The Gamer's POV

Elsewhere...

Some minutes earlier...

——

A loud, thunderous boom sounded as what looked like a massive serpent made of water suddenly slammed into the ground.

The water beast had aimed to crush him, but Leon, fast as ever, had already leapt out of the way.

His blonde hair whipped in the wind as he sprinted forward, before leaping again and rolling across the mud. Just then, another creature of water slammed down right where he had been a second ago.

Leon scrambled to his feet and continued running. He held his spear low at his side as he prepared to dodge another strike.

All around him, serpents, limbs, and spouts of pressurized water lashed out, all trying to crush him into the dirt.

However, Leon, who was now blind in one eye and seemed to predict where the attacks would fall, was so fast that the crushing waves kept missing him by mere inches.

He kept advancing past the hydro-constructs, weaving through them in a blurred zigzag toward his target, who stood several hundred meters in front of him.

The boy looked older than him with a dangerous, feral look on his face. And his black hair was soaked, clinging messily across his forehead.

His right hand was raised in a single-handed seal, and his face was contorted in a deep frown. It was obvious that he was growing increasingly agitated as Leon continued to slip through his barrage completely unharmed.

...It didn’t take long before Leon breached the last wave of constructs.

With the path clear at last, the image of the dark-haired boy reflected sharply in Leon’s good eye.

At this moment, Leon wound his arm back and hurled his spear forward at the boy’s chest. The boy was fast, of course. He tilted his body just in time, letting the spear streak past him and bury itself deep into the stone pillar behind him.

Now seeing that Leon was unarmed, the boy grinned and prepared to counterattack.

But just then, as if realizing something was terribly wrong, his eyes widened and he whipped around to look back at where the spear had landed. But it was already too late. In that split second, the spear had shifted, morphing into Uriel, with a spear of her own.

And without a moment’s hesitation, she thrust it through his back.

The boy gasped, spitting blood as he clutched at the shaft protruding from his chest. For a moment, he almost couldn’t process what had happened.

The massive constructs he had created in the front suddenly lost their form, collapsing into harmless torrents of water that crashed against the ruins. The boy himself slumped to his knees, and his strength drained rapidly.

He wanted to ask why Leon had killed him.

Wasn’t this just a game? He didn’t have to go that far...

But before the words could leave his mouth, the light vanished from his eyes, and he crumpled lifelessly onto the cold stone.

For a moment, the space remained quiet.

Uriel, who stood over the fallen cadet, stared down at the corpse with a somber expression. Finally, she crouched beside him to rummage through his bag, pulling out what looked like a small, square box.

Meanwhile, Leon slowly walked up to the body.

’He was a really formidable opponent. Though things would have ended much sooner had I been able to use Judgement Time, but the damn ability refused to declare him for judgement,’ he sighed, stopping in front of the corpse.

Leon had long since come to understand how Judgement Time worked. His ability did not revolve around good or evil. That was his brother’s domain. Instead, his power revolved around Justice itself.

It had taken him some time to figure it out, but eventually, he managed to narrow its mechanics down to three core rules.

The first was a breach of balance. Under this rule, Justice was not about whether someone was a bad person, but rather, whether an unjust action had been committed. For instance, if he tried to activate the ability on a random person, or even a creature from the rings, the ability would fail. But if the creature or person did something wrong right in front of him, or if he uncovered their deeds using his All-Seeing Eye, Judgement Time would trigger.

The second rule was proportionality. Under this rule, the scales of judgment fell depending on the severity of the target’s transgression. If Leon found out someone had stolen something small, Judgement Time would not activate to grant him a kill shot because theft did not deserve death. On the other hand, an extreme transgression like unprovoked murder fully unlocked the full lethal weight of the ability.

Finally, the ability recognized the right to self-defense. The moment an enemy struck first without a lawful or just reason, they created a debt of justice. Judgement Time recognized that debt, granting Leon full authority to retaliate or execute them on the spot.

This worked the same way even for monsters.

Leon could not use the ability on a monster unless it attacked him first with the intent to kill. To be honest, that was a massive pain, considering he could never use Judgement Time to ambush one. And in most cases, a monster’s initial move was more than enough to end a fighter right then and there.

That aside...

Coming back to Alex, the dead boy lying in front of him, Judgement Time had failed to activate because apparently, even though the boy was the son of a traitor, executing bloodline punishment was an injustice.

Leon rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled hard.

While he was still catching his breath, Uriel’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "We have about ten minutes left."

He looked up to see that she had taken out the whisper-globe from her satchel and was now staring at the time.

Leon smiled and nodded.

"Great." He turned to look up at the sky. "I can’t wait to get off this island."

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