Chapter 2831: Protect Me

Leonel's gaze narrowed as he took a stabilizing step backward. His expression remained indifferent, as though he hadn't registered Sashae's words at all. Taking a moment, he focused his senses on the inside of his body, trying to understand what was happening. Then it clicked.

After he realized the danger his Northern Star Lineage Factors posed, Leonel had changed his approach to using them. From abilities that were largely soul based, he changed them to pure physical abilities.

It was thanks to this that he was able to raise the standard of his being to Demi-God so quickly. Without it, his evolution might have not happened at all.

Through his process, he had gotten Aina's help. His own methods were too crude, so she created a line of pills that could help to systematically change his body and increase the power of its foundation.

He still hadn't completed this process yet, but he was already at the standard of a Demi-God. So it could be said that there was still quite some room for improvement in the future.

However, this left an obvious problem he hadn't considered.

Wasn't making the Northern Star Lineage Factor more in line with his body than his soul make him more beast than human? And if that was the case, then didn't that mean that the Wise Tablets could be used to suppress him much the same way he used them to suppress the beasts in the Challenge Sequence?

All of this was beside the point. Because even in comparison to a suppression like this, wasn't the fact this woman had a Golden Tablet the most pressing matter here?

He had suspected something from the moment he heard the name Wise Sea Order. Because he was using translation through his Dream Force, it was a sequence of words that hit much harder. The only way it could be translated like that in his mind was if the connection between the two was incredibly strong.

But he still didn't expect a Golden Tablet.

He had already gotten his own Silver Tablet through mysterious means. Golden Tablets were incredibly rare as only one Life Tablet existed for each stream.

The idea that a random race in an incomplete world could have one...

But then again, hadn't his own Silver Tablet appeared randomly? He still didn't know how it had found its way into that zone.

Even now, Leonel had no idea that Nilrem had purposely implanted the Silver Tablet into the Valiant Heart Zone to teach Leonel the value of life.

If not for Nilrem, Leonel would have never got a second chance to revive Goggles and the others. In which case, he would have never felt the separation between him and a man he once called a close friend, or the weight of Goggles' betrayal.

But even being ignorant of all this, Leonel still felt that it was inconceivable. That was because his own universe at least had remnants of the Luxnix and Fawkes, former pillars of the Human Race. It had even been attacked by a true Envoy of Destruction.

Did this world have any of that?

Leonel still knew too little to confirm, but everything he knew told him that this was a firm no.

Stabilizing his footing, Leonel stood firmly.

Sashae's gaze flickered and her face suddenly considerably paled.

Even Leonel could only use the Life Tablet of all things to suppress the other beasts for a few seconds back during the Challenge Sequence. The more powerful they were, the more aggressive the cost to his Dream Force was.

But here, there were several factors to take into account.

First, this wasn't the Dream World. Meaning, manifesting Dream Force and forcing it to act was far more difficult. In the Dream World, the location the Challenge Sequence took place in, Leonel could even create weapons and effect change in the environment from his Dream Force.

However, out here, he could only rely on his Emulation Spatial Force to do that. Without the environment of the Dream World, Dream Force wasn't nearly so tangible.

Second, who did Sashae think she was, exactly? She gave Leonel a bit of pressure, but that was because he was suppressed.

There were certainly some secrets to the Sea Gods that made him curious, but it wasn't yet to the point he thought of them as the Gods they deemed themselves as.

Leonel's Dream Force was in the Higher Life State, and he was a Sovereign on top of that. It might as well have been a Quasi Creation State Force as a result in the eyes of most.

She was in the Seventh Dimension, her entire life had been spent in an Incomplete World, who was she to try to suppress him with a Tablet?

Leonel didn't even need to expose one of his own tablets at all, while Sashae's mistake had already resulted in her Dream Force being drained to the final drop.

In this state, her mind was woozy and she couldn't even stand up straight, let alone battle.

This wasn't even the worst part. She had speculations, but she had no proof.

Even if an Envoy managed to find some roundabout method of taking a human form, how would they possibly be as skillful with a weapon as Leonel was?

Weapon Forces weren't Forces that beasts could wield.

On its face, her conclusion was ridiculous.

However, Leonel didn't make fun of her for it. Now, he was certain that this was the decisive woman behind the actions of the Sea Gods.

And as expected, just as he was about to make a move to end this battle after his body was wrestled back into his control, Sashae made yet another decisive decision.

"RETREAT!"

She turned to Talon. "Protect me."

The sudden command took the Sea Gods off guard, but Leonel realized why she made this choice.

This could be considered to be a complete loss.

However, would Leonel let them leave so easily?

His halberd trembled and the dragons in the sky roared once more.