Chapter 1691: Freedom

Leonel easily immersed himself in the carnage. He didn't care for time or stamina, he simply pressed forward. Every time his spear shot out, another would die.

However, after several hours, he realized that what he was doing was inappropriate. This trial was one that he was flying by, true enough, but he wasn't getting what he needed to get out of it, and that was because of the one thing this trial couldn't seal: his Ability Index.

This was the problem that Leonel had always had. He could never fully rely on his Spear Domain Lineage Factor because his brain was too active and his Ability Index played too large of a role in his combat prowess. In fact, this was the reason the Bow Domain Lineage Factor seemed so much more powerful to him: it synergized with his Ability Index while the Spear Domain Lineage Factor did not. Or, more accurately, Leonel didn't know how to allow it to synergize properly because he knew too little about the Lineage Factor, which was why he came here in the first place.

Here, he found himself calculating exactly where to attack, who to attack first, and how to attack to ensure that he could deal with all of the enemies in his range the most effectively. While he was under a great disadvantage battling so many enemies at once, they were at a disadvantage because only so many of them could attack him at once given his size in proportion to their army. Taking advantage of that, with his Ability Index, it was far easier than it would be for most to deal with this situation.

But this was likewise holding him back.

Leonel inwardly shook his head. He had made a small breakthrough in this regard when he was battling Myghell for the first time.

What had he decided on back then?

Whenever he battled, he always brought out his trump cards one by one, building up to revealing his true strength so that he had more cards in his hands to catch his enemy off guard with. But when he took this approach, it also stifled his own potential. That approach to battling lacked confidence, it assumed inferiority, and it necessitated trickery over strength.

It was one thing to battle with logic instead of instinct, but the way that he did it was a problem.

Even after that breakthrough, Leonel still sunk back into his usual habits. After all, changing who a person was, even for him, was too difficult. He wasn't as much of a machine as he thought he was, he too had his own tendencies, likes and loves.

What was the key to fusing his logic and instinct? It was freedom, true freedom.

What held him back all this time was his restraint. His logic often became a burden rather than a help to him.

When he first stepped into the Dimensional Verse, he found it difficult to kill because he could logically deduce the value of a life.

When he lost Aina it was his logic that cut her off for good and almost ended in him losing her forever.

When he battled, it was his logic that held back his truest potential, only eking out bits and pieces of his strength at a time so that he'd always have something in reserve to pull out and catch an enemy off guard with.

But what he hadn't noticed was that this sort of mentality had seeped into the way he did everything.

He still hadn't fully reconnected with Aina. He subconsciously limited his own improvement because he never really pushed himself to the fullest extent to begin with. He even restricted his advancements and because of the so-called boredom this brought about.

Leonel didn't believe that his logic was truly a net negative, but it most definitely wasn't a net positive, forcing him to stay stagnant and unmoving. It was like an underlying anchor pulling him down.

Sometimes there just wasn't a need to care so much. It was fine to be logical, but if it was also stunting your progress, how logical would that be? Sometimes it was better to be free, to be unrestrained, to let loose a bit.

Leonel's spear whistled through the air, his strikes becoming less structured, and his stamina draining much faster, all while the smile on his face seemed much broader.

He wanted to find it. He had already touched the surface, but he needed to dig deeper, to find where that balance was. Between his instinct and his logic, where was the dividing line that would allow them to both shine the most optimally?

In his fight with Myghell, just touching the surface of this had allowed Leonel's Spear Force to undergo a qualitative change, giving him a crown and a bright gold Spear Force.

His spear was relentless as his breathing became heavier and his sweat fell like a torrential rain.

Those watching might think that he was insane. His fighting style until now had been so reserved, so perfect, so unblemished, but in the blink of an eye he had become so wild and unrestrained.

He immediately suffered for it.

His body, which hadn't suffered even a single wound, began to split and bleed. Although his killing speed had skyrocketed, so had his stamina consumption. On top of that, the mistakes he made forced him into more and more dangerous situations he had no choice but to brute force his way out of.

And yet, his grin only seemed to get wilder.

Leonel could still remember the first time he stepped onto a battlefield without the guilt of human lives looming over his head... it was that day in the Camelot Zone, faced with an army of demons he didn't care to treat like he had humans...

For the first time, he was free, so light, so happy. His blood had boiled, his eyes had lit up, and his Force flowed more smoothly than it ever had before.

And now, he could feel as though chains hidden deep within his body were loosening one after the other, the whispers of his Spear Domain Lineage Factor becoming like roars in his skull.