Marvin rushed forward the moment he realized what was happening.
Leo’s body kept moving, his legs still driving forward despite the unmistakable signs of unconsciousness.
"Stop boy, you’ll end up killing yourself if you don’t–" Marvin said, as without hesitation he caught him by the shoulders, and lifted him clean off the ground.
But even as Marvin lifted Leo’s body into the air, Leo still continued to thrash and struggle against the restraint, his muscles twitching, his limbs jerking as if searching for solid ground.
His legs kicked weakly, desperate to keep running, despite the fact that his mind had already long since shut down.
Marvin frowned, staring into the eerie, rolled-back whites of Leo’s eyes, searching for some flicker of awareness.
However, there was nothing to be found.
Leo was gone.
And yet—his body refused to stop.
’What monstrous willpower!… what kind of training turns a boy into this?’ Marvin wondered, feeling impressed as he exhaled sharply through his nose.
Shifting his grip, he brought Leo’s thrashing form into a tight hold, locking his arms against his sides, forcing him still.
It was only then—when all movement had been forcibly cut off—that Leo’s body finally stopped resisting, going slack against Marvin’s unyielding frame. As finally, he stopped for good.
For a moment, the training field was deathly silent.
And then, as if reality had just sunk in, the whispers began.
"…What the fuck did we just witness?"
"He was smiling, the whole time—while he was running, while he was bleeding—he was smiling."
"No… that’s not even the worst part, the worst part is that he was unconscious. He didn’t even know he was smiling. He didn’t choose to keep going. His body just… kept running and smiling, even when his mind was gone."
The words settled over the group of students still running like a suffocating weight.
"I want to believe he would’ve stopped eventually—"
" —I have to believe that. But… if the professor hadn’t stopped him, if Marvin hadn’t physically restrained him…"
He hesitated, as if speaking the thought aloud would make it real.
"…Would he have just kept going? Would he have run until his body actually broke?"
The question sent chills racing down spines of the students who sat just outside the running track.
"…I thought I knew what it meant to push past my limits. I thought I understood what willpower was." A girl from the six big clans said, as she turned her gaze towards Leo’s limp form.
"But that? That wasn’t willpower. That was something else."
"Something inhuman—"
Silence.
Then—
"Fuck, I was planning to challenge him after this." Someone said with a dry humourless laugh.
"Now? I don’t even think I want to be on the same battlefield as that freak." He concluded, as he rubbed his hands over his skin that had turned reptilian with goosebumps.
"This guy… he’s not normal. He’s not normal. No one should be able to do that. No one should be able to keep running when their body gives out."
"It’s not just talent or training… it’s like he doesn’t know how to stop."
"…What kind of life do you have to live, to become something like that?" Mu Shen asked, his gaze flickering toward Leo’s motionless form.
"…No," he corrected himself, shaking his head. "What kind of person do you have to be? What the hell has he gone through to become this?"
The thought settled uneasily in everyone’s minds.
All of them had worked hard to get where they were today.
None of them had easy lives growing up.
However, whatever hell they had been through, now looked like a children’s park when compared to the past of Leo Skyshard.
*********
(Rodova Military Academy, The C Wing Infirmary)
Professor Marvin personally rushed Leo into the infirmary once his thrashing stopped, as he felt Leo’s pulse weaken slightly with every passing second.
The infirmary was relatively quiet, with only a handful of minor cases being treated—scrapes, bruises, and the occasional muscle strain.
Since the semester had just begun, there weren’t many serious injuries yet, leaving the medical staff free to prepare for what would inevitably come.
So when Professor Marvin stormed in, carrying Leo’s limp body over his shoulder, the room instantly snapped to attention.
Half a dozen assistants and a senior healer, a composed yet authoritative woman with streaks of silver in her dark hair, rushed toward him, their eyes widening when they saw the state Leo was in.
"Place him here," the senior healer instructed, motioning toward one of the reinforced medical tables, as Marvin did as told, carefully lowering Leo onto the padded surface.
"What happened to him?" The senior healer asked, as Marvin quickly briefed them about how Leo kept running despite passing out, pushing his body well beyond its limits.
Having a general idea of what went down, the assistants immediately went to work, their hands glowing with diagnostic mana as they began a rapid assessment.
However, within seconds, their faces turned grim.
"Muscle fibers across his legs and arms are torn—" one of them reported, voice laced with disbelief.
"Multiple stress fractures in his tibia, fibula, and metatarsals," another chimed in.
"Mana exhaustion detected—his reserves are completely drained."
But the worst was yet to come.
The senior healer, standing at Leo’s bedside, placed her hand just above his chest, her mana pulsing in waves as she conducted a deeper scan.
A second later, her eyes flickered with something close to shock.
"There’s a small perforation in his left lung," she said, her usually calm voice carrying a rare note of incredulity. "Likely caused by extreme exertion under prolonged oxygen deprivation."
One of the assistants swallowed hard. "That… that doesn’t make sense. That kind of injury occurs in high-intensity combat, not from running."
The senior healer pulled back, exhaling sharply as she studied Leo’s unconscious form. His face was still pale, lips slightly parted as his body lay eerily still, completely drained of all its strength.
But even now—despite the damage—his fingers twitched, as if his body was still trying to move.
"This level of self-destruction…" the senior healer muttered under her breath. "How can one even do this to themselves?"
Professor Marvin crossed his arms, his sharp gaze fixed on Leo. He had seen many students over the years, many elite warriors in the making, but none who had done this much damage to themselves without being in an actual fight.
He let out a low grunt. "Forget the how. Can you fix him?"
The senior healer nodded, but there was hesitation in her eyes. "Yes. His injuries are severe, but they can be healed completely within a few hours with proper treatment."
"I will try and ensure that he doesn’t miss his next class due in 2.5 hours, but he’s going to miss breakfast for sure—" she concluded, as Marvin’s lips curled slightly, though there was no humor in his expression.
"Alright, fix him and once he wakes up inform him that he has failed my training class and needs to re-do the 100 laps tomorrow" Marvin instructed, as with that he left the infirmary hall.
Shaking her head, as if disappointed in the muscle headed professor, the chief healer prepared a serum, while also giving instructions to her assistants.
"Prepare the mana regeneration solution. He needs deep-tissue healing and a full detoxification cycle."
"Tasha, cast a healing spell over his lungs, the hole is small you can fill it quickly"
"Daryn, pump out the leaked blood, unclog the smaller arteries"
"Heldi, heal his fractured bones"
"Chop, Chop! The next class is in 2.5 hours—"
The chief healer instructed, as the whole team worked on Leo’s body double speed.