From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 100: Herald

Leon walked through fire.

Not the flames of death or destruction. The kind that didn’t burn skin, but scorched resolve. Every step toward the Herald felt like dragging the weight of a thousand battles behind him. The air was thick. Charged. Like the world held its breath.

The Herald waited.

He stood still, one hand lowered, the other behind his back. His armour looked molten—black metal threaded with flickering veins of orange. His eyes glowed beneath a visor, watching.

Watching Leon alone.

Behind, the valley screamed. The third wave had begun—cutters tearing through formations, the mountain’s soldiers fighting to hold the line. But Leon didn’t turn.

This duel had been chosen the moment the Herald stepped through.

No words were spoken. No introductions.

The Herald moved first.

A flicker. Then he appeared in front of Leon, faster than sight.

Leon barely parried the blow. His sword screamed against the Herald’s gauntlet, not a weapon—just raw force. The impact launched Leon backward, boots skidding across broken ground.

He exhaled.

Then charged.

They clashed.

Again and again.

Every strike tested the edge of Leon’s reflexes. The Herald didn’t use a blade. His arms were the weapon. Each strike sent shockwaves. One punch cratered the ground beside Leon. Another grazed his shoulder—sent him spinning.

Leon rolled, came up in a crouch, and launched forward, sword low.

The Herald blocked with his forearm, twisted, then drove his elbow toward Leon’s ribs.

Leon ducked, stabbed upward. Metal met metal.

The Herald grunted.

Leon pressed.

A flurry of swings. A rising slash. A downward cleave. His sword flared golden with every hit.

Then the Herald caught it.

Fingers wrapped around the blade, halting it mid-swing. With a twist, he yanked Leon forward—and slammed a fist into his gut.

Leon dropped.

Vision swam.

He hit the ground on all fours, coughing. Blood painted the dirt.

The Herald didn’t press. He waited.

Like a test.

Leon forced his body upright. He wiped his mouth. Raised his sword again.

The Herald tilted his head. Then moved.

Another exchange. This time, Leon deflected instead of blocking. Redirected the force. He circled. Looked for patterns.

There were none.

The Herald adapted each moment. No repetition. No rhythm.

Unbeatable.

Unless—

Leon drew in breath. Closed his eyes for half a second. Then shifted stances.

Not Thorne Style. Not the academy forms.

This was his own.

The first slash came from the hip—shallow, baiting. The second spun from the recovery, a backhanded arc. The third—a thrust through smoke and misdirection.

It landed.

A shallow cut across the Herald’s flank.

The Herald stepped back. Looked down. Then lifted his head.

For the first time, he raised both arms.

A roar split the battlefield. Wind exploded outward from their position, tossing corpses, weapons, even men.

Leon dug his heels in, planting himself like stone.

The Herald struck with both hands now. Wide arcs. Blows that shook the sky.

Leon met them.

Each clash pushed him back, but he didn’t fall.

Steel sparked.

Then—the Herald overextended.

Leon ducked under a wide swing, spun low, and slashed across the Herald’s knee.

The armour cracked.

He drove the sword into the joint.

The Herald dropped to one leg.

Leon roared and leapt—sword overhead, both hands clenched.

He brought it down—

The Herald raised a hand.

Caught the blade again.

But this time—

It burned.

Leon’s blade ignited—not with flame, but with the mountain’s light. The seal’s power, awakened.

The Herald’s gauntlet hissed. His armour cracked wider.

Leon drove forward, screaming.

And the Herald—

Laughed.

It wasn’t mocking.

It was approval.

He let go.

And Leon’s blade drove through his chest.

The Herald dropped to his knees.

Leon panted. Blood ran down his arms.

The Herald looked up. "Good."

Then vanished—into embers and ash.

The light faded.

Leon stood alone.

And above the gate—the final wall crumbled.

The true enemy had awakened.

The war had only just begun.

Leon didn’t rest.

His knees shook, lungs burning with every breath, but he didn’t fall. Around him, the air felt thinner—as if the death of the Herald had stolen something essential from the battlefield. The sky dimmed, not from dusk or shadow, but something colder. Quieter.

The gate still pulsed.

The wall above it was gone. Not broken—erased.

In its place stood nothing.

Not darkness. Not flame.

Just... absence.

No shapes stepped through.

No roars or cries came from the threshold.

But the air grew heavier.

Leon turned back toward the ridge. His allies had seen. Mira was frozen, one hand raised mid-cast. Tomas had stopped mid-sprint. Even the boy stared with a tension Leon had never seen on his face before.

Then the boy whispered, "It woke up."

A new shape formed at the gate.

Not through it—above it.

At first, it was formless. Like smoke trying to decide what it wanted to be. Then it folded in. Condensed. Bones formed. Flesh followed. Arms. Legs. Wings.

Wings?

Massive, scaled, leathery wings. Not feathered. Not demonic. Just wrong. Like something ancient that had never meant to walk a human world.

It landed without sound.

The mountain cracked beneath its weight.

Its eyes opened.

Not red. Not gold. Just... hollow. As if they reflected nothing but the person who dared to stare back.

Leon didn’t move.

Because it didn’t move.

Not yet.

He could hear Mira’s voice faintly behind him. "What... what is that?"

Tomas answered. "It’s not a commander."

"No," the boy said. "That’s the root. The source. The one sealed at the base of this mountain before the kingdoms ever formed."

Elena stepped forward beside Leon. "It’s the last seal."

The creature cocked its head, as if recognising them. Or remembering something it had never truly seen.

Then, it took a breath.

And the valley collapsed.

Not physically—but everything in motion stopped.

Spells fizzled out. Arrows froze mid-flight. Wind no longer moved. Even the distant clash of soldiers halted.

