Chapter 630 - Returning To The Neutral Zone
While Darlene was feeling dejected over her concerns for a possible future where she was left behind and abandoned, a sudden hand gently rested on her head, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Is there something you need, Leon?" Darlene asked with a startled look before doing her best to fix her expression.
Leon already had his hands full of problems to deal with. She could not bring herself to be selfish and ask Leon for his help in making her stronger.
"You've been looking a bit down lately. Why don't you tell me what's the matter?" Leon said while giving Darlene's head a gentle rub.
"Have I?" Darlene hid her emotion with a bright smile before adding, "Hubby is just imagining things. You don't need to mind and just do what you need to do."
"My dear, it's fine to be a bit more selfish, you know?" Leon responded, having seen through her fake smile.
He pulled Darlene up with both hands before he said, "Come with me. I will take you to an interesting place."
"Miss Soft Feather, I will need to trouble you to inform the others not to worry about me if they ask where I went. Tell them to focus on cultivation or help out the Desolate Crow Clan while I am absent," Leon spoke to Soft Feather shortly after.
Soft Feather gazed at Leon hovering in front of her with Darlene in his arms before she curiously asked, "Where are you going?"
In fact, Darlene wanted to ask the same thing, but she decided to keep quiet after Soft Feather was the first to raise the question.
"To the skies, in a place that will be perfect for Darlene to cultivate," Leon casually answered.
Once Darlene heard this, she immediately looked at Leon with a dumb yet cute look of surprise.
"What?" Leon smiled while pinching her small nose and asked, "You didn't think I would know that you were stressing over your own low cultivation because you couldn't do anything to help me?"
As it turns out, Leon had been paying attention to her as well. She just did not realize it. Darlene quickly became emotional.
The kinder Leon was to her, the guiltier she felt at the same time. She wanted to tell him about Chief Valencia's secret task for her to monitor him.
However, she was also afraid that Leon might not want her anymore after finding out about it and abandon her.
"I..."
Darlene found it difficult to speak as she felt choking on her own words.
Little did she know that her thinking was a little naive and the fact that Leon already knew but chose not to say anything.
"Alright, save your words for later. It won't be too late to be surprised after I bring you to the place beyond the normal skies."
"Mmm." Darlene nodded.
She lowered her head and rested on Leon's chest quietly while she tightened her arms around him.
"Well? Can you do this for me, Miss Soft Feather?"
"Alright, alright. You can leave already."
After Soft Feather shooed like Leon was bothering her, he soared into the sky with Darlene.
Swoosh~!
Leon rose quickly, and within moments, he was already thousands of feet in the sky. He continued ascending with increasing speed.
Soon, they broke through the first layer of the sky...
Then comes the second layer and third layer...
Sometime later, Leon reached the end of the third sky layer, the mesosphere.
Darlene knew about the sky suppression force and found it weird that Leon could take her so high in the sky without sensing a shred of it.
At the same time, the discovery shocked her, and the view made her breathless. When would she be able to fly to such a high point on her own?
"We are reaching the end of the third sky layer. There'll be an incredibly powerful barrier obstructing entry into the fourth sky layer, but you do not have to worry with me around."
Shortly after Leon spoke confidently, he raised one hand and summoned the power of the Nihility Law to form a protective barrier around them.
Plop!
The two shortly squeezed into the fourth sky layer, the weightless, