Dimensional Descent

Leonel exhaled a long breath, the Runes dancing across his skin dimming before vanishing completely.

Not only had the internal Runes gained far more pathways, but they had also grown thicker while simultaneously gaining some life to them.

Before, Leonel's Bronze Runes were static and unmoving. But now they pulsed as though they had their own heart. They were truly beginning to look and act more like they had life to them, as though they really were an organ system.

What was truly fascinating was that Leonel felt that his Divine Armor had gained an upgrade as well. It had firmly stepped into the Fifth Dimension, gaining a qualitative change to it. The result was something that made Leonel's gaze sparkle beside himself.

'Dad was right…'

It had to be remembered that Leonel had formed his Divine Armor with Evolution Ore as its core foundation. This allowed what should have been his Fourth Dimensional armor to display power far beyond its means. And now, it was displaying even more power than before, feeding off of Leonel's advancement to improve itself.

At the same time, Leonel felt that his control over the Spatial Element had skyrocketed along with the advancement of his armor.

In the past, it was difficult for him to displace himself just a single meter within a Fifth Dimensional world. But, at the moment, the Segmented Cube's space was as sturdy as a Sixth Dimensional world's, and yet Leonel could still move about half a meter in any direction.

Since that was the case, just how far could he move in a Fifth Dimensional world? And how far would he be able to move if he activated his Divine Armor?

'Excellent. It's time. I need resources to build my Metal Body back up from Tier 1 and what better target than the Milky Way Guild?'

**

The situation in Valiant Heart Mountain could be said to only be getting worse day after day.

Not long after Leonel's disappearance, a full blown effort toward finding him had been put into effect. Unfortunately, how could they possibly succeed in such a thing? Leonel had entered a trial world which even had Seventh Dimensional Force in abundance, it was a place that those who deemed to call him enemy would never see in their lifetimes.

The result of this failure was an even further suppression of Valiant Heart Mountain.

It had to be remembered that Misty Woods, Crimson Hall and Rusted Blade had all been implicated by Leonel's actions. This had given Valiant Heart Mountain a small bit of breathing room. But, as the three organizations panicked at their inability to find Leonel, pressure was ramped up once again on Valiant Heart.

This matter hadn't happened naturally. After being punished thoroughly by the Guild, it was Gretta who led the charge for revenge.

As a child of the 'frequented' women, she had to scratch and claw for every merit she received. She couldn't allow herself to be passive and allow all the prestige she had worked for to crumble.

The result of Gretta pressing so hard were the three rival organizations of Valiant Heart Mountain beginning to press them from all directions. Their territory was eaten away at, their resources were snatched and coopted, and they found themselves further and further on their backfoot.

The irony of it all was that the only thing keeping Valiant Heart afloat was Leonel's little shop. Somehow, it managed to continuously pump out treasures that allowed them to hold on, bolstering their strength and power bit by bit everyday.

Unfortunately, there was nothing that Gretta could do about this. Let alone the fact that even the elders of Valiant Heart themselves were completely unaware of how it was they were doing this, even if they did know, there was nothing they'd be able to do about it.

The secret to the success of Leonel's BLACKSTAR shop couldn't be found on Planet Valiant at all. The root of it all was in the Force Crafting Guild.

As for why even the Milky Way Guild would be able to do nothing about this was because the Force Crafting Guild had a scope far beyond just the Milky Way. Much like Shield Cross Stars, they had establishments across all corners of the Dimensional Verse. The Milky Way Guild, and least of all Gretta, would have no way of stopping their interaction.

Leonel had no one else to thank but Jac Beinala for making him away of the existence of the Force Crafting Guild, something that would have been the irony of all ironies to the man in question. And, in addition to this, with Jac Beinala having been chased away by Leonel, the Valiant Heart organization had no choice but to rely on Leonel's small shop entirely…

The trouble was that this alone wasn't enough.

As quickly as Allan, Keira and the others were improving their skill with the help of Leonel's resources, they still hadn't caught up to Leonel. Even the best of them, Keira, even after Leonel had vanished for two years, was still only a Tier 9 Black Crafter. She was still a measure away from being able to Craft Quasi Bronze treasures and was even further from entering the ranks of Fifth Dimensional Crafters.

This couldn't be helped. Not everyone had the perfect Lineage Factor, ability, not to mention a Metal Spirit to support their advancements in Crafting. Without more help, it would be impossible for them to have progressed any more than this and it could be said that Keira's improvement was a testament to her hidden talent.

Unfortunately, Fourth Dimensional treasures weren't enough to turn the tide of battle between organizations who had Fifth Dimensional existences as their main backbone. At best, it was able to stall for some time…

But how long would that be exactly?

If Gretta had anything to say about it, not long at all. At this moment, she had already laid out the plans for her first full scale invasion of Valiant Heart Mountain and had begun to press toward the core of their territory.

The space field surrounding the mostly earthen planet suddenly trembled beneath the presence of a mighty ship.

The planet's magnetic field twisted and bent, its atmosphere growing volatile as an enormous kilometer long ship descended from above.

At the helm, Gretta stood expressionlessly, a fiery red dress clinging to her curves. But, her once delicate features were marred by a red, pulsing scar that ran from her cheek, across the bridge of her nose, and finally ended by cutting across her eyebrow, leaving a thick hairless slash through it.

Though Gretta's face seemed to give nothing away, the trembling of this scar seemed to contain all her rage.