Dimensional Descent

"Why'd you choose that approach? He was trying to help, you know. He didn't deserve that," Aina said disapprovingly.

Hearing this, Leonel nodded.

"You're not wrong, but I wanted to get out of there fast. He needs to get over there quite quickly if he wants to stop what's likely to happen and this was the fastest way. If I had said it more nicely, we'd still be there exchanging words."

Aina raised an eyebrow, Leonel wasn't wrong. But, what required such speed?

She shook her head for a moment before she suddenly thought of something. Her gaze sparked with fury.

"You think?"

"it's possible. I didn't really think about it before, but after seeing Micarth, I wouldn't put it past them."

"You're not worried?"

Leonel' grinned. "Not really. The formation I drew around them isn't all that easy to deal with. They'd be able to take down the two women so long as their strength is great enough. But, it'll take more than strength to take down that bastard."

Leonel had hung up Eliot in the middle of the two women for a reason. In fact, Eliot's stake was dug into the ground right at the very center of the formation.

Leonel was a man who had been able to teleport out dozens of geniuses from the depths of a Rapax Nest. Even though he hadn't picked up a Force Crafting Quill in over a year now, his skill had still been increasing by leaps and bounds, whether it was his subtle breakthroughs in comprehension, his understanding of calligraphy and poetry, or his stint in the Void Library.

The number of research papers Leonel had read on Crafting and spatial rings especially was astronomical. There was likely no other disciple beneath the Domain rank that understood better how to manipulate space through Force Arts than he did right now.

If they thought pulling the wool over his eyes and taking advantage of him was so easy, they'd be sorely mistaken.

**

As Leonel and Aina entered their second Zone together, Leonel's assumptions were coming true in real-time. The infuriated members of Treanna Faction had already managed to bring Jova and Emonie down, but now matter how hard they tried to get to Eliot, they found themselves being thrown back.

Treanna herself seemed to refuse to make an appearance, but many members of her Faction were trying to save face by taking him down. However, there were several in the group that had darker than usual faces.

"At this rate, we're not going to be able to fulfill Faction Leader's command."

"This is ridiculous, I don't believe that we can't deal with this. Did the Earth Force specialist come over yet? We need to crack the ground and then we can get to him."

"We already tried that but he wasn't strong enough. You know breaking the ground in this place is tough. The only Earth Affinity specialists with any kind of strength in this place before reaching the upper tiers of the Sixth Dimensional are the Morales… The others all stink."

"So then we just have to invite one of them over! We have plenty in the Faction!"

"You know that the moment we became Silver we've been on a race to Gold, Faction Leader isn't willing to be patient anymore, we spent too long as Bronze Ranked building up our foundation, it's time to explode in growth."

"They're all doing missions? Not even one remained?"

"It can't be helped, battle merits are our greatest weak point ever since Faction Leader lost most of the Void Merits she gained from the leaderboards, that's why this is so important."

"Fuck, I'm going to try again!"

A young charged forward, his feet stomping hard just outside of the lines Leonel had drawn before launching himself forward.

His speed wasn't slow in the slightest, and his strength was great. Many who saw this could only nod to themselves. The Galaxy Ranked disciples of Treanna's Green Thread Faction were not weak at all, it was just that Leonel seemed to make them look like that.

Usually by now, the crowd would have long since dispersed, and that it had. Unfortunately for their Silver Grade Faction, Leonel had tied them up right in the middle of the main road leading to a Senate Branch. There was no escaping it.

The young man shot up like a speed bullet, but he immediately realized that he wasn't going to make it.

It was at that moment that a sinister light flashed in his eyes.

A whip appeared in his palm and it cracked with lightning before he flicked his wrist. To an outsider, it looked like he was trying to cut Eliot down by the stake, but he knew his true motive.

Just when the whip was about to reach the stake, a strong spatial fluctuation sent the young man reeling backward. But, how many times had the young man experienced this? He was already prepared.

At that exact moment, he "lost" control of his whip and it just barely changed trajectory, aiming for Eliot's crotch.

The region was nothing but a bloodied mess. By now, the crimson had faded and hardened, becoming lumps of black and dangling flesh no one could make out from the other. It was only the Green Thread Faction members that had noticed that Eliot actually had one testicle left.

When this was relayed to Treanna, she gave a very simple command.

Crush it.

Her goal was clear. She wouldn't give Leonel any room to maneuver and wanted to force him into a dead end. What would happen if Leonel's claims were investigated, only for everyone to learn that he had actually "lied" and Eliot really was castrated?

The strike of the young man was vicious and his acting was perfect. On top of that, everyone already believed that Eliot had been castrated, so who would think of foul play?

There wasn't a single person in the Void Palace that wasn't a genius among geniuses. Even this seemingly random young man had so skillfully timed and controlled his whip like this, already calculating that his strike would be perfect.