Chapter 153: DragonKin Soldier Report (2)

"As you wish," Leon agreed softly, a faint, indulgent smirk touching his lips.

He projected a silent command through his soul-bond, and Auris instantly rose to his feet, shaking the morning dew from his void-steel armor.

The dragon lowered his massive neck, allowing Leon to effortlessly vault into the saddle area.

Leon reached down, grasping Snow’s hand and pulling her up to sit securely behind him on the broad, armored back.

Snow wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, pressing her cheek against the heavy fabric of his mantle.

"Let’s show them whose valley this is," Snow whispered, her voice vibrating with competitive thrill.

Auris let out a deafening, metallic roar that echoed off the towering permafrost mountains.

The massive beast ignited his aether-wings and launched violently into the air, tearing a localized gale-force wind through the clearing.

They ascended rapidly, soaring high above the glowing blue mana-rivers and the beautiful, clustered bamboo architecture of the settlement.

The flight was short, covering the distance from the estate to the southern gates in a matter of seconds.

From their elevated vantage point, Leon’s absolute vision easily pierced the distance.

He saw the towering wooden gates of the sanctuary, flanked by the nervous, heavily armed Dragonkin sentries.

And standing just inside the threshold, leaning heavily against a wooden post, was the lone human player.

She was covered in dried mud and dark monster fluid, her silver hair matted to her forehead with exhaustion.

Leon recognized her instantly.

He remembered the damp, gloomy forests of Sector 4, the localized safe zone of the Lotus Rest hotel, and the quiet, determined scout.

"Mira," Leon murmured, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his stoic features.

He analyzed her current state in a fraction of a second, his supreme intellect instantly parsing her residual mana signature.

She had abandoned the relative safety of the beginner sectors and forced her way through the nightmares of Sector 12 alone.

Her biological density and the ambient pressure she exerted on the immediate environment told a clear, undeniable story.

Mira was the player. It meant she had successfully reached the Adept rank.

Auris banked sharply, descending toward the courtyard just inside the southern gates with terrifying speed.

The massive dragon flared his void-steel wings, arresting his momentum and slamming into the cobblestones with a deafening crash.

The sheer kinetic impact cracked the stone beneath his claws, sending a wave of localized wind washing over the courtyard.

The Dragonkin sentries immediately dropped to their knees in absolute reverence.

Mira, who had been resting her exhausted body against the wooden post, jolted upright, her hand instinctively flying to the hilt of her curved blade.

She stared in absolute, unadulterated shock at the towering, thirty-foot monstrosity of ice and void-steel that had just dropped from the sky.

But her silver eyes quickly moved past the beast, locking onto the two figures dismounting from its broad back.

The man stepped down first, moving with a frictionless, terrifying grace that completely defied his massive, muscular frame.

Mira’s breath caught in her throat. She recognized the sharp, aristocratic features and the striking, dual-colored eyes immediately.

It was Leon Wes.

A profound wave of relief and pure delight washed over her exhausted mind.

She had found a familiar face in this brutal, alien world, someone who wasn’t actively trying to murder her for experience points.

"Leon!" Mira called out, her voice cracking slightly from dehydration and sheer exhaustion.

She took a step forward, completely intending to run up and greet the man she had left behind at the hotel weeks ago.

But as she closed the distance, her newly elevated, Level 35 sensory perception violently engaged.

She suddenly felt the aura emanating from him.

It wasn’t the heavy, impressive presence of a high-tier Initiate that she remembered from Sector 4.

The air around Leon felt impossibly dense, warping the very fabric of reality with a suffocating, absolute gravitational weight.

It felt as though she were trying to walk through a solid wall of ocean pressure.

Mira stopped dead in her tracks, her silver eyes widening in pure, unadulterated horror as her tactical instincts screamed in overdrive.

He wasn’t Level 65. He wasn’t just a high-tier Adept player hoarding elite loot.

The fundamental, conceptual laws of the world were actively bending to accommodate his physical presence.

