, he struck its flank with ice, drawing the armored plates tight over that side.

Its front leg extended to brace against the wall.

He took the opening beneath the shoulder.

The first thrust damaged something deep enough to stagger it. The second went farther. Leon held his position through the creature’s violent turn, reinforcing his armor against the glancing blow from its head, and completed the strike before its weight could drag him down.

Its last attempt to escape the body met the same holy light as the others.

Only when the fourth death notification appeared did Leon let the sword lower.

The hilltop was blackened and split by shallow trenches. Small fires moved through the silver grass until he smothered them. The old marker still stood, streaked with soot.

He checked the ground before trusting it with his weight.

Then he checked himself.

His armor had cracked across the chest. A shallow burn marked one forearm where heat had penetrated it. His ordinary combat reserve was down by roughly a third, much of it spent holding defenses and forcing quick openings against coordinated opponents. The holy energy used to finish them was a separate expenditure, smaller but real.

He still had strength to fight. He would not want to repeat that encounter several times without rest.

Leon looked at the four carcasses.

None had been close to the sanctuary’s half-step Earth Immortal individually. That fight had required much more of him. Yet these were the first creatures he had met here, and their abilities had worked together well enough to make the cost unpleasant.

If he had spent the whole exchange hacking at their backs, he would have paid far more.

He crouched beside a fallen Marauder, studying the plates without putting his fingers near the bloodied joints. Valuable, almost certainly. He wanted to examine how they had braced under his attacks, preferably somewhere quieter than the hill where he had just announced his arrival.

He stored the bodies in his ring for later work. Even this brief inspection had left him listening to every movement in the grass.

The ridge to the north offered a better view than the damaged hilltop. Leon approached it under cover, keeping his aura restrained and watching for fresh tracks. The scorched smell clung to him. He used a little water to cool the burn and clean his arm before climbing the final slope.

At the crest, he lay flat and parted the grass.

For a moment he could not understand what he was seeing.

The plain was moving.

Hundreds of Cinderhide Marauders crossed the silver grass below. Among them strode long-legged creatures with narrow bodies held high above the ground. Farther away, immense shells moved like low hills. Dark flocks wheeled over the mass, descending and rising without breaking its overall direction.

There were thousands of creatures within his view.

Leon drew his hand back slowly, letting the grass screen his face again.

He had just spent a third of his ordinary reserve on four Marauders. He had no intention of proving how many more he could kill before numbers settled the matter.

The creatures were moving west, toward the black mountains and the distant citadel.

No. He looked more carefully.

Their paths converged before the mountains, around a vast ruin spread across the foothills. Broken walls surrounded a pale glow that had not been visible from his arrival point. The light rose through the ruined center, steady enough to remain clear even as the creatures passed between him and it.

Everything he could see was heading toward that light.

Leon watched for movement in the other direction. None appeared.

He wanted to know what was there. A resource, a gathering place, something tied to the ruin’s purpose—he had no evidence yet, but any explanation that drew this many powerful creatures deserved attention.

Attention from a distance, for now.

He looked beyond the migration for a route through the lower hills. If this was the scale of Floor Six, he would need substantial improvement before even considering the next floor. Clearing this one well might take far longer than he had expected when he put away Ji’s plates.

That thought did not make him want to leave.

It did make him check the slope behind him before moving.

Leon backed down from the ridge, keeping the grass between himself and the passing creatures. First he would find the migration’s edge. Then he would find out what waited at its center.