Time had not stopped.

It had become the only thing that mattered.

Leon gripped his sword.

The creature finally spoke.

Its voice wasn’t a sound. It was a pressure. A language forced into the mind, without choice.

"You break what was made to bind. You bleed what was sealed in stone. You rise without right."

Leon didn’t understand it all—but he understood enough.

It was talking about the mountain.

The seals.

Them.

He stepped forward, sword raised again.

The thing watched.

Then it raised a clawed finger—and pointed at him.

You.

The word struck like a hammer.

Leon felt his knees buckle, his vision blur, and his ears ring.

But he didn’t fall.

He pointed his sword in return.

"You want me?" he shouted. "Then come down."

Behind him, Tomas stepped up. Then Mira. Alden, bleeding and limping, still not backing away. Elena stood at Leon’s shoulder.

They didn’t say anything poetic. They didn’t chant.

They simply raised their weapons too.

The creature tilted its head again.

Then lowered its hand.

And stepped forward.

One step.

Two.

And then—it began to run.

Each stride bent the air. The ground trembled with every step, not from weight alone—but from the force of something ancient finally unbound. As it rushed forward, the mist parted around it like breath through frost.

Leon braced. His legs locked, sword raised, teeth clenched.

"Hold!" he barked.

But no one waited for impact.

Tomas met the charge first—leaping from the ridge like a launched arrow, both blades extended. The creature swatted him mid-air. Not with hate. Not with effort. Like brushing away a leaf. Tomas spun twice in the sky and crashed into a broken obelisk.

"Tom—!" Mira started, but she couldn’t finish.

The creature kept coming.

Mira fired—three chains of pure radiant light. Each hit the creature’s torso and exploded on contact.

Smoke.

Dust.

It kept walking.

Callen and Alden let fly from different angles. Ice-tipped arrows. Magic-sealed bolts. One struck the creature’s cheek. Another, its knee.

Neither pierced.

Elena stood firm.

She didn’t cast yet.

She was watching.

Calculating.

Leon did the same. His heart thundered. His instincts screamed to run.

But he held.

The creature closed the distance. Fifty strides. Forty. Thirty—

"Now!" Leon roared.

Elena moved first.

A wall of frost surged upward from the dirt, reinforced with sharp spikes of hardened crystal.

The creature didn’t stop.

It crashed through—glass shattering, frost hissing, shards spiraling everywhere.

Leon moved with the collapse.

He ducked low and slid beneath the final collapse of ice, blade angled for the tendons behind its heel. He struck—

It felt like hitting stone wrapped in silence.

But it staggered.

A ripple ran up the creature’s leg, and it slowed just enough.

"NOW!" Mira shouted.

A blast of searing energy burst from behind Leon—direct hit to the spine.

And Elena cast again.

Not ice this time.

Wind.

A dense, whirling vortex that slammed into the creature’s exposed side and twisted it, just enough to shift its balance.

Leon climbed.

He vaulted up the back of the beast—boots digging into flesh that resisted like steel, but still bent slightly under his weight. His sword flared gold again.

He reached the shoulder.

Swung down.

The blade pierced—barely.

The creature roared.

It was not pain. It was recognition.

It bucked, wings unfurling. The gust knocked Mira backward and sent Alden tumbling. Tomas was still rising at the far edge of the ridge, blood on his temple.

Leon held on.

The creature’s hand reached over its own back, claws curled like knives.

He jumped—barely avoiding being crushed—and landed back on the ground.

The impact broke something in his ankle. He hissed—but didn’t stop.

The creature turned toward him now. Fully.

Its mouth opened.

Inside, there wasn’t fire or smoke.

There was light. The kind that burns through reality itself.

Leon raised his sword.

But the light didn’t fire.

The creature paused.

And it spoke again.

"You carry the mountain’s curse."

Leon stepped forward, bleeding and limping.

"I carry its burden," he said. "And I don’t intend to break."

The creature stared.

Then lunged.

Not a run this time. Not a charge.

It dove.

And the sky screamed with it.

Leon dove to the side.

The ground where he’d stood exploded—stones shattered, dirt blasted upward like a geyser. The shockwave hurled him back, but he tucked his body and rolled, came up limping, sword still in hand.

The creature didn’t pause.

It twisted mid-motion and pounced again, claws raking a line into the battlefield, leaving a trench behind. Alden shouted—barely pulling Mira clear before the strike would’ve crushed her.

"Tighten the flank!" Leon roared.

Elena extended her hands. Pillars of earth burst up to the side, slowing the beast’s momentum, momentarily pinning its shoulder against the terrain.

"Go!" she yelled.

Leon moved.

He sprinted—pain lancing through his ankle—toward the exposed ribs. One second. Two.

He leapt.

Sword reversed in his grip, he stabbed with everything he had.

The blade buried halfway.

The creature screamed. This time, it staggered.

Mira followed up, her chains glowing white-hot. They wrapped around the beast’s outstretched arm, burning into flesh that should’ve been immune.

Tomas was back on his feet. His blades were cracked, but he didn’t wait. He lunged low, slashing across the creature’s ankle again and again until scales began to shear.

Then—

The creature twisted.

Mira was yanked forward by her own chains.

Leon saw it too late.

The beast’s claw rose.

Elena flung a shield.

It shattered instantly.

Leon shoved Mira with his full weight, throwing her clear—

—and the claw caught him across the back.

Blood sprayed.

He hit the ground hard.

Didn’t move.

Elena screamed his name, launching a barrage of runes toward the beast’s exposed throat. The impact rocked it. Tomas roared and drove both blades into the leg, wedging them deep.

The creature stumbled.

But Leon didn’t rise.

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