She turned and ran—not toward her abandoning teammates, but toward the two women clearing out the minions with devastating efficiency. Her sharp metallic claws extended fully, gleaming in the dappled forest light as she moved with wind-like speed.

She would never abandon the one who has helped her; that is not what her father taught her.

Leon detected her approach toward Seraphine and Loriel rather than fleeing. A small part of his fury cooled.

But most of his attention focused on the immediate problem, and he was absolutely livid.

I extended a helping hand and was betrayed the first time. Fucking unbelievable.

The rage burned cold and sharp in his chest. He'd risked approaching an unknown combat situation to save lives, and those ungrateful bastards had run the moment they saw an opportunity, leaving him to deal with the monster alone.

A dark thought crossed his mind. Their equipment looked expensive. Gold-trimmed armor, enchanted weapons, spatial storage rings... Maybe I should have let them die first, then finished the job and collected everything from their corpses.

He pushed the thought aside. One person stayed—the injured demi-human who had more honor in her little finger than her entire team combined. That was enough to remind him that not everyone was garbage.

Leon engaged the monster head-on. His blade flashed in complex patterns—a combination of sword techniques made out of the basics of the swords he'd developed over countless hours of practice. He was faster than the creature by a significant margin, allowing him to land strike after strike before it could properly defend or counter.

But every wound he inflicted healed in seconds.

He severed its left arm at the shoulder—a perfect cut that should have ended the limb's usefulness. The arm hit the ground, and wooden fibers immediately sprouted from both the severed limb and the shoulder socket, reaching toward each other like desperate fingers. They connected and pulled, dragging the arm back into place. Within three seconds, it was fully reattached and functional.

The fact that he was using Aura doesn't have any effect on this strange monster, unlike the Absyss monster he had dealt with in the lower domain.

Still, he continued.

He drove his blade through its chest, piercing where a heart should be. The sword punched through bark and wood and whatever served as the creature's internal structure. He felt it hit something vital—sensed the massive mana signature flicker for just an instant.

Then the hole sealed around his blade before he could withdraw it, wooden flesh trying to trap his weapon. Leon ripped the sword free, and the puncture wound closed behind it like water filling a void.

He carved deep gouges across its bark-like skin, opening wounds that exposed the strange green-glowing interior. The cuts sealed within seconds, smooth surface returning as if he'd never struck at all.

This is insane. Where's the weakness? There has to be something.

Leon systematically attacked every part of the creature's body over the next several minutes. Head—he split it open and watched the skull reform. Torso—he opened its chest cavity and stabbed every organ he could see. Limbs—he severed them repeatedly, trying to overwhelm the regeneration with sheer volume. Joints—he destroyed the connections between body parts, hoping to find a structural weakness.

Nothing worked. Every location healed at exactly the same impossible speed.

He was confident he'd struck every single vulnerable point a living being should have. Heart, brain, major arteries, nerve clusters, structural supports—all of it. And none of it mattered.

For a moment, genuine doubt crept into his mind. Can this thing even be killed? Is it actually immortal?

The thought lasted barely a second before he crushed it.

He remembered the golden dragon inside his dimensional space—the terrifying creature that had been far more powerful than this wooden abomination in every measurable way. That dragon had seemed invincible, too, made out of only terrifying golden energy, not even flesh.

And Leon had still finished it.

There's no such thing as unkillable. Everything has a weakness. I just haven't found it yet.

He detected the massive amounts of mana flowing through the creature's body—more than seemed reasonable for something at this supposed power level. The energy moved in strange patterns, concentrating in different areas seemingly at random, flowing through channels that didn't match any biological system he understood.

The attacks it launched were deadly. The roots could punch through steel armor. The vines could crush bones. The animated trees could flatten buildings.

But to Leon, with his Transcendent rank mana body enhancement and superhuman reflexes, they were laughably slow and weak.

It might have an effect only if it can land its attack on him.

I can dodge everything it throws at me. My stamina recovery with life element means I'll never tire. My mana regeneration is faster than I'm spending it on basic attacks.

