1296: Top Tier

Top Tier

"Blackstar, this frontline is yours."1

Leonel's sudden voice reached out to the little mink who was barely visible up ahead. Despite his playful attitude, Little Blackstar immediately heeded Leonel's call, flashing back through space and appearing half a meter above Leonel's head in the blink of an eye. 

At that moment, a dense fog began to exude from the little guy, causing his body's size to appear to increase several fold. Before many could grasp what was happening, Little Blackstar had suddenly become an enormous black bear. 

No, it wasn't that the little mink had morphed. In fact, one could still see the vague image of a little mink floating within the head of the foggy construct of the three meter tall black bear. It rather seemed that Blackstar's Dark Elemental Force had formed an encasement for his small body, one that felt no less real than if the actual creature was standing before them right this moment. 

Absorbing the Mimicry Bat's blood had already evolved Blackstar down the path of being able to steal abilities, awakening that facet of his Shadow Sovereign Ability Index. After absorbing the Void Beast's blood, though, not only had many more facets of Blackstar's abilities been unleashed, but the ones that had already existed had also evolved. 

Leonel was only familiar with some of them as the mischievous little mink never took anything very seriously. However, of the ones he was aware of, he knew that Blackstar could now house several abilities at once, and he could steal more than abilities now…

The black bear construct roared, slamming down its paws and causing a wave of darkness to turn many of the charging beasts to ash. 

Without looking back, Leonel's figure flickered and vanished, followed quickly by Aina. The two targeted the closest group first, Leonel's mind having locked onto a particular young woman with a head of pink hair and bright blue eyes. She was quite the beauty in her own right, although falling several steps short of Aina. Still, her body radiated as though carved out of a gem. It gave her a charisma that went past just her raw looks alone. 

Using Aina as a bridge to Yuri's senses, Leonel could immediately tell that she was the culprit. 

Leonel didn't bother to hide his actions. He could feel that they had been being observed all this time. The moment they cut toward the group, they had already been discovered. 

The swath of beasts in their path were cut down by Leonel one after another, his left hand still striking down at the air as he commanded Little Tolly to form dagger after dagger. By the time they had cut the distance by half, leaving just over 25 meters to cover, dozens of daggers had already been controlled to Leonel's back, each gleaming with a menacing light. 

Despite knowing he was well out of range, Leonel still sent over a dozen daggers whizzing forward, their bodies leaving streaking lines of silver that vanished into the fog. 

In that moment, the pink haired woman's eyes lit up. "Enemy attack."

She spoke these words almost too calmly as though she didn't need to explain anything more. But, astonishingly, those around her reacted as though they could read her mind as well, brandishing their weapons in Leonel's direction and parrying the strikes away with a calm efficiency. 

Leonel's gaze narrowed. 

He didn't quite understand what had just happened. Had they connected their Internal Sights as well? But after learning what that meant and represented, Leonel had a hard time believing that a girl, or anyone for that matter, would so easily agree to do such a thing with a large group of people. 

Leonel felt that he was missing something. But, he had almost forgotten that he had a cheat. 

'Old man, be useful.'

'Cheating again? This isn't very Kingly of you.'

'I'm too ignorant of things that seem to be common knowledge for other people. If anything, I'm just trying to level the playing field. If I really wanted to cheat, I'd be using your senses and not Yuri's. Hurry up.'

'Whatever helps you sleep at night, if I really sent out my Internal Sight, you'd end up being sniped and killed in just a few seconds. In my prime, I could hide from them, but you've trapped me in this ring after keeping me split in half, what do you want me to do about that exactly?' 

'Less complaining, more explanations.'

'That girl is a member of the Gemin family. They're basically the only ones of the Human Domain who understand anything about the soul at all. You can relay words and images through thought far faster than through words. She can do that without issue.'

'Hold on, then why is this matter such a big deal? Why didn't Yuri just do that in the first place?!'

'You're such an idiot. You didn't ask her to do that, your specific words were to Fuse your Internal Sights. That's a completely different ask.'

Leonel would be lying if he said he wasn't feeling a bit embarrassed hearing such an explanation. 

'Why didn't you say anything, then?!'

'Why would I say something? It was peak entertainment, I couldn't stop laughing. You essentially went up to a girl and asked her to strip naked in front of you, top tier comedy, really. A true modern day Casanova.'

Leonel's jaw set. For once, he didn't rebuttal. But, his gaze still flashed with a dangerous light. He didn't like having his mind played with. Even though he had seen through it almost immediately, he wouldn't stand for it. 

Leonel's King's Might bloomed, the humanoid figure on his forehead becoming more prominent as it sent a wave of pressure forward. His thoughts were simple. First divide, then conquer. What better way to do that than to disrupt the abilities of this young woman of the Gemin family? 

"Stay close to me." Leonel spoke to Aina. "I'll end this as quickly as possible."

The tendrils that trailed to Leonel's back flared like a peacocks tail. Then, once again, they all whipped forward simultaneously. 

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