213 SAVED BY THE SPY
Dark energy swirled around Mendiace as he summoned a massive, malevolent hand from the sky to crush Leo. At his strength now, Leo might not escape this powerful spell unscathed.
But Leo didn't wait. With blazing speed, he closed the distance, charging directly at Mendiace.
"What—?" Mendiace began, startled by the reckless move.
"You're new to this world," Leo snapped, closing in. "Your damn handler hasn't even given you a fast-cast tab yet."
Casting powerful magic like the summoned hand requires focus and attention and without a fast cast tab, it was slow and not allowed to be interrupted.
Leo's hand shot out, touching Mendiace before he could react.
"Touch of Immobility."
A paralyzing surge of magic coursed through him, halting the summon mid-cast. The dark hand dissolved into nothingness.
Before Mendiace could recover, Leo pressed his other hand against him, siphoning his magic and life force in a swift, brutal maneuver.
"Touch of Consummation"
Mendiace's body withered, collapsing to the ground in a shriveled husk.
"This is a fucking cool combo," Leo told himself before he uttered, "I'm not letting the damn System revive you again."
He took Mendiace's body into his Ward Ring.
With the fight over, Leo turned back to Sujira, scooping her up with care and together they departed, heading back toward Court La Mood.
-----
[At the Palace of Willows]
Yun-Yun's gaze narrowed as she examined Sujira's battered form. "What happened to your bodyguard?" she asked, her tone sharp.
Leo's expression darkened. "She was wounded defending me from this piece of filth," he growled, dragging Mendiace's dying body into the room. Without ceremony, he shoved the assassin into the Jade Throne, leaving the traitor to adorn the foot of the bed stands.
Yun-Yun crouched beside Sujira, her fingers tracing the bloodied edges of the bodyguard's wounds. "She's in bad shape. These injuries alone would be fatal, but there's something else at work here. She won't survive without intervention."
Leo's voice trembled, an unusual crack in his resolve. "We can save her, right? She got those wounds protecting me."
Yun-Yun's frown deepened. "It's not just her wounds. She's under a kill curse. It's active now and killing her as we speak."
"Kill curse?" Leo repeated, his tone sharp with urgency.
"Yes. I've studied something like this before. The Temple of Hera's brides carry similar curses. When activated, it causes the rib cage to collapse inward, crushing the heart. It's a failsafe designed to prevent them from being captured alive and revealing secrets."
Leo's brows knit in confusion. "But she was with me the entire time. No Temple of Hera agents were anywhere near her to trigger the curse."
"The curse activates automatically when the host is fatally endangered," Yun-Yun explained. "It's designed to kill her before she can fall into enemy hands."
Leo's eyes blazed with anger. "Such vile tactics. Can we break it?"
Yun-Yun hesitated, her gaze flicking back to Sujira as the bodyguard let out an unconscious scream. The curse's effects were accelerating.
"We need to stop the rib cage from crushing her heart," Yun-Yun said firmly.
Leo brought up his control panel, scanning Sujira's body. His mind worked furiously as he analyzed the curse's code, but his efforts were met with frustration. "I can't erase these damned codes," he spat.
"The curse is incredibly advanced. Even I couldn't remove it directly," Yun-Yun admitted.
Leo studied the codes again, his mind racing. Then, an idea struck him. "You said the curse uses her rib cage to kill her. What if we remove the cursed ribs entirely? Replace them with something else?"
Yun-Yun's eyes widened at the audacity of the suggestion. "In theory, that might work. But there are risks, and she'd need replacement bones. Where would you even find compatible ones?"
Leo reached into his magic space and brought out the Basilisk bones he had acquired from the Auction Hall. "These. I'll recode them to match her body and use them to replace the cursed ribs."
Yun-Yun's skepticism was evident, but there was no time to argue. "If you're going to do this, hurry."
Leo nodded, already working. He rewrote the characteristics of the Basilisk bones, altering their magical properties to suit Sujira's physiology. With precision and haste, he removed her cursed ribs and replaced them with the newly encoded Basilisk bones.
Sujira's body went still, her screams silenced. For a moment, relief washed over them both.
Then Yun-Yun's voice cut through the quiet. "This isn't enough. Her body can't handle the power of the Basilisk bones."
Leo's fists clenched. "Damn it. What else can we do?"
"The Dragon Rakshasa Body Transformation Sutra," Yun-Yun suggested. "It could stabilize her body and allow it to integrate the new bones."
Without hesitation, Leo began engraving the sutra's magical codes onto Sujira's body. The transformation was painstaking, but as the sutra took hold, Sujira's condition finally began to stabilize. The Basilisk bones fused seamlessly into her frame, their power no longer overwhelming her.
"There's one last thing," Leo said, pulling a vial of liquid from his magical space. He poured the contents onto Sujira's chest, where her dragon guardian began to glow and absorb the liquid.
Yun-Yun's eyes widened in recognition. "That's the water from the Spider Queen's lair in Sodom's ruins?"
Leo nodded. "I saved it for an emergency like this. Let's hope it's enough."
As the water merged with her body, Sujira's breathing steadied. Her transformation was complete, her life no longer in immediate danger.
Leo and Yun-Yun exchanged a look, relief mingled with exhaustion.
"She'll live," Yun-Yun said quietly.
Leo let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Good. She earned that much."
Yun-Yun's curiosity got the better of her. "You knew she was working for the Temple of Hera. Why did you go to such lengths, using so many treasures to save her?"
Leo's expression was contemplative. "It's just a gut feeling. I don't think she's born evil. She's probably a victim of circumstance, trapped by the Temple of Hera. If not for the Kill Curse controlling her, her loyalty might not truly lie with them."