5th September, Year 714 A.G.

It was a Saturday morning in the containment perimeter.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

For the 5th day in a row, Leon was the spearhead of the Freegrid Army in the containment perimeter as with the obliterating power of the Bulwark MK.II Titan Frame’s primary weapons, he culled the worst of the Neon Beasts.

Within the past 5 days, he already slaughtered thousands of Neon Beasts with the most prominent of them being 2 D Rank Neon Beasts, getting a total of +147 Ascended Essence for both in the process.

~----~

[Ascended Counter: 1103/4000]

~----~

Leon was still in the West and was yet to leave the territory of the Freegrid Collective, yet he was already 1/4th of the way towards meeting the goal of challenging his 3rd Ascended Trial.

Apart from the +147 Ascended Essence that he gained from killing the 2 D Rank Neon Beasts, an important reason why his Ascended Counter ballooned to 1000+ out of 4000 was because he gained +203 Ascended Essence earlier from the ChronoSystem for surviving the nuclear bomb disaster.

Also, just like he suspected, he noticed a trend that proved that he could not simply launch his way to 4000 Ascended Essence by killing D Rank Neon Beasts.

With his current power and his Mechanist constructs, if the system was fair, Leon was confident in killing enough D Rank Neon Beasts to hit 4000 Ascended Essence within a few months. But unfortunately, the system was not fair.

The first D Rank Neon Beast that he killed who was Dhruv’s mutated student earned him +118 Ascended Essence.

The second D Rank Neon Beast that he killed during the containment for the past 5 days gave him +87 Ascended Essence, and the third that he killed earned him just +60 Ascended Essence.

Well, this discouraged him.

Leon was pretty sure that by his 10th D Rank Neon Beast kill, the rewards would have gone below 10 Ascended Essence already.

And maybe by his 20th kill, he’ll stop earning Ascended Essence entirely.

’Getting Ascended Essence as a D Rank Ascended is not easy at all’. He lamented.

Again, this made him realize that Ren Nora’s suggestion that he should hunt Bill Zefyr was not unfounded.

Getting Ascended Essence as a D Rank Warmachine Specialist was that difficult. To get himself ready for his C Rank Ascended Trial, he had to take on the impossible task of hunting the richest man in the world.

"A DOOM CRAWLER!!!" A soldier suddenly bellowed from the wall.

Immediately, Leon snapped out of his reverie as he focused.

Doom Crawlers were one of the D Rank Neon Beasts that were born from the radiation of the nuke.

These were heavily armored Crab-like glass-carapaced Neon Beasts that were extremely slow, but they had the raw strength to cleave through entire armies!

Their claws were sharp enough to cut through reinforced steel, and their mandibles could chew through anything that the Freegrid Army have brought out so far to block their advance anytime one of them crawled out.

Due to the Class difference and the nature of his powers as a D Rank NetRunner of the Mindbreaker Specialization, even Colonel Alphonse could not deal with these monsters himself.

They didn’t really have a fully sentient mind for him to crush.

In the same way, due to the nature of his Class, his abilities, and his constructs, only Leon could deal with them with his obliterating offensive firepower.

Neural Projection!

BZZZ!

Colonel Alphonse appeared out of mid-air, standing on the shoulder of the massive mech suit even as he looked at the distant Doom Crawler who was marching slowly towards the perimeter like a herald of death.

"Are you ready?" He asked.

Leon grinned inside the mech suit and a mechanical voice answered Alphonse. "I’m always ready".

"Good, then let’s go to battle".

BZZZZZZZ!

Their combined ADE, neon green and grayish white erupted like twin tsunamis as they rushed out in tandem to hunt the D Rank Neon Beast.

After 7 minutes of an epic battle, this time with Alphonse’s help, Leon finally managed to kill his 4th D Rank Neon Beast in less than a week.

And well, the fall-off was far more than he expected.

DING!

~----~

[Congratulations! You have killed a D Rank Neon Beast!]

[You have gained +27 Ascended Essence!

...

[Ascended Counter: 1130/4000]

~----~

"...!" Leon was stunned.

’Just 27???’ He almost crashed out on the spot.

In the end, he had no choice but to accept his fate. He had no hope in trying to meet the Ascended Counter tally by trying to hunt D Rank Neon Beasts, unless he was crazy enough to stalk and hunt a C Rank Neon Beast.

But even as stubborn and fearless as he was, Leon was not delusional enough to think he could hunt a C Rank Neon Beast.

Despite the fact that the fight lasted 5 days, with the help of special elite squads that were sent by the other factions of the world, they were able to contain all the Neon Beasts that were born by the nuclear radiation inside one zone.

No Neon Beast managed to escape the net.

In 5 days, they managed to reduce the replication speed of the Neon Beasts, obliterating 90% of their population in the process.

And finally, their population became low enough for small teams of soldiers to take care of each day in rotating squads stationed around the perimeter of the nuke’s impact zone.

After the battle that morning, Leon, Colonel Alphonse, Daren, and Talia finally returned to Canyon Hub for the first time in days.

The moment he stepped foot into the city though, Leon’s smartphone lit up with a new notification.

BEEP!

When he looked at it, he was stunned.

[Credit Alert!]

[Your account has been credited with 170 million Neo Credits!]

"..."

Leon froze, then he burst into laughter.

Colonel Alphonse looked at him with an amused expression on his face. "What’s so funny?"

Leon laughed. "Everything man, everything!"

He grinned. "I’m f*cking rich!"

"Let’s go balling! All expenses are on me today!"

Daren and Talia looked at each other at that moment because just a few seconds after Leon got his own credit alert, they got theirs.

They grinned from ear to ear.

"Hunting terrorists with bounties is not that bad afterall," Daren muttered with a pleased grin.