Kapitel 9: It's not magic but its quite magical

[Pending decision regarding critical circuits]

[All changes will be withheld until critical circuit disputes are resolved]

'This fucking…'

It was rare for Leo to get emotional. A big thing had to happen for him to utter a curse even within the confines of just his mind, all the more for him to say it out loud.

And yet, upon seeing this system notification, he felt like cursing out loud.

'Should I just agree to everything and bet on my luck that the outcome will be positive?' he thought for merely a second.

Then, a small smirk flourished on his lips.

'As if.'

There were many skills, traits of character, and rules that Leo followed throughout his lifetimes. Some were inherent to his personality, others were the results of the lessons that often came with a bloody prize.

But relying on stupid luck was never one of those.

'Back.'

Leo retreated a full step the very moment the nearest of the fiends charged in.

This wave was much bigger than the one from before, consisting of over ten green-caps, an orc, and a swarm of adolescent goblins that was simply too big for Leo to bother counting. And with just a single monster core of a green-cap crushed in his hand…

Leo had just enough mana to deal with them, especially with the pleasant weight of the goblin's crude knife bearing down in his hand.

'Back.'

Leo took another step to the back, baiting the attacking green-cap to overextend his lunge beyond the point at which it could control it.

Then, the young man reached out, as if to grasp the crude dagger in the goblin's hand, only to narrowly avoid it and grab a second goblin's wrist for the day.

'Come here,' Leo thought, happily indulging in the fervor of the fighting as he pulled the stumbling green-cap towards his chest, inviting him to a deep hug.

Instead of his chest, though, the goblin slammed right into the dagger Leo brought over and rested against his solar plexus.

By the time the tip of the knife emerged from the goblin's back, Leo had no other choice but to abandon the weapon, taking three hurried steps to the left and then one ahead to avoid the charge of two more fiends.

It was like a dance.

A deadly dance where a single misstep would lead Leo's flesh straight on the path of either a sharp, dirty knife or a heavy, wooden club swung at a great force.

And step by step, Leo immersed himself in his choreography connecting all the sets of moves he learned throughout his lifetimes with the ever-evolving situation on the battlefield.

This dance, as beautiful as it had to look to an outsider, had no real purpose in the fight. Leo moved too slow to generate enough momentum to make the full use of the mana reconfigured through his core and radiating out directly into his flesh.

No.

During this dance, Leo didn't attack even once. Instead, he herded the ever-increasing number of the fiends in a relatively narrow line, before sliding right towards its end.

'And now, for the good part…'

With all the fields lined up pretty much in front of him, Leo took a deep breath and infused all of his spare mana into the first legacy core of his soul.

Fighting a huge number of low-threat enemies could be as threatening as a battle with one, overpowered boss-like existence. It came with different dangers, problems, and solutions to those, but in the most simple approach, it all boiled down to one rule.

And it was never to fight the swarm alone. No matter how strong or skilled, everyone needed to take some proper rest after a period of fighting. Be it catching breath, taking a sip, or simply letting one's muscles recover, it was the one weakness of the human body a swarm of monsters would always try to exploit.

But Leo was alone.

There was no way he would ever count on those two green youths to pull their weight in a fight like this. Sure, he had no designs at ever helping them if they were to foolishly get involved and pull the fiends aggro on themselves… and fairly enough, he had no expectations of them helping him either.

'In fact, if they die, it might make for a good lesson for those brats…' Leo thought, an image of his now much older siblings and family friends flashing before his eyes.

Still, Leo was alone. As such, he wouldn't get a single chance to rest, not against the nigh-endless swarm of monsters that inhabited the open plain within the portal. And while this swarm wasn't all that dense…

The more monsters gathered in one place, the bigger of an attracting factor the battle would become. It was a self-reinforcing cycle that a lone warrior could never break by trying to fight off all of those endless small fries, especially not with the occasional orc or even trolls lurking around.

That's why, rather than dealing with the swarm one by one, wasting effort on every tiny mob before moving on to the next, Leo lined them all up, all roughly in front of his now tightened fist.

'This might not reach the level of magic…'

Leo grasped down with the fingers of his right hand while stretching his elbow as far back as his joints and muscles allowed.

'But the results are quite magical.'

The mana fueled the first of Leo's legacy cores, flooding it with pretty much all of the energy he obtained from crushing the green-cap's stone. The slight warmth of the core's effects turned into burning flames of raw energy that the tissue of Leo's very flesh couldn't really handle.

For one single instant, however, everything fell into place.

The monsters turned to face Leo, confused by his weird dance from before. Some strayed out of the group… Thankfully, most of them were mere adolescent goblins.

'Crush.'

With this simple intent giving an outlet to the burning energy of overcharged mana within Leo's flesh, the young man struck forth.

His form was perfect.

Leo's legs firmly supported him against the ground. His hips twisted as he punched out. A breath escaped from his lungs the moment he decompressed his muscles, only for those very same relaxed muscles to turn into steel the moment he pushed out the last iota of air.

And right when all of those perfectly executed forces came together, the world itself appeared to crack.

Once again, it was no magic. The first legacy core only ever infused Leo's flesh with physical might. And even if that boost allowed him to go beyond mortal means… it was still nothing more but a physical attack.

A physical attack executed in a mana-rich world, though. And with the intensity of the forces Leo brought to bear at a single focal point, the mana around said point rippled out, ignoring the cause and spreading the effect down a straight line spreading in the very same direction Leo punched out.

The herd of the monsters suddenly blurred as fountains of disgusting, green blood exploded all over the place, mere moments before the fiends started to collapse down to the ground.

And then, a fireball struck the far end of the group of the now slaughtered monsters, casting a tonne of sparks while merely scorching the skin of the few adolescent goblin corpses it managed to hit.

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