Dimensional Descent

Leonel exhaled a breath.

Despite the nourishment, he could vaguely feel that he was reaching his limit. He didn't actually believe that the problem was that his soul wasn't strong enough, it was more so that his body wasn't in the best condition right now.

Although his soul had been replenished to its peak, a lot of its strength was being diverted to keep his body up and running. If he used up too much of his capacity, his body, which was already barely holding on by a single line, could very well reach past a point of no return.

Leonel sighed. He really wanted to absorb more.

After a moment, he utilized Instant Recovery in the outside world, allowing his body to recover somewhat. Although he was still as skinny as a beanpole, at the very least, his life was no longer in any real danger.

Leonel scanned through the bubbles and locked eyes on the radiant blue ones. They were much larger and more vibrant than the green ones that he had been working with until now and his curiosity was really getting the better of him.

If the bottom five methods of this Emperor's Might Tablet were already so powerful, what exactly did these behemoths represent? What techniques were they hiding?

Leonel let his curiosity get the best of him. Until his body truly recovered, this would be the last bubble he would clear for a while. In addition, if his choice was one of the much larger blue ones, then it was likely that even after his body recovered, he would have to wait until he progressed through a few tiers and strengthened his soul before he came back again.

But Leonel felt that if the bottom five techniques were already so powerful, he felt that the top few would likely be life changing.

Leonel took a breath and pushed the other bubbles out of the way with his thoughts, reaching forward toward one of the largest radiant blue bubbles.

Up above the rest of them, there were three bubbles of the exact same size, all of them exuding a blinding royal blue light. Leonel had no way of choosing between them so he just picked one at random, reaching his hand forward and popping it.

The strong surge of pressure made Leonel shudder. On the one hand, he felt as though his soul and body were being ripped apart, but on the other hand, he was being built back up just as fast. He could feel his capacity for Dream Force increasing by leaps and bounds, strong waves of Auspicious Air were exuding from him in tsunami-like currents, and his aura was becoming suffocating.

Deep within his eyes, a blinding blue light shone, so bright in fact that the runes within it were nowhere to be seen. Only Leonel could feel these runes, each one of them countless times more complex than any he had ever seen.

Just when Leonel felt that he had reached his limits, his three Dream Force Stars began to slowly rotate, their pinnacle Seventh Dimensional Star Runes shining and offsetting the pressure. It seemed that it was only because he had reached this state with his Dream Force that he was able to withstand the pressure.

However, this was just the tip of the iceberg.

As the technique and Leonel's Star Runes formed a sort of feedback loop between one another, Leonel felt that his understanding of Dream Force and the soul was becoming clearer and more defined. In fact, he felt that the path ahead to taking the first step on his journey of Dream Force Manipulation was becoming just that small bit brighter.

Several moments later, the process finally came to a stop and Leonel gasped for air. However, even after a long while, the blue radiance coming from his eyes was only slowly fading.

Leonel stood in silence for a long time, not quite knowing how to take this technique or to accept what he was feeling. What was life exactly? Had he really been overthinking it all this time? Was it really that all life was equally valuable? Or was it more accurate to say that…

All life was equally worthless.

[Emperor's Command: Arise].

Using this technique, Leonel could target a recently deceased individual's soul. He could give it shape and form, using it to fight on his behalf and as a proxy for his other techniques.

However, this was only the simplest use of this technique. On the more complex side of things, he could assimilate the affinities of this individual through the use of [Emperor's Presence]. Much like he did with his Forces when he formed Sovereignty, he could form a Sovereignty through this deceased individual's soul.

For example, if Leonel killed a master of the wind element and then took control of their soul before it dispersed, he could gain Sovereignty over the wind element through the use of this soul's affinity. In fact, he would be able to command this soul to use the abilities they had in their lifetimes with even greater ease and power than the person themselves had when they were living, just by virtue of the fact he could give them Sovereignty.

To say that this ability was overpowered was an understatement. In fact, Leonel felt that it was more than worthy of being one of the three absolute strongest abilities of the Emperor's Might tablet, even if it was only for temporary usage.

But it still left him feeling a bit conflicted.

When Leonel first learned that he could revive the dead through the use of the Silver Tablet, he had his own small existential crisis back then. He felt that his world views were spinning in his head and he didn't know how to reconcile it all.

However, he had been able to eventually shrug it off because the power was in the hands of a treasure far beyond his imagination, maybe it was only right that it could do such a thing.

But what could he say now that such a technique was at his fingertips? Now that he too could play with life and death with just a thought? How could he reconcile this matter?

What left Leonel the most silent, though, was that there were still two other techniques of this caliber within the tablet. In fact, they were connected with this one, so much so that he already knew their names.

[Emperor's Command: Assimilate].

[Emperor's Command: Breathe].

Leonel didn't know the details of these techniques, but just by virtue of their names he had a few guesses… And if he was correct…

Leonel closed his eyes, releasing a sigh.

However, not long later, his eyes snapped open.

'Who?!'

BANG!

The flagship shuddered as something collided against it.