ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE
Leonel held out his spear for a long while before slowly retracting it and allowing the blue knight to fall to the ground.
He found that without his Ability Index, his Spear Force seemed to increase by leaps and bound with every battle. He had yet to have a battle where he didn't make a large improvement. Every time he sunk into that state of forgetting everything, he would come out an even greater monster on the other side.
Just now, he felt his spear transcend the laws of the world around it. Before, his spear was able to ignore space somewhat, extending his blade against several enemies at once and even vanishing to attack across large distances.
When he had just entered the tribulation, he could only do so within his Absolute Spear Domain. But just after a few battles, he could extend it well outside and his Absolute Spear Domain had increased in range. Not long after that, he was even able to use his Absolute Spear Domain as less of a defensive measure and even began to use it offensively and change its shape and location, even using it to coat his spear.
And just now… He felt like rather than just attacking across space, he could also attack across time. He had been so focused on layering his strikes in a better fashion, with a faster method, with a greater speed, that he had ignored reason and simply did what felt natural… And then it happened.
Although he hadn't broken through entirely, Leonel felt that it was only a matter of time. With his improvement speed, how many more battles would it take? Maybe only a handful more at this caliber?
Leonel took a breath and exhaled. This time it wasn't because he was tired, but rather because he was sighing. It wasn't that he didn't know that allowing his talent to take over would have such great results, it was just that he was too arrogant to allow it to happen. He had wanted to fundamentally understand what was happening to him.
Maybe deep down inside, Leonel knew why this was. Back then, it felt like too many things were entirely out of his control. The world he had grown up in was suddenly had a calamity descend upon it, his father wasn't who he thought he was, his mother was the woman he had ignored and maybe even somewhat hated all his life, his grandfather turned out to be the man everyone on the planet worshipped, and now he was suddenly forced into killing and maiming just to live, something he absolutely did not want to do.
Leonel was someone who liked to have everything under his control, everything within his purview, even if that sometimes meant offending those that were closest to him… James' words back then of calling him a sociopathic hypocrite, and then Aina's actions of doing the exact same, was probably perfectly correct.
The funniest part was that Leonel knew it. Despite his personality, he was hyper aware of everything and very emotionally intelligent, he couldn't be a leader without such skills. He had just chosen to ignore it anyway, much to the frustration of a lot of people.
Ironically, this tribulation, which was maybe a great challenge to others, was more of a joke to him, at least physically speaking. However, when it came to the truths it forced him to face… it could only be said that maybe this was a different kind of tribulation for Leonel altogether.
Leonel waved his spear slowly. Despite the paced movement, he still left after images in the air, forming a wing of spear to his side.
The afterimages only faded after a very long while. In that moment, Leonel confirmed and consolidated his gains in this battle.
It would be hard to shut off his brain when his Ability Index returned, but since he was shut away from it in this tribulation, he would allow his talent to bloom. He wanted to see how far his Spear Force would grow before he was forced to leave this place.
Leonel took a step forward and the throne of the blue knight shook once before sinking into the ground. By the time Leonel got to the top of the stairs, a platform had appeared. On it, there was a perfect replica of the blue knight's spear, radiating the aura of a Silver Grade weapon, one Leonel would only be able to gain after clearing 90 more territories. Or, rather, 89 after this one.
However, this wasn't all.
When Leonel grabbed the spear, strapping his old one to his back, he waved it around and felt its heft. After a moment, a flood of knowledge entered his brain and he learned about the ability of this spear.
Knight's Charge.
It seemed that rather than gaining a domain with each spear, Leonel would gain an ability instead. Knight's Charge seemed to be the reason for the blue knight's obscene straight line speed. To make up for the heaviness of the spear, it allowed nigh instant distance collapsing. When Knight's Charge was activated, he could accelerate in a straight line, closing up to a hundred meter distance in the blink of an eye.
Of course, the drawback was that stopping was almost impossible. However, that could be mitigated because the distance of the charge could be decided by the activator ahead of time, you just had to trust in your own judgement.
Leonel didn't know how often he would use this ability the way it was meant to be used, but he felt it had great potential in increasing attack potency.
Leonel waved the enormous spear around for a few rounds before he got used to it and nodded himself. Then, he turned and left, he had wasted enough time here.
With that, Leonel charged toward a new territory and then another.
It wouldn't be long until he met his next Urah'Kai, and maybe that was exactly what he wanted. He was loving the challenge. Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g