Dimensional Descent

Leonel sighed.

"Alright. The exit is around the corner but there's nothing guarding it."

"And?" Aina asked.

She was smart enough to know that this was definitely not a good thing. Different species aside, the Rapax were clearly intelligent. They wouldn't make such a rudimentary mistake.

"There's nothing guarding it because they don't need to guard it, at least not this exit in particular. We're currently surrounded by three other identical entrances that lead to other hives identical to this one. In fact, we're in a field of nests right now and my Internal Sight doesn't spread far enough to tell if we're nearer the middle, an edge, or what direction we should go in."

The expressions of the three youths sunk when they heard this. They had thought that they were close to at least leaping over this first hurdle, but there was actually so much more to go? Who had set up this Selection? Did they want them all to die?!

"So you want to fly up and check which direction to go." Aina finished.

"There's no real other choice."

"Of course there's another choice. You could make an image probe to check for you. If that doesn't work, there's Blackstar. His stealth is much higher than any of our own. He could probably do it without risking being found out at all."

"An image probe would require materials and a Force Art that wouldn't be eroded by Anarchic Force, neither of which I have on hands right now. As for Blackstar, that is a more legitimate possibility, but I don't like it."

to you being stubborn

There's no amount of stealth that will help Little Blackstar hide himself in

Blackstar is far smaller than any one of us and also has the best evasive maneuvers. At the same time, the Rapax likely know that there's a bunch of humans running around in their territory by now, they might not be ready to spot a little mink. And, on top of that, can't Little Blackstar change form as

still better if

"You aren't explaining."

"It's hard to explain."

For one, you don't want to put Blackstar in danger. And, secondly, you trust in your ability to react to unforeseen circumstances far more than anyone else, you're just reluctant to

opened his mouth to respond but suddenly found

if it could even be called that. He seemed very curious about how this would end and even

an assessment, there were two things he always took into consideration. The first was what the situation was at face value, and the second

analysis to veer off path, the more likely it was that he would rather take

could. In fact, one of the only people to ever impress him with their adaptation ability—Emna Beiceran from Crimson Hall—was a woman he almost immediately invited to become one of his generals. To this day, she had still been the only person he had ever tried to recruit like that. Sometimes

truth was that even if Emna was here, he would still trust himself hundreds of times more.

to cut out variables as much as possible, even way

this point, Leonel closed his eyes and took a breath. When he opened them again, he rubbed his

"Ready, little guy?"