Emerging from the suffocating, soup-like fog were three shapes that defied the natural order of the Clover Kingdom. They were massive, armored nightmares given form—Venom-Tail Giant Scorpions.
They were the size of carriage horses, their chitinous carapaces gleaming with a dark, oily sheen in the dim, filtered light of the badlands. Their multiple eyes glowed with a dull, hungry red, fixing on Lencar with predatory intent. Their tails arched high over their backs, the stingers dripping with the same purple, bubbling sludge that filled the toxic pools around them. They clacked their pincers together, a sound like grinding stones, signaling their readiness to tear flesh from bone.
They had sensed the intruder. They had sensed the mana flare. They had sensed the meat.
Lencar didn't flinch. He adjusted his grip on the Demon-Dweller Sword. The blade was heavy, rusted, and silent. It didn't glow. It didn't hum. It was just a jagged, ancient piece of metal waiting for a hand to guide it.
The sword felt different now. Maybe it was his imagination, or maybe the sword sensed that its wielder wasn't going to die in the dirt today. It felt balanced. Ready. It felt like it was judging him.
"There are three targets," Lencar analyzed, his voice low and raspy behind the wooden mask. He scanned them, breaking down their biology with the cold detachment of a butcher eyeing a carcass.
"Armor density is very High," he noted, observing the thick plates overlapping on their backs. "Their weak points are the joints where the legs meet the thorax, and the sensory cluster of eyes. Poison threat is nullified thanks to the Quintessence. That leaves kinetic trauma as the primary danger."
He grinned. It was a terrifying expression, hidden by the wood, born of adrenaline and the primal thrill of the hunt.
"Finally," Lencar said, his voice low and dangerous. He stepped forward to meet the monsters, the toxic fog swirling around his boots. "Something that hits back."
The lead scorpion screeched—a high-pitched sound like tearing metal—and charged. Its legs churned the toxic mud, closing the distance in a terrifying burst of speed. Its massive pincer, large enough to crush a man's torso, snapped forward, aiming to cut Lencar in half at the waist.
Lencar didn't use magic. He didn't cast a wind blade. He didn't summon a root. He had to learn the blade.
He used his legs.
Strider's Plumes engaged.
He pushed off the ground. The grey feathers stitched into his boots flared with mana, momentarily negating his weight relative to the earth.
He vanished from the scorpion's path.
He reappeared in the air, ten feet above the beast. He hung there for a split second, defying gravity, the ancient, rusted sword raised high over his head in a classic executioner's stance.
"Lesson one," Lencar shouted, his voice cutting through the fog. "Physics always wins!"
He deactivated the boots.
Gravity reclaimed him instantly. He fell like a meteor, adding the weight of his fall to the strength of his Mana-Forged arms. He didn't slash; he chopped.
CRUNCH.
The Demon-Dweller Sword impacted the scorpion's armored back.
It didn't slice through like a laser. Lencar lacked the Anti-Magic energy that made the sword a god-killer in Asta's hands. Instead, it hit with the force of a blunt guillotine. The rusted edge smashed through the chitin with a sickening crack, driving deep into the creature's flesh through sheer kinetic force.
Green blood sprayed into the air, sizzling as it hit the ground. The scorpion shrieked, thrashing wildly.
The impact jarred Lencar's arms all the way to his shoulders, rattling his teeth. The vibration traveled up his skeleton, a harsh reminder that he wasn't swinging a refined weapon. This wasn't the elegant swordsmanship of the nobility. This was brutal, industrial violence. The sword stuck for a moment, wedged in the shattered shell.
"Heavy," Lencar grunted, ripping the blade free with a wet sucking sound. "It's like swinging a tombstone."
A mistake, his mind raced as he landed in the mud. My grip was too tight. I absorbed the shock instead of letting it flow through the target. Loosen the wrists.
The scorpion whipped its tail around, the stinger flashing toward Lencar's head faster than a whipcrack.
He didn't have time to dodge. He brought the flat of the sword up in a desperate block.
CLANG.
The stinger hit the rusted steel with the force of a wrecking ball. The blow sent Lencar sliding backward through the mud, carving deep furrows in the earth. He gritted his teeth, his boots struggling for traction in the slick sludge.
"Fast," he noted, shaking the numbness out of his arms. "And strong. Good."
The other two scorpions were flanking him now, circling like wolves. They clicked their pincers, communicating in a rhythmic, chittering code. They were intelligent predators, and they realized the prey wasn't soft.
Lencar stood his ground. He felt the sweat trickling down his back under the cloak. He felt the burn in his muscles. He felt alive.
