BTE (66) — The Nightmare Never Ends XI (Patreon)

The tent was quite spacious. It served as a makeshift infirmary, with numerous patients lying on beds. The medical staff was busy with their jobs, treating the wounded.

Leandro stood with the girls by his side, watching as Alfred was wheeled on a stretcher towards a corner of the tent where he could be tended to.

Yuna looked worried. "Will he be okay?" She asked.

The doctor smiled gently. "He will be fine. We will do our best."

"Don't worry." Jinwoo said, in a tired drawl. "We have the best medics in the country. They're capable of performing miracles."

Yuna nodded. She seemed satisfied with that answer, though she still looked worried.

Jinwoo took one look at Leandro. "Please, wait for me here. I'll report to the Commander. He'll be interested to meet you."

"Sure thing." Leandro said, waving the man off. He sat down on one of the empty chairs, while the girls settled around him. The soldiers and medics bustling around looked nervous at the presence of Galvathian firearms, but they didn't say anything.

He glanced at girls.

They were visibly tired.

It was quite an adventure, but they all managed to pull through it alive and mostly well. Now, as long as they destroyed that damn portal, maybe they could get some sort of normalcy back.

"So... now what?" Nari asked, looking a bit anxious. "What will we do?"

Hari reached out, grabbing Leandro's arm.

"I'm sure we'll be fine." Yuhee smiled, eyes narrowed. "We have Leandro with us, after all. Even if the military isn't up for it, he'll make sure nothing happens to us, right?"

Hari nodded, but Leandro could see the worry in her eyes.

She was still afraid.

Leandro placed a hand on her head, gently patting her. "Don't worry, Hari. Everything will be fine." He smiled, softly. "I will make sure of that." 

The girl's lips curled up into a shy smile, but she seemed to have calmed down a bit.

She still didn’t let him go, though. 

“Haaaah~” Bada stretched, yawning in a cute, squeaky way. “Do you think they have showers here?” She looked down at her clothes, which were caked with dirt, dust, and sweat.

Yuhee stared at her friend, disdainfully. "It's a military outpost, and we're in the middle of an invasion. Do you really think they'd have showers?" She didn't know whether to be in awe or frustration, or both. Her friend was certainly… quirky, when it came to trivial stuff such as hygiene.

Bada stuck a tongue out at Yuhee, and turned her nose up.

Hari couldn’t help but giggle.

Leandro snorted. He knew Bada was just trying to break the tense atmosphere. He leaned back, feeling the fatigue settle on his shoulders. He really wanted a hot shower and a good night of sleep as well. But first—

A rumbling went off. The tent shook a bit, and within a second everyone else was standing up and hurrying outside.

Leandro wasn't sure what was going on. He watched as the soldiers ran around frantically, and a moment later he heard a familiar sound. An explosion. It was the sound of artillery fire being unleashed in the distance, followed by a booming roar.

"Oh my god..." Hari whispered, her eyes wide in disbelief. She felt numb all over, her mouth agape. "How can there still be more?" She thought out loud. "Is Seoul even going to survive this?"

"No." Leandro spoke grimly. "Unless that portal gets destroyed, more will keep coming. And the more they come, the longer the portal remains open. It's a vicious cycle."

A horde of those flying mounts came down from the sky like a storm of locusts, bringing along with them destruction and terror wherever they went. On top of them, the Galvathians were firing indiscriminately. Beams rained down, each one of them hitting either a vehicle or a human.

A soldier, a brave man who tried to help evacuate a group of hobbling civilians, had his head vaporized in an instant. Another man lost his legs, but his agony lasted longer than a second because he got hit again by the beam.

One by one, they died.

Screams were everywhere, soldiers, civilians, children. The stench of charred flesh, the smell of blood. Leandro felt, heard, the girls behind him gasp. Human lives were being harvested. And they were in the frontlines, helplessly watching it happen.

"This..." Leandro said, darkly. "Is seriously pissing me off."

He had already seen something like this happen. He had seen his home destroyed. He had seen an entire population burning alive in agony. He had seen so much that his heart and mind went numb. It didn't help that the scene brought up bad memories.

And yet, there he was again. Watching the Galvathians murder hundreds. Except that the Galvathians were like little kids throwing a tantrum compared to what his home went through.

It was nothing short of pathetic.

His Aura burst out of him, rising from the ground and covering him like a blazing aura of heat and light. He was burning. Literally. The girls all backed up in surprise. Yuhee stared in disbelief as her beloved Leandro became a man of pure fire. This was nothing like before. Unlike the comforting warmth she was used to, she felt like touching him would likely melt her skin off.

Leandro's hair floated slightly, his eyes shining a bright green color, like burning emeralds.

"Girls. Take cover and shoot them down. I'll leave them nice and crippled and in pain for you."

Leandro said, his voice cold. It was cold enough to make a chill go down Yuhee's spine, but his words made her smile. He shoved a hand into his inventory, retrieved a Minor Aura Potion, and drank it all in one gulp. A surge of renewed energy made his Aura burst outward.

