A Step

Ieme's heart shook when he looked at the small ball of reddish silver flames. He could feel the danger stored within it to the point it made his heart skip several beats. It was such that he almost completely forgot to react to the fact that his lotus had actually crumbled. Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.

He knew what happened. Leonel had targeted the core of the lotus and ruined its structural integrity. But though Ieme understood this, it didn't mean that he was willing to accept it.

Doing such a thing required understanding the Style to an in depth degree. It was something Ieme had only seen when higher ranking clergymen faced lower ranking ones. It simply didn't make sense to him that Leonel could do this.

'Let's call this ability… Dream Rupture.'

Dream Rupture. It was Leonel's ability to grasp the artistic conception of an enemy, find the root of it, and destroy it from the inside out. It was an ability that Leonel felt rose a level above finding the weakness of a normal technique… This Dream Rupture instantly became one of his stronger powers.

Leonel found that when he stepped into the Fifth Dimension firmly, his sensitivity toward the nature of things and the artistic conceptions that they represented was heightened. Of course, this made perfect sense as Leonel had always been meditating on the Natural Force Art that was the core formation of [Dimensional Cleanse]'s third layer.

As Leonel tried to master his Natural Force Art, his comprehensions grew deeper and the way he saw the world began to subtly change. If the improvement in his Spear Force was half due to the fact he had switched to using a wooden spear as his main weapon, then it could be said that the other half was related to his meditation on [Dimensional Cleanse].

His Summer comprehension, Radiant Core, was another example of his grasp of artistic conception shining through. Despite it only being a quarter of the Four Seasons Realm and couldn't display its full power without the other three Seasons being present, it was actually still so powerful…

The Radiant Core shot down from the skies, once again finding itself hovering above the tip of Leonel's spear. Yet, despite its heat, it didn't seem to affect the wooden spear in the slightest.

"You…"

Ieme's expression flashed and suddenly became ferocious. With a single glance, he could tell that this battle was lost. It wasn't just him who had lost, but his Three-Layered Hands were just a few exchanges from no longer being able to hold on.

However, just as he wanted to use his countermeasures to escape, Leonel's hand suddenly stretched out.

"[Valiant Seal]."

A strong surge of Space and Earth Elemental Force soared. As heavy as the Wood Force in the air was, the Earth Force and Water Force were just as heavily present. The ease with which Leonel completed this spell, even at the expense of more than half his stamina, was far beyond any speed Ieme could match.

Right then, Ieme finished chanting and the pendant on his neck began to glow. A moment later, his body vanished. But…

BANG!

Ieme crashed into the spatial walls of the [Valiant Seal], a cry of pain and horror leaving his throat.

Leonel shook his head. Ieme ended up even more miserable than the black swan had. At least the latter's death was swift. But, Ieme had tried to forcefully teleport himself away, only to be restrained. That sort of forced end to a teleportation could end horribly in several ways and, despite Ieme's current sorry state, he could actually be considered to be lucky in how things turned out for him.

Leonel's [Valiant Seal] was constructed based on the artistic conception of a treasure capable of forcefully keeping a Sub-Dimensional Zone open. As long as something was within the parameters of the Fifth Dimension, it was simply far too difficult to deal with. In fact, Leonel felt that if he could properly improve his [Valiant Seal], it would be a spell that followed him for a long time.

It could be used flexibly for both attack and defense and was a Mage Art that Leonel was especially proud of. It was just unfortunate that passing it on to others would be difficult since you would have to have an extremely high Space and Earth affinity to cast it. Leonel couldn't think of a single person that met that requirement.

'This should be the end of things for now… I really didn't expect enemies to get here so quickly, it seems that things could quickly get complicated…'

Leonel reached out a palm and squeezed. He wasn't confident in whether or not the seal that protected Ieme was stronger than the others or not. If it wasn't, everything would be fine. But, if it was and he was forced to use his Scarlet Star Force again, it wasn't worth it.

So, rather than doing this, Leonel chose to toss him into a snowglobe and worry about it later. Of course, though, Leonel used the [Valiant Seal] to pin him down and take his storage treasures first, then he threw him away.

'Hm?'

Leonel's head whipped around. Reacting quickly, he sent his Valiant Seals hurtling through the air in a particular direction. His gaze happened to lock onto the battle between Arnold and a Three-Layered Hand. However, he was still a step too late.

Before his [Valiant Seal]'s reached their destination, the Three-Layered Hand vanished from sight, just barely dodging Arnold's palm before he was crushed into minced meat.

Leonel's brow furrowed lightly.

The pendant that Ieme had tried to use was a high level Bronze grade treasure and the same was the case for this man who had just disappeared. But, it was clear that none of the others had this treasure so it was obviously not something the Evergreen Goddess gave to all her high level subjects.

The reason Leonel wanted to stop this man was precisely because it was odd that he had this treasure and Leonel's instincts told him that he should try to stop him. Unfortunately, Leonel was still a step too late…