SHORTCUT

This time when Leonel re-entered the odd plane, he came in like a blazing inferno. He could easily remember the energy signatures of all those that had attacked him previously, it might as well have been like looking at a face for him. But he realized almost instantly that those people were no longer around him.

He realized what the issue was soon. The movement in this odd plane was incredibly fast, but it was also a great deal restrained. The further he traveled the greater burden he felt on his Dream Force reserves, as though his soul itself was being stretched thin.

The more soul he had, the further it would be able to go from his current location, but if he moved too recklessly, he could find himself having killed himself before any of these people could get around to him.

However, what Leonel learned immediately after that was that it didn't seem to matter who was around him at all, or more accurately, he hadn't landed in the midst of a particularly sinister bunch. It instead seemed that everyone in this plane was a complete jerk. He had only appeared for a few fractions of a second before he took everything in, and yet the new group of individuals around him had attacked without hesitation again.

It was as though they all had a keen sense for fresh meat and they wanted at Leonel immediately. But this time, they paid the price for it.

The Destruction Runes lit up, and a raging, violent aura shredded everything in its path.

"Sovereign!"

It felt like someone had roared this into his ears, and yet it felt instead like it had echoed out from his very skull. It was an odd and disorienting feeling, the kind that almost made him think that this was some sort of soul attack instead of what it actually was.

But more importantly than that, he was shocked. Someone had pinged him as a Sovereign immediately, but they didn't really say what kind. That was interesting, interesting enough that Leonel felt that he could make some extrapolations from it. In fact, Leonel believed that it might be the case that the only method of using a Force outside of Dream Force in this Plane was to be a Sovereign.

'If that's the case...'

Leonel tried to think in a more solidified way instead of the quick pictures and images he usually thought in, but the instant he did, his voice came out like a roar, even louder than the various souls around him.

His reaction was quick, and he stopped immediately, but the damage of doing so was even more devastating than his Destruction Runes had been. His voice blasted the surrounding souls away, and their Dream Force dimmed considerably. Some of them even became motes of light, floating into him.

Leonel was stunned. This...

He hadn't experienced this feeling since the last time he had killed an Invalid, so it had been quite a long time.

The more he integrated into the wider Dimensional Verse, the less Invalids there seemed to be, but this made sense. The powerful families that had managed to survive would have long since gotten rid of the Invalids that threatened them. As for Variant Invalids, well... the last time he had come across one was in the Rapax Nest, so they should be part of the Cult, but since then there had been nothing at all.

But why was this feeling so similar? He could even feel that his Dream Force had gotten not a small boost either, it seemed that whoever he had absorbed was quite decent. But what was even more shocking than that.

'They're memories?'

Leonel was rendered speechless once again as his voice roared out again. Just what kind of place was this? He could kill souls to increase his strength, and he gained their memories on top of that?Material © .

The Shadow World of the Shadow Sovereigns worked similarly... but it didn't directly increase their strength. From his understanding, as they defeated other Shadow Sovereigns, their Shadow World became larger and their Ability Index became stronger as well, but it wasn't a direct addition to their strength, at least not like this.

Is there a Destruction Plane like this Dream Plane? Or was this a unique thing? If this was something all Sovereigns had, then Aina would have found her own long ago, but she hadn't.

Leonel felt like he was sitting on the edge of something big, but he couldn't quite understand it. He chose to immediately go through and organize the memories he had gotten. He had just killed what should be seven people, and they were a jumbled mess of collected thoughts and feelings.

He created a new Dream ability on the spot and called it Dream Filter. He organized their memories into Dreamscapes first, and then used Dream Filter to pour out everything that was useless. He wouldn't waste his time on the thoughts and emotions of these people, what he needed was information, very specific information about what plane he had just tapped into.

Dream Plane.

Leonel got his information with a great deal of swiftness, and the more he assimilated, the higher his brows arched. He had long since left the plane and was still sitting within his starship.

The Dream Plane was a world that anyone who had entered the Impetus State could access. It was a Fold of Reality and represented the Second Dimension, and within it, at least in certain locations, it was practically a free for all.

Leonel was only in a corner taken over by Incomplete Worlds, it was known as the Incomplete Wilds and often experts of lesser worlds gathered there for quick power ups because it was their only option. If they stepped into the lands of the Complete Worlds, they would be shredded to pieces. This wasn't because they were far weaker, it could be said that anyone who had entered the Impetus State was a powerhouse.

The problem was the suppression and the rules, though there was one more thing...

Absorbing the strength of others, looking for quick shortcuts, had crippled many of them.