CH20: I am Leo, the Invincible

***

The time clocked midnight.

It was the day of my fifteenth birthday.

As soon as the timer at the corner of my eyes finished its countdown, I felt a change in my body.

It was like something at the depth of my being was trying to force its way out.

I knew the second awakening had begun.

I forced myself to the centre of the circle and sat cross-legged (lotus position) as if to meditate.

There was nothing for me to do aside wait for the process to take its course. The circle would take care of everything else.

At least, this was how a normal awakening was supposed to go. However, it became immediately clear my awakening was anything but normal.

The welling feeling I felt from the depth of my being increased and I felt a little pain.

My body began to shine in a glow that should've indicated the grade of my Pangea if I had one.

I didn't think much of it as I wouldn't be getting a Pangea so whatever the grade it could've been didn't matter much.

That was until I heard the adult gasp.

"It's... it's... red-gold."

"It's the mythical red-gold."

"It's real... The red-gold Pangea exists."

"Why...? Why...? This is so cruel."

These were amongst the comments I heard.

I looked at my body and realised I really was glowing in a red-gold hue. The same shade colour the Mother Pangea of the Pangea Saint was believed to have had.

This proved that an SS grade Pangea could exist.

Too bad this meant nothing to me as I wouldn't awaken such a Pangea.

Instead, my attention was drawn to the words in my vision.

[Host's birthday detected.]

[Host, congratulations on your fifteenth birthday.]

[Conditions for User Interface initiation met.]

[Partial Start-up Initiated.]

[Checking status of condition for full initiation.]

[Condition 1: Host is older and stronger.]

[Requirement 1: Host reaches Fifteen years of age.]

[Status: Condition met!]

[Requirement 2: Host possesses a well-train body.]

[Status: Condition met!]

[Condition 2: Host completes first Life Path Mission.]

[Life Path (Primary): Assassin.]

[Mission: Accept and complete a paid Contract.]

[Reward: Complete Unlocking of User Interface during Second Awakening.]

[Time Limit: 15th Birthday, day of Second Awakening.]

[Failure: Complete Sealing of User Interface, consequence of which is Host's death.]

[Status: Mission Completed!]

[Evaluating completion rate...]

[Evaluating...]

[Evaluation Error...]

[Diagnostics in progress... Standby...]

[Diagnostics complete!]

[Conclusion: The Laws of Arun intends to interfere with Blessing Bestowal.]

[Solution: Host should distract the Laws while bypass is initiated.]

I was frozen in place when I saw the series of messages. They flashed in my eyes so fast before I could even process them.

The messages only slowed down when the interface tried to evaluate the contract I did.

I had a sense of Deja vu.

I knew in that moment that something was going to go wrong.

And it did.

'How am I supposed to distract the Laws?!' I shouted inwardly.

[Advice: The Laws are watching. Host should challenge them.]

[P.S: The bigger the flair in Host's challenge, the better!]

[Initiating bypass.]

[Good luck!]

Just then, I felt a pressure in my chest.

I coughed out blood.

The red-gold halo around my body began to fade.

Gears worked in my head as I tried to think of how I was supposed to forking challenge the Laws of the world.

I noticed the dark clouds above my head. An idea came to my head and a smile to my lips.

'With flair, huh?'

I 'weakly' stood up.

I let out a crazed laugh while looking at the dark sky.

"Are you that afraid of me?" I taunted.

"Are you afraid that I will dominate everything in this world? Is that why you, the almighty Laws of the world, conspire against little ol' me?"

The dark clouds thundered as if responding to my words.

"What? Are you angry because I am right? Haha, I'm honoured! The Laws of Arun conspires against me, Leo son of Xander. Haha. How many people have such honour? How many people dare receive such honour?"

"Only I do!" I smirked. "No matter what you do, I will be Leo, the Lion king!"

I could see the adults at the corner of my eye looking at me as if I was crazy.

[Update! Host's taunting is distracting the Laws.]

[Notice: Host is being shifted to independent space!]

I noticed the space around me changed.

The environment still looked like that of my camp, but the presence of it was different.

The sky was red, the wind was still and the dark clouds blanketed the sky.

This wasn't foreign to me. I felt the same thing when Rowland locked down space with his 8-rings previously, minus the weather change.

The spatial lock also felt denser this time.

I guess it was to be expected. There was a massive difference between a Champion and the Laws of the world themselves.

I wasn't the only one moved into the space.

All the spectators in the camp were also moved.

Rowland tried to break the spatial lock but even his Champion level strength couldn't break the lock. Not only that, he couldn't even move towards me.

The only thing he or anyone else could do was watch.

It seemed the Laws wanted them as spectators to my punishment.

Lightening sparks went off within the dark clouds. A lightening punishment was about to descend.

Since I was already on a raging tiger and couldn't get off, I decided to go all in.

"What? First you pulled out my fangs. Now you want to smite me off?"

"You damned brat, stop speaking. You want to die?" The grey haired man shouted.

"I'd rather die on my feet than bend the knee!" I answered.

I gave the sky a 'come on' gesture with my hands.

"Come on, what are you waiting for?"

The dark clouds responded to me by sending down a lightening bolt!

A milky-white lightening descended directly on my head.

