Leon's fingers curled tightly around the core.
It was still warm.
Still pulsing.
Like a tiny heart, beating slow and steady in the hollow of his palm.
Tucked beneath the Scavver's ribs, nestled in a cradle of slick muscle and shattered bone, the thing had waited—undisturbed, undamaged. It glowed softly, more ember than flame. No fireworks. No brilliant flare like the ones they showed in training vids.
To the elite, this would've been barely worth anything. A low-tier monster. A trash of a core.
Too weak. Too inefficient.
Most awakened didn't dare touch cores above their rank.
Absorbing one too strong could rupture veins, collapse their heart, and kill them.
Even within their Rank, people were cautious. Most could only draw in half of a core's energy, if that, the rest was wasted.
It took time, sometimes days, for the average Awakened to process it.
Only the gifted made it look easy.
But Leon?
Leon wasn't going to wait days.
And he sure as hell wasn't wasting any of it.
Because something inside him told him once again that it was possible.
Try it.
"Huff... this is crazy...!"
He brought the core to his lips and swallowed it whole.
Gulp.
It dissolved in his throat like sand, overwhelming him. He almost gagged—but then it changed.
The sand that was about to overwhelm him suddenly started to get absorbed rapidly, disappearing in a flash.
His hand pressed to his gut as something surged through him, not pain.
Power.
It increased significantly.
He could tell.
His muscles slightly hardened.
His vision slightly sharpened.
It was nothing insane... but for him, it was everything.
The energy didn't fight him. Didn't resist.
It melted into him like it had always belonged there.
Nothing spilled. Nothing wasted.
100%.
And he felt every second of it.
The rush in his arms. The lightness in his chest.
When it was over, there was no violent snap of change. No dramatic burst.
Just silence.
Stillness.
And strength.
Leon looked down at his calloused hands—filthy, bruised, with dried blood. The same hands that had been trembling hours ago.
His breath came easy now. Deep and even.
His heart, once fluttering from adrenaline, beat slow. Focused. Calm.
He turned to the corpse beside him—its chest torn open, empty.
If this was what a low-tier beast could do…
If this was just the beginning…
What would happen when he hunted something stronger?
A slow smile tugged at his lips.
Not the hollow kind he used to wear to fake confidence.
This one was real.
He didn't need to be protected by his little brother anymore.
Sure, he wasn't there yet, but he would get there.
⸻
The rest of the day bled out in cuts, grit, and something deeper.
Leon fought. Again. Then again. Then again.
There was no strategy—only instinct. Only adaptation.
Scavvers leapt from the shadows, claws flashing, teeth gnashing—and Leon moved to meet them with a cracked blade and blood-slick hands. His sword had dulled halfway through the third kill, chipped after the fourth, and split at the edge by the fifth.
But he didn't stop.
By the eighth, it was barely more than wood and iron shards, bound together with cloth and sheer stubbornness.
Still, he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Not when he finally found hope.
Hope that he was not a failure, that he could become strong too.
Every fight taught him something.
About his balance. About how much force his muscles could now throw behind each swing. About how fast his body reacted now when something lunged at his throat.
Every time he moved, it felt just a little different. Quicker. Tighter. Cleaner.
He didn't need anyone to tell him what was happening.
He felt it.
He was adapting.
The monster blood helped. He drank it greedily at first, even as it churned in his stomach and made him pull some weird faces. The taste was foul, like rusted iron soaked in poop, but he endured it.
He forced down strips of raw flesh, tore out still-warm cores from broken chests and swallowed them whole, his throat filling with sand-like particles.
Each time, it got a little easier.
Each time, he felt the change, energy sinking into his bones, soaking into muscles, strengthening what was already growing stronger.
But something else started to happen, too.
By the seventh core, his fingers trembled—not with weakness, but with tension. His skin prickled with heat that didn't fade. And when he bit into the last strip of flesh, his jaw clenched involuntarily, like his body was resisting for the first time.
The warmth that had once felt like power now came with a strange discomfort. A wrongness. Not pain, exactly—more like a pressure that didn't know where to go.
His body wasn't rejecting it.
But it was warning him.
Enough.
Not in words.
In feeling.
In the way his stomach twisted tighter after the eighth core. The way his skin felt stretched, like it had been filled too fast. The way his heartbeat stuttered before settling into rhythm again.
He stood on a hill as the sun sank behind the city walls, wind tugging at his ragged clothes. His body was covered in bruises, gashes, dried blood—yet many of the wounds were already gone, a testament to his growing regeneration ability, which could heal a cut on his finger now in 10 minutes. His swollen eye had opened halfway again. His breathing came easy, steady.
But he could feel the weight inside him.
The power.
And for the first time… he understood the danger of it.
He needed to stop.
To get used to the power inside him.
Most importantly, figure out a way to break through the limits of how much he can consume.
Because if he kept pushing, his body might not resist next time, but collapse completely.
And even more than that, he knew:
If he didn't learn how to move in this new body—if he didn't get used to the speed, the strength, the reflexes—
He'd be a danger to himself in the next fight.
He clenched and unclenched his hands, watching the new steadiness in them.
