Chapter 426: Collapse
(56 Days Before the Fight, Leo’s POV)
When Leo opened his eyes again, he found himself staring at a crude farming tool, one that looked completely out of place in a world as advanced as Juxta, as it seemed like a primitive way to farm, created during times when farm animals were the best way to till fields.
The tool had a rusted iron frame that twisted into a wide-toothed tiller, its wooden handles cracked and splintered, wrapped in fraying wire where nails once held it together.
The base was caked with dry blood and old soil, and it reeked of rust and age, as if it had been passed through generations of dead men too stubborn to let it rot.
It sat at the center of a circular track, etched crudely into the rocky terrain of the military base’s outer fields, where new recruits were usually sent for isolated punishment, usually being asked to run 100 or 200 rounds of the area with their hands raised above their heads.
’Why am I here?’ Leo wondered, as he gently stroked the sore spot on his neck where Charles had hit him to knock him out.
’Fuck, even though I knew he was going to hit me here, I could do nothing to stop him–’ Leo recalled, as he grit his teeth and shook his head in disappointment.
He had made a lot of simple mistakes in his previous spar against Charles, and if given a second chance, he knew he could do much better.
"Where’s Dumpy?" He mused next, as looking around, he tried to find his pet, however, couldn’t find him anywhere.
Since yesterday, Charles had separated the two, as while Leo embarked on a new tangent of training, aimed at getting him ready for the big fight in 56 days, Dumpy was made to continue with his prison break regiment and barred from meeting Leo until he successfully broke out of 5 prison set-ups alone.
"Hang in there Dumpy! I know you can do it even without me," Leo muttered with confidence, as Charles suddenly appeared before him at that moment.
"So.... Looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake–" Charles joked, as he stood a few feet away, face contorted into a smile, yet eyes devoid of any warmth, as he looked at Leo as if he was ready to hurl down a world of pain on him.
"Yeah, I’m up!" Leo responded, getting back up to his feet, as Charles nodded and pointed towards the crude farming tool in front of him.
"After sparring with you once, I’ve decided that your next assignment is going to be old school.
You are going to push that thing in a loop around this circle," Charles said, gesturing lazily to the barely marked path.
"Again, and again, and again, until you’ve dug a hole 100 feet deep. You stop before then, and you’ll pay like hell for it." Charles explained, as Leo blinked in disbelief.
He waited for a grin to break out on Charles’s face, something to show that he was only kidding, however, none came.
"A hundred feet Commander Charles? Are you fucking kidding me?" he said, his voice cracking in disbelief, as he looked at the crude tool, then towards Charles then back at the tool yet again.
"Son, you said you wanted me to train you to the limits.
Now is the time when you walk the talk and show me what you’re made of.
There’s no hostility between us. I’m not asking you to do this because I derive some sadistic pleasure from seeing you walk in circles like a farm animal.
I am giving you this task, because I genuinely think you can do this if you put your mind to it. However, if you can’t, then the consequences will be harsher than what you want to bear.
So for your sake, I do strongly hope you manage to complete this task, because if you can’t, I swear son, you’ll see a side of me that I usually reserve for my worst enemies," Charles warned in a cold voice, his tone much more serious than usual, as Leo instantly frowned when he heard those words.
It seemed like Charles really wanted him to go through with this, and although he did not understand what benefit this training could possibly bring him, he let out a long sigh and began to walk towards the old machine while shaking his head.
"As you say, Chief–" Leo said, as he gripped the old handle of the machine and began to push forward with both hands, his boots braced firmly against the uneven gravel beneath.
However, the moment the wheels scraped against the dirt, Leo realized this task was going to be far harder than it looked.
The ground wasn’t soft soil that could be parted with effort, but was rather a jagged mix of dry clay, embedded stones, hardened roots, and stubborn patches of grass that refused to yield.
Every inch felt like pushing a giant rock up a 45 degree incline. The tiller barely moved, its rusted joints screeching with protest, and the metal teeth at the base refused to cut deeper than a couple of inches without catching on something solid and jolting violently.
He leaned his entire weight into the handles and forced it ahead, feeling his muscles strain with each step as the contraption grudgingly rolled forward with all the grace of a dying ox.
The handles dug into his palms with every uneven patch, the wires tearing into his skin and drawing fresh blood within the first few minutes.
The circle he was told to walk wasn’t small either—it was the size of a mid-scale arena, and completing even one full loop took over twenty minutes with how much resistance the ground gave.
*Clink*
*Scrape*
*Drag*
The sound of rusted metal gnashing against pebbles filled the air with an agonizing rhythm, echoing through the emptiness of the training ground, broken only by the occasional gust of dry wind or the cawing of the scavenger crows circling above.
Leo kept his head low and eyes focused on the path ahead, not allowing himself to look at Charles even once.
He didn’t need to.
He could feel the Monarch’s eyes on him the entire time, like a predator watching not to attack, but to judge whether the prey deserved to keep living.
By the end of the fifth hour, Leo’s shoulders were on fire, his forearms cramping, and his hands shaking from the constant vibration.
By the fifteenth, his legs began to buckle with every step, the pain creeping into his thighs and calves, each rotation of the circle becoming more and more impossible to finish.
His vision swam at the corners, and sweat poured down his face in thick streams, soaking through his robes, drenching him entirely until even the inside of his boots squelched with moisture.
The sun didn’t help.
The sky above Juxta blazed a cruel orange, casting long shadows that seemed to taunt him, as if the ground itself knew he couldn’t complete this trial.
But despite the difficulties, Leo kept pushing.
Grinding.
Dragging.
Loop after loop.
He lost count after his twentieth round.
Time became irrelevant, his breaths short and shallow, muscles twitching involuntarily, but his grip never loosened.
One more step. One more circle. One more lap.
It became a rhythm that replaced thought.
Pain was no longer a warning, it was the only sensation reminding him that he was still alive.
And finally, somewhere deep into the next night since he had begun moving in circles, when even the crows had long vanished and the wind had grown deathly still, Leo’s knees gave out.
He didn’t grunt, nor did he scream with frustration.
He just collapsed, wordless and silent, his chest heaving like a bellows trying to breathe life into a broken forge, as his face hit the dirt and the tiller stopped moving for the first time in nearly two days.
After all those hours, he had barely carved a trench ten feet deep.
Only ten.
And after completing just 10% of his goal, his arms and legs refused to move at all.
His body had reached its absolute end.
He blinked once, vision blurred, half-conscious, as he tasted a metallic taste in his mouth.
And then, through the haze, came the sound of boots approaching—slow, steady, heavy—and the flicker of a match being struck, as the scent of freshly lit tobacco filled the air.
Charles knelt down beside him, blowing a cloud of smoke into his face.
"Ten feet," he muttered under his breath. "After all that, ten feet?"
Leo couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t even produce a retort, as he literally felt too exhausted to even talk.
All he could do was stare blankly at the sky above, the stars swirling overhead, as the Monarch loomed over him, his eyes devoid of mercy, as thick red killing intent began to pool around his body.