Path to Power: Rise of Leo Vance

Chapter 4

Behind Leo, Maya screamed and fell to her knees, covering her ears. The magic was leaking toward her, filling her mind with pure terror. 

But Leo? Leo just stood there. 

He did not scream. He did not run. He did not even blink. 

Inside his mind, the Supreme Archon watched the dancing shadows with deep disappointment. “This is what passes for magic in this world?” Zayin thought. “It is clumsy. It is messy. The mana flow is completely unstable. It is like watching a dog try to play a piano.”

The shadowy monsters leaped from the walls, diving straight into Leo's eyes, trying to rip his mind apart. 

But Leo's soul was the soul of the Supreme Archon. It was a soul that had burned like a star, a soul that had ruled over realms of gods and demons. A petty Fear Hex trying to break his mind was like a single drop of rain trying to destroy an ocean. 

The shadows hit Leo and instantly shattered into harmless gray smoke. 

The whispers stopped. The terrible faces on the walls vanished. The room was just a dark, messy apartment again. 

The Collector in the sunglasses froze. His mouth dropped open. He looked at his hands, then looked at the skinny teenager. 

"What... what did you do?" the man gasped, taking a step back. "The hex... it just disappeared!"

Leo tilted his head slightly. "You call that magic?" he asked, his voice echoing with a strange, double-layered coldness. "You leave too many gaps in your mana threads. You use raw emotion instead of control. It is insulting."

Before the men could react, Leo stepped toward the coffee table. He reached out his hand, moving his fingers toward the glowing red Blood Contract. 

"Don't touch that!" the bearded Collector yelled, finally standing up. "It will burn the flesh off your bones!"

Leo ignored him. He placed his index finger directly onto the glowing red parchment. 

He did not burn. Instead, he closed his eyes and felt the flow of the spell. To the Supreme Archon, magic was like a beautiful piece of fabric. He could see every thread, every knot, and every mistake. 

The contract was designed to pull a soul out of a body and trap it in the paper. It was a one-way street. 

“Reverse it,” Leo commanded his mind. 

Using his supreme understanding of 'spell-wefting', Leo pushed a tiny bit of his own powerful soul energy into the paper. He grabbed the invisible threads of the spell and twisted them backward. 

Suddenly, the dark red glow of the contract stopped. 

For a split second, the room was completely pitch black. 

Then, the contract erupted. 

It did not burn with normal orange fire. It exploded into blinding, brilliant violet flames. The fire shot upward, but it did not burn the wooden table or the air. It was a magical fire, hungry for mana. 

The violet flames leaped off the table like a striking snake. They flew straight at the bearded Collector, wrapping around his right arm. 

"ARGH!" the bearded man screamed. 

It was a scream of pure, absolute agony. The violet fire was freezing cold, not hot. It was burning away his magical energy, eating directly into his nerves. The man dropped to the floor, thrashing and rolling around. He slapped at his arm, trying to put the fire out, but his hands passed right through the magical flames. 

"Help me! God, help me, it's eating me!" he shrieked, tears pouring down his face. 

The man in the sunglasses panicked. He backed away, his face pale with horror. He had never seen magic like this in his entire life. He looked at the teenager standing calmly in the center of the room, surrounded by the violent purple light. 

Leo’s eyes glowed with that terrifying violet fire once again. He stepped over the screaming man on the floor. He leaned in close to the terrified man in the sunglasses. 

The temperature in the room dropped again, but this time, it was not from a spell. It was the sheer, crushing pressure of a king looking at a peasant. 

"Take your garbage and leave my home," Leo whispered. His voice was quiet, but it hit the man's ears like thunder. "And tell your master... he is the one in debt to me now."

The man in sunglasses didn't hesitate. He grabbed his screaming partner by the collar of his expensive suit. Dragging the bearded man across the floor, he pulled him out the front door and ran down the dark hallway, their frantic footsteps echoing loudly until they were gone. 

Silence returned to the tiny apartment. 

The violet fire on the table slowly faded away, leaving the terrible Blood Contract turned to harmless gray ash. 

Behind Leo, Maya slowly pushed herself up from the floor. She was trembling from head to toe. She looked at the ash on the table, and then she looked at her little brother’s back. 

"Leo...?" she whispered, her voice full of confusion and fear. "How did you... what was that?"

Leo turned around to face her. He wanted to smile. He wanted to comfort her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that the Archon would protect her. 

But as he opened his mouth to speak, a terrible tearing sensation ripped through his chest. 

His vision spun wildly. The use of his soul's pressure, combined with reversing the complex magic of the contract, had pushed his broken mortal body past its absolute breaking point. 

Leo doubled over, falling hard to his knees. 

"Leo!" Maya screamed, rushing forward and catching him before his face hit the floor. 

Leo coughed violently. A thick puddle of dark, pitch-black blood spilled from his lips onto the cheap linoleum floor. The raw magic he had just channeled was poisoning his fragile mortal organs. His heart was stuttering, beating entirely out of rhythm. 

“I am out of time,” Zayin realized as the darkness crept into the edges of his vision. “If I do not find a way to refine this weak vessel by morning, this second life will end just as quickly as it began.” 

His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed completely into his sister's panicked arms.