BELIEVE?

Leonel appeared in the far-off distance with a pale expression. It looked as though his face had been completely drained of all color.

Using this ability really took a lot out of him, though, he could already see some of its parameters.

When he used it on actual people, the requirements were far more stringent. He also noticed that the closer something was to being "complete", the more difficult it was as well.

Take, for example, the arrow that the demon monkey sent his way. Because it was close to taking his head, and he waited so long to say the words "disperse", it took more energy to deal with it. © content.

If he had commanded as the demon monkey was taking action, or before it had taken action, he would have been in a much better situation. This was his measure of "completeness".

So why was he so tired now? Was it because he had used it on himself, or Little Blackstar, maybe?

Leonel didn't think so. Little Blackstar didn't resist, and it was easiest to use it on himself even in comparison to the outside world. Toward that effect, Leonel actually believed that he was skipping steps.

This Ability Index, at least at its current level, probably worked best on himself. But he was pushing it to work on the outside world.

As for why he was so tired, that was part of it, but another reason was that he had pushed himself hard.

His normal range of teleportation right now with his current strength was probably a kilometer, two if he really pushed it. That took into account the fact he was mostly restricted to ambient Spatial Force and the strength of the world he was in as well.

However, just now, he had teleported over 2000 kilometers, using his Ability Index to force the Spatial Force in the surroundings into submission.

If he could have gotten away with a few hundred kilometers instead, he would have done so. But unfortunately, that would have still been in range of sight of the Dimensional Eyes Verse.

'What a headache.'

Leonel took a breath. For it to drain his own enormous well of Dream Force, one could imagine just the level of strain he had undergone. Someone else, with a more normal pool of Dream Force, assuming all other parameters were the same, might have only been able to extend a kilometer of initial range to a few dozen at best.

This went to illustrate just how superior Leonel was in terms of pure Dream Force stamina. But, unfortunately, without his Dream Stars, his recovery of that enormous pool was likewise frighteningly slow.

Finally, Leonel caught his breath. His head felt a bit light, and his unhappiness hadn't vanished either.

After finding a calm place, he entered the Segmented Cube to look upon the dozens of bear beasts. Most of them were just sitting silently, some were pacing about, but no matter what they were doing, once Leonel appeared, they all looked toward him with various emotions.

Some had hope in their eyes, some had resolve, and some even had anger that was pointed toward him.

Now that Leonel knew that he hadn't been gone for half a day at all, but rather over a year, he could understand some of that sentiment.

Putting everything on your back and crushing all opposition sounded great, until you were suddenly gone and those you had helped all the while had to do something you had never allowed them to do-this time without even your support.

This was the dark side of what Leonel had done.

The World Spirit of the Morales was in his hands, and that was a handicap to one of their greatest trump cards. While the Morales were still strong alone, before he had left and suddenly vanished, they had only just begun to deal with their problems of internal strife.

Without their World Spirit, and suddenly finding the leader that had brought them all together suddenly gone, the Morales had likely had a huge push and pull internally, making it far easier for them to crumble.

If Leonel had known that he would disappear for so long, he would have never revealed the hidden faction of the Morales so casually. That was a secret that most were likely not even aware of, and without him, his bastard of a grandmother could easily take advantage to reach a conclusion that suited her needs.

Leonel shook his head. His grandfather really should have told him before he did all of this. He would have had several things to fulfill first, but now things had already come to this, there was simply no going back.

Taking a breath, Leonel ignored the emotions in their eyes and began to focus on something he was much better at dealing with. He needed to find a solution to this issue; he obviously couldn't leave them all as beasts.

Whoever had turned them into these creatures likely had an Ability Index similar to Simeon's. Unfortunately, that Brazinger heir had long since died at his hands and his soul had dissipated long ago. After all, Leonel hadn't had [Breathe] or [Assimilate] back then, so he didn't have an option to fully reanimate Simeon.

Leonel's first interaction with Simeon was his weremen. He created them by splicing their genome with that of powerful creatures, making them stronger, faster, more imposing. This seemed like a similar ability, but on a whole other level.

There was no aspect of their humanity left other than their souls themselves.

If Leonel had to guess, this was probably the Ability Index of the Spiritual Prince. But the question was how would he reverse it?

'Any ideas, Anastasia?'

'Well, the simplest solution would be to just kill them all and resurrect them.'

'I can't do that without my King's Might Lineage Factor and I don't know if... things would be the same after that.'

Leonel could get away with doing that with his brothers, but the others, especially the children might not handle it well.

It went beyond just the trauma. Even if Leonel swore to them that he hadn't altered their minds...

Would they believe him?