Timeless Assassin

After parting ways with Reema and Della, Leo returned to his predatory best, as he began to actively search for signs of sandworms to hunt.

He felt a strange excitement building inside him as he searched for sandworm trails by lowering his head to the ground, trying to catch the faint tremors beneath the surface, as his senses sharpened with every heartbeat.

Although he didn’t fully understand it yet, something had definitely begun to shift within him over the past 200 days, ever since the first time he truly sensed killing intent, as it seemed like his entire mindset towards hunting had changed from before.

Previously, his reason to hunt had always been tied to the practical outcomes of the hunt, but never to the act of hunting itself.

It was like his motivation to kill was never rooted in the desire to destroy or to end life, but rather in the belief that killing was simply a necessary step toward achieving personal growth.

So if he ever chose to kill a beast, it was not because he wanted to end its life, but because of what that action represented to him..... as for him, killing a beast helped him sharpen his combat technique, hone his instincts, and push his mana heart closer to its limits.

So it wasn’t the act of killing itself that was most important to him, but rather the goals he could achieve from it, as the act itself was always secondary and incidental.

His previous mindset was such that if he found there to be no tangible benefit tied to the hunt, then he simply walked away from it.

However, this began to change ever since he witnessed killing intent for the first time.

That moment had etched itself into his mind, and from that day onward, he found himself relentlessly chasing the feeling he experienced when he saw the color ’blood red’ for the very first time.

For him, the first time he saw that color, was also the first time he stopped thinking about the outcome of the hunt and started enjoying the process itself.

And although he had yet to truly grasp the meaning behind that shift, by continuing to chase that primal, vivid sensation, he was slowly inching closer to understanding the essence of killing intent.

To kill for no reason at all, to destroy for the sake of destruction itself—that was the raw truth behind it.

Killing intent wasn’t a means to an end.

It was the end.

A manifestation of pure, undiluted destruction.

Which was why the old Leo, who calculated every move and weighed every consequence, could never wield it consistently.

But the new Leo, the one who had started to feel the thrill of the hunt for what it was, who had begun to indulge in the chase not for gain but for the joy of the kill, was now coming closer and closer to uncovering its truth.

—----------

It took him about half an hour of relentless tracking to finally find a sandworm whose faint vibrations he could consistently follow, and about another half to bait it into surfacing, as he had no means of hunting it while it remained underground.

He stomped his feet repeatedly on the loose desert sand, making as much noise as possible, sending rhythmic pulses through the terrain, until finally... he felt it.

The tremors intensified.... growing sharper, faster, and more deliberate with each passing second, as closing in from the northeast was a giant sandworm who had locked onto him as a target.

*Rumble*

The earth around him began to shift, however, instead of running, he only smiled.

"Here it comes..." He murmured, daggers already drawn, as he braced his feet and bent his knees ever so slightly, narrowing his eyes at the slowly warping sand.

*Boom*

Without warning, the ground in front of him exploded into a pillar of sand and shattered stone, as a massive serpentine beast, at least thirty feet long, armored in thick, rust-colored carapace and lined with serrated, grinding teeth burst out of the ground with its maw wide open, hoping to bite into Leo.

However, Leo was no longer there.

[Storm Flash Traverse]

Flash

He disappeared in a ripple of crimson distortion, reappearing four feet to the side.

Flash.

Then again behind it, mentally locking new anchor points mid-air with razor-sharp focus.

Flash.

And again, this time mid-somersault above the beast’s flank, as he conjured [Dark Blade] mid-flight, fusing it with [Thousand Phantom Strikes] in one fluid burst.

What followed was a flurry of movement too fast for the eye to catch.

His body vanished and reappeared in fragments, each strike weaving seamlessly into the next, as black blade arcs layered upon one another in unpredictable patterns, flickering and overlapping until it looked like ten Leos were carving through the sandworm’s exposed side simultaneously.

The illusion of numbers made it impossible for the creature to react, as its thick hide began to split open in glowing red lines, black blood spurting into the air as Leo continued to flash between preset anchor points with mechanical precision.

By the time the sandworm realized it was under attack, Leo was already standing at its rear.

[Storm Flash Traverse] ended with a final teleport back to solid ground, as the mana anchor points burned out in a gentle fizz of light, his mana reserves slightly winded, but his mind still sharp.

Behind him, the sandworm let out a low, gurgled screech, before its massive body collapsed sideways, its entire flank carved open with precise blade trails glowing with residual mana.

As Leo looked back at his handiwork with pure joy in his eyes.

"YES!" He screamed in joy, happy to finally kill a sandworm exactly how he envisioned it, as this battle had already taken place five times in his head before turning into reality.

"Onto the next kill!" He buzzed, as he began running on the sand with joy, unaware that every inch of his skin, every fiber of his robe, even the tips of his daggers now glowed with a dull, blood red shimmer, as the killing intent he had been chasing all this time now surged through him unrestrained.

Slowly, but surely, he was coming closer to uncovering it’s secrets, and all he needed was one enlightening moment to realize killing intent for what it truly was.