Dimensional Descent

"So you've learned our lesson now?"

Aina smugly met Leonel's gaze after the two finally decided to come up for air.

"My lesson?"

Leonel could immediately guess at what Aina was talking about, but for the sake of his pride, he feigned ignorance, preparing the best line he could to shift the topic to the weather. Unfortunately, Aina caught on long before he could say anything.

"No, no, no. I want to hear it. Say it loud and clear: My name is Leonel Morales, and my girlfriend's ideas are better than my own."

Leonel coughed. This was clearly a case of giving an inch and taking a mile. She truly was ruthless, but on the flip side, she had a point.

Ultimately, Leonel had blind spots, blind spots Aina was often able to cover. It wasn't wrong of her to ask him to run more things by her.

At the same time, this was a bit of a special case since it literally required her to swallow dozens of liters of his blood, a loss he wouldn't have even been able to sustain if not for [Instant Recovery] being active.

Regardless, though, at least in this case. She was definitely correct.

"Alright, alright, you win. I concede defeat."

Aina blinked, perking her ears up. "About?"

"Being the most handsome man in the world," Leonel sighed. "It's a heavy burden to carry."

Aina laughed, shaking her head. Clearly, this was the greatest concession she was going to get out of this blockhead. But she would take this small victory.

"Let's go. We probably have a few weeks to maybe a couple months to gather up as many demons as we can, not to mention make it to the exchange so that we can get the final ingredient. We can't waste even the smallest bit of time."

"Mm," Aina nodded.

Now that Leonel had so much strength, their best bet was to maximize it. Since Leonel had a method to leave this Zone, they should be thinking ahead to the future.

If the Void Palace could monopolize this Zone, it would be a huge game changer. The demon race of this world was simply far too valuable in how great of an effect their corpses could have on human development.

Even with his explosive increase in power, Leonel still gained enormously from Force Pill Aina crafted from the Tier 3 strength based middle Fiend Class demon. This was because the strength of the Aurora Black Panda didn't come from its body, but rather a specific application of its Force.

What Leonel had come to realize that the dividing line between the Light Star Force and the Dark Star Force sides of his Lineage Factor was in the fact that the former focused internally while the latter was far more external.

The Speed Branch of the Snowy Star Owl, for example, lowered Leonel's weight to make him faster. The Wisdom Branch of the Starry Tailed Fox expanded Leonel's mind and Ethereal Glabella. The Strength Branch of the White Stone Elephant ballooned Myghell's muscles and strength.

However, with the Dark Star Forces, it was the opposite. The Wisdom Branch manifested externally as a Domain. The Healing Branch functions like a life steel Ability Index. The Strength Branch actually formed a beast construct that Leonel could take control of to power his attacks.

They were like two sides of the same coins. They often had similar end goals, but they reached them using different methods, and this made their synergy all the greater.

This was all to say that while Leonel had experienced an explosive growth in his strength, the fundamental changes to his foundation were actually quite small. In fact, because of the sudden growth in his potential, the holes in his foundation actually became much larger. As such, he needed more demon corpses to make up for what he was lacking.

Surprisingly, this allowed Leonel to refine Aina's pills even faster. And since the both of them were much stronger and could target more powerful demons, there were more to pick from which resulted in them finding more and more than were beneficial for them!

In just a single week, Leonel and Aina easily reached a point where they were two or even three times stronger than they had been when they first stepped foot into the Fiend Class Sector. On top of that, their store of demons only seemed to pile up higher and higher.

Just a single one of these demons would be enough to change the fate of an ordinary talent into a genius worthy of entering the Void Palace, and that was just the lower Fiend Class ones. Leonel and Aina didn't even bother to absorb any at that level anymore, focusing entirely on the middle Fiend Class.

Their strength improved by leaps and bounds and their battles only became easier.

On the ninth day, Leonel came to a pause.

"I found one. It's already headed in this direction, higher Fiend Class demons are really something else…"

Leonel informed Aina immediately. Although he could use the Starry Star Domain to confuse the demon like he usually did and avoid it, he felt that he and Aina were ready to face a higher Fiend Class demon head on this time.

'Tier 2 higher Fiend Class demon. It should be a good battle, but our lives won't be in danger. It'll be good to see where my limits lay now.'

"I'll take the vanguard now, you support me from the back."

As Leonel spoke, a three-headed, six-armed, dark gold panda construct enveloped him, rising to its feet with a booming momentum.

A higher Fiend Class strength-based demon shot through the thick fog, appearing just meters away.

Leonel took a breath. His Yin-Yang Domain was useless against a pure strength-based demon and it had become his greatest reliance recently. However, he was still confident.

His panda construct roared, its six palms jetting out like streaking bullets to meet the higher Fiend Class demon head on.