The Seven Demon's Tamer

"It hasn't always been like this," he admitted, settling down on a convenient piece of rubble that had once been part of the gate that had been half destroyed now. "But ever since I aged too much, I've ended up facing this once in a while after every stressful fight."

"Aged too much?" Ryder repeated, his voice filled with puzzlement. "You aren't even thirty, and you're talking about age like you're some sort of old man."

The statement struck both Ryder and Brok as almost comically absurd. Here was Leo, with his boyish face and endless energy, complaining about being old.

"Yeah, what's next? Are you going to complain about your back hurting and start telling us stories about how things were better in the old days?"

But instead of laughing along with their jokes, Leo's expression grew distant and somewhat serious. There was something in his eyes that made both of their laughter slowly die down in awkwardness.

"You have no clue about my real age, do you?" Leo said with a heavy sigh. "We've been quite a rollercoaster of events together lately... So I don't really mind sharing it with you."

"I'm 112," Leo spoke the words like a declaration, his voice carrying the weight that nearly pressed them down physically. "I'm 112 years old."

The silence that followed was complete. Brok and Ryder exchanged glances for two whole fleeting seconds, their minds struggling to process what they had just heard. Then, as if a dam had burst, they both erupted into hysterical laughter.

They laughed so hard that they fell to the ground, holding their stomachs. This struck them as being more funny than Leo's previous statement of being old.

"Oh man," Brok gasped between laughter, "you can't be serious! 112? What's next, are you going to tell us you fought in ancient wars and knew famous historical figures?"

But as their laughter gradually subsided and they stood up to look at Leo again, they noticed that his expression hadn't changed.

There was no hint of a smile, no indication that he was playing along with what they assumed was some sort of joke. The look he was giving them was one of absolute seriousness, an expression that was rare on the face of the Leo they knew.

Brok had seen mostly the playful, almost childish side of Leo during their time together. The look he was wearing now made him seem like an entirely different person.

It was the look of someone who had lived through things that most people couldn't even imagine.

Ryder's laughter died completely as he began to reason through what he knew about Leo. The man had never lied to them, not once since they had been on good terms with each other.

Every seemingly impossible thing he had claimed—every technique he had demonstrated, every impossible feat he had performed—had turned out to be exactly as he had described.

The Silver Gaze technique that enhanced his visual perception far beyond that of ordinary humans.

The same Silver Gaze that enabled him to see and manipulate life energy throughout his body for strengthening and healing.

He had performed feats that should have been impossible for any normal human, healing a completely shattered arm in a timeframe that defied any other explanation apart from his.

If all of those impossible things were true, then why not this? Why couldn't Leo actually be 112 years old?

"Are you seriously not kidding?" Ryder questioned, his voice much quieter now, not wanting to believe but beginning to accept the possibility.

"Does it look like I'd be joking right now?" Leo snapped back, a flash of his old irritation returning. "You should have already understood how it's possible by now, if you'd been paying any attention at all."

He gestured impatiently, as if the explanation should have been obvious. "I told you about how I move my life energy around my body to renew my cells now and then, didn't I?

I use it for healing wounds, like I did with my arm, but renewing my cells and organs slows down my body's aging process drastically as well, sometimes it could reverse it.

Leo's voice took on a slightly mocking tone. "Are you really that much of a butthead not to think of that connection?"

The pieces were starting to fall into place, and even Brok was beginning to understand it.

The healing abilities they had witnessed weren't just about repairing damage—they were about actively maintaining and renewing Leo's body at a cellular level.

"Wait, so you're actually that old?" Ryder practically screamed, his voice reaching a pitch that made several nearby birds take flight in alarm. "You're even older than my father! You're older than my grandfather! You could be older than my great-grandfather!"

Leo simply smiled at the outburst, offering just two words as his response: "I know."

"And you've been acting like a child this entire time?" Ryder continued, his voice filled with disbelief. "I thought older people were supposed to be wiser! More mature! More... responsible!"

"Hey!" Leo protested, his usual attitude returning in full force. "Acting like a child doesn't make me dumb! Age doesn't automatically make you boring and serious.

I've earned the right to have fun after living through as much as I have."

Ryder shook his head, still struggling to reconcile this revelation with everything he thought he knew about Leo. "How can I believe this? Is that how you managed to gain such popularity amongst powerful people?

Because you've literally had over a century to have fun?"

"Of course," Leo responded matter-of-factly. "I gained the name 'Summoner Slayer' long before the Red Eastern guild even existed, let alone became an organization.

I've been spoken about as both legend and bedtime story to upcoming summoners and various guild members' descendants, even up to the present day."

This realization was truly mind-blowing. Leo wasn't just claiming to be old—he was claiming to be a living legend, someone whose story had become the stuff of myth and some sort of fairytale in the summoner's community.

Ryder knew Leo had quite the popularity since the FSG had recruited him and also, since Master Sung somehow knew his name.

"But I'm not in my prime anymore," Leo continued, his voice dropping to a more subdued tone. "That's why I've been living my simple life without involving myself in major battles for quite a while now.

I was glad to fade into anonymity and live a normal life."

"If not for Lucian who recruited me to take down the demon plane contractor." He wiggled two fingers mockingly, "I would have still been living my life like every ordinary human."

"The uniquely named Summoner Slayer," Ryder mused aloud, his mind working through the bombshell. "Does that mean you were actually a killer? Like, professionally?"

They had arrived just several yards away from Leo's apartment building. They were at the street where his apartment was located, to be specific.

They had walked for hours without even realizing it.

"Yes, I was," Leo responded, his playful character diminishing again.