Chapter 2069: 50%
Leonel stood in silence. There were only two options before him. The first was to abandon these creations entirely, or find an easy and quick method to make use of them. The reality was that he didn't have much time. Very soon, others would realize that he had taken over Adawarth's territories, and in addition to this, they would very soon begin to probe him and likely attack him.
By Leonel's estimation, he probably only had half a day at best to figure something out, probably even less than that if he was honest. If he couldn't do something proper, then it would probably be best if he didn't do anything at all. Having a variable on the battlefield that he couldn't properly control would be more of a detriment than anything else.
The first option he thought of was to just use an exceptionally crude method. He could make these beasts carry a large amount of water toward the territories of the other Heirs and then directly flood them.
The method was the easiest and Leonel wouldn't have to do much of any preparation. However, it was an extremely weak method as well.
For one, he was facing off against Seventh Dimensional existences, not mortals. If he used this method on a Third Dimensional World, the devastation was obvious. People would die both from the water and the collapsing buildings, he probably wouldn't have to lift even a single finger. But setting aside the buildings would even be so vulnerable here, even if they were buried into kilometers of water and couldn't' breathe for hours, or were crushed by millions of kilograms of weight... Would that really kill a Seventh Dimensional genius?
The unfortunate answer was probably not. If Leonel could guarantee it would shatter their city walls, at least, it would be useful. But he wasn't sure of even that. Gold Grade cities were exceptionally sturdy at this point, and many would have built up extra defenses by not in preparation for the Heir-Grade upgrade challenge.
This did even mention the other issue of actually transporting these Rain Beasts. They moved exceptionally slowly, and they were huge targets from a distance. They would need escort and protection, and hiding them would be impossible.
If he targeted others, it still might work since they didn't know what the Rain Beasts were and they might take precautions that were inappropriate, but this would never work against Xavnik who knew exactly what they were, and more likely than not, they wouldn't work against the ignorant either.
This problem of speed and transport would likely be a problem no matter what options he chose. The Rain Beasts simply took too long to absorb water, and they were languid, low iq beasts without much intelligence. Everything about them was annoying to deal with.
It was a bit better on the ocean's waters where they held a great advantage. But now that they were on land, unless Leonel wanted to take the roundabout, the longest way through the ocean, those advantages were entirely useless. And even if he was willing to do that, not all of his enemies would be able to be sniped down from the coast.
Leonel flipped a palm and a small Rain Beast appeared. This was the same Rain Beast that he had extracted all the water from previously. After a moment, he enveloped it in his Dream World and began to scan every corner of its body.
Soon, a diagram of it appeared before him, formed of Emulation Spatial Force. He began to spin it apart in his mind, dissecting it and separating it into pieces.
"Aina," Leonel said lightly.
Aina didn't take long to appear. When it came to matters like this, Aina was definitely the far better of the two. She had a natural inclination toward understanding what she should and shouldn't put in her body, and that gave her an intimate understanding of both Force Herbs and Force wielding creatures.
"What do you think?" Leonel asked. "Is it possible to force it to take on water at a great speed? If that's possible, we could shrink them for easy transport, and then pump them with water suddenly when we're in enemy territory. It wouldn't be the most efficient thing, but it might be the best option we have."
Aina blinked. "Their bodies are weird. Logically, if they can grow from the size of a palm to kilometers in length, then their elasticity has to be great. But from what I can see, their elasticity is actually on a gradient. The more water they absorb, the more of those special proteins that they produce, increasing the elasticity of their bodies and allowing them to expand in size.
"It's probably less accurate to say that they have an ability to absorb water, and more accurate to say that water is the only thing they can absorb that's able to both trigger their protein synthesis and is likewise benign enough that it doesn't poison them in the process."
"So you mean to say that it could theoretically absorb anything."
Aina nodded. "That would be its lineage factor, its ability to expand. It's not much unlike Noah's Ability Index, but the difference is that Noah can control his own synthesis, and he also has the ability to change the structure of his body to make it sturdier and more powerful, these aren't things that this Rain Beast is capable of doing. It could be said that they have a greatly simplified version of Noah's Ability Index.
"But their capacity for expansion is much larger and requires much less energy at the same time, although it takes a great period of time for them to reach that state..."
Leonel fell into his thoughts. This was very fascinating.
"And what about this Rain Beast right now. I only just extracted all the water from its body maybe a day or so ago. How long does it take for the extra elasticity its gained to disappear."
Aina's eyes lit up with understanding as though she had just pieced something together.
"So that's why... Yes, it's able to retain some of its elasticity even now, but it's probably lost about 50% of its original capability already. If you wait another day, it will take an extremely long time for it to build it back up again."
Leonel's gaze sharpened.