The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - LLD Chapter 14: The Mad Fool (1) (Part 2)

In other words, he had never even held a sword before.

A complete amateur with no real combat experience.

And yet…

Craaack—!!

Who could look at that and still call him an amateur?

Who would ever believe that someone who had never wielded a sword, someone with zero combat experience, was some good-for-nothing?

Demexus had gone wild.

Like an enraged bull, it thrashed in every direction, trying to shake Adrian off.

But Adrian didn’t back down.

Instead, he drove the sword deeper into Demexus’ nape.

Adrian pressed in relentlessly.

“……!!”

Kai’s eyes widened once again.

Not even seasoned knights who had survived countless real battles, nor mercenaries who had roamed endless warzones, could do something like that.

Even Kai himself wouldn’t dare attempt it.

Thud!

…It was simply unbelievable.

The courage alone was staggering, but his swordsmanship rivaled that of a trained knight.

No matter how you looked at it, there was no way this was someone holding a sword for the first time.

And yet, there was a way to explain it.

It was absurd to believe he had reached that level in just ten days—but on this continent, such absurdities were sometimes possible.

There were geniuses who made them real.

Kai himself was, in a way, one of those geniuses.

But even so—

Slash!

—this was beyond that.

The timing, the rhythm, the way he altered the sword’s path in perfect response to Demexus’ movements.

There wasn’t a single flaw. Every motion was perfect.

Kraaaah—!

…This wasn’t something you could explain with “talent” alone.

They say knowledge gained through practice is not knowledge—it’s experience.

That kind of movement couldn’t be achieved with talent alone.

It required real battle. Experience in the deadly, blood-soaked chaos of war.

Without that kind of experience, such control was impossible.

‘How on earth…?’

Adrian gripped his sword tighter—and slash!

From Demexus’s neck to its jaw, the blade sliced clean through.

A fatal blow that alone would’ve spelled death.

But Adrian didn’t stop there.

He swiftly pulled his sword back, clenched his fist, and with all his strength, hurled a punch straight at Demexus’s head—

Crack—! A booming sound echoed out.

Its skull caved in with a sickening crunch.

“……!!!”

Kai’s eyes shot open even wider.

Adrian’s punch—just now—it had shattered Demexus’ skull.

And yet, there wasn’t even a hint of Aura in it.

That meant the strength came purely from the human body.

But even so, the power and destructive force of that blow… simply weren’t human.

Thud.

With a dull tremor, Demexus collapsed to the ground.

It didn’t move again.

The snow beneath it was stained deep red with blood.

“Huff…!!”

Adrian let out a deep exhale and collapsed onto the ground.

No—he didn’t just collapse, he sprawled out completely.

His stamina had been fully depleted.

Kai was no different.

The only thing keeping him upright was sheer willpower.

In other words, if Adrian hadn’t been there, it would’ve been a serious disaster.

Demexus was that powerful.

Of course, had Kai been in full condition, Demexus wouldn’t have posed much of a threat.

But with both his stamina and Aura drained, Demexus had been extremely dangerous.

‘Why did Demexus come all the way to the County…?’

It was a monster known to dwell mainly in the Snowy Mountains.

Why it had come near the County at all was still a mystery.

But Kai was simply relieved that he had been the first prey Demexus encountered.

If it had been anyone else, the people of the County would have suffered.

And truthfully, if it hadn’t been for Adrian, Kai himself might not have survived.

‘Hmm.’

Kai replayed Adrian’s battle in his mind.

His swordsmanship was high-level.

But the techniques he used weren’t structured or formal.

Adrian’s sword was purely focused on killing.

It couldn’t even be called “swordsmanship.”

Put nicely, it was practical.

Put bluntly, it was crude.

Yet he covered those flaws with meticulous calculations and exceptional combat instincts.

In that sense, Adrian resembled a “knight.”

And yet, his fighting style was more like that of a “mercenary.”

But the raw, deadly efficiency of his movements? That was closer to a “beast.”

A knight, a mercenary… and a beast.

…Kai couldn’t figure out what kind of person Adrian truly was.

The only thing he could say for sure—

Adrian was no longer the “delinquent of the House of Whitewolf.”

Ever since he ran away from home, he had changed drastically.

Kai had no idea what happened to him during that week.

But one thing was certain—Adrian was a completely different person now.

And Kai’s view of him had completely shifted.

In that moment—

Adrian suddenly sat up from the snowy ground where he’d been sprawled.

It seemed he had recovered some stamina, as he moved without hesitation.

He picked up his fallen sword and climbed atop Demexus’s corpse, plunging his blade in without a second thought.

‘What…?’

Kai hadn’t even finished forming the question in his mind—

When Adrian pulled something out from Demexus’s body. Something about 30 centimeters in diameter.

‘A heart?’

It was Demexus’s heart.

Even in Adrian’s grasp, the heart twitched faintly.

But that didn’t mean Demexus was alive.

It only meant that its nerve endings hadn’t died yet.

In other words, Adrian’s killing blow had been so fast and precise that the body hadn’t caught up to death.

The heart still radiated heat.

When that heat met the cold air of the snowy plains, it emitted a burst of steam.

The still-warm blood spilled to the ground, dyeing the white snow even redder.

Adrian stared at Demexus’s heart…

And smiled.

A satisfied smile.

…Was he insane?

To Kai, he looked like a complete lunatic.

Who smiles while holding a monster’s heart?

And then, as if that wasn’t enough—

Adrian brought the heart to his mouth.

‘Why the hell would he—?’

Crunch.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

Kai shouted before he even realized it.

His face and expression were no longer that of someone talking to another human being.

Translatin_Otaku

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