Dimensional Descent

"Hehe… A little baby boy actually dares to hold back while fighting me."

Gorgo coughed up several mouthfuls of blood, his once pearly white teeth becoming covered in a sheen of crimson.

Leonel's gaze met the minotaur Demon Lord's. Although Gorgo was on his knees now, he was so tall to begin with that Leonel could only look him in the eye.

It wasn't that Leonel was looking down on Gorgo, it was rather that Leonel himself was too strong. Because of this, his actual fighting prowess had stagnated.

During his studies in the Mage Academy, Leonel had learned a lot. His Dreamscape was filled to the brim with mage textbooks and manuals of all kinds. But, if he were to separate them into groups and point out which had the largest percentage of theories written about it, there was no doubt in his mind that it would be 'battle sense'.

To a mage, there were things more important than how many spells you knew and how powerful your spells were. What stood above that was timing, situation and execution.

Every Mage Art took time to cast. When a Mage Art was ultimately cast, it would impact the environment and change the situation around the next Mage Art. And, every Mage Art took a good portion of one's Spirit Pressure to cast.

Ultimately, between knights and mages, mages were particularly worried about battle sense and efficiency. If one had poor battle sense, it was very possible for a weaker mage to defeat a stronger one.

How a mage economized their Spirit Pressure, how they prepared spells in battle -- building up with shorts casts to longer ones -- and even down to the angles to which they pointed their wands were all important aspects of battle sense.

This realization ingrained one thing in Leonel's mind: He was still too weak.

Before, he hadn't realized how much of a grip this thought had on his heart until he realized just how much his loss to Lamorak had affected him. But now, he couldn't have been more clear.

only reason he resorted to it in those final moments was because he felt that if he continued, his

of what would happen to him if he was less talented. Such a

spear pulled out from Gorgo's collarbone and struck

faded, so too did Leonel's blazing aura. His Runes dimmed and sunk into his skin and

of fatigue overwhelmed Leonel. His breathing couldn't help

able to counter the side effects of his Metal Synergy Lineage Factor after reaching the Weak state. But, his body still felt heavy. Of course, it also didn't help that his new weapon was over a

Force and Soul Force are still at over 70% capacity, yet

work on, but he

of information on matters related to the

band of horses. The first sight he saw was Lancelot's stern face, carrying a

but it was pretty much common knowledge that rules and regulations were extremely important on the battlefield. He had acted without regard for consequences

Leonel wasn't stupid either. Mages were a special circumstance. Usually, the more powerful a mage, the less restricted they were by the rules of the army. For example, Lionus, as a Light Mage, traveled

so it was easy for those watching to forget he

lip couldn't help but twitch. This

to make Leonel suffer a small loss, he soon remembered that

that they would have won the battle anyway, it most definitely wouldn't have

higher despite the fact the overall population of humans outstripped them. As a result, they were uncaring about casualties

the Demons had an overall losing record against humans, but in the grand scheme, it was actually humans who were on the losing end. Something like winning with so few casualties, and even taking down a Demon Lord at the same time,

Leonel without appearing too weak and forgiving,

"Sir Lancelot! Urgent tidings!"

"Hm?"