Dimensional Descent

The first issue was line of sight. Even being able to see 50 meters ahead felt a lot more like half of that. The trees were very dense and maneuvering about was a problem, making a straight line of sight impossible to maintain for too long.

With such a short line of sight, and lacking the flexibility provided by Internal Sight, Leonel couldn’t even tell how far they had to go, or if there was even an end to all of this to begin with.

The second problem was the strength of the beasts. Leonel had fought many Tier 1 Cursed Beasts already, and their strength was nothing to turn your nose up at. In fact, it was directly the opposite. Facing one was a challenge enough already for most, let alone facing a hoard like this. Of those in his group, Leonel was certain that a majority would only be able to handle, at most, a single Cursed Beast at a time.

And that led to his third problem, there were simply too many of them for him to defend and protect by himself. It would be fine initially as all the Cursed Beasts were currently in front of them, but Leonel wouldn’t be able to kill them all. As they got further and further into the beast tide, they would begin to receive attacks from the sides and eventually the back as well. At that point…

”I will take your right.” Aina suddenly spoke.

Leonel’s gaze flickered. That was right… He wasn’t exactly alone.

”I will take the left.” Noah followed up.

”I want the front!” Elthor chimed in, eager to lead the vanguard. But, he found an arm wrapped around his, pulling him backward.

”We’ll take up the rear.” Karolus corrected. ”So long as you move forward fast enough, we won’t be swarmed too badly.”

Karolus flashed a smile, but it almost seemed quite fanatical as he looked toward Leonel. Everyone had already gotten used to this, though. After Karolus exposed himself as a fanboy of the Royal Blue Football Team, he had gotten worse and worse at hiding his love for Leonel.

Toward this though, Leonel grinned. It seemed he had been a bit too focused on making it up to everyone. Then again, though, he was always like this. If there was something he could take control of himself, he rarely relied on others to do it.

With a flip of his palm, Leonel’s Wind Domain Spear vanished. He once again lamented the loss of his Duality Spear, it would have been far too useful in this situation. But, he had to make do with what he had.

’Kinetic Spear.’

A spear of what looked like black ice appeared in Leonel’s hands, a dense black fog erupting around him as he took a heavy step forward.

”Everyone else, gather in the center. Keep your head on a swivel and support where you can.”

As Leonel was speaking, his head was enveloped by the fog and his voice fell several octaves, the reverberating baritone thrumming the trees vibrating to the stampeding beasts to life.

Little Blackstar hopped into the air, dancing about on invisible steps before shooting forward.

”Keep up! Blackstar and I will carve the path out!”

BANG!

Leonel shot after Little Blackstar, his body forming an arrow of Force as he crashed into the frontline of berserk Cursed Beasts.

As though a wedge, Leonel’s volatile use of Force caused a three meter diameter to split wide open amidst the surging tide, the sturdiness of his back suddenly becoming the marker for all those behind him.

”Tch.” Elthor shook his head. ”Should have been me…”

Karolus laughed. ”We’d better hurry up or else we’d really be left behind.”

…

With every movement of his spear, another Cursed Beast fell. Leonel had learned from his mistakes previously. Cutting down these beasts wasn’t enough, he had to shatter the source of their strength as well.

Due to the mutation the Cursed Beasts had undergone, their Ethereal Glabellas, or rather, their Beast Crystals, vanished, fusing into their bodies and becoming various physical mutations. If you wanted to ensure that one was dead, you would have to target this location and tear it apart as it acted as a second brain of sorts. This was why the wolf was able to attack Leonel even after he bisected it.

Obviously, Leonel wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Each one of his strikes was lethal to an extreme. Sometimes he would seem to shatter a beast whole, at other times he would only cut off a small piece of their heads, but regardless of what he did, they would always never rise again.

Little Blackstar didn’t even seem to treat this like a real battlefield and the little guy acted as though he was on some sort of elaborate, hyper realistic playground.

The little mink hopped through the air, vanishing on a whim and appearing as he pleased. Every time he did so, another head would be ripped from a body. Somehow, even though the little mink wasn’t as meticulous as Leonel in attacking the second brain, whomever he attacked would still never rise again…

Shadows of all sorts danced and bobbed in the air, but Little Blackstar simply swallowed them all, happily chewing along as though enjoying a great delicacy.

Leonel left Little Blackstar to his own devices, and yet the two in combination were still like a buzzsaw, twisting through the tide of beasts.

However, even after an hour, there was no end in sight. The looming threat of the more powerful beasts hung over their heads like a guillotine, but even before they arrived, Leonel could already feel that the resistance of the beasts ahead was growing.

He had to keep up the same forward pace, or else they’d be completely swallowed up, but the number of Tier 2 beasts they were coming across had already increased exponentially. Leonel had even locked gazes with a Tier 3 just 20 meters ahead.

Leonel still felt like he could go on for a long while, but the same couldn’t be said for those behind him.

With a thought, a necklace appeared around Leonel’s neck, this time tied by beast skin.

It seemed there would be nothing easy about this. It was time for his second beast companion to be useful.