The lift doors never opened.
Leon kicked them off their hinges.
The metal panel clanged down the corridor ahead, echoing like a war drum.
Sixty ARES operatives waited on the first floor's Ambush Hall, the designated kill zone. The space was massive—originally a reception arena for large-scale guild training events. Now, it had been cleared and fortified into a trap.
They thought he'd walk into it.
He did.
But not alone.
The first volley of spells came instantly.
High-density mana spears. Paralysis glyphs. Magnetic tethers meant to bind his legs and rip his gear straight off him.
Leon didn't flinch.
He was already casting.
His hand dropped to a glyph etched into his belt buckle—one he didn't get from a store. It was hand-carved. Forbidden. Lifted from a black market spell scroll known only to rogue earth manipulators.
Collapse Field – Tier 4 Terrain Displacement Rune.
The floor under half the ambush squad shimmered—then dropped five meters in an instant.
No warning. No time to react.
The stone slabs folded inward, forming a pit lined with mana-spiked debris. Dozens of hunters vanished mid-cast, screams echoing as they were impaled or trapped in their own formations. The carefully orchestrated pincer turned into a one-sided collapse.
Leon stepped onto the uneven floor with purpose, gun already drawn.
"Advance."
His undead obeyed without hesitation.
The Warrior Commander Zombie barreled forward first, hammer raised. A kinetic bolt struck its shoulder—did nothing.
Another spell aimed for its leg—reflected off its plate.
It crashed into the remaining frontline like a siege engine. One swing of its warhammer crushed three shields and the torsos behind them. A second swing brought down a kinetic tank mid-charge, slamming him into the wall so hard the rune-lights shorted.
Behind it, the Elite Sorcerer moved into position, robes fluttering despite the lack of wind. Its bony hand rose—five glowing sigils rotating above its palm.
The air thickened.
Then—
Mana Storm.
Arcane energy erupted in spirals, exploding in chain reactions across the battlefield. Fire. Lightning. Gravity bursts. Each impact blew soldiers off their feet, shattered defense barriers, and scattered formations like dry leaves.
One operative raised a counter-shield, but the sorcerer simply split its attack—two smaller storms curved around the defense and hit from both sides.
Within moments, half the Ambush Hall was on fire, the rest buried in collapsed terrain or disabled by overwhelming force.
Leon moved between cover like clockwork.
His upgraded mana gun fired in rhythm with the chaos—every shot timed between storm detonations. One bolt shattered a caster's focusing lens. Another punched through enchanted armor at the weak point under the armpit. The third?
Straight through a rogue's invisibility cloak.
He didn't need to see their faces.
They weren't targets.
They were obstacles.
Thirty-seven seconds later—
The Hall went silent.
Bodies lay scattered—most unconscious, some groaning, all defeated. Only a few had managed to crawl toward exits before collapsing again.
Smoke filled the air. Dust choked the ceiling. A power conduit sparked overhead.
Leon stepped through the carnage, his undead at his flanks.
No one else tried to stop him.
Not on Floor 1.
And he was just getting started.
The elevator shaft was fried.
Leon took the stairs.
Each step up was quiet—too quiet. No blood. No smoke. No broken glass like the floor below. Just the faint, humming pressure of condensed mana and the acrid scent of powdered rune chalk in the air.
Floor 2 wasn't built for brute force.
It was built for precision.
He stepped through the threshold—into a kill box.
The air snapped.
Ten magi-archers, perched along the curved gallery above, drew their bows in perfect synchronicity. Each arrow gleamed with layered enchantments—one humming with frost, another etched with paralysis sigils, a third cloaked in pure disruption mana meant to sever summoned links on impact.
A volley dropped.
Leon didn't move.
His gun did.
[Mana Reflector Mod – Online]
The glyph-engraved barrel twisted mid-spin, the entire frame pulsing as Leon activated the new function he'd installed after the Demon's Labyrinth. A translucent arc of reflective mana surged forward like a curved wall, calibrated to angle just enough to catch the arrows mid-flight.
The impact flared—arrows struck the reflector, then rebounded at perfect trajectories.
Snap. Crack. Collapse.
Three archers fell to their own shots, screaming as disruption blasts carved into their limbs and elemental payloads detonated mid-chest.
One lost his footing and hit the railing, breaking his spine before he hit the ground.
Leon moved as the Reflector cooled, flipping to offensive mode. His gun hissed, recharged, and realigned the barrel for overcharged pulses.
Above, a shield wall dropped—three archers behind layered barriers, setting up a dual-caster support loop to reinforce magical defense.
Smart.
Too slow.
Leon tapped his left gauntlet, activating a timed sequence from his belt pouch—something he'd planted during the last volley.
The rune.
Boom.
A chain of explosive glyphs ignited from behind the shield formation—wired to detonate in sequence. The blasts didn't just hit—they tilted the floor section, unbalancing the whole upper gallery. Mages tumbled. Arrows scattered mid-draw. The support loop collapsed in static, sparking uncontrollably.
The gallery groaned.
Then it fell.
A six-meter slab of reinforced flooring caved in, dropping three magi-archers like debris into the wreckage below. One survived the fall long enough to crawl toward his wand.
Leon shot it out of his hand.
Then the silence arrived.
Thick. Final.
The floor was quiet again.
Marble cracked. Banners burned. The sigil of ARES—once draped over the archway above—hung in tatters, half of it scorched away by redirected elemental fire.
Leon stepped through the haze, undead still pacing at his flanks like silent wolves.
Another floor cleared.
And the guild hadn't even seen him serious yet.