Chapter 52: Walking Bomb

"Don’t you give it a rest?" Leon yelled as he pulled his sword and hurled it at full strength. It spun through the air and stabbed into the tentacle, ripping through the tip.

He used the time that he bought to bring Sophia back to land.

"Thank you," she said, and she got on her feet. She wrapped her hands around her scythe.

"It’s heavily injured, let’s wait for it to come out. I’ll attack and you finish it off," she instructed.

"If you think that will work, I am totally fine with it," Leon replied.

The monster grabbed onto every part of the cave and pulled itself out. It finally rose from the water, a massive starfish-like monster, big with long octopus tentacles.

It had a large mouth under its single eye, already open as it tried to attack them.

"Anytime now," Leon said.

"Wait," Sophia replied. She started gathering mana. It swirled as a dark energy around her, surging high and compressing down. Her aura was causing even the rocks to start collapsing.

"First form, Death’s Servant," she said in a cold voice, and in an instant, the air around them dropped several degrees as she moved. Leon saw her move, but after the first duel, she seemed to vanish into darkness, and all that he saw were slashes of darkness forming in the air. Every single tentacle was slashed in multiple places, diced into smaller bits that fell into the water.

She appeared right next to Leon while breathing heavily and barely able to speak.

"Now," she managed to say.

Leon moved, his wand already active.

"Let’s see how you handle this."

He planted his foot into the ground and began casting. A fireball formed and continued to grow. It got massive until Leon’s hand was shaking, barely able to keep the spell contained. He poured every bit of mana that he had into it and unleashed the attack.

"Have some of this, Exploding Sun."

The fireball slammed into the monster, and what followed was a massive explosion. Bright light and hot flames pushed out in all directions.

The force slammed into Leon and Sophia, slamming them into the wall hard.

[You have gained regeneration]

Leon gained the mana fragments from the monster. What he did not expect was for it to give him a new ability. He already had the healing factor of Snow, and now he gained regeneration.

[Automated Ability merge activated, do you wish to stop]

This was the first time he had seen this message, but he was far too disoriented to even respond. The merging continued.

[Healing and regeneration merged]

[You have gained a new ability, Restoration]

Leon stared at the screen after his abilities had merged.

It seemed like an upgrade, and it had also taught him something new about the system now.

"Seems we managed to survive," Sophia said. She leaned against the wall while breathing heavily. The last move she had used had taken almost everything, but it had worked out well in the end.

"I left my home because I was seen as something dangerous." Sophia started speaking while staring at the pool.

"My family was a barony, but a pretty large one. My father had the wives and a few concubines. He wanted to birth a child that would become the next big thing and raise his name higher.

A selfish desire, bringing children into the world to use them as tools." She heaved a sigh and leaned forward.

"This system created some sort of hierarchy, and this hierarchy dictated what happened in the family.

I was one of the children born, and when I turned five, I awakened a dark blue core and a high affinity for darkness magic. Me and my twin sister, but she had a higher affinity for light and spirit magic.

The two of us became the crown jewels of our home, loved and watched over as assets to make our father great. But there was a slight difference. My sister was a bit better than me. She managed to upstage me in almost everything by a very small margin. But when all that began to gather, people started to favor her far more than me and loved her more.

I was young, eager, desperate to prove myself because I believed that it was all my life was meant to be. I trained day and night, but it started to affect me.

My power went out of control many times, and I caused a lot of damage, but it was overlooked, up until the time that I sparred against my sister and then lost control entirely and almost killed her.

After that, I became something of an outcast, hated by everyone, including my very own mother. I kept living like that every day of my life, until one day I could no longer take it, and I ran.

I left everything behind me and came to this life of adventuring where I could become something for myself. I want to prove to myself that I am good enough. But I have to admit that more times than I would want, I feel my father and sister are still looming over me, making me feel less than I am."

She leaned her head on the cave walls. Leon saw a tear form in her eyes, but she did not let it drop. She raised her hand and showed a black bracelet.

"I made this a few years later due to my out-of-control power. It helped it stay in control. But if it ever broke, all the power that had been suppressed for so long would come spewing out at once. It might be bad enough to destroy even me.

Every year I spend with this thing trying to fix myself is an increase in the risk to my life."

She let out a chuckle and dropped her head. "I am a walking bomb," she said, finally ending her story. She smiled and leaned her head back as if she had been looking for someone to tell this all her life.