This was what he needed. The weights in the mountains were static. The push-ups were predictable. But this? This was chaos. This was a fight where one mistake meant being skewered.
"I can't use spells," Lencar reminded himself, resisting the urge to blast them with a tornado. "If I use a massive attacking spell, I will destroy the purpose of the training. I have to win with the blade. I have to learn how to be a swordsman."
He looked at the Demon-Dweller Sword. It was dull, ugly, and silent.
"Work with me," Lencar whispered to the blade. "I'm not Asta. I can't shout you into submission. But I can wield you."
He took a breath of the poison air. It fueled him. The Quintessence in his blood converted the toxins into stamina, a biological combustion engine.
He activated the Strider's Plumes again. He darted to the left, moving in a blur.
The second scorpion lunged, snapping at empty air. Lencar pivoted on his heel, using the momentum to swing the sword in a wide, horizontal arc.
He aimed for the legs.
CRACK-SNAP.
The heavy iron blade shattered the joints of the scorpion's front legs. The beast collapsed on one side, hissing in fury.
Improvement, Lencar noted. I used the hip rotation that time. Less arm strength, more core torque.
Lencar didn't stop. He vaulted over the crippled monster, using its shell as a springboard to launch himself at the third one.
"Gauntlets!"
He channeled a burst of [Wind Magic] into the black iron gauntlet on his left hand. He didn't cast a spell; he just released a raw pulse of compressed air from his palm—a makeshift thruster.
BOOM.
The air blast propelled him sideways in mid-air, a violent shove that allowed him to dodge a stream of acid spit from the third scorpion.
He landed behind it.
He gripped the sword with both hands. He visualized the movement he had practiced in the storm. The Falling Avalanche.
He shifted his feet, grounding himself. He channeled Stage 3 Mana Control into his arms, reinforcing his muscles, pushing his physical strength past its limit. The mana formed a skin over his triceps and forearms, binding the fibers together so they wouldn't tear under the strain.
He swung.
The blade bit into the tail joint, severing the stinger completely.
The scorpion howled, spinning around to crush him with its pincers.
Lencar stepped into the guard. Instead of retreating, he closed the distance. He drove the pommel of the huge sword into the scorpion's eye cluster.
SPLAT.
It wasn't pretty. It wasn't clean. But the scorpion recoiled, blinded and in pain.
Lencar stood amidst the chaos, the fog swirling around him, the ground slick with toxic sludge and alien blood. He was panting. His muscles burned. But he was smiling.
"This," Lencar said, raising the sword again as the wounded beasts turned to face him, "is how you forge a Heretic."
Just as he prepared to finish off the first scorpion, a low rumble vibrated through the canyon floor.
The fog swirled violently.
Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.
From the deeper mist, three more shapes emerged. Bigger than the first group. Their shells were scarred, darker, indicating age and combat experience. The commotion had drawn the alpha pack.
"They also have reinforcements," Lencar wondered, wiping slime from his mask. "Now it is 1 vs 5." (He discounted the one with the severed tail as a primary threat, though it was still dangerous).
Most mages would panic. Most mages would cast a barrier or fly away.
Lencar felt a surge of warm, ecstatic joy. "No. Of opponents has increased. Excellent."
He didn't retreat. He didn't use spatial magic. He charged.
The fight devolved into a meat grinder.
A fresh scorpion lunged, its pincer clamping down on Lencar's left arm.
CRUNCH.
The Black Iron Gauntlet held. Dominante's runes flared silver, distributing the crushing force across the metal structure, but Lencar still felt the bone underneath groan.
He ignored the pain. He used the grapple as an anchor.
"Got you," Lencar growled.
He swung the sword one-handed with his right arm, a horizontal cleave that smashed the scorpion's faceplate. He channeled a burst of [Fire Magic] into the Ignis Driver ring on his right hand at the moment of impact.
BOOM.
The thermal lance punched through the cracked shell, cooking the creature's brain instantly.
He ripped his left arm free, the gauntlet dented but functional.
The other scorpions swarmed.
Lencar entered a flow state. He stopped thinking about the Hage manuals. He stopped thinking about "High Guard" or "Low Guard." The mud was too slippery, the enemies too numerous for static poses.
He started to move like water.
He parried a tail strike, letting the heavy Demon-Dweller sword deflect the blow into the ground, then used the rebound to slash upward into the creature's underbelly.
A mistake, his mind corrected instantly as the blade got stuck in the softer tissue. I don't need to over-penetrate. I just need quick cuts. Cripple, then kill.
He ripped the blade out, rolling under a pincer snap.
He took hits. A tail grazed his ribs, cracking bone.
The pain was white-hot.
Lencar tapped the ring. Quintessence flooded the injury.