Chapter 314: Chapter 314: Leon VS Magicless Guardian [2], Using Berserk

[Berserk (Forbidden Skill): Channel your entire power into your soul, doubling your combat power for three seconds, though once the time is over, you will pass out on the spot.]

The instant the skill activated, Leon felt like his body was being torn apart from the inside.

His vision blurred heavily. The world around him spun violently. His veins bulged throughout his arms and neck as overwhelming force flooded every part of his body.

The power was absurd. Completely absurd. It felt like enough energy had just been forced into his soul to destroy an ordinary person instantly.

Yet Leon endured it anyway.

[Berserk has been activated, three seconds left.]

At that very moment, Leon’s [Combat Power] nearly reached ten million. Double the guardian’s own.

And even though it only lasted three seconds... That was already enough.

Fwoooosh!

Leon disappeared. Not figuratively. Actually disappeared from the guardian’s vision entirely.

The boss’ crimson eyes widened in shock as Leon suddenly appeared directly before it before the creature could even react properly.

"???"

SLASH!

Leon swung both swords simultaneously. The guardian’s remaining three arms were cut off instantly.

Click! Fwoosh!

Panicking, the guardian activated dozens of spear traps throughout the chamber in desperation, causing gigantic metal spears to launch toward Leon from every direction.

Yet Leon did not even bother dodging.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Every spear slammed directly into him, and shattered apart instantly upon impact.

The guardian’s eyes gleamed for a brief moment as if it believed Leon had died. Then horror overtook it immediately afterward.

Because Leon was still standing there completely unharmed.

SLASH!

Leon cut off both of the guardian’s legs next, forcing the giant creature to collapse helplessly onto the floor.

And before the boss could even think about activating another trap... Leon appeared directly before its transparent core.

The guardian looked up. And the final thing it saw was Leon’s cold expression.

SLAAAAASH!

Leon’s sword pierced straight through the [Magicless Core], shattering it completely while Celeste’s fading flame burst free.

Then with one final motion—

SLASH!

The guardian’s head flew off completely.

Ding! 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

[You have killed "Magicless Guardian (Boss)" and gained 6,000,000 experience points.]

[100% Drop Rate has triggered...]

Everything had happened in less than two seconds. Leon still had one second left of [Berserk].

And he immediately used it to grab Celeste’s phoenix flame carefully before it could fall onto the ground.

For one terrifying moment, the flame barely flickered weakly in his hands.

Then slowly... Very slowly... Its particles began regenerating again.

Seeing that, Leon finally smiled faintly in relief.

"...Good," he muttered weakly, "You’re alive—"

But before he could finish speaking—

Ding!

["Berserk" has ended, user will pass out depending on how well they handled their newfound power.]

The overwhelming backlash struck Leon instantly.

His entire body froze. His vision darkened completely. And just like that, Leon collapsed onto the ground beside the guardian’s corpse, his eyes hollow and his limbs completely stiff as unconsciousness swallowed him whole.

...

It took four days after Leon unleashed the power of [Berserk] for him to finally wake up, and when consciousness came crawling back to him, it did so with all the grace of a hammer to the skull.

"Argh..." Leon groaned as he held his head, the pounding headache still going strong behind his eyes, and he slowly forced himself up into a sitting position while trying not to throw up from the sheer intensity of the pain, "That ability is no joke."

He could still remember the power he had felt when his [Combat Power] had been doubled, a surge of energy that had made him feel like an unstoppable force of nature, and it had been unlike anything he had ever experienced in his entire life up to that point.

For those brief moments, he had felt so overwhelmingly powerful that he could have taken on enemies even at level one hundred without breaking a sweat, which was an absurd thought considering his actual level.

And yet that incredible state had only lasted for three seconds, which in retrospect wasn’t really that much time at all when you stopped to think about it properly.

The [Magicless Guardian] had been overwhelmed so quickly and so easily that Leon had killed it in less than two seconds from start to finish.

And if he had really wanted to push things even further, he could have ended the fight in under a single second by simply slicing its head off right from the beginning.

Instead he had wanted to torture it, even if just a little bit, and he had succeeded in doing exactly that without any trouble whatsoever.

Leon gazed to his left and saw the corpse of the boss still resting there in the exact same spot, completely unmoving from its original position just as he had left it four days ago, and he also noticed a few familiar panels floating before him that he had apparently received upon defeating the creature.

Ding!

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 78 + Level 79 + Level 80.]

[All your attributes have increased by 1,350 and you have gained 1,350 free attribute points.]

As quickly as he got up though, Leon immediately began to check where Celeste’s phoenix core was.

He had no idea how much time had passed while he was unconscious and the uncertainty was starting to eat at him from the inside out.

But even though he looked around the entire chamber for a full minute, searching every corner and shadow with growing desperation, he could not find the core anywhere no matter how hard he tried to spot it.

"Did someone take it," Leon’s eyes widened in sudden horror as he gazed at the opened hall leading outside, "But then why did they not kill me when they had the chance?!"

The side effect of [Berserk] was so brutally punishing mainly because when Leon passed out afterward.

If there was nobody around to protect him, he was left even weaker than a defenseless child who could not fight back against anything, as he had absolutely no way to defend himself in that state.

He had used the ability in this chamber only because he had believed that the traps in the hall before reaching this place would be enough to stop any monster or player from coming through, assuming they even managed to find the gate of the temple to begin with.

Clearly something had gotten in anyway and taken the core while he lay helpless on the ground.

Right as Leon was about to try and look for the phoenix core elsewhere in the chamber, his entire train of thought came to a screeching halt when he heard something unexpected.

"Oh," came a voice from behind him, soft and familiar, and as Leon turned around he noticed Celeste’s figure standing there, this time in her humanoid form rather than as a core,"You’re awake!"