Dimensional Descent

When night fell in the Void Palace, it just made the blacks blacker. It was already difficult to see ahead of you in the day, but the darkness of night made it impossible to even see your hand before your face.

This wasn't normally a problem during the modern day because the Void Elders had set up formations that allowed a perpetual dull light. Though it didn't help with the fog, it made the transition from night to day almost impossible to track.

However, in a Zone like this one, back before the humans had reclaimed their territory, there was no such luxury. But, that also left things in the perfect state for Leonel and Aina. It made them even more difficult to detect in the darkness.

Aina was surprisingly quite able to navigate in the darkness, but Leonel didn't ask about it. He assumed that it was related to her Life Force affinity. Unlike other Forces, almost everything had Life Force. And, the things that didn't really stand out by virtue of that fact alone. Using this sort of perspective, it wasn't hard to imagine how someone with Life Force could parse apart their surroundings without their eyes.

No longer worried about Aina, Leonel shot forward at a faster speed, weaving through the trees. Aina followed to his back, their steps in perfect sync.

Leonel knew that they still had to be careful even in this environment. Because of their culture, the Dwarven Race was very well adapted to seeing in dim and no light situations. While Leonel couldn't even see his hand without activating his Lineage Factor's eyes, they could probably see just fine, albeit worse than they would otherwise be able to do in the day.

But, he had already taken this into consideration the moment he saw that the castle's lighting situation was… less than optimal.

Soon, he and Aina made it to the last line of trees.

Without a spatial ring to use, Leonel could only strap his bow to his back along with his arrows. He didn't make much of the latter, though. With so many Dwarven bowmen around, he would have more of his fair share of arrows to steal.

With a thought, Leonel and Aina's Internal Sights linked as one. This time, the two of them were ready for the level of intimacy required and didn't flinch as they had before. They had nothing to hide from one another, so the process was even smoother.

Their tandem was already seamless in the past. But now, they didn't need to waste energy calculating and using their instincts to understand the other's actions.

The moment the connection was established, they bolted forward, practically cutting a line through the earth with their speed.

Leonel had timed it perfectly, picking a blind spot and appearing at the base of the castle in the blink of an eye.

After a moment of lamenting the fact he couldn't use his Earth Force to dig through the ground here before leaping up and over the wall.

Leonel and Aina didn't spend even more than a fraction of a second atop the wall before falling down lightly on the other side.

Shrouded in darkness, they bolted forward, slipping not the gate furthest to the right.

Much like medieval castles, the castles of the Dwarven Race were far more city than home. Beyond the walls Leonel and Aina had just fallen from, there were five gates or doorways. These five gates were actually the starting point of grand tunnels dug into the face of the mountain.

After slipping through them Leonel and Aina were greeted by an enormous tunnel followed by yet another wall. This wall was the start of an underground city. However, they ignored it entirely, slipping around to the back of the tunnel and slipping into one of the many mining tunnels that dotted the landscape around them.

The Dwarven Race liked to use the terrain when they were building their settlements but a robust landscape for their safety was only one consideration. The second was resources.

Precious metals and anything that could help their Crafts was exactly what the Dwarven Race wanted. Any Pixie or Sparrow that wasn't a combat specialist or a Crafter, was likely a miner. But, this didn't come with the same negative connotations it did in the human race. In fact, they took great pride in their strengths.

Usually, these mining tunnels wouldn't lead to much of anywhere. But, during his scouting, Leonel found that some of these passageways doubled as escape routes and bunkers. Many of them led to dead ends where stockpiles of food and water would be kept, but if you chose correctly…

'Trap ahead.'

Leonel spoke to Aina before accelerating once again.

The two of them reached one of the so-called dead ends but Leonel had already slammed a palm forward.

His momentum was swift and fiery, but just before he hit the wall, his hand slipped right through.

'What a clever mechanism,' Leonel thought as he slipped right through.

The wall was designed to pick up on intention, but the way it did so was quite ingenious.

It calculated your speed and acceleration along with your distance from the wall. The moment you crossed a threshold the trap deemed impossible to stop from, it would deactivate. If your speed was beneath a certain threshold, it would feel like hitting a wall. However, if you had crossed a certain speed and hesitated at the end, the trap would put an arrow right between your brows.

Leonel had to admit that there was a lot to learn from the Dwarven Race. Although their Force Arts were crude, even cruder than what Leonel had seen from the Human Race, their applications of them were intelligent, crafty and quite economical.

They did a lot with a little and their minds worked in wondrous ways.

The moment Leonel and Aina passed through this trap, Leonel was certain that there wouldn't be any Pixies or Sparrows ahead. This was a tunnel reserved for emergency situations and could only be used by the nobles, their families, and their royal guards.

However, on the other side, there'd be a battle that was unavoidable and would place them right at the heart of Dwarven territory.