Chapter 993: Range
The swordfish all seemed to be identical. Even their Beast Crystals were all the same. It made Leonel feel somewhat speechless. How was this possible?
Logically, abilities should be random. He had already found it weird that all the swordfish seemed to be using the same ability but he had accepted it in the midst of battle for two reasons. The first was obvious, he simply didn't have the heart to mind such things while his life was on the line. But, the second reason was more satisfying, or at least he thought so.
Since humans could have Lineage Factors, why couldn't beasts? Leonel wasn't certain of this before, but he thought that the appearance of these swordfish proved that this was possible. After all, he couldn't think of any other reason why all of these creatures would have the same ability if not for this.
The truth of the matter was that being born on or near the water had no bearing on what kind of ability an ocean beast was born with just the same way being born near the coast had nothing to do with what Leonel's ability became.
Even the crocodile who Leonel thought had a water ability turned out to have something completely different. The black swan had a darkness related ability. The beaver had a physical boost ability… So on and so forth. None of it was related to water despite the fact many of them were fresh or salt water beasts.
The same should be true of the swordfish and yet all their Beast Crystals were identical. Not only were the identical, but they had the same size, same roundness, and were even located in the same part of their body. With what Leonel knew about the Dimensional Verse, this was ridiculous.
There was a reason his feat of killing those colossal squids was so impressive. The location of a beast's Crystal varied and this variation only grew as these beasts grew in size. Though their Beast Crystals did often grow in size along with them, it wasn't to scale, often resulting in one having to find a needle in a haystack.
These fish were quite small compared to their counterparts, but each swordfish was still between one and two meters long. After Leonel realized the oddity, he paid closer attention only to find that the eerie similarities only seemed to continue.
All of the swordfish were exactly 1.75 meters long. All of them had Beast Crystals that deviated 0.23 centimeters to the left of their skulls. They all had the same number of scales, the same length of sword blade, the same exact shade of color…
'Were they cloned? What the hell?'
Leonel found it all to be incredulous, and for good reason. If someone had the ability to clone this many Fifth Dimensional beasts, just what kind of power could they wield?
It might have looked easy for Leonel to deal with the swordfish he had, but it had to be remember… That he was Leonel! Not just anyone could do what he had done.
Quite frankly, Leonel had gotten lucky. The larger the beast, the more powerful they seemed to be. Though Leonel didn't know what this meant for Little Blackstar, this was what he had experienced at least on this battlefield.
If instead of cloning these small swordfish it was instead something far more dangerous than this… No, this wasn't even necessary, just these school of swordfish could probably blast a path through the coast.
Leonel realized then that this creature had more power in its hands than it seemed, it just couldn't be bothered to use it against the Invalids and preferred to force the humans to deal with it. Leoenl was truly at a loss for how he should be reacting to this.
'These Beast Crystals…' ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ꜰʀᴇᴇwᴇʙɴovᴇʟ.coᴍ.
In the end, Leonel had collected as many as 238 of them. All of them still identical. However, he had already accepted this. What he was more intrigued by was the Force swirling about them.
'This Blade Force… It's so pure, so controlled, but it still feels fundamentally different from Spear Force and it also feels fundamentally different from Sword Force as well…'
Leonel's heart shuddered and he felt like he had suddenly been enlightened by something. He stared at the Beast Crystals so intently it felt like he might bore a hole into them, the Golden Spear on his forehead becoming brighter and brighter.
Leonel had always been wondering what was so special about Spear Force. As far as he was aware, it just sharpened his blade. But, why was there a distinction between it and other blade weapon forces then? Why not just call them all Blade Force?
Leonel stretched out two fingers and pierced at empty air, causing a dull SHING sound to resound.
He did it again. This time, the sound was even sharper. It was as though to blades were running across each other.
He repeated the action for a third time. This time, the Force seemed to vanish into the void. But, in the next moment, the ocean was split into two, forming a trench even deeper than the one caused by the crocodile's breath.
When Leonel was observing the swordfish's Beast Crystal, he realized that they all seemed to act in a similar and predictable pattern. Blade Force wanted to hack at and sever everything. It was quite violent. And yet, within the Beast Crystal, it actually became something that Leonel could see a pattern in.
The moment Leonel saw this, he reframed the way he viewed his Spear Force. Rather than focusing on what confused him about it, he focused on what he could put into a designated pattern… What was predictable about Spear Force?
Leonel thought the answer was quite simple: Range.
If there was one defining characteristic that separated Spear Force from Blade and Sword Force, it was that singular word.
Leonel had only barely latched onto the idea when he suddenly felt that there was nowhere his Spear Force couldn't reach so long as he willed it. And yet, he wouldn't need to rely on Spatial Force.
Leonel pierced his fingers out again.
Over half a kilometer away, the head of an approaching colossal squid imploded from the inside out.
Leonel had no idea just the Realm he had stepped into. He almost forgot about the danger looming overhead as the Quasi Silver spear in his hands began to tremble madly as though to roar out its happiness.