He was absolutely, undeniably above the Adept rank.

Mira’s mind scrambled to comprehend the impossibility of what she was sensing.

A Steadfast entity. He had shattered the Level 100 barrier while the rest of the world was still crying in the mud.

Despite the terrifying, absolute pressure of his aura, the cold, calculating Vanguard offered her a faint, acknowledging nod.

The ambient suppression immediately receded, pulled back by Leon’s flawless, instantaneous control over his own conceptual weight.

Mira let out a shaky breath, the paralyzing fear melting away as she realized he was not projecting hostility.

Overwhelmed by her grueling, solitary survival and the sheer relief of seeing someone she knew, Mira abandoned her caution.

She walked rapidly forward, closing the final few yards, and threw her arms around Leon’s armored torso in a desperate, exhausted hug.

Leon stood perfectly still, his hands remaining at his sides, allowing the battered scout a moment of grounding physical contact.

He could feel her entire body trembling, the residual adrenaline of a hundred near-death encounters finally bleeding out of her system.

From her position beside the massive dragon, Snow Valestorm watched the display with a suddenly raised eyebrow.

Her crystalline blue eyes narrowed slightly, her arms crossing defensively over her chest.

She watched the beautiful, silver-haired scout clinging to her husband, analyzing the interaction with intense, protective scrutiny.

Snow cleared her throat, a sharp, deliberate sound that easily cut through the quiet courtyard.

Mira flinched, suddenly realizing how incredibly forward she was being with a man who was practically a god.

She quickly stepped back, her cheeks flushing as she desperately tried to smooth down her ruined, blood-stained leather tunic.

Snow stepped forward, her silver cross-chains chiming as she moved to stand seamlessly at Leon’s right side.

She looked at Mira, then looked up at Leon, her expression a mix of territorial curiosity and genuine confusion.

"Husband," Snow said, her tone perfectly even, deliberately emphasizing the title for the stranger’s benefit.

"Are you and her a thing I should be aware of?"

Mira’s silver eyes widened in absolute shock, her gaze darting frantically between the terrifying Vanguard and the beautiful, heavily armed artisan.

Husband. The word echoed in her exhausted brain, entirely shattering her previous understanding of the solitary, untouchable ghost.

Leon looked down at Snow, a faint, genuinely amused smirk touching the corner of his lips.

He reached out, resting his large, calloused hand securely against the curve of Snow’s waist, pulling her slightly closer.

"No, Snow," Leon answered, his deep voice calm and entirely devoid of hesitation.

"We are not a thing. Mira and I are simply long acquaintances from my early days in the Eastern Checkpoint."

He looked back at Mira, his dual-colored eyes assessing her battered, exhausted state with objective clarity.

"She provided me with accurate topographical data when the global map was still obscured," Leon explained smoothly.

"She is a capable player who clearly possesses the drive required to survive the Adept tier."

Snow listened to the explanation, the defensive tension in her shoulders instantly melting away.

Her husband’s absolute transparency and the secure, grounding weight of his hand on her waist completely erased any lingering jealousy.

She looked back at Mira, her competitive edge fading into genuine, empathetic understanding.

Snow knew exactly what the solitary grind looked like, and she knew the terrifying toll the deep forests of Sector 12 extracted from solo players.

The silver-haired girl looked as though she hadn’t slept in a proper bed or eaten a hot meal in weeks.

Snow’s fierce, protective nature effortlessly shifted from territorial defense to welcoming hospitality.

"Well, any acquaintance of my husband is a guest in our territory," Snow declared, offering Mira a bright, disarming smile.

She uncrossed her arms, gesturing back toward the beautiful, glowing blue mana-rivers deeper inside the valley.

"You look like you’ve been fighting for your life for a month straight," Snow noted, her tone softening with genuine warmth.

"Why don’t you come up to our estate? We just finished renovations, and I have a massive spread of elite flank steaks ready for lunch."