He stepped forward, raising his sword. His Moonlit Edge. His Moonlit Glove. He looked up at the dark sky, the moonlight casting its silvery blessing upon him.

The blade pulsated with a brilliant radiance as his Aura was drawn into it, coating it with a coat of lunar plasma.

The flying creatures and Galvathian warriors looked at Leandro, at the strange figure covered in a veil of white, fiery flames. His terrifying presence instilled a lull into the chaotic battlefield.

Every single Galvathian eye was on him, their mounts, like frightened horses, began to thrash in mid-air, some of them trying to retreat, others diving for an attack. Leandro calmly stood his ground. He watched them, watched their every action.

They were creatures that understood strength. They understood a powerful being.

Leandro’s vision was soon covered in a barrage of lasers from above. But before they even hit him, his Moonlight Edge came out to intercept them. He traced a casual white thread in the air, as if an omnipotent artist had drawn a hovering, bright line into reality itself. 

Moonblade Style — Horizon. 

He did not stop there, and continued to slice away at the air, each of his swings producing more lines that expanded and burst forward. Like a spider web, it covered an area of nearly a hundred meters around him.

"What the hell?" Yuna mumbled to herself as she and the others hurried away from the incoming impact. They did not stop, though, but they made sure they weren't within Leandro's vicinity. "Did he go nuclear?!"

Yuhee was more amazed than worried. She grinned, her eyes sparkling in vindictive delight. "Who cares? Look! Those flying lizards are about to become grilled meat."

Hari stared in disbelief. The creatures and the Galvathian warriors had their wings and legs sliced through the air, some had their arms hacked off. A few, particularly those riding the mounts, were unlucky to lose their entire mounts. 

The flying lizards crashed into the ground, their entire bodies soon riddled with dozens of holes, courtesy of Yuhee, Nari, Bada, Yuna, Myeong, and much to everyone's surprise, Hari as well. She had an uncharacteristically angry frown on her face—no doubt from having seen adults and kids alike melted into puddles of gore.

Leandro barely spared them a backward glance. A Breeze Step later, and a terrified, fleeing Galvathian squawked in fear when Leandro appeared in front of it.

“You think you can run?” Leandro said, calmly. “There’s no escape. I’ll chase all of you down, even in your own fucking home."

The Galvathian warrior trembled, looking so pathetically small for a creature that sowed terror across Seoul. "Please, spare me!"

"You know what? I have half a mind of sending every one of your leaders back into your own dimension, diced up in trash bags, to face their gods with your severed heads mounted on top of a spike. And, hah, I don’t have any reason to spare you, do I?" 

Leandro's voice was a deep baritone.

It sounded nothing like the usual him.

With a flick of his wrist, Leandro severed the Galvathian's head from its body. Blood soared up in an arch before raining down from the sky. He clicked his tongue. "It stinks." His sword flashed in a crescent of burning white as he swung it across the air.

Moonblade Style — 4th form — Waxing Gibbous. 

The flames enveloped the mount he stood on top of and cleaved through a horde of Galvathians on the ground like a raging typhoon. Leandro hopped off the falling, burning mount and landed gracefully amidst the burning wreckage and Galvathian corpses. 

“We have to stop him!”

“Kill him!” 

"Stop that Earthling!!"

A Galvathian's scream caused an instant reaction.

A barrage of shots and lasers were aimed at him from the air and from the ground. Leandro merely arched an eyebrow as he took a step forward, then back, left and right, his head and body twisting gracefully as each crimson beam passed harmlessly past him.

Not a single shot made contact with him.

Leandro dashed, his steps taking him dozens of meters per second. He ran in zigzags, like a comet on fire, as he approached the ground forces. They tried to take aim and shoot at him, but Leandro was a blur, his sword a trail of silver as it cleaved through metal, armor, flesh, and bones.

"W-what..." A Galvathian warrior mumbled out, trembling, eyes wide, unable to comprehend what the human in front of him just did. He was standing amidst a sea of smoldering craters, his body covered in black soot, Galvathian blood, and flickering with the remnants of his Aura. "Did we... make a mistake?"

Was his last thought.

Leandro swung his sword down and decapitated him. He stared at the severed corpse—at the destruction around him. Humans had no real means of combating the Galvathians, not long-term anyway. Their only hope of surviving was to destroy the portal that those monsters used to travel through.

"You..." A reptilian creature hissed, as it jumped towards Leandro, who dodged it effortlessly. He barely responded. A small, burning blade of light cut it into two, halving it through its center. The reptilian monster looked down at its bisected body and then collapsed to the ground.

Leandro looked around. The surrounding Galvathians didn't dare approach him, but their guns remained locked onto his head, ready to fire the moment they thought he showed a chance to strike back. He raised an eyebrow, glancing at his hand, the sword, and at the Galvathians surrounding him. "Really now? After everything I just did, you think that your puny little guns would make a difference? If I was the type that gets shot up like some sort of bullet sponge, I would have been dead the moment I left that damned building. Why the hesitation? Come on!"

He spread his arms, waiting.

