Headache

Leonel's killing speed skyrocketed. He controlled everything within a 20 meter radius. Every dagger his tendrils threw reaped another life and every swing of his blade bisected another body. His mind was in overdrive and his killing was so efficient that those nearer the back suddenly found that they had nothing to contribute. Even Noah and Aina who had taken on the brunt of the pressure with Leonel found themselves withstanding less than 20% of the initial hardship.

Leonel seemed to be both in tune with the world and completely ignorant of it at the same time. His ears heard nothing but soft whistles, his eyes fogged, blurring much of his vision, his sense of touch dulled as the hairs of his skin stood on end. And yet, he seemed so much sharper at the same time.

SHUU! SHUU! SHUU!

Every dagger twisted through the air as though it had a mind of its own, wrapping round trees, ducking beneath paws, twisting past attacks. Without fail, each and every time Leonel struck out, another Cursed Beast would fall. And, somehow at the very same time, Leonel only became more and more efficient. Content is property © .

The daggers took less winding turns in the air, the reactions of the beasts seemed to become slower as he began to target their blind spots, and from time to time, a single dagger would take out two beasts at once instead of just one.

At first, the group was huddle into a five meter diameter at best. But, as Leonel's mind sunk further and further, the breathing room increased again and again. Soon, there was easily a five meter separation between their line of defense and the next onslaught of beasts… And then it became 10… Then 15…

At that moment, Leonel jolted, a sense of warning coming to his mind. It was an instinctual sort of feeling, the kind a General would get when the tides of battle were about to flip.

Leonel wasn't too surprised by this. From time to time, whenever he had to use Bow Force on a large scale, he would subconsciously slip into the Style of that Fire Elemental woman he had seen in the Valiant City on Terrain. Her command of the battlefield was unlike anything he had seen even to this point, so he dabbled and tweaked this Style to his liking depending on the situation.

But now this Style was screaming at him that he was going too far.

Leonel's mind lit like a spark.

At this moment, they were a drop in the ocean. But, if he expanded their range of influence too much, their drop would become a wave and eventually the ocean itself would bite back. If more and more of the beast tide focused on them, they would be in trouble.

The second issue was…

Leonel's dagger whipped out. But, before it could make it to its destination 20 meters away, it lost all its momentum, the Anarchic Force sapping away everything it had.

There was a reason that Leonel had swapped his Wind Domain spear out. Using blade-like Anarchic Force was effective on humans, but to Cursed Beasts, it was like a midday snack, it wouldn't hurt them at all.

If the distance his bone daggers had to travel was long enough, the result would be just like this. It would be stripped of its Bow Force and not only would Leonel's control waver, but the resulting impact, even if by some miracle it landed, wouldn't even be a fraction the result he would hope for.

Leonel's gaze flickered, taking deep breath. The heat coming off of him was palpable and it only seemed to make the fog denser.

Sometimes being too efficient and powerful was a problem. He needed to find a balance. Only like that could he not only maximize his rest time, but also ensure that they didn't draw too much attention.

It didn't take long for the beast tide to quickly fill in the gap. After ensuring that they hadn't pulled too much aggros, Leonel sighed in relief and focused his attention on the Tier 3 beast that had swallowed up the distance between them.

…

'Natural Bow Force…? No, normal Natural Bow Force couldn't possibly travel as much as 20 meters in this density of Anarchic Force, and definitely not with that level of control and deftness. What is this child hiding?'

This was the true secret of Bow Force and the Void Palace. Long ranged attackers were so rare that the status of bowman who would be effective in this environment were countless levels above others even of similar skill level in other areas. This was a simple application of supply and demand.

A bowman that could be effective at 20 meters was already enough for the Void Palace to go all out in protecting. Even if Leonel had no background whatsoever, Cornelius would likely swoop down from the skies right this moment and take him out of this trial. Unfortunately, out of consideration for some other things… he definitely couldn't do this.

'A Morales family youth with Natural Bow Force at such a young age… How will the Tarius family react to this…? Not only that, but he's already awakened the Morales family's Elevated Spear Force… Why did they throw this problem on my lap…'

Cornelius had sighed more times today than he had in the last several decades.

The upper echelon of the Void Palace was split. However, regardless of which side they were on, they were in unanimous agreement that they didn't want another Velasco appearance. That man had a unique method of pissing off everyone, and yet somehow still managing to be so beloved.

The result of this was an odd push and pull effect where they wanted to take a hands off approach with Leonel, but also didn't want him to run rampant to the point where that death star could appear here again.

In order to do that, they needed to make sure that Leonel stayed within the confines of the rules and that he integrated as normally as possible, this was minimize the risk. The odds that Velasco's son would be as much of a blazing sun as his father was low, despite what Ossenna had to say about genetics.

Unfortunately, the more Cornelius observed Leonel, the more confused he got.

He couldn't tell if Leonel was a once in a several generation genius like his father, or if he was an ordinary talent riding the coattails of his family's resources. Even now, he had still not yet made a decision, but regardless, this matter was trending poorly for the Void Palace.

…

Leonel's gaze brightened.

'There's an odd sparsity of beasts ahead and the flow seems to have been diverted. There's definitely a change up ahead within the next half kilometer.'

Leonel had made certain to follow a path that led toward one of those golden pillars he had seen at the start of the trial, but he had no way of telling just how far away they were. He now had a feeling that he was approaching them.

What he hadn't realized yet, though, was that he had a few tails that were outside the range of his amplified Internal Sight.