Chapter 429: Simpleton
(Charles’s POV)
Seeing Leo enveloped in green, Charles grinned wide from ear to ear.
It wasn’t a grin of mockery, nor the twisted smile of a sadist who’d broken a toy.
It was the grin of a man who had just pulled off the most dangerous gamble of his career — and won.
’That’s it, kid... That’s what I was waiting for. That flicker. That freaking spark of defiance,’ Charles thought, pride swelling deep in his chest as he let out a long, relieved breath. ’You’ve got that dog in you, you really fucking do–’
The emerald light wasn’t just aura. It was a statement. A scream of will from a half-dead boy whose body had no business surviving that kind of beating, but whose heart had refused to shut up and die.
And it made all of Charles’s cruelty feel worth it.
"Good job, son," Charles said aloud, keeping his voice measured, calm. "I guess you’re really not ready to die—"
He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a small crystal vial, the liquid inside glowing faintly golden, pulsing with healing enchantments potent enough to snap broken bones back into place and flush out internal bleeding in under a minute.
Without another word, he knelt beside Leo’s ruined form and uncorked the bottle, gently tilting it toward the boy’s split lips.
Leo’s eyes, barely open a moment ago, suddenly flared again, still clouded by pain, but now burning with a very different kind of fire.
He took the sip.
Held it in his mouth.
And then spat it straight into Charles’s face.
*Splatter*
"The fuck you think you’re doing beating on me like that, huh?" Leo croaked, his voice shredded but alive. "Fuck you and your healing..."
Charles froze for a second, potion dripping down his cheek, as he blinked slowly, and then laughed, a low, deep laugh that rumbled in his chest like thunder rolling over a calm field.
"You little bastard," he muttered, half-smirking as he wiped his face on his sleeve. "Still got that spine, huh?"
Leo tried to move, but even the twitch of his jaw made him wince.
"Damn right I do," he mumbled, coughing hard. "Next time I see your fist coming, I’m biting it off."
"You can try."
And without another word, Charles grabbed Leo by the jaw— firm, but not harsh, as he shoved the bottle back between his lips, ignoring the weak resistance.
"Drink, brat," he said. "You’re gonna live, whether you like it or not."
Leo grumbled, weakly trying to spit again, but this time he swallowed the potion with a glare, as the golden liquid began to course through his body, mending slowly what Charles had just spent the last twenty minutes breaking.
The moment the potion slid down his throat, Leo felt its effects.
His entire body arched on reflex as a searing warmth erupted from his core, surging outward like a golden inferno trying to stitch back flesh that hadn’t even finished breaking yet.
Usually, healing potions, even those of the highest grade, were blue in color, so the golden potion that Charles had forked out was undeniably unique and with a formulation different to that of traditional healing potions available in the market.
Within seconds of consuming it, every shattered bone, every torn muscle, every ripped ligament in Leo’s body began pulsing as if they were being forcibly glued back together by an unseen force that didn’t care how much it hurt.
Leo grit his teeth, his jaw clenching so hard it sent another bolt of pain through his cheek.
"Ghh—fuck... what the hell... is this supposed to help?" he cursed, as Charles simply watched, expression unreadable, as he waited for the potion to do its job.
"If it doesn’t hurt, it ain’t healing anything worth keeping." Charles retorted, however, Leo could barely listen.
His body was twitching, uncontrollably at that, as the magic worked its way through the wreckage.
His right femur reknit with a sickening pop, followed by the dull throb of his shattered ribs forcefully snapping back into place. The numbness in his arm gave way to raw sensitivity, each nerve along the shoulder screaming awake like it had just been lit on fire.
But through the agony, there was something else.
A pulse.
A rhythm.
A quiet hum beneath all the chaos that whispered life into the mangled ruins of his body.
His heartbeat, once faint and fading, now thudded strong in his chest. His lungs, filled with blood and grit, slowly began to clear, each breath coming deeper, fuller.
By the time the worst of the potion’s effects ebbed, Leo’s vision was no longer swimming.
He could finally see the man crouched beside him clearly.
Charles, with his arms folded, one brow raised and that same irritating calm plastered on his face, looked down on him like none of what had just happened was anything more than a warm-up drill, as Leo couldn’t help but fume when looking at his expression.
"Someday, I’m going to pay you back for this. I swear—" Leo said, as Charles chuckled out loud.
"Pay me back for what? To help you see Green? Or for the 7 million MP super potion I just used to heal you?" Charles asked, as it was only then that Leo realized the true intention behind this beatdown.
’So he did this to help me see Green...’ Leo finally realized, as while up till now he was too consumed by his rage and the desire to survive to think past it.
Now that his body was mending again, he finally remembered seeing Green, which meant that he had successfully cleared the first level of the Codex.
"Oh shit, I had completely forgotten about that..." he mused, as rolling on the muddy ground, he pulled out the codex from his storage ring, and forced it open to stare at the new golden text that began typing itself on the manual.
"HAHAHA! Look at this simpleton checking on his gains as soon as he can.... Well, I was like this too when I was your age," Charles chuckled from the side, as he gave Leo his privacy to read what the Codex revealed to him.