You Learned That Too?
CRAAAAACK!!
A mountain of pressure threatened to burst his entire body apart at any second. Leon clenched his teeth hard. A metallic tang of blood spread through his mouth. His head throbbed, and his vision flickered between black and white.
GRIIIIIND!!
Sparks showered from where the Heaven-Shattering Sword locked against the golems' weapons. The floor beneath his feet crumpled, fracturing into a spiderweb of shattered stone. Leon detonated mana through his body once more, shoving the crushing weight back.
"Hrrngh!"
The muscles in his limbs swelled taut. Veins bulged along his neck and face. And then—
RUMBLE—!
Amazingly, Leon's knees and waist began to straighten, inch by inch.
Judging that this wouldn't do, the golems twisted and wrenched at their weapons, trying to pull free. But the third form of the Jecheon Sword Style, Heukunilsa—imbued with the principle of Absorption—made escape impossible. Just as he had boasted, Leon had completely bound the enemy's hands and feet.
Which made his furious bellowing entirely understandable.
"Hey, you bastards! What the hell are you waiting for—get over here!"
"...!"
The members of Team One, who had been staring blankly at Leon's struggle, finally scrambled into motion. With Leon doing all the heavy lifting, the rest was easy.
Greeeek! Grroooan!
Sensing the cadets climbing up their backs, the golems thrashed and twisted their massive frames—but Leon poured every last drop of mana into holding them fast. The adhesive force only grew stronger, pinning them so thoroughly they couldn't so much as twitch. Whether they lacked the intelligence to simply let go of their weapons or not, the golems clung helplessly to the hilts of their thoroughly bound arms and flailed in confusion.
Seizing the opening, the Team One cadets reversed their grips on their swords and slipped with agile precision up behind the golems' shoulders. As the tip of every formation, their skill was the finest in Class A. The golems' thrashing bodies rocked and shuddered violently beneath their feet, but the cadets treated it as nothing. They vaulted cleanly over the shoulders and, even as they dropped, drove their blades straight into the gems set in the golems' chests.
Skreeeech—!
Fragments sprayed. Blades scraped and screeched as they sank deeper. When the swords had buried themselves to the hilt, the crimson gems shifted to green. The light in the golems' helmets died, and they went still—but just as before, it was only temporary. Within seconds the light would return and they would reactivate. According to Leon, all four gems had to be shattered at the same time to bring them down for good.
Skreee-skreee-skreech! Skreee-skreech!
Fortunately, the remaining teammates' blades punched clean through their gems without delay. One by one the lights changed color. The glow faded from the golems' eyes.
Thud. Rumble-rumble-rumble—!
Their massive forms collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. The cadets looked down at the fallen enemies and let out a collective sigh of relief.
PASS!
Through the swirling dust, falling rubble, and the pass message floating overhead—
"Seriously, can you guys move any slower?"
His face twisted into something downright demonic, Leon shook off his sword and came stomping out.
"Are you doing this on purpose just to screw with me? When this exam's over, I swear I'm gonna wreck every last one of—"
Fwoosh!
To the cadets' great relief, Leon's tirade cut off mid-sentence as they were transferred to the next stage.
Fwoosh!
Lilbgius Breakthrough — Stage 4
Eliminate the enemy commander.
Evaluation begins in 30 seconds. 30, 29…
The familiar prompt floated into view, and the Class A cadets immediately began surveying their surroundings.
A crescent moon hung in the night sky. The air was thick and clammy. The chirping of insects, the cries of beasts, the calls of birds. Broad-leafed trees towered high overhead, linked by vines and ferns. The terrain was something close to a tropical rainforest—or a jungle.
"I'm guessing those are the enemies?"
At someone's words, every cadet looked down. They stood at the very edge of a towering cliff. Far below, a sizable tribal village sprawled across the ground. A wooden palisade the height of a grown man ringed the entire settlement. Inside, more than thirty thatched huts of loosely woven grass stood among dirt paths, torch stands, and watchtowers placed at regular intervals.
And the village's inhabitants were not human.
"Lizardmen…?"
