OVERLOOKED QUESTION
Leonel's gaze became sharp, and he didn't move immediately.
The next sequence of events happened so quickly it felt impossible to stop, but from start to finish, Leonel didn't even move. It was like he was resigned to it already.
He stood and watched as Veiga seemed to manipulate her own hoard of Ancestors, riling them up into a frenzy and leading them into a charge she never had any expectations of finishing off.
He didn't move even when they seemed to show signs of putting his own life in danger, and he only made some faint and subtle actions when he saw that part of her plans seemed to encompass his starships and their Fusion Cores.
In the past, Leonel hadn't been able to figure out how to separate the control Shield Cross Stars had over their Fusion Cores from his control. Due to that, he had been unable to use the starships to attack other Humans and the individuals of Shield Cross Stars, especially. But since then, he had obviously overcome that weakness with his strength in Crafting.
However, there was a weakness that couldn't be stripped from Fusion Cores, and that was their susceptibility to instability. Veiga obviously wanted to use this as a method to carve out a path of escape, and he just made a movement to stop this.
In the end, the real reason Leonel hadn't taken any action showed itself as his people began to act oddly. Some starships turned to face one another, some began to directly battle without a word, and in the far-off distance, Yuri even seemed to be on the verge of directly killing herself.
It was a house of madness.
This shouldn't have been possible. The suggestive effects on a person's psyche should only be possibly by pulling at their already ingrained tendencies. Unless somehow every part of the Morales army wanted to kill one another, it shouldn't be possible even for someone in the Life State to just suddenly turn them all on one another.
At the same time, how could Yuri of all people try to kill herself? Not only was he certain that she had far more to live for than not, even if that was just to confront him about Aina's situation, but she had just broken free of a suggestion earlier. She would be on alert and couldn't possibly fall for another so quickly.
What was most sinister about it all was that whether it was the Morales who had suddenly begun to battle one another, or Yuri who was trying to end her own life but seemed hesitant to do so, each one was targeting an Ethereal Glabella. It was so obvious and clear that Leonel was certain that whoever was doing it was doing it on purpose.
If Leonel himself suffered a destroyed Glabella, there would be nothing but death awaiting him. As for these people, even if he had the Silver Tablet, if their Ethereal Glabellas were destroyed, then their souls would dissipate much faster. If a few hundred died, he might be able to revive them all in time. But if a few thousand died, he knew he wouldn't be able to get to the last of them... so what about a few ten thousand? Hundred thousand? What if half of these tens of millions of warriors died in battle with one another?
This person was not only showing him that they could do such a thing, but they were also telling him in no subtle manner that they also understood the weakness of his seemingly endless ability to revive others.
Leonel continued to look around, a calm expression on his face as Veiga rushed away.
'I see, so that's it.'
In the end, it was the formation.
The Spirituals Religion wasn't exactly one that worshiped the Spirituals. Unlike the other religions that Leonel had come across, there was no deity, and rather nature itself was the deity of the Spirituals.From .
As a result of this, much of their strength also hinged upon this.
Back in Valiant Heart Mountain, when Leonel met his first apostle of a God, Goddess Evergreen to be specific, the person in question had been able to tap into the power of their God and emit strength beyond themselves.
It seemed that he hadn't understood the formation of the Spirituals as well as he had thought. While he understood the skeleton of the formation, and the many pillars that formed its strength, he had missed the forest for the trees. It was akin to thinking of a baked cake as flour, eggs and sugar, rather than as a cake.
What did the formation itself represent? Where did its strength come from? Yes, it was a natural Force Art that pulled on the power of the world, but what was "natural" about it? Where was the power coming from?
The simple answer was a God. The God of the Spirituals Religion.
If Leonel had followed the God Path, he would have picked it up much earlier, but he didn't follow the God Path, he followed the path that Dimensional Cleanse had laid out for him, or more accurately... that he had laid out for himself.
Due to this, he wasn't familiar enough with the God Path and what its strengths and weaknesses were. Now that he thought about it, he had never really separated what empowered users of the God Path either.
Back in the Void Palace, when he had fought the henchmen of Treanna Virror, the God Path had manifested in tangible runes and physical signs. But he found that as he battled more powerful users of the path, there was no such obvious sign, or rather... he wasn't really looking for it.
This culminated in him overlooking an extremely important question: what exactly was the God Path and what were its strengths? What were its weaknesses?
And in this context... how did it interact with the Dream Plane?
Leonel had brought his people into a field of battle that he didn't understand and his opponent had taken advantage of the terrain.
After a moment, he snapped his fingers, and the formation was truly destroyed, but not before he shredded Veiga's Ancestors to pieces.
The hold on his people vanished, but Veiga used the opportunity to finally trigger a long-distance teleportation, disappearing from his sight.