For a fraction of a second, Leon genuinely wondered whether the blades growing out of the beast's shoulders were just a bodily mutation - or a full-fledged skill, something the System had assigned it the same way it had given him Darkness Manipulation. In this new world, the line between "natural transformation" and "active ability" was getting harder to see, and the longer he survived, the more he understood that evolution wasn't just bigger numbers.
It was breaking rules that used to feel unquestionable.
Only now - standing across from a creature that wasn't just fast and shielded, but armed with weapons fused into its own body - did he truly understand why Valeria had looked at him with that strange blend of pride and gravity when she said he was one of the few capable of killing something higher-ranked. It wasn't about raw strength.
It was about adapting to something that had long since stopped being a "monster" and started being a new form of existence.