All my hair disintegrated instantly as the lightening mana pierced into every fibre of my skin.

I gritted my teeth in pain.

My toughened body resisted the damage but my nerves all screamed out in pain!

Then, I noticed the black hole in my body pull the rampaging lightening mana.

The mana was sucked up before it could cause more damage to my body. The energy from the lightening mana was then used to heal the damages to my body.

I felt my body become noticeably stronger.

I smiled and defiantly looked up at the sky.

"Is that all? That barely tickled." I dusted my body and now bald head.

The second lightening strike descended. This time, it was blood red.

I shifted my body a bit and took it with my back.

This lightening mana targeted my blood. I felt my blood boil.

My skin became blood red as blood oozed out of the pores and caked on top of it.

The lightening energy snaked through my body twice before the black hole finally sucked it up.

My body went through the healing process again. The blood I lost was replenished rapidly.

I looked up again.

"You have to do better than that."

The third, green-coloured, lightening bolt landed on my back.

The lightening mana snaked through skin, into my muscles and tendons. I felt an increasing level of pain.

It felt like my muscles and tendons were being stripped fibre by fibre.

Fortunately, before it passed my pain threshold, the black hole sucked up the energy too.

The muscles and tendons slowly regenerated. I could feel their toughness as they reattached themselves.

My body size didn't change but I could tell my muscles now contained more power!

It took me some times to come to terms with the fact that the pain will continue to increase. I wondered if it was necessary to continue to court pain like this.

Then, I recalled the situation I was in. I remembered I needed all the help I can get.

Pain aside, the lightening strikes were a good way to improve my strengths.

While they didn't improve my strength by too much, I could feel the upper limit or potential of my skin, muscles, tendons and blood had improved significantly. At least twice folds

I hid my trembling and fear.

I looked at the sky once more.

"Yeah, that it the spot. I admit I felt that. But still... you can do better... right?"

As expected, the fourth bolt landed.

The blue bolt attacked my nerves directly.

The pain I felt almost drove me crazy as I dropped to the floor and rolled in pain.

Once again, the black hole came to my timely rescue.

Any longer and I may have ran mad.

Healing and regeneration once again replaced the destruction.

I was drenched in sweat as I laid on the ground.

My body begged me to stay down. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyelids and fall asleep.

However, a pride from somewhere deep in my bones caused me to rise up again.

I didn't even get to speak this time before the fifth violet strike came down on me.

It's target?

The very bones housing my fragile pride.

I felt my bones break.

It was like the lightening was trying to break my pride by breaking my bones. I dropped back to the floor as no bone in my body didn't at least have a fracture. The bones of my limbs directly broke into multiple fragments.

Once again, regeneration replace the torture of destruction.

I was still considering whether to get up or give up when the sixth black bolt landed on me. It pierced through my heart. The seventh silver coloured lightening followed afterwards.

It looked like the Laws had stopped playing with me.

The black lightening spread from my heart to attack every organ in my body, even my unused little brother between my legs wasn't spared from the cruelty.

Only my brain wasn't attacked by the black bolt.

It wasn't because it was nice or anything like that. Rather, the honour of frying my brain was reserved for the Silver bolt.

I was still screaming my lungs out (almost literally) when a thunderclap sounded in my head and everything went blank.

Fortunately, before I died of organ collapse or was reduced to a vegetative state, the black hole acted again to save my life and heal my body.

I made up my mind.

I wouldn't care even if I didn't get anything from Loki's blessing. Just this black hole and my body's mana-healing passive was enough for me.

Following the previous theme, my organs regenerated completely, becoming better than ever.

It took me some time to regain control of my body.

I didn't get up immediately.

I laid there on the floor while looking up at the sky.

Golden bolts swarm the dark clouds.

"Boy, stay down. That's the bolt of destruction. You'll be destroyed, body and mind if that hits you." Rowland shouted.

I didn't need Rowland to say anything.

I already knew what those bolts were.

There was a reason why there were so few number of SS-rankers (Apocalypse-class beasts and Saint ranked humans) in history.

Between the 9-rings and the 10-rings stood the baptism of the golden bolt of destruction.

A person's 9 rings-carrying Pangea had to receive a baptism of 10 bolts of golden lightening before the Pangea could bare the tenth ring.

Many 9-rings individuals, usually S-rankers (humans and beasts), have fallen to these bolts.

Following the usual theme, I would only receive one low-powered bolt, however, I wasn't sure the bolt was something I could survive.

My only chance of survival was to hold on long enough for the black hole to save me.

I managed to look at the people watching.

I saw the lass, Zora, crying her heart out.

I smiled at her.

I gave Rowland a look.

The man understood.

He moved behind his daughter and knocked her unconscious. He carried her on his back.

It was necessary to knock the lass out to prevent her from doing something stupid... or witnessing my death.

I took a deep breath.

I slowly forced myself up.

"No matter what you do, I will never stay down! No matter how difficult it is, I will always keep moving forward. I'll say it again. I am Leo..."

I gave the sky a double middle-finger.

"...and I am INVINCIBLE!"

Boom!

Two golden bolts, a yellow-gold and a red-gold bolt, descended on me.

(To be continued...)

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