Dimensional Descent

Leonel fell into silence. This was, indeed, a troublesome issue. But if what Nelligan said was true, then technically, shouldn't he have such advantages too? After all, his soul was also separated from his body. So why was it that he hadn't sensed anything special?

However, when he thought back to what Nelligan had said, his frown deepened. According to what he had said, this tribulation world was still able to suppress Spirituals, it was just that the suppression wasn't perfect. The Spirituals were still able to take advantage of their affinities, which likely meant that they could use Forces outside of just Spear Force.

The Spear Domain Lineage Factor made this ability exception. Those with this Lineage Factor were able to fuse all Forces with their Spear Force, their spear was a perfect conduit or vessel for their other Forces.

To keep this matter simple, if the Spiritual could use other Forces here, they were exceptionally dangerous.

The trouble here was that humans and Spirituals weren't of the same race. Although Leonel had had a hypothesis that they shared the same root, he had yet to be able to confirm this.

Plus, even if they did, they had branched out in their evolution enough that this fact might not even matter.

Essentially, humans stored their affinities within their bodies and the changes that occurred within them. Spirituals, however, carried all of their DNA within their souls. The greatest difference was that as long as their soul was intact, a Spiritual goal rebuild their Ethereal Glabella, but if Leonel's Ethereal Glabella was ever destroyed, he would be finished.

This was all to say that from what it seemed here, Leonel didn't have the same advantages even though his soul was separate from his body. He couldn't even sense his greatest affinities: Dream Force and Fire Force.

"Wait..."

Leonel's gaze suddenly sharpened.

He definitely couldn't sense Fire Force, but was it true that he couldn't sense Dream Force? In fact, hadn't his Spear Force felt like an extension of his Dream and Soul Force when he used it as a replacement when he drew the Force Arts that formed his current armor?

Suddenly, it all clicked for Leonel at once.

He couldn't access any of his other talents, but there was one of his talents that was firmly rooted in his soul: his King's Might Lineage Factor.

From the very beginning, it was the only one of his Lineage Factors that did elicit changes in his body but rather did so to his soul. While the Lineage Factor itself was currently suppressed, what wasn't suppressed was the Dream Force affinity that came with it.

Leonel realized then that he didn't have an advantage similar to that of the Spirituals, it was just far less obvious, and it was difficult to tell how he would be able to apply it.

It had to be remembered that Leonel was incapable of projecting his Dream Force out of his body. It was only after he gained Thaela's Innate Node that he was able to. But now, he obviously didn't have access to it any longer.

This meant that just like before, Leonel was fairly limited in what he could do. Outside of drawing Force Arts using his spear as medium, it would be difficult to use it in other ways...

After a moment of silence, Leonel's mind flashed with a few thoughts and he nodded to himself, his confidence soaring.

This was a tribulation of the spear. He didn't care what advantages they had, so long as their blades weren't as sharp as his own, they would lose. It was that simple.

"Go." Leonel said coldly.

He snatched Nelligan's spear and pulled his own out of the latter's shoulder. With a thought, the two spears fused and what was left, although still of low quality, was still much better.

The crooked wood was now as straight as a javelin, the blade had lengthened, and Leonel could feel its sharpness with a touch of his finger.

Nelligan opened his mouth to say something but just shook his head in the end as his body began to fade away. He could tell that Leonel had no intention of listening to his advice. In fact, Leonel had already begun to draw something in the dirt.

It didn't take Nelligan long to realize that it was actually a Force Art.

Just when he thought it was futile, a surge of Force came forth from the surroundings. The last thing Nelligan saw was a horde of beasts rushing over.

**

Not long after Leonel cleared Nelligan's territory, he left to another, and then another. Back to back to back, he cleared a total of five territories and his speed was only increasing.

Leonel realized that he had to maintain this pace until the specialty territories began to appear. The later he was to enter a territory, the fewer beasts there would be remaining, and the fewer Beast Crystals he would be able to consume to increase his strength.

Although one could gather territory by stealing the spear of someone who had already conquered many, doing things that way would be like leaving power on the table because you wouldn't be able to absorb strength someone else already had.

Leonel's steps came to a pause and his eyes narrowed. By now, his armor had evolved several times and he looked not much different from a hooded hermit wrapped in white furs and blackish leather. Even so, his movements were just as agile and even far swifter than they had been before.

Up ahead, Leonel caught sight of a Rapax, its oblong shaped head glistening with a blackish-silver metal-like carapace.

This was the first non-human individual he had met, and the difference felt particularly striking. For one, he could see that the Rapax's spear was already upgraded, which meant that it had already conquered other territories. But more importantly than that, it too was fighting several beasts at once without the slightest hint of fatigue.

Even so, Leonel stomped a foot onto the ground, not hiding his presence in the slightest as he barrelled forward. He didn't just want a victory, he wanted a resounding victory.