Leonel asked himself a very simple question. What was the measure of success in this place in the rawest terms? He was able to find the answer by making one simple assumption: the goal of this first phase was to swallow Beast Crystals and strengthen yourself.
With that assumption made, the answer was obvious. The measure of success was how many beasts you could kill.
In that case, what Leonel had to do was even more obvious: kill as many beasts as he could, and even more ideally than that, kill them all!
This was where the importance of the fact that this place was finite came into place. The fact that there was a finite amount of space meant that there was a finite number of beasts.
And if there was a finite number of beasts, then logically, to perfectly clear this region, one had to kill every last one of them.
So then the question became how could Leonel use his unique advantages to force this end result?
Due to these lines of thought, Leonel ended up in this situation, bleeding from head to toe, still lacking any sort of defenses outside of his own flesh and bone, and wielding a spear so dull it could only rely on his Spear Force to give it an edge.
After finding a good region near the force field barrier, Leonel drew a Force Art with his Spear Force that could mimic a Force Eruption. And now, he was paying dearly for it.
Leonel drew in heavy breaths, but his grip on his spear didn't slacken. After dodging the claw, he stepped outside of the tiger beast's body and his arm clamped it down to his torso.
When the tiger beast tried to twist its head toward him to bite his head off he sent a powerful punch at its long teeth while still holding onto his spear, shattering them.
Blood and tooth fragments rained down, but Leonel had already switched his grip and pierced right through the tiger's eye, mincing its brain to pieces.
Leonel released its claw and sent out a fierce kick, sending the tiger's body sprawling toward the next wave.
Taking a step forward, Leonel pierced out with his spear, splitting the blade six different directions and forcing the second wave after the next back. His crowd control was immaculate as he hacked them down one by one, and his slaughter was relentless.
Leonel realized then that his only advantage wasn't just his Force Crafting. The changes the Silver Empire's inheritance had made to his body were still there. There were still countless more folds in his heart, several more blood vessels carrying oxygen through his body, and his heart was still several times larger than it had been in the past along with having more chambers.
If he could use his mind and spear to force these beasts to fight him one on one or two on one, he definitely wouldn't be the first to tire. It felt like it only took a single big breath for his body to be refueled and rejuvenated.
He continued his relentless slaughter, kicking corpses out of the way from time to time to slaughter more. He fell into a complete rhythm and his blade strikes seemed to paint a picture across the skies, his polearm floating as though it was being carried by the wind and caressed by the sun's rays.
Silence fell and the roars of the beasts didn't seem to echo any longer. The melody of Leonel's spear was all there was.
The greatest shame of losing his Ability Index was that Leonel could no longer rely on Dream Class to execute his grandfather's way of the spear. This was why he hadn't used Swift or Forceful, or any of the other stances he had stored away.
But at that moment, his spear seemed to have become ingrained into his very being. No, more accurately, he had come to realize that the part of his brain that the Spear Domain Lineage Factor had modified to be more in tune with the spear had saved all of these movements within his muscle memory.
Ironically, for the first time, Leonel truly listened to his spear without filtering it through logic and reason, only because he simply didn't have the luxury to. His mind wasn't currently running fast enough to think and scheme in the middle of battle and he had become like everyone else, relying on their instincts and training.
It was just that Leonel hadn't realized just how much instinct he had built up until this moment.
Suddenly, he needed no more than a single strike to shatter the Life Force of the beasts before him.Têxt belongs to .
He walked out from the forcefield, seemingly no longer needing it to his back. His spear became faster and faster, and for a moment, in the back of his head, he faintly laughed at himself. That young man? As skilled as him? Isn't that what he had said before?
What a joke. That young man wasn't even a tenth as powerful as he was.
The radiant spear crown shone with a fiercer and fiercer light.
Leonel pierced out, his spear splitting into three. This time, he didn't even aim for the enormous eye sockets of the beasts before him. And yet, their nigh indestructible coats of fur were shredded like wet paper beneath his blade and he shattered their skulls in a single strike. The attack was so smooth that he didn't even face a hint of backlash facing three of them at once.
Leonel's spear drew an arc through the air. Blood flew and heads spun, mournful cries echoing through the forest.
A bloodthirstiness wafted from Leonel, his blade snaking through the skies like a river of flowing crimson blood. Everywhere he passed, another beast would fall, and then another.
The spear crown upon his forehead grew more and more condensed, the middle spear growing in size.
PCHU!
ROAR!
A baleful cry left Leonel's lips as his spear thrust forward. It felt like a blade strike that could split the ocean's tides, several thousands of miles of deep, black waters as though they were nothing at all.
Everywhere the Spear Force passed, beasts were shredded to pieces.
Leonel suddenly came to a stop and took a deep breath. All the wind for hundreds of meters rushed toward him at its fastest speed, suturing his lungs in an instant.
After that singular breath, his breathing became even and unhurried.
He stood amid hundreds of corpses looking for more beasts when he suddenly realized something.
He had already killed them all.