Chapter 550: Peeling

After confirming his vision, Leonel immediately got to work. He shuffled around the city like a madman, seemingly running around without aim or purpose.

'This could work... No, that might ruin the nodes at that place... but if I...'

Leonel's gaze glowed. Despite the fact he was quickly growing beaten and haggard, his vision only seemed to become clearer.

The truth was that Leonel's current body was still in a pretty terrible state, having not quite recovered from going all out just a few days ago. But, at this point, he didn't mind, he lost himself in a world of Force Arts, his mind functioning on a different plane.

Leonel had many complicated feelings about Lionel, but what he couldn't deny was the fact that Lionel had opened up an all new door toward improvement for him. What Lionel gave him wasn't as simple as a normal breakthrough, but rather a new way of viewing the world.

After shrugging these shackles off, breaking into the peak of the Four Seasons Realm was just the very tip of the iceberg.

Leonel jumped into and out of his Dream World, simulating the changes he wanted to make before quickly testing them out in the new world.

Odd swirls of Force seemed to manifest around White City, catching those with sharp enough senses off guard. But, it was hard for them to tell exactly what was going on.

From within the City Lord Mansion, Aina watched as Leonel ran around, her smile tinged with a touch of worry.

'He's always like this...'

Aina shook her head, not bothering to try to get Leonel to stop. She knew that it would be useless even if the words came from her. Though it seemed like Leonel hung on her every word, maybe Aina was the one most aware of the fact that Leonel was too good at drawing a line between his emotions and what he felt he had to do. He was quite the stubborn man in that way.

Taking a deep breath, Aina pulled out her great sword, brandishing it. Though much of the City Lord Mansion's military fields had been taken up by new residences, there was still ample room for Aina to take advantage of.

She slowly swung her sword, her muscles twitching beneath the strain as she slowed her swing to a crawl.

Aina had picked up the sword when she felt her comprehension of the battle ax had reached a bottleneck. Others might feel that this was a foolish thing to do, but Aina always trusted her instincts. When it came to the proper way for her to train herself, she was the very best at it.

She felt that there were secrets in the sword that could bring her comprehension of the ax to an all new level, so she began to diligently train in it.

During her battle with Anared, that feeling she had grew even stronger. Though she was certain that Anared held back, he was still a master of the sword. His every action was infused with the air of a swordmaster. If Anared knew that his actions would help her break down a final barrier that had been holding her back... who knew how he would react?

'This is the feeling...'

Aina took a deep breath, her chest heaving in slow rhythms.

At that moment, something miraculous occurred. Despite the fact her sword swing remained incomparably slow, the blade left an afterimage in the air as though leaving a permanent stain of its presence in the wind.

The image shifted and slowed, waving about like illusions.

'That's it...'

Aina ingrained the twitch of every one of her muscle fibers onto her mind. Beads of sweat fell down her delicate brow, following the slope of her slender neck.

Half way down, Aina threw her sword to the side as though it was trash. At that moment, she felt that she no longer needed it. Until the next time her ability spoke to her, she wouldn't need any other weapon.

Aina grasped out into empty air, causing her odd curved package to snap open. With a surge, a beautiful ax of golden-red shot into her hand.

"Ha!"

Aina swung down with a forcefulness.

At that moment, her aura completely changed. For those instances of time, her body exuded a mystique that demanded absolute obedience. The faint shadow of a woman more than half a foot taller than her seemed to envelop her body, causing the Forces in the air to sing.

A deep gash suddenly stretched out before Aina, even without her ax having completed its swing. Afterimages of golden-red tore through the wind, leaving a whistling resonance in their wake.

Aina's arms came to a grinding halt, a final bead of sweat falling from the tip of her nose to the ground below.

"Completion..." She said softly.

If others knew that Aina had reached the completion stage of the Four Seasons Realm they would be shocked.

Of course, her completion stage was only for the ax while Leonel's was on a level that far transcended that. But, it was a feat that would shock an awe others to no end, regardless.

Aina smiled. 'My training is actually faster now...'

Aina felt that she had underestimated the value of a break on the mind. She had thought it would take her several more months to reach this stage, yet it had only taken a few more days. Now, she felt much more confident about entering Valiant Heart Mountain's Stage.

After basking in her own success, Aina's next instinct was to tell Leonel the good news. She didn't know why she had the compulsion, but after she opened up to Leonel, she felt the weirdest joy even telling him the littlest things, even though the tradeoff was learning that he was a milk-first sociopath.

However, just when Aina wanted to do so, she felt another shift in the Force surrounding the City.

This change was particularly different from the previous ones. Whereas the former surges originated from within the City, this seemed to come from outside of it.

"... What?"

Aina was shocked.

"Why does my body feel so sluggish?"

...

On a corner of Earth, dead bodies laid strewn about. Their blood pooled and boiled, bubbling forth like a death-laced stew.

To the side of this large pool, a familiar man stood, a placid smile on his face. If Aina had been there, it would have been no trouble to pick out that this man was other than the Puppet Master.

But, what was maybe more sinister were the bodies and limbs floating within the bubbling concoction.

At that moment, a head with a peeling layer of skin floated to the top. On its face, a look of horror and regret was forever etched.

This was the face of former Vice Commander Joseph's younger brother, Damian.