Ethan watched Leo's health bar swing up and down in sharp, unsettling spikes, and although Kiara was doing everything she could to stabilize him, the whole situation still felt dangerously close to unraveling.

Without wasting a second, Ethan pulled out of the fight, circled wide around the cluster of monsters, and slipped into the cave entrance they had crawled out of. The narrow opening led into a long and suffocating corridor, and as he moved deeper the passage suddenly widened into what looked like the remains of an ancient prison, the stone beds and iron fittings long collapsed and rotted by time. The oppressive atmosphere pressed against him, and with the instinctive sense that lingering here would end badly, he immediately turned and sprinted back toward the others.

"Everyone, fall back to this spot. Leo, pull the mobs and retreat," he shouted as he emerged from the cave.

He planned to use the narrow corridor to choke the enemy advance, since Leo was currently being pummeled from all sides with no way to limit the incoming damage. Hearing his voice, the others slipped past the monsters and rushed into the cave behind him, while Leo stayed at the rear, waiting until he was sure his team had reached the safe point.

Then he moved.

Sweeping Kick triggered and the monsters nearest to him froze where they stood, caught in the short stun. Leo followed with an Energy Burst, blasting himself out of the encirclement, then lobbed a Drunken Sphere behind him which momentarily stalled the tide. Another Energy Burst launched him forward again, and in a series of quick leaps and bounding steps he closed the distance, moving with a speed and agility that no shield tank could ever match.

Ethan stared. "Can you use that Energy Burst consecutively?"

That kind of speed rivaled a Warrior's Charge, and if Leo could chain it, his tanking path could easily lean into a kite-tank style. He had the crowd control, the mobility, even the zoning ability to slow pursuers, and his main attack, Keg Toss, applied a slow effect by itself.

"I can store two charges," Leo said, taking position at the corridor entrance while the monsters thundered after him. "Every time I use it, I get a movement boost, thirty percent for eight seconds. If I trigger it again within those eight seconds, the timer resets and the speed stacks, up to sixty percent when both charges are used."

That explained the monkey-like sprinting earlier. Ethan finally understood how Leo had seemed to bounce across the battlefield.

Just as he had hoped, only two monsters could squeeze through the narrow corridor at a time. Leo braced himself at the front with his teammates forming a wedge beside him. Williams and Markham stood on his left, while Ryan held his right side.

Ethan saw that there was simply no space for him to join the front line. The four of them already formed a packed defensive wall, so he reluctantly shifted into Owl Form and moved into the backline where he could cast freely.

The Soul-Reavers, bellowed with a rage that shook dust from the stone ceiling as they slammed their weapons down on Leo. Fortunately for them all, Leo's staff and keg were excellent at absorbing and redirecting the heavy blows.

Boom, boom, boom, the impacts echoed, and those stuck behind the front pair hammered uselessly at the corridor walls in frustration, unable to push through the narrow bottleneck.

Ethan unleashed his damage-over-time spells and layered group buffs over the frontline enemies, and the intense fight dragged on. Leo handled the two-enemy pressure with steady confidence while Ethan raised his hands, firing a continuous stream of rapid casts, his high Haste turning Solar Flare and his other spells into something like magical machine-gun fire. The health of the monster he and Lyla were focusing plummeted as if someone had opened a valve.

When its health dropped to around twenty percent, Leo suddenly shouted, "Touch of the Cycle!"

He swung his staff and aimed its tip directly at the wounded monster.

Clang.

The staff struck the monster's forehead with a sharp, ringing note, and a red mark flashed across its face. The creature, still at twenty percent health, instantly went limp and toppled to the ground, only to be trampled underfoot by the next Soul-Reaver surging forward to take its place.

"You beat me for so long, now I am giving all that damage right back to you, how does that feel," Leo muttered, eyes gleaming with excitement.

His words were clearly meant to provoke, and Ryan reacted first. "Holy hell, what was that skill? It was right in my Execute range and you just one-shot the thing."

Leo, soaking in the praise, looked even more pleased with himself. "Touch of the Cycle. It's a ten-minute cooldown ultimate. If a monster's health is under twenty percent, it releases all the damage stored in my keg. Pretty awesome, right?" His grin made it obvious he was showing off.

"Tch, if nothing hits you, that skill is useless," Markham muttered, unable to stand Leo's growing arrogance.

"I am a tank," Leo replied with an eye roll, the unspoken message hanging plainly in the air, reminding them that without him absorbing damage in the first place, none of them would be standing here.

"Leo, I set the loot to you. Pick up that thing on the ground," Ethan said, noticing something glinting faintly beneath the fallen monster.

Leo took a moment to find it, then crouched and tugged the item free. Without even checking it, he tossed it back to Ethan. Ethan caught it automatically and looked down. It was a gauntlet.

[Soul-Devouring Gauntlet]

Tier: Bronze (Set)

Armor Type: Leather (Changes based on class specialization)

Class Restriction: None

Wear Requirement: Any attribute 1100 points.

Agility: +10

Strength: +10

Intellect: +10

Spirit: +10

Defense: 162–243

Specialization Attribute (Damage): +19% additional damage on attack.

Specialization Attribute (Damage): +14% additional damage on critical attack.

Specialization Attribute (Healer): +19% additional healing on cast.

Specialization Attribute (Healer): +14% additional healing on critical heal.

Specialization Attribute (Tank): When taking damage, if health reaches zero, immediately restore 19% health. Triggers once per combat.

Specialization Attribute (Tank): When critically struck, gain a shield equal to 14% maximum health for thirty seconds. Cooldown forty-five seconds.

Description: A piece of gear lost for ten thousand years, dropped only by Soul-Reavers. Collect the full set to activate the set bonus. Specialization attributes function only with the wearer's current specialization.

…

The instant Ethan saw the words Soul-Devouring Gauntlet, his entire body went still.

The Soul-Devouring Set.

The name alone dragged old memories to the surface. It had been one of the Ten Divine-tier Sets in his past life. "Divine-tier" had nothing to do with color or rarity, but with pure, overwhelming power. Every person who wore a Divine-tier Set had been a legend, a figure spoken of with awe.

In that life, the Soul-Devouring Set belonged to the Overlord of Dragon City, Drunken Wanderer.

Drunken Wanderer had dominated the Southern Frontier Region and later marched his guild straight into Dragon City, holding it for more than two years. Yet no one had ever known where his Soul-Devouring Set had come from.

Ethan remembered that the speed-run version of this dungeon had been launched in the Southern Frontier, and that event had been led by none other than Drunken Wanderer himself. Now that he stood here, holding this gauntlet, everything fit together. The set must have dropped from the seventh layer of this very Uncharted Catacomb during its first clear, ten thousand years after these Soul-Reavers had been sealed away.

"Leo, this is for you," Ethan said, tossing the gauntlet back.

Leo blinked, completely confused. He caught it on reflex and looked at Ethan as if he had misheard. "Boss, my gauntlets are Gold-tier. Why give me a Bronze one? Just toss it in the Guild Vault."

He still had not looked at the attributes.

"The first set piece in the entire world," Ethan said calmly. "You do not want it?"

"What?" the entire group burst out at once, stunned into the same sharp intake of breath.

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