The Cursed Extra-Chapter 135: [3.8] Meanwhile, the Protagonist Is Having a Great Time
"Some people are born to be heroes. The rest of us just try not to get stepped on."
***
The warrens bent to Leo von Valerius like the world itself recognized its rightful master.
Golden light blazed through the tunnels as Lumen sang in his grip. The ancestral blade’s holy radiance banished shadows that had lingered for centuries. The sword’s weight felt perfect in his hands. Not heavy, but substantial. Like holding concentrated purpose.
Each swing carved arcs of brilliant fire through the air. Where the blade touched goblin flesh, there was no resistance. Only the clean separation of light from darkness.
This was what he had been born for. This was what every day of training, every sermon about duty, every bedtime story about the heroes of House Valerius had prepared him to become.
A weapon against evil. A shield for the innocent.
Leo understood this the way he understood breathing. It required no thought. No hesitation. The monsters came, and he cut them down.
Simple. Clean. Righteous.
"Elena, freeze the tunnel mouth," Leo called over his shoulder. His voice carried the easy authority of someone who had never doubted he would be obeyed. He didn’t look back to see if she followed his command.
Of course she would follow his command. Everyone always did.
"Gareth, watch our six. Lysander, stay close and mark any we miss."
His team moved like parts of a single organism. Four souls operating in perfect concert. They had trained together since childhood. Their families bound by ancient alliances and shared purpose.
Where Leo led, they followed. Where he pointed, they struck.
This was the natural order of things.
Elena Morgenthorne raised her pale hands. Frost spread across the stone in intricate patterns. The ice moved like a living thing. Crystalline tendrils raced across the tunnel’s surface with supernatural speed.
Within seconds, she had sealed the passage behind them with a wall of ice thick enough to stop a charging bull. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in the span of a heartbeat. Their breath misted in the suddenly frigid air.
"Sealed," Elena reported. Her voice carried that crisp aristocratic accent that made even simple statements sound like pronouncements from a throne. Ice crystals sparkled in her silver-blue hair like a crown of winter stars. "Nothing will follow us through that. The ice will hold for at least six hours."
Leo nodded in approval.
Elena’s magic had always impressed him. There was an elegance to her casting that spoke of generations of refinement. Centuries of Morgenthorne blood honing their affinity for frost until it became something approaching art.
Even if her personality could be somewhat challenging at times.
Gareth Stoneheart hefted his massive tower shield. The steel reinforced with bands of blessed silver that gleamed in Lumen’s light. At six and a half feet tall and built like a fortress wall, he made the tunnel feel cramped simply by existing in it.
"Clear behind us," he rumbled. His voice deep enough to vibrate through the stone floor. "But I can hear more of them ahead. Lots more. The echoes suggest a large open space about two hundred yards forward. They’re massing there."
Leo processed this information with the quick tactical mind his tutors had spent years cultivating. A large open space meant room to maneuver. Room to maneuver meant his team could spread out and utilize their full capabilities.
This was good. This was exactly what he wanted.
Lysander Ashford adjusted his grip on his composite bow. Golden hair fell across his green eyes as he nocked an arrow. The movement smooth as silk.
"Thirty, maybe forty hostiles," Lysander murmured. His voice soft but carrying clearly in the tunnel’s acoustics. His eyes had that distant look he got when he was reading the environment. "Standard goblin war party formation. Chieftain in the back with two honor guards. Three shamans scattered throughout. They’re trying to funnel us into a kill zone."
Leo smiled.
And it was the expression of a man who had never met a problem he couldn’t solve with overwhelming force and righteous conviction.
The goblins thought they were clever. They thought their numbers and their traps would be enough to overcome four academy students.
They had no idea what they were dealing with.
"Let them try."
The words left his mouth with absolute certainty. There was no fear in them. No hesitation.
Leo von Valerius did not know how to be afraid of goblins. He barely knew how to be afraid of anything. Fear was for people who doubted themselves, and Leo had never doubted himself for a single moment in his eighteen years of life.
Why would he? Everything he had ever attempted, he had mastered. Every challenge he had ever faced, he had overcome.
The world had shown him, time and again, that he was destined for greatness.
The goblins came in a rush of yellowed teeth and rusty blades. Their war cries echoed off the tunnel walls like the shrieking of damned souls. They poured from side passages and hidden alcoves. A green tide of malice and hunger that would have overwhelmed any normal group of first-year students.
But Leo’s team was not normal.
They were the Scions of Valerius. The finest collection of young talent the kingdom had seen in a generation. Each of them had been raised from birth to become exactly what they were: weapons of light in the eternal war against darkness.
Their families had spent fortunes on their training. Hired the greatest masters in the realm to teach them. Instilled in them the unshakeable belief that they were special. Better. Chosen.
Leo met them with fire and song.
Lumen blazed brighter as he channeled mana into the blade. When he spoke the activation phrase, his voice rang with the harmony of cathedral bells.
"By light’s grace, let darkness burn."
[Sunfire Blade] erupted along the sword’s length. Transformed it into a weapon of pure radiance. The holy fire didn’t simply burn. It purified. Turned goblin flesh to ash and their crude weapons to slag.
Leo moved through their ranks like a dancer performing a violent ballet. Each cut and thrust a note in a song of destruction. His footwork was perfect. The result of thousands of hours of training under the kingdom’s greatest swordmasters.
His timing was impeccable. Every strike landed at exactly the right moment to maximize damage while minimizing his own exposure. He flowed from one goblin to the next without pause. Left trails of ash and scattered embers in his wake.
A goblin tried to stab him from behind.
Leo pivoted. His blade swept in a horizontal arc that bisected the creature at the waist. Before the two halves had even finished falling, he was already moving to his next target.
Lumen carved a path through the horde like a golden comet blazing through the night sky.
This was combat as art.
This was violence elevated to something beautiful.
This was what it looked like when the narrative loved you.