"Fire! Fire everything at him, now!" The Galvathians commanded in unison, their guns lightning up, but—

"Lower those damn guns, you imbeciles! You're only going to get yourself killed." A hissing voice boomed out, loud enough that anyone could perfectly hear it over the cacophony of gunshots and explosions. "He's well above your league."

Leandro watched as the horde of Galvathians slowly parted to the side to make way for someone. The newcomer, a much taller Galvathian that appeared to be some sort of female, with the way her breast plate armor was shaped like an upside-down triangle, walked with the air of one that expected a lot of reverence from everyone. Her tail swished up and down, cracking the ground with each impact.

She approached with calm steps, though her definition of calm meant leaving clawing indentations in the concrete. She casually raised a claw in the air. "Everyone, stop." And, suddenly, the glaring jets of light that filled the sky and the ground turned into silence. Every soldier, Galvathian or human, stopped fighting. An unsettling quietness, broken only by the cracking of fires, permeated like the silence before a catastrophe. "I'm Giselle, Deputy Commander of the proud Galvathian Army.”

She expected an introduction, and when none came, she continued, unbothered. “I don't like to see my beloved brother and sisters die pointlessly. I'm sure you feel the same, Earthling. So why not decide the result of this battle through a fair and proper duel?"

Leandro's lips curved upwards in amusement. He laughed. "And if I don't agree? If I just decide to go and slice up everyone here until none are left?"

The female Galvathian hissed, the corner of her lips rising as she smirked. "I will cut your head off first."

"And what if I cut your head first?" Leandro asked, pointing the tip of his blade at her neck. "Don't get me wrong, you seem strong. But I've fought meaner bastards and I've always made it out alive. So don't give me a reason to add you to that pile of corpses. Take your dogs with you and leave. I won’t ask twice."

The female Galvathian hummed. Her head tilted down for a moment.

"In fact, maybe I should take you hostage and trade you for all of Korea or something. Sounds like a great plan." His words were met with outraged hisses and insults from the Galvathians, not that he gave a single fuck.

“Even if you did, you wouldn’t achieve anything.” She chuckled. 

Leandro snorted as he walked forward, ignoring the confused and shocked looks around him. He kept walking until he reached the front of the Galvathian woman.

She didn't attack him. She simply stared, her crimson eyes scrutinizing his form, examining every single aspect of it. He, in turn, stared back at her. She had a powerful physique, muscular yet curvy, much like an amazon from Earth's mythology.

"Do you really think you'll be able to kill us all off without a single casualty, Earthling?" She placed a clawed finger under Leandro’s chin. Her eyes, however, widened when a whizzing, crimson beam nearly tore through her head—not that it would have actually killed her, but it was still unexpected. She snarled, baring her fangs in Yuhee’s direction. “You dare?”

The young woman sneered in response. The muzzle of the rifle was glowing, smoking from the recent shot. Yuhee's eyes were sharp and fearless, but Leandro could see her fingers trembling.

Yuhee didn’t lower her weapon, however. "You should take those disgusting paws off of him already, Galvathian slut." How much courage had it taken her to say it? 

Nari, for once, damn agreed with Yuhee. She pointed her rifle at Giselle as well. “Loathe as I am to admit it, this other conniving bitch here is not wrong. You better get your fucking hand away from him, lizard woman. He doesn't want anything to do with a scaly, foul-smelling creature like you. You should take a hint, dumb bitch."

Yuna gaped at the expletives that left her cute daughter's mouth.

"Ah, what do I do~" Bada smiled shyly, a slight blush on her face as she rose up to her feet and slowly aimed her rifle at Giselle as well. Then, her sparkly smile vanished, like someone blowing out a candle, leaving only cold darkness, and the faintest of taunting grins. "You have ten seconds to take that filthy paw away, or you'll lose your cute head~"

And finally, the last nail to the coffin was when Hari joined them. Unlike the unnerving coldness shown by the previous women, Hari had a reproachful look on her face, though the promise of pain was quite evident with the way she pointed her gun at the Galvathian female soldier.

"Hari! Nari! What the heck are you two doing!" Yuna was furious. She could not believe how her daughters were acting! "Do you even have any idea of what you're doing right now?!"

She went ignored, much to the woman's growing frustration. Myeong held a hand over her mouth as she muttered ‘Oh my!’.

Giselle snorted with disdain. Her gaze locked on Leandro, her claw still under his chin, she smirked, and in an almost coaxing, almost teasingly, low hiss, said. “It looks like you have quite a few mates, Earthling.” Her lips parted slightly as her forked tongue flicked out, her claw tracing down to his collarbone and neck. “What do you think would ha… happ… happen…”

She trailed off, suddenly seized by an intense fear. 

Leandro seized her wrist, calmly. “I don’t think you should finish that sentence.” His voice had a disturbing echo, his eyes glowing. “Smarter men died saying less. Come on, didn’t you say you wanted a duel?” His Aura burst out of him in a veil of white flames, washing over his body, covering the ground in a layer of his own making. It was like walking through the scorching sand of a desert. "Let's duel."