BULL, PEACOCK, APEX
In the far-off distance, a trio of gazes flickered, not quite understanding what they were witnessing. They stood near the back of the Invalid army, but they could clearly feel every change.
In truth, the formation of Invalids only ever came from Incomplete Worlds. Complete Worlds didn't have to contest with Sub-Dimensional Zones or Metamorphosises, so it could be said that any Invalids that were here were the product of Incomplete Worlds that hadn't managed to get rid of them in time and had thus been taken over by them.
There were actually quite a number of such worlds, and over the years, these Invalids had spread out and claimed Complete Worlds for themselves as well.
Variant Invalids were extremely talented existences, no less so than Sparks, and on the highest end they were comparable even to God Childes.
Even so, they had to remain low-key because there were too few of them...
The problem was that a Blood Sovereign was too great of a strategic resource. They were far too rare and even in the entire Invalid Empire, there were only a handful. The number didn't even reach double digits.
It was impossible, then, for them to give up this sort of opportunity. So, in a rare moment, they had actually brought out a decent number of warriors.
In truth, they had thought that it was far too much. Did they even need this much for a mere Human Bubble? This could be said to be the most convenient Blood Sovereign they would ever pick up, right?
So what was this situation?
Leonel seemed to be single-handedly crushing their army of tens of thousands. Granted, most of them were weaklings. After all, Invalids were Invalids for a reason, they were made up of people who failed to awaken their Ability Indexes. It wasn't until they became Variant Invalids that they were a true danger to the world.
But even so, the weakest was in the Seventh Dimension. How could a Fifth Dimensional existence like Leonel possibly destroy so many of them and with such ease? Was he truly such an outrageous monster?
Among these three was a familiar figure...
Apex.
He also happened to be the unhappiest of the bunch. He was the one who found Aina's leg, he was the one searching for the location of the Human Bubble all this time, and this should have been his to benefit from alone.
Instead, they had ended up in a situation where Aina's half-digested leg had instead become proof that allowed this mobilization. If not for him, there would have been a more careful and long-drawn-out investigation to ensure that the information they had received was true.
But because he had been covertly trying to find the location of the Human Bubble, when the organization mobilized their true experts to begin investigating as well, his own efforts had been uncovered.
Due to that, he was summoned and then reprimanded for hiding such information for his own selfish motives.
But obviously, since he was here, the reprimanding couldn't have been so bad.
The Invalids didn't have such scruples when they did things, and their concept of "betrayal" was very loose. Plus, given who his master was, it was impossible for him to be truly punished in the deepest sense of the word.
So in the end, here he was.
All that said, he was actually getting a sick, twisted satisfaction out of watching the army be wiped out like this. How dare they take his cattle from him? It was worse than taking meat from his mouth.
"We should go. The elders won't be happy if we actually lose the entire army. Some of them had a chance at becoming Variants in the future."
"Bullshit. This trash wouldn't be able to accomplish anything."
Beside Apex, there was a man simply known as Bull. He was the second to speak and he was the burliest of them all. Muscles and veins bulged across his body and his skin had a bronze-silverish sheen to it that made him look like a polished metal rather than a human.
The other was known as Peacock. He was the slenderest of them all and there was a crown of feathers in his hair. He had a handsome countenance, and one would expect him to be dressed elegantly, but instead he was dressed like a village chieftain, a beast skin skirt wrapping around his waist. owns all content.
If one looked to Peacock's back, you would find a dense pattern of tattoos fluttering with an array of greens, violets, and pinks...
Not much unlike a Peacock's feathers.
"Then you take the punishment, then," Peacock sneered.
"You want to go up so badly, then go. No one is stopping you, little penis."
Peacock's white orbs flashed with rage. Bull's play on his name never failed to fill him with fury.
Suddenly, the tattoos on his back glowed and a feather whipped out at Bull's back, sending him flying overhead and toward the battlefield.
"YOU BASTARD!" Bull roared out.
Unfortunately, he couldn't fly. In fact, even though that could fly would have a hard time of it in the Inbetween Worlds to begin with.
Without a choice, he could only continue on his trajectory.
Leonel looked up.
The depths of his eyes looked like a bottomless abyss. They should have been a beautiful pair of irises, one painted by delicate lines of pale violet, like the explosion of a star concentrated into a dot.
And yet, that beauty seemed nothing short of maleficent at this very moment.
Looking at the man barreling through the skies, the behemoth that stood at nearly three meters tall and had a body formed from a mountain of metals, he looked entirely unmoved.
Meeting this gaze in close proximity for the first time, Bull felt his heart freeze over.
The was a Variant Invalid. He didn't feel emotions. The only thing that drove him was a fierce need for survival, a constant drive to evolve.
And at the moment, it was like all of that had vanished.
He just wanted to run.
And that was when the spear thrust out.