He'd grown.
⸻
By the time Leon returned home, the sky had turned a deep indigo, heavy with stars. A thin breeze swept through the streets, carrying the scent of dust, metal, and the distant hum of city life. The kind of night that felt like the world was holding its breath.
Kai stood in the doorway, arms crossed, the light behind him casting his silhouette in sharp lines. His expression was carved from stone—jaw tight, eyes narrowed—but the worry bled through in the way his foot tapped against the ground, the way his arms weren't as still as he wanted them to be.
Leon looked like hell.
His clothes were torn nearly to rags, crusted with blood—some dried, some still fresh. His body was bruised, scratched, and faintly steaming in the cold air from residual heat. A smear of dark, dried blood trailed from his jaw down to his collarbone. And yet… he walked like none of it bothered him.
He paused just outside the doorway.
Leon's eyes lifted slowly to meet his brother's.
But before locking on, they flicked over Kai—shoulders, stance, balance—like he was studying him. Measuring. A flicker of an idea passed through his gaze, brief but unmistakable. As if something in his brain sparked with a curious thought… before he quietly shook it off.
'Maybe later...'
Then his eyes steadied.
Calm. Focused. Completely unreadable.
Kai's stomach twisted.
He didn't speak.
Neither did Leon.
The silence stretched thin between them like a wire about to snap. The only sound was the dull thud of the bag Leon dropped at his feet—heavy and misshapen, its cloth stained and sagging with the weight of Scavver parts. Bones jutted out. Something that looked like a claw thudded loosely against the floorboards.
Kai blinked. "...What the fuck is this?"
Leon tilted his head slightly, voice even. "Monsters."
Kai stepped closer, squinting at Leon's arms, his Observational Skills as a moderately high-level Awakened intensifying. The bruises were still there, but the cuts—ones that should've needed stitching—had closed. Not cleanly, but visibly. The muscle underneath had changed. Subtly, yes. But denser. As if it had re-formed itself to be harder, tougher.
His little brother wasn't just dirty and beat up.
He'd become stronger.
Kai muttered under his breath, half in disbelief. "…Go shower, you smell like shit."
Leon chuckled softly as he passed.
Kai shook his head, grumbling. "Crazy bastard."
The bathroom door creaked open, then shut behind Leon.
And Kai was left alone in the hallway, staring at the half-spilled sack of monster remains, the faint sound of running water echoing through the apartment.
But under the exhaustion and confusion, something stirred in his chest.
Warm.
Small.
Hopeful.
Because for the first time in years…
Leon had smiled.
And this time, it wasn't forced.
⸻
Later that night, Leon stepped out onto the small balcony, shirtless, wrapped in loose bandages, his body still marked with bruises and dried blood.
The cool air hit his skin, a gentle breeze brushing over him like a quiet reminder that the day was finally over.
Below, the city lights flickered in broken lines—some glowing, others dying, casting the lower district in a patchy orange haze. Life went on down there, even in the chaos.
Above, the stars looked down through the clouds, soft and distant.
Leon stood still, hands resting on the rusted railing, breathing slowly. Not heavy or ragged like earlier. Calm.
He didn't need any numbers flashing in front of his eyes to know what had changed.
He felt it.
His body moved differently now. His breath came easier. His muscles, sore as they were, felt denser—like something inside had clicked into place.
And more than that… he knew he was stronger.
After he got out of the shower, he tested himself with the same evaluation device he used earlier today.
And it said this.
--------------------------
Combat Power: 7 → 12
--------------------------
He stared at the number for a long time.
Twelve.
He was officially F-Rank now. The lowest tier—but a real awakened combatant.
And to reach that in just one day?
For him, it was crazy.
His body, which had no potential, broke through its limits multiple times, something that should've been impossible.
Still, even as that truth settled in, so did the warnings.
His body had let him push. Let him consume monster cores, blood, and flesh… but by the eighth one, it had started to fight back. The nausea. The way his hands had trembled. The sharp stabs in his stomach.
Like a wall slamming shut.
Even now, he could tell, his body might be able to adapt, but his talent is holding him back.
Those scavvers were weak. F-rank bottom-feeders. Yet by the end, they were still giving him trouble.
He needed time.
Time to get used to his newfound strength.
So tomorrow, he wouldn't hunt. He'd train.
But more importantly—he needed to figure out how to go beyond, how to upgrade his talent.
Stronger monsters meant stronger cores. And stronger cores would push his body harder. He couldn't afford to hit a wall again. Not if he wanted to survive out there.
He needed a solution.
Someone—or something—that could help push his talent even further. Past its limits. Past the pain.
And in his mind… only one person came to mind.
Leon's eyes slid toward the dark hallway behind him.
Toward the room where his brother was sleeping.
A creepy smile crept across his face.
"Hehehe... cough, cough..." Leon chuckled weakly, the laugh catching in his throat as a wave of exhaustion crashed over him.
His body was finally catching up to everything he'd put it through.
His eyes drooped, muscles aching, the wind now feeling colder than before.
"...Tomorrow." he mumbled, voice low.
First, he'd sleep.
Then, he'd deal with it all.