Crimson

Leonel looked around the Fort. It was a good opportunity and a wealth of riches, however it was also troublesome as well. With how large and thick the walls of this place were, it would take even Little Tolly a few hours to work through all of it.

'No, I can't leave things like this, what would be the point?'

Wouldn't it be too foolish if he cleared this placed of all its defenders, only to leave it and find more Radix and Midas had moved in? By then, it would be like he hadn't done anything.

Leonel didn't have time to deploy a planetary Force Art like Planet Solara had had. As such, it was too easy to move in and out of the Planet's range. If Leonel left things here like this, the results were too obvious.

"Little Tolly, I'll be back."

Leonel tossed Little Tolly at the massive Fort and vanished. He still had a few Radix and Midas to hunt down.

…

By the time Leonel came back, the Fort was raised to the ground, leaving nothing but a deep square down to the bedrock of the planet. Within this deep pit, large, perfectly spherical piles of metals lay. Just from these piles alone, there was over half a million kilograms of Urbe Ore.

Leonel was speechless. Every single last ounce was Fifth Dimensional. Was this the wealth of a Sixth Dimensional world? This wasn't even meant to be their main Fort. They originally wanted to claim on of the Lake Crossings. Just what kind of behemoth would they have built over there.

At this moment, Leonel could only feel inadequate.

'My bounty was only 10 000 kilograms? Am I just a petty criminal? What the hell is this?'

Compared to the piles of Urbe Ore, the rest was practically worthless to Leonel. It suddenly forced him to realize that he was much too poor. If a mid-level Sixth Dimensional world was this wealthy, what about peak Sixth Dimensional ones? Seventh Dimensional ones? Peak Seventh Dimensional ones like the Morales family?

Leonel was truly speechless.

He had been controlling Little Tolly from afar with his Internal Sight, but he didn't truly register just how much there was until right this very moment. And, despite all of that…

Leonel felt that it was completely useless.

He could probably by a whole planet with this amount of money in the Milky Way, but what was the point? It took this moment for Leonel to realize just how small his scope on things was.

He was scratching and clawing for wealth in this tiny little corner of the universe while there were real whales out there laughing at his efforts. Even his own grandfather was probably laughing at him. He didn't even have to lift a finger to make thousands of times what Leonel had to lay his life on the line to get.

Why did he waste his time going for these small fry, then? He was worrying about the wrong things. No… it wasn't that he was worrying about the wrong things, it was rather that he needed to work smarter, not harder. He was wasting his efforts and had to target the appropriate things. What good was it to build a shop on Earth so he could accept the patronage of people even poorer than himself? It was a waste of time.

'Noted.' Leonel thought to himself. Nôvel(D)rama.Org's content.

Leonel took the pillars of the near Sixth Dimensional metal and placed them within a spatial ring. Then, he stored the Urbe Ore away before sweeping a gaze over the remaining metals.

Unsurprisingly, they were all related to defense whether that was Force absorption, shock absorption, or just overall sturdiness. They would be greatly helpful in upgrading the cubes, but Leonel had a feeling that the next wave of battles wouldn't be occurring on EarthX1.

Leonel sent his senses toward the Silver Tablet. He didn't want to do this, but he knew that he would have to. His current strength wasn't enough and if he wanted to use his trump cards, he had no choice. Before, he hadn't had enough resources to do it. But, after looting… exchanging his merit points at the Eight Eye Branch, he had reached his quota.

It was time to push his Metal Body up to Tier 9.

Though it would make his subsequent uses of the Silver Tablet cost more energy, Leonel had once against decided that the trade off was worth it.

Not only this, but he would also have to use the Silver Tablet for one more thing. Once that was complete, the rest would be left up to fate… Not that Leonel had any intention of relying on such an enigmatic thing.

"Little Koi Fish, it's time to work."

**

The battles across EarthX1 began to end one after another. The shock of Earth's sudden and aggressive counterattack left the invaders stunned. They had never expected that Earth would choose to do this despite having the clear defensive advantage. Their aggressiveness was outside the calculations of even the Radix, let alone the others.

But, this was only the tip of the iceberg. Each assault unit was seemingly equipped with perfect counters to them all.

The Umbra suddenly found that it was difficult to call upon Dark Elemental Force. The Rain suddenly found that the weather itself was fighting against the formation of their clouds. The Crars was steam rolled, the number of machinery overwhelming their great population leaving them without a choice but to surrender or be massacred…

Each experienced a fate worst than the last…

…

Reports of what was happening on EarthX1 returned to the approaching fleet of invaders as they cut across the stars. But, it only served to accentuate the counterattack of those on EarthX2 as well, those invaders experiencing a story that was all too familiar.

Fury bubbled forth as the fleet traveled through the depths of space, hearing the cries of their fellow clansmen ringing in their ears.

Their blood boiled. They wanted nothing more than to see Earth dyed crimson.