Lizardmen. Bipedal, lizard-form monsters. Over two meters tall, their bodies covered in green scales, thick necks topped with crocodile-like heads. Strong enough to tear an adult human apart with their bare hands. Not quite on the level of orcs, but dangerous enough to make goblins look like a joke. Dozens of them prowled the village, each carrying a spear as tall as themselves.
"Looks like more than fifty."
"So we're supposed to fight through all that…"
"There's a commander, so there's probably a Lizard King."
Individuals whose size, strength, and speed far outstripped ordinary lizardmen were called Lizard Kings. Such specimens typically bound lesser lizardmen together and ruled over large tribes. The pass condition—eliminate the commander—almost certainly meant killing that one.
"Leon, what's the plan?"
Twenty-four pairs of eyes locked onto him. Leon hummed thoughtfully, then grinned and raised an open palm.
Five fingers.
The cadets' expressions turned peculiar.
Central Control Room.
…3, 2, 1.
BEGIN!
The moment the barrier dropped, the Class A cadets split into two groups and scattered in opposite directions. The only one who didn't move was Leon, standing motionless atop the cliff.
"Hahah."
Hera licked her lips, eyes curving with pure anticipation.
The cadets who had leapt from the cliff fanned out and began encircling the village—wide and shallow. Not divided into squads, but spaced one by one into a broad circular net. The instructors watching let out low murmurs.
"Individual combat?"
"Lizardmen aren't that easy to handle…"
If they'd had the numbers advantage, maybe. But splitting up to fight alone against more than twice their number looked reckless. Thanks to their raw physique and feral instincts, lizardmen were opponents even Expert-rank martial artists couldn't take lightly. One slip, and a massive spear would shear off a limb without ceremony.
Of course, the instructors' concerns went unheeded. The cadets kept tightening the encirclement, bodies low, melting into the darkness and undergrowth. The sharp gleam in their eyes as they closed in was the look of predators stalking prey. The lizardman village was slowly being wrapped in a ring of invaders.
At last the cadets reached the foot of the palisade. A brief silence. A few exchanged glances. Then the red-haired cadet, Carotin, threw back his head and bellowed.
"——!!!"
At once—
FWOOOOOOSH!
Twenty-four blades of sword aura ignited in unison, flooding the twilight forest with light. The torches of mana blazing along their swords were more than enough to startle the lizardmen on patrol. And they didn't stop there.
"Uwaaaaaaah!!!"
"Waaaaaaagh!!!"
"Kyaaaaaaah!!!"
As if all that stealth had never happened, the cadets howled like deranged monkeys.
"Graaaaaaah!!!"
"Your mom's a salamander!!!"
"Kill them all!!!"
They must have practiced. Even the female cadets dropped every shred of dignity and shrieked like barbarian warriors. It was more than enough provocation to send every lizardman in the village snatching up spears and charging out.
"???"
Everyone in the control room went slack-jawed.
"W-wait, is that actually the plan?"
"They're short on time for a stealth approach as it is, and they're provoking them?"
"This class really is something else…"
While the room dissolved into bewildered uproar, only a handful of the truly skilled—Hera among them—noticed that Leon had already vanished from the cliff top.
"You learned stuff like that too~?"
Hera's gaze tracked Leon's position with perfect precision.
The instant the cadets started raising hell, Leon—who had been waiting motionless—sprang from the cliff and tore through the undergrowth, leaving black afterimages in his wake. As a martial artist of the Crusif family herself, Hera recognized it immediately. That was not the Heavenly Spirit Steps. It was something far more secretive, far more refined. Footwork that merged with darkness and shadow. Movement that could deceive even the moon hanging in the sky. Hazy as smoke. Faint as a phantom. Indistinct as a half-remembered dream.
Even as he slipped past dozens of cadets and lizardmen alike, not a single soul sensed his presence. Having fooled them all, he accelerated further and slid into the heart of the village like water through a crack. His steps never hesitated, carrying him straight to the largest hut in the settlement. Crimson eyes gleaming with a chilling light, Leon reversed his grip on his sword and slipped inside.
And then—less than a minute later—
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"
A desperate roar tore the night sky apart.
— PASS!
Alongside that unbelievable message, every lizardman attacking the cadets turned to ash in the same instant.