A grim realization settled over him. In a way, he was this monster's absolute worst possible opponent. He had the speed to avoid all its attacks indefinitely. The strength to damage it repeatedly, even if the wounds didn't stick. And the endurance to continue this fight for hours or even days without rest.

I'll never give it a single moment to properly counterattack or escape.

Leon continued his systematic dismemberment. He fell into a rhythm—cut, watch it regenerate, cut again, watch it heal, repeat. The pattern became almost meditative, each strike testing a different theory about where the weakness might be hidden.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then fifteen.

Still, nothing changed.

Maybe I need to try something more extreme.

The thought of using a black hole crossed his mind. He'd practiced the technique extensively in his dimensional space, refining it until he could create them in seconds; however, one worry remained.

Yes, if he could form even a tiny black hole, it would swallow the creature's mass whole. Problem solved.

But he immediately dismissed the idea. Seraphine and Loriel were fighting less than thirty meters away. The demi-human girl had joined them, forming an effective three-person unit that was systematically destroying every minion the monster created. They were too close to the potential gravitational pull.

The spatial distortion created by the black hole wasn't perfectly controlled—it could expand unpredictably if the target resisted or if the dimensional barriers were thinner than expected. He could probably escape in time with his spatial abilities and enhanced reflexes.

But he wasn't confident about protecting the others.

Not worth the risk. Not when I have other options.

Then a different thought struck him, so obvious he almost laughed at himself for not considering it sooner.

Wait. Why haven't I used that ability?

He'd never used it on a living thing before—only tested it on dead corpses during his experiments in the dimensional space. The results had been... dramatic. Effective beyond anything he'd anticipated.

But he'd hesitated to use it on anything alive, uncertain about the ethical implications and potential side effects.

This situation qualifies as an exception. And this thing barely counts as alive anyway—it's more like animated plant matter than a true living creature.

First, he needed to stop the monster's movement entirely. Its regeneration seemed to activate automatically, but maybe if he could freeze it completely, prevent any biological processes from functioning, the ability would work better.

Leon channeled his spatial freeze, targeting the creature directly. The ability reached out invisible fingers of manipulated space, trying to lock every atom of the monster's body in place.

Reality itself seemed to solidify around the creature for exactly three seconds.

Then it shattered.

The monster broke free with a sound like cracking ice, its enormous strength overwhelming Leon's control. It immediately launched a counterattack—dozens of roots exploded from the ground simultaneously, all aimed at Leon's throat and vital organs with deadly precision.

Not nearly enough mana. I treated it like a normal opponent when it's clearly much stronger than that.

Leon dodged casually, his enhanced perception making the attacks seem to move in slow motion. He sidestepped three roots, ducked under two more, and batted aside a sixth with his blade.

Recalculate. More power. Continuous application instead of trying to set it and forget it.

This time, Leon didn't just activate spatial freeze and hope it held. He poured mana into the ability continuously, maintaining constant pressure on the space around the monster. Instead of trying to lock it in place with a single application of force, he created an ongoing effect that constantly renewed itself.

The monster was locked in place completely. Its body trembled with effort as it fought against invisible chains of frozen space-time, muscles straining against constraints that had no physical form. The emerald fire in its eyes burned brighter, and Leon could sense it gathering power for another attempt to break free.

This is working, but holy shit it's burning through my mana fast.

He could feel his reserves depleting at an alarming rate. The monster was resisting continuously, forcing him to spend more and more energy to maintain the freeze. His estimation: three minutes maximum before he'd need to either release it or start drawing on his deeper reserves in ways that might have unpleasant consequences.

Three minutes is more than enough.

Leon didn't waste another second of precious time. He stepped forward deliberately, crossing the distance between them with measured steps. His hand reached out, fingers spreading wide as he placed his palm directly against the creature's bark-like chest.

Then he activated the ability—the one he'd discovered almost by accident during his experiments. The one he considered one of the most terrifying powers he'd ever possessed, precisely because of how absolute and deadly its effects were.

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