The containment was not perfect. A faint, unsettling pressure still emanated from Leo, a scent of ozone before a storm. It was enough. As he strode across the plains towards the plumes of smoke, the more sensitive creatures on the fringes of the horde—the Kitsunes with their refined spiritual senses, the ancient Earth Sprites attuned to the planet's distress—paused their rampage. Their panic, which had been directed away from the forest, now swiveled and locked onto him. He was the source, and he was here. With terrified shrieks and earth-shaking rumbles, they broke away from the main horde, fleeing parallel to the tree line, desperate to put distance between themselves and this walking oblivion.
But the majority of the horde—the Gloom Bruins, the Shadow Jackals, the mindless tide of Killer Rabbits—were too consumed by base instinct, fear, and hunger to notice. Their terror had curdled into rage, and they were taking it out on the soft, fragile things in their path: the human villages.
Leo crested a small rise and saw the first village. Or what was left of it.
The wooden palisade was splintered into kindling. Thatched roofs were torn open. Dark, ugly stains painted the dirt paths between simple homes. The air, thick with the scent of smoke, also carried the coppery tang of blood. Bodies, human and monster alike, lay where they had fallen. He saw the corpse of a Gloom Bruin, bristling with arrows, lying across the shattered remains of a man still clutching a spear. He saw a family—a man, a woman, a small child—huddled in the corner of a collapsed hut, their lives ended not by claws, but by the crushing debris.
He stopped, his featureless face taking in the scene. The hollow sadness within him, usually a vague fog, suddenly crystallized into a sharp, painful clarity. This was not like the ants, a civilization that chose its own end. This was not like the salamander, a single, powerful beast. This was… small. Messy. Helpless. These people had no grand purpose. They were just… living. And they were dead because of him.
A deep, shuddering grief, the first of its kind, washed through him. It was a clean, human emotion, cutting through the amnesiac haze. He was responsible.
A guttural roar pulled his attention. At the far end of the village, a last stand was underway. A handful of adventurers—a man in scarred leather armor with a notched sword, a woman chanting behind a shimmering magical barrier, a youth firing arrows with trembling hands—were backed against a burning granary. They were encircled by a pack of slavering Shadow Jackals and a single, wounded Gloom Bruin. The magical barrier flickered, about to fail.
Leo didn't think. He acted.
He raised the Leviathan Staff and pushed.
He didn't unleash a cataclysm. He didn't use Terrakinesis. He simply released a controlled wave of the aura he had just contained. It was a pulse of pure, existential negation, focused through the staff.
The effect was silent and absolute.
The Shadow Jackals, mid-leap, simply dissolved into shadowy motes that were then absorbed into the pulse. The Gloom Bruin, its rage instantly replaced by a final, silent understanding of what was approaching, had the life, the energy, the very concept of its being siphoned away. It crumbled into a pile of desiccated fur and bone before it hit the ground.
The pulse faded. The immediate threat was gone.
The adventurers stared, their weapons lowering. They looked from the piles of dust that were once monsters to the strange, humanoid figure of green slime holding a black staff. They saw the trail of withered grass leading directly to him. They felt the faint, terrifying pressure that had just annihilated their foes without a sound.
They weren't grateful. They were terrified.
The swordsman tightened his grip on his blade, his eyes wide with a fear deeper than any the jackals had inspired. The archer's bow clattered to the ground. The mage simply stared, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
They didn't see a savior. They saw a new, unknown, and infinitely more frightening monster.
Leo felt their fear. It was a different kind of blow. He had helped, and he was more feared than the creatures that had tried to kill them. The grief for the dead and the pain of this rejection twisted together inside him.
He took a step back. Then another. He didn't belong here. His very presence was a curse.
He turned away from the village, from the terrified adventurers, from the dead he had inadvertently created. The containment held, but his purpose was reforged. He wasn't just exploring anymore. He was a king cleaning a mess, a penitent seeking absolution for a sin only he truly understood. He had to drive this horde back, not for gratitude, but because it was the only way to atone for the invisible scar he had carved across the continent. The journey into the world of men had lasted mere minutes, and it had left him with a deeper wound than any Titan could ever inflict.