Chapter 428: The Boss Is Not Done Yet
(Charles’s POV)
Charles never really wanted to beat Leo down so bad.
With every punch he landed on the boy’s battered frame, a small grimace twisted his expression, fleeting and buried beneath the cold mask he wore.
Deep down, he kept hoping that the next blow would be enough, that it would finally push Leo within an inch of death where the line between quitting and clinging would begin to blur.
But Leo was a stubborn bastard.
Too damn stubborn for someone who was just a Grandmaster, as it actually took Charles far longer than expected to systematically dismantle his body, to peel apart the fight layer by layer until it began to flicker.
"I will kill you kid," he muttered beneath his breath, as his fist arced down again, slamming against Leo’s ribs with a sickening crunch. "If you don’t fight for your life, if you don’t protect yourself against my attacks, you.... will....die!"
Leo’s body spasmed under the impact, blood spurting from his nose and lip, his chest caved slightly on the right side, and his arms barely twitching as he tried to move.
His eyes were half-lidded now, barely responding.
His breaths were so faint that Charles had to lower his head slightly just to confirm he was still alive.
But that didn’t stop Charles from delivering another blow.
And then another.
Until Leo’s right femur snapped clean, his body jerking once, then going still again.
"Come on..." Charles repeated, tone quieter now, not mocking but strained. "Don’t you dare go out like this."
His knuckles were stained with Leo’s blood, his boots soaked through, and yet the kid still hadn’t passed out. He was drifting, clearly, spiraling toward unconsciousness—but not quite letting go.
It frustrated Charles. But more than that, it scared him. Because if the boy didn’t show any spark of green now, then everything he was doing here... all of it would be for nothing.
He paused.
Stood over Leo’s broken frame, fists clenched, chest rising and falling slowly.
And waited.
Waited for something.
Anything.
But Leo didn’t move.
Didn’t cry.
Didn’t scream.
Didn’t even tremble anymore.
His breaths were like whispers lost in wind—short rasps, as if his body had finally abandoned the idea of resistance.
Charles stepped forward slowly, raising his hand again, this time drawing back with perfect coiling, every muscle along his shoulder tensing as his fist hovered above Leo’s chin.
"You can close your eyes now, son," he said quietly, voice devoid of aggression. "And I promise you, you won’t wake up again."
He stared down at the boy who was more talented than any other kid he had ever come across in his life, but was now lying before him like a fallen bird with its wings snapped off.
"Maybe it’s not too bad," Charles added, his voice carrying a hint of something mournful. "Maybe closing your eyes now will save you from a world of pain in the future. Maybe you weren’t meant to go the distance. Maybe dying here... like this... is better than what’s coming."
Silence.
Leo didn’t respond.
Charles’s lips tightened as he knelt beside the boy again, not touching him, but speaking right into his ear now.
"It’s that simple. Just close your eyes and let go of that last breath you’re holding, and you’ll get eternal rest. No more drills. No more wars. No more betrayals. Just peace."
His hand twitched slightly, still held above Leo’s unmoving jaw.
"But... can’t do it, can you?"
Charles’s voice changed now, firmer, sharper, cutting like flint scraping steel.
"Can’t let go? Then open your damn eyes, kid. Open them wide and tell me to fuck off. Show me you still give a shit."
Still nothing.
Charles rose to his feet again, blood dripping from his knuckles as he let the silence drag on for a moment longer.
"Because if you won’t," he said, voice low and final, "then thirty seconds from now... this fist right here, I’m going to drive it through your chin and send you to sleep for good."
He tilted his head, locking eyes with the barely-conscious boy.
"It’s either you decide to fight for your life now... or you sleep forever."
And then... he waited.
Fist trembling.
Timer ticking.
Not moving an inch until the boy made his choice.
—----------
*SCREECH*
Leo couldn’t even clearly hear what Charles was mouthing.
There was this sharp, metallic ringing in his ears, like the screech of a blade dragging across steel, relentless and invasive, that made it nearly impossible for him to process sound in any coherent way.
Every word that left Charles’s lips arrived distorted—muted, echoing, warped—as if spoken through layers of broken glass.
But pain?
Pain he felt perfectly.
Raw and untamed. Stretching across every nerve ending in his body like wildfire.
It wasn’t localized anymore. It wasn’t just his ribs, just his arms, just his face that hurt anymore.
The pain was everywhere. Soaked into his bones, embedded into his muscles, pressing into his lungs with every breath that refused to come.
It was the kind of pain that should have made him want to die.
But it didn’t.
Not once did that thought cross his mind.
Not once did he think of surrender.
Even as his body shut down inch by inch, even as his limbs refused to respond, even as he lay sprawled in a pool of his own blood, Leo never once considered letting go.
Because letting go meant giving up.
And giving up meant saying goodbye to everything that he held dear in this world, including his family and ambitions.
And that? That was never an option, not now, not ever.
His mind was clouded, yes. Sluggish, battered, flickering between unconsciousness and a shallow, fractured awareness, but at the core of it, at the very bottom of that dark abyss, there was still a single ember that refused to die.
’You’ll have to do more than that...’ he thought, unable to speak it, his jaw too loose, too broken. ’You’ll have to break more than bones if you want to kill me.’
His memories bled into one another. Faces flickered behind his eyes, some known, some forgotten.
The ache of loss, the fury of betrayal, the whisper of Amanda’s laugh, the ’thief’ brand from the time-stilled word. All of it swirled around him in a fever haze, stitched into every shattered fragment of who he was.
And then, finally, through the haze, he caught Charles’s voice.
Not clearly. Not sharply. But enough.
"Open your eyes wide and tell me to fuck off. Show me you still give a shit.
Thirty seconds, I give you thirty seconds to show me heart, or I’ll put you to sleep forever—"
That much reached him.
And that was enough, as listening to those words, Leo didn’t flinch.
He didn’t panic.
He simply blinked.
Slowly.
Once.
Twice.
And then, through eyes swollen and bloodied, he peeled them open wide, forcing his blurred vision to find the figure standing above him.
His lips cracked as they moved, torn and trembling, yet somehow still shaped the words he’d been holding back since the moment the first blow landed.
"Fuck... you," he breathed.
And in that moment, something changed.
It wasn’t sudden.
It wasn’t dramatic.
It was quiet, almost invisible, like a whisper of wind passing through the void.
But it was there.
A glow.
Soft at first, then growing.
Emerald green, flickering to life across his ruined body.
It danced along his skin, shimmered across the torn cloth and blood-soaked wounds, bathing him in a faint light that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, slow, steady... and rising.
Leo didn’t know what was happening.
Didn’t care.
All he knew was that whatever this power was, whatever force was reacting to him now, was allowing him to open his eyes wider and speak just a little louder, as he made sure to look Charles in the eye, and send the message across that he wasn’t going to die today.
Not like this.
Not before settling every score. Not before proving every single bastard that doubted him wrong. Not before becoming everything he was meant to be.
And hence, with blood in his mouth and emerald fire on his skin, Leo glared up at the man who had just tried to kill him and whispered again, voice hoarse and resolute—
"Fuck you and your Cult, The Boss is not done yet."