The grey cloak of the man was an item that bordered between what a mortal could accomplish and what one needed a mage to create.
Or at the very least, that's how it would look to an untrained eye.
The cloak was covered in all kinds and sorts of irregular patterns in several shades of grey and dark green. And with the shadow-covered forest behind him, the figure of the cloak's owner was pretty hard to notice.
And yet, despite how hard it was to notice, Leon grew aware of him even before the man made his presence known by walking out of the forest.
Leon couldn't hear him. He couldn't see him. There were no distributions to the flow of mana that he could detect either.
In other words, he failed to notice him in every way that his senses allowed him to.
And yet, he could feel the man approaching even before he went out to the open.
'That's a sixth sense for you,' Leon grinned lightly while pressing himself against the wet ground of the clearing.
A sixth sense. A sense that bordered precognition for some. Yet, the reality was far simpler.
One's brain could actively process only so much information. What's more, humans excelled at training their brains on what's important information and what is not, so that this most energy-consuming part of their body could consume just a tiny bit less of what it normally would.
Yet, years of fighting, hundreds of ambushes, hours upon hours of training, and thousands of mistakes... All of those contributed to Leon's real-life experience.
And it was this experience that created patterns in his brain that he would subconsciously analyze.
Yes, Leon couldn't hear the man approaching. Yet, his brain could recognize that the background sounds of the forest didn't match the usual pattern.
Yes, Leon couldn't see the man walking between the trees. But his subconsciousness realized that the way the leaves moved and the bushes shook didn't fit the pattern either.
The only aspect when Leon's experience failed to contribute to what others would call a sixth sense was his mana sense, as it was only ever trained to work in the world where mana was extremely sparse.
All in all, the sixth sense wasn't some sort of god-given ability. It wasn't a talent one was born with.
It was a simple result of a massive accumulation of experience. And now, it all paid off by allowing Leon to get down on the ground in advance so that the newcomer wouldn't spot him!
"What the hell do you think you are doing?!" the cloaked man got to the tents of the camp without alerting any of its current residents. And then, without any hesitation or warning, he started to scold them to the hell of it. "I think I can see why the mission is still far from over if that's how you wish to serve the emperor!"
One series of shouts was all it took for an entire group to run out of a tent with looks of panic all over their faces.
"Why are the recruits still alive?!" the man's voice only turned more hateful when he could now see the people responsible for whatever made him angry. "The invasion starts in only about a month!" the man shouted right into the face of one of the men, only to raise his hand and send it flying across the man's face. "There are so many locations left for us to disturb, we don't have the fucking time to dawdle on just one of them!"
"Sir, but..." the other man attempted to speak up...
Only for the cloaked newcomer to slap his face before he could produce a single excuse.
"Alice is too strong, sir!" the only girl within the group reported. "We can't face her on our own... But there is no way she will be able to bring those recruits out of the forest alone either!"
"So you decided to stay back and eat through empire supplies while doing nothing?" Not even the gender of the third party member could save her from the man's wrath.
'So refreshing,' Leon thought with a snicker. 'Even back in that bastard's tyranny women were put on a pedestal just because he was a womanizer,' he thought, recalling yet another unsavory element of his past world.
"Fuck..." the cloaked man cursed, satisfied with the lashing he brought upon the group so far. "If only those fuckers didn't have that hero summoning ritual!" he then complained while turning around and using the face of the girl as a slapping target to let his anger out.
Leon twitched.
His entire body shook just a tiny little bit, something that no man, and especially not those damn amateurs could ever hope to notice.
'That came out of nowhere,' the bloodmancer thought, pressing himself even tighter to the ground to compensate for the small slip up.
The man cloaked in grey froze. He didn't look in Leon's direction. He didn't continue cursing either.
He simply stood there, as if waiting for something to happen.
'Shit,' Leon cursed in his thoughts. 'It was only a tiny shrug and he still noticed me!'
"Shall we go and kill her, then?" the girl suggested while holding her burning red cheek with her hand. "Now that you are here, sir, disposing of that wannabe hero would be a breeze. And without her..." the girl smiled through the obvious pain of her recently slapped cheek. "Those recruits will all starve out!"
Her eyes brimmed with eagerness to turn her words into actions. Then, there was another element hidden at the very bottom of her eyes, a burning hate for the girl that would flare up whenever she would bring Natalye up.
"You want to prove your worth to the emperor?" the grey-cloaked man finally spoke.
This time, however, his tone was perfectly calm and composed.
He then leaned his head over his right shoulder before gracing the entire team with a small, seemingly sympathetic smile.
"Then go and kill the rat that is listening to every word that was said in here!"