The Martial Unity

Leonel stood silently for a moment then took a step forward.

Aina gazed toward his back with a complicated look. Why would he allow her to come here? It can't be that he really trusted her to this extent, right?

But when she thought about it, what other choice did Leonel have? She sprung this sudden mission on him without warning and even plainly said it was in the area his Paradise Island might have fallen.

Let's assume for a moment that he didn't come here? What then? What if he waited until he separated from Aina to come to this place? What would those observing him think of this?

It was obvious. Their first instinct would be to think that he was hiding something.

However, Aina's actions gave him a good opportunity. There was a level of spontaneity that made everything seem natural. He really seemed like a boy who was looking for the remains of his father.

When Aina analyzed things to this point, she found a corner and crossed her legs in meditation.

Of course, she had no idea that this was only part of the truth. There were ultimately still many ways Leonel could have avoided this outcome. He could have made her wait outside under the pretext he wanted to grieve alone, for example.

The ultimate reason he allowed her to come here was because he trusted her. It was as simple as this.

Whether that trust was due to his rosy colored glasses or if she was really worthy of it, maybe even Leonel himself didn't know.

Leonel noticed that Aina had closed her eyes and had stopped paying attention to her surroundings, but he didn't say much about it. He continued forward and eventually stopped at the pedestal furthest to the left.

He reached forward through the barrier of energy. He had thought that it would stop him, but surprisingly, it didn't. His hand passed right through as though it was nothing more than air.

Leonel picked up the unpolished ring. As expected, it had a texture similar to an uneven coat of dry paint.

After observing it for a while, he couldn't find anything special about it. He even got the vague feeling that it wasn't even in front of him despite the fact he was very much aware that it was in his hand.

Suddenly thinking of something, Leonel stopped observing with his eyes and focused all his attention on his hands. Maybe he could find something similar to the Force Art on the door handle?

he looked at it, this really was just a ring with a poor finish quality. Whoever made this thing really must have not cared for his

'Wait...'

was feeling stumped, he thought back to Montez teaching him how to use his

of my Internal Sight... Concentrate it... Imagine opening a

even if they had one on hand. To the current Earth, those who even had Internal Sight were a rare few. And, those who could control

been willing to risk it and hid the existence of his spatial bracelet, it was unlikely anyone at Royal Blue Fort would be

to succeed, he felt a BOOM resound in his

ravaged his thoughts and

backward in a

blankly at the ceiling, not even reacting to his head rebounding off the hard floors. However, if one looked closely, his eyes were completely vacant as though

ground, she shot up and

felt as though he had stepped foot into a hellish world. No, he might not even disagree if one said

clouds of black-red rolled, the low rumbling of thunder beating against his

vertical swirls of cyclones and tornadoes, touching the ground like demonic omens of

of grey and black. However, these specks of earth looked more like the world had been covered in a thin layer of dust rather than being

Leonel could see the ground begin to roll into small hills. The further into the distance he looked, these hills gradually grew in size, eventually becoming small mountains. In the end of it all, there was a mountain of black so tall that even the rumbling

this wasn't the end

Leonel's attention the most in this hellish place weren't the tornado clouds, the suffocating atmosphere, or even the impossibly tall mountains. What he couldn't take his eyes off of were the countless polearms pierced into

world. Some of them were broken, others were whole, some had dried blood caking their polearms, while yet others were

daze for a long while before he finally licked his dry lips. What

suddenly found that a mountain was weighing on

he gritted his teeth, eventually struggling forward by just a single step. However, even

to steady his wobbling knees, eventually catching hold of the shaft of a wooden

BOOM resounded in his

another world, racing

torso rippling with muscle as he

saber toothed tiger raced toward him