Pieces

Leonel's expression turned cold. He thought of many possibilities, most of which centered around a parasitic organism of some sort. Regardless, he would probably have to narrow down exactly what was going on here later. But first…

SHIING!

Leonel's spear shifted to one hand as he fell backward and activated . In the next moment, his arm's speed flourished, leaving nothing but a blur in the air as it crisscrossed through the dispersing fog.

Five lines were drawn in quick succession, forming the image of a star that shot forward.

The wall of tendrils was minced to pieces, sliced apart until nothing but half dead wiggling worms of black danced about the forest floor.

Leonel retreat slowed, his mind still on full alert. That technique was technically a sword technique and he could only execute it with the proper nimbleness if he used a single hand, but it had most definitely done the job. When he had the time, he had to see if the Bronze Tablet had spear techniques within it that he could use. But for now, this would have to do.

After a few moments, Leonel felt confident in the fact there wasn't a next attack coming. The increase to his Spear Force's strength was far beyond his expectations, but this was definitely a good thing. It felt like his was infinitesimally close to Level Three despite only having recently grasped Level Two.

Leonel leapt forward, dancing around to avoid touching the tendrils and landing by the corpse of the wolf. He inspected everything from head to toe, but the conclusions he came to were each more baffling than the last.

Firstly, this wolf was only at the Tier 1 level of the Fifth Dimension. The fact it had such strength at such a low level made Leonel several points more serious. It had looked easy for him to defeat, and it was, but when framed to the power level of this wolf, Leonel could be said to have 'struggled'.

Secondly, the tendrils didn't really seem to be a parasite, it and the wolf were one entity. No matter how much Leonel looked, he couldn't find a separation between the two. That last attack must have just been a final desperate attempt by the wolf to feed itself, but it only quickened its death.

And that led to the third shocking realization. Even after bisecting the wolf in two, it had actually not died. In fact, if Leonel was correct, that last burst attack did more to push it toward death than his spear strike had.

'… What a weird beast. Hey old man, you probably know something about this right?'

'Asking me? You know this is cheating, right?'

'Nonsense. This is called using the resources you have at hand. They didn't come and take the Segmented Cube away from me even though it can survive in this environment, so clearly there are some not so fair rules at play here.'

'Whatever helps you sleep at night, criminal. These are Cursed Beasts, they're very common in regions with dense Anarchic Force.'

'Why's that? I thought Anarchic Force swallowed things. How could it lead to such mutations?'

'The main issue stems from how it reacts with materials and the environment. Within a certain threshold, Anarchic Force can be resisted, that's why you're not all dead just yet. However, at these concentrations, all sorts of imbalances of Force can be created.

'When you take a higher Dimensional herb with fantastical abilities, and you strip away just a portion of the Forces that allow it to create those magical effects, then those magical effects can mutate into something completely different. It can make a medicinal herb poisonous, it could make a strengthening herb give you an extra limb, it could even do the opposite sometimes and make a bad thing good.

'Beasts tend to strengthen themselves by feeding off nature so they'll suffer from this far more than humans would. It takes expert Craftsmen to be able to use materials infected by Anarchic Force to produce wanted results.'

Leonel nodded, thinking back to the storefronts of Village 0012. These matters were definitely related. Those weren't just workers, they were skilled Crafters, all specialized in working around Anarchic Force.

'However, this isn't the sole reason for these Mutations. The way beasts strengthen themselves is different from how humans do so. They rely much more on their instincts and the balance of Force in their environment is very important. In a lot of ways, they're like the herbs they consume, relying on very precise measurements of Force that Anarchic Force can easily throw off.

'With enough time, most end up killing themselves. But, those that survive will be far deviated from the creatures they started off as and… They'll also tend to be far more powerful as well.'

Leonel's brows shot up. 'Little Blackstar…!'

'You probably don't have to worry about that Little Mink. I don't know how you did it, but it's been evolved with a large amount of Void Beast blood and has even experienced a perfect integration.

'There are only two beasts to have ever existed that could be considered to be immune to Anarchic Force. And one of them is the Void Beast…'Content is property © .

'What's the other?' Leonel asked curiously.

'…'

Wise Star Order didn't answer immediately, but ended up shaking his head.

'Aren't you on a time crunch brat, why are you standing here asking about irrelevant things far above your paygrade?'

Those words seemed to jolt Leonel awake. For once, the old man was right.

He dashed forward, but came to a grinding halt again after hearing the old man speak once more.

'Are you an idiot? Why are you leaving the corpse behind? I'm fairly certain this is one of the many materials you can trade in.'

'You can trade that in?' Leonel felt his stomach lurch.

'What other kind of food do you think you're going to find here?'

Leonel grit his teeth, realizing that the old man was probably right. He really wanted to go and find something more appetizing, but on such a time crunch, he couldn't' afford to be so picky.

After a moment, he had taken the corpse into a snowglobe and moved deeper into the forest. Soon, though, he spotted something very familiar.

On an oddly shaped plant just ahead, numerous oddly shaped ring objects hung upon it like ornaments.

Leonel recognized them immediately. These oddly shaped rings were the very same weird spatial rings he had seen everyone using back at the village.

For some reason, though, the air felt particularly dangerous in this region. The pull of Spatial Force was especially strong as though one wrong step could tear him to pieces.