Dimensional Descent

Leonel and Aina stepped out into a stretch of desert. It was pretty easy for Leonel to hide himself and the others here, but the environment itself was quite annoying and oppressive. The heat was almost unbearable, and it seemed to sink into your body whether through the sand that hunkered your feet and ankles within, or in the perpetual mild sandstorm that pelted against their skin.

This sandstorm felt like droplets of piercing molten metal were colliding against you again and again. It was a horrible feeling without a doubt.

Leonel was especially quite uncomfortable with the situation, but Aina seemed fine, not even squinting her eyes in the midst of the gusting sand. In fact, to add insult to injury, Little Blackstar seemed to be just fine as well.

"Yip! Yip!"A condescending and yet adorable chirping came from Blackstar.

"Hey, hey. Do you see whose shoulder you're standing on right now? Show me some-"Little Blackstar hopped off of Leonel's shoulders and buried himself within Aina's bosom. Leonel's words could only be caught within his throat.

Little Blackstar stretched and yawned before waving a paw and starting his nap.

"Unbelievable," Leonel shook his head.Aina smiled. This had always been Blackstar's favorite spot; Leonel was just overestimating his importance in the human-transportation hierarchy.

"So, what do you want to do?" Aina asked.Leonel sighed, pushing the betrayal to the back of his mind. At the very least, Little Tolly hadn't abandoned him.

"Well, I don't think there's much for us to do. I have a feeling that the first round will end very soon, we've spent quite a long time idle. So really, we're just here to gather information if there is any. If not, we'll just see if there's anything we can conveniently pick up and benefit from."

Aina nodded and they began to move.

Leonel conjured some Scarlet Star Force and began to use it like a shield, deflecting away the pellets of sand and rock from colliding against him.

He still had quite some way to go before he could bring it to the Impetus State, so he thought that he might as well work on using it.

that his control

and now having the ability to directly compare and contrast it with his Weapon Forces, it was impossible

the gap between it being in the Third Layered State and the State of his Weapon Forces, another part of it was the fact his Innate Nodes were dormant, but he felt the largest reasons were the characteristics of the Force and

Innate Node was present, but

deeper, though. Leonel could just barely

Scarlet Star Force was unsatisfied with his current character. He was too nice, too laid back-the version of him it wanted was the one that had almost cursed Aina for

'... Interesting...'

seemed that the change in personality was a two-way street. But he didn't like it. If he would have to change himself just to learn to

'Be obedient.'

constricted the Scarlet Star Force to be more in tune with his will, but it lashed out, quickly draining his focus and placing more pressure on his mind. It felt less like he was slowly using up his stamina, and more like the Scarlet Star Force was

ahead," Aina suddenly

Or, more accurately, it would have been a sea had the dense sands not turned an

color, though, was slowly fading as the sandstorm kicked up, moving and displacing the sand while

you?" Leonel

scene, likely before even Aina had. She obviously also knew this. Despite the gap in their strength, the gap in their Dream Force

she pointed it out meant that there

has no Life Force

Leonel frowned.

to the body what Soul Force was to the mind, though there

everyone could make use of Life Force, so a vessel was needed to make it more manageable for the common person. The same was true of Dream Force, which was why Soul Force

clear differences. For example, Soul Force could completely replace Dream Force, but Blood Force would always just