Dimensional Descent

Aina's golden gaze began to flicker, a dense red fog coming from her body as she raised her hands. The instant Little Blackstar's form vanished and he landed on Leonel's shoulder even as the latter landed on the back of one of the soul construct beasts, the meat paste the beasts had become were suddenly ripped of their blood.

She didn't seem intent on using these globules of blood immediately. She floated down toward the beast soul constructs along with everyone else, pulling them along through the air.

Keiza's expression finally seemed to change. "Fire!"

Her voice echoed through the skies, the irony being that her previous laughter had yet to finish echoing. However, she seemed to disregard this entirely as she roared out this command.

Before, she was allowing the twins to continue to wear down Leonel with their words, but they had long since entered firing range of Leonel and the others. Seeing that the situation was changing, she immediately chose to forget the mind games and focus on pressing down upon them.

However, when the first volley of arrows entered the skies, they immediately blinked out, the Bow Force that had been coating them vanished.

James landed on a beast soul construct and waved a hand, causing a shield to appear before them. Without their Bow Force, he hardly strained at all to block this volley of arrows. In that moment, everyone had found a beast for themselves and they surged forward.

Right then, the distance that had been quickly closing stopped closing entirely, and then Leonel and the others began to pull away. Leonel had only targeted Tier 6 beasts. In order to maintain the formation, Keiza had to make all the beasts uniform in speed. But that didn't mean they all had the same speed.

Those that were Tier 6 were substantially faster than those that were still of Tier 4. Without the pressure of maintaining the formation of an army, Leonel could obviously allow these soul constructs to speed forward with their true potential.

Keiza's expression darkened.

…

Back in the Human Domain, Mistress Gemin's expression also darkened. This child's actions were only getting more and more annoying. However, outside of this darkening expression, she said nothing else. She had taught her daughter well enough to know that this wouldn't be all she had.

The Morales Ancestors didn't have much of a change from their original solemnity. Of course, this wasn't because they had the same faith in Keiza, but rather because they didn't feel that this changed much. Other than making things more annoying for Keiza, the situation was the same.

Keiza's ambush had already forced Leonel to give up on his millions of soul constructs. His current base only had the protection of a few thousand Skies and Oryx members. Even if they were up to par in terms of talent, which they weren't, this number would be far too few.

No matter how you looked at it, it felt that Leonel was once again just delaying the inevitable.

…

Leonel stood on the back of the beast in silence. Outside of calling out Aina's name, he hadn't said much else. Even now he hadn't explained anything, and it didn't seem like there was much left to explain. Reaching their city and fighting to the death felt like the only option left.

Keiza's looked toward Leonel's back, her expression dark. She didn't care about this maneuver of Leonel's, what she cared about was the loss of face. She had just been laughing, but now her voice was deathly silent. Even a fool could tell she had made a mistake.

What she hated the most was that this Leonel had actually harmed her. When was the last time she had felt any sort of pain? She couldn't even quite recall, how dare he?!

After a split moment, she snapped her fan close. A few lines of the formation separated and Tier 6 beasts rushed forward. She removed their restrictions and had them press forward, maintaining the distance between Leonel and the others without allowing them to extend the distance.

Arrows continued to fire through the air, filling it with volatile Force and fireworks.

Keiza had had a plan, but it would no longer work. Now that Leonel had similar maneuverability, it would be troublesome to use. However, she immediately adjusted her thoughts, pulling out a formation plate. It was in the shape of a circle and looked quite like a sundial. This was the very same teleportation treasure she had used to ambush Leonel and the others in the first place.

She and the Gemin and Libra families were located on the other side of the continent, completely opposite to Leonel's current location. As such, they were also by the ocean, and with Keiza's intelligence, she had likewise taken advantage.

They might not have had a large number of Water Force geniuses, but what they did have was a unique ability to map out large regions with just a bit of effort. By this point, they had already cleared out two Gold-Grade Dungeons not available on the surface and this sundial teleportation device was one of their rewards.

It didn't have many uses. She had already used it once and because of how large scale the teleportation was, meaning the number of people, that is, she could only use it twice more. She didn't actually want to have to use more than one of Leonel as she didn't know when she would get another, however he was a variable… And she didn't like variables.

Her slender fingers pressed against the device and spun the dial. Instantly, she not only used one of the remaining teleportation opportunities, but both of them.

The army was split into two and they all suddenly flickered and vanished.

One group was small. They were made of the elite of the elite, a number not exceeding 200. They appeared just 50 meters in front of Leonel and his group, though their backs were now facing them. With a kick of their heels, their beasts turned and they charged toward Leonel and his group.

At the same time, about half of the army appeared further ahead at about half a kilometer. They split into two once again and fanned out before beginning to enclose a circle around Leonel and the others.

To their backs, the remaining half of the army continued to press forward, pincering Leonel and the others from all sides.