Dimensional Descent

"If Aina is right, they'll probably be able to sense you anywhere within 50 or so meters with that amount. If they find another drop, it could be upwards of a hundred meters. But Aina also does say that those are to her standards..."

Leonel's gaze flashed when he heard this.

"Send me an image when the Force Art is in the process of being completed. I'll double-check."

After saying this, Leonel seemed to close himself off to the rest of the world. He was entirely focused on what he was seeing below.

The nexus node was quite large, or so it seemed. Much of it was bluster as it required a large amount of energy and cooling to function properly.

Much of the outer structure, as a result, were Force Arts designed to control the flow of energy and also to send excess heat outward. If he wanted to see the true formation, it would require him going in deeper.

This was why he had to come in person. The Force Art was quite complicated, but Anastasia had no idea what parts were important to what he needed and what parts weren't.

Leonel sucked in a cold breath when he saw the true depths of the Force Art. It was far more complicated than anything he had ever seen before, and just looking at it, while not as bad as taking a look at Goggles' Ability Index, still made him feel like his Dream Force was being sucked down an endless vat of darkness.

What Leonel didn't know was that most of the large-scale formations of the human alliance were set up by King personally. The Godlens were willing to pay an exorbitant price for this former overlord of the Dream Pavilion to help them out, and now it was Leonel's problem to deal with.

The gap between the Impetus State and the Life State was too enormous to put into words. Even if King was casual with his attempts and didn't put in his full effort, it was incredibly far beyond Leonel's means to deal with.

It could be said that Leonel was lucky he was able to recognize the portions that were used for energy control and cooling at all, as for the rest of it...

"Do I really have no choice but to try and destroy it?"

Leonel grit his teeth. It had only been a few seconds, but he knew it was helpless. His Crafting simply wasn't on this level yet. He had been too arrogant in assuming that he would definitely be able to do something about it.

Leonel took a breath and forced himself to calm down. In truth, "forced" might be too heavy-handed. He seemed to be able to pull himself out of the pits of despair quite smoothly, returning to that sweet lull of tranquility again.

"There are at least fifty warriors down there. The weakest is in the Eighth Dimension, and there's one Ninth Dimensional general overseeing them. This doesn't really matter much, honestly. Even if they were only Seventh Dimensional, I'm not sure I could easily handle so many, especially not without exposing myself.

"At the entrance to the tunnel, there are four Eighth Dimensional existences with their full attention placed on it, and there's only one entrance in..."

Leonel's mind quickened, then he asked a question.

"Aina, how many Blood Clones can you make?"

"Making Blood Clones is easy. It's the collecting blood part that's difficult."

Leonel nodded, that's about what he expected.

Since they were going to try and track him, he might as well make it a living nightmare for them.

"Is there an easy way to tell the difference between a Blood Clone and the real thing? Using that detection device, I mean."

"Not if it's a 50% clone or better. Almost impossible if it was a 90% clone."

"Alright."

"The other thing you have to consider is how much your mind can handle. If you're overloaded, even if you're close enough to them, they'll become lifeless puppets."

"That's not an issue. I only need a small sub-section of them to actually do anything. The rest will be decoys."

Leonel took out the very same vial that Kira had given him, the one that once held an ocean's worth of Void Beast blood. These days, it was the home of the golden-scaled koi fish, but he displaced it for the sake of this. Then, he cut his wrist open, gritting his teeth.

It was about time he found out how far his Vital Star Force could take him.

...

"Leave it to me," Anselma said, taking the droplets of blood.

With one hand, the air under her palm seemed to solidify. Under the other, she shattered the vial and sent the droplets of blood in.

Soon, a Force Art began to take shape, and the blood fused into it slowly.

"I need something solid. Preferably at least Eighth Star level."

Vivak nodded and gave some orders. Soon, Anselma had a piece of Reinforced Urbe Ore she imprinted the Force Art into.

"This should work. Within 30 to 40 meters, it will be able to lock onto his aura."

"30 to 40 meters?" Vivak asked with a frown.

"The blood is too little. This is already an excellent result. Your city is large, but that's only a consideration for the weak. Even if you sent something of the Eighth Star out, it'll only take an hour at most to scan the entire city."

"And what if he moves?"

"Does it matter? Would he be faster than someone you sent out? And even if he could manage the same speed, so long as you pick your search pattern properly, you can force him into a corner."

Vivak nodded and agreed. Then he barked out some orders.

"Keep searching the rubble, salvage what you can. Inform us immediately if you find any more droplets of blood."

The workers continued their task, and Vivak called his sister over. Quite frankly, he wanted to do this personally, but the optics of a Patriarch scouring the city for a Fifth Dimensional brat just didn't look good. It was impossible for Leonel to escape, and he just needed to set someone he trusted on the task, especially since his daughter was involved.

"Liana, you will be the head of this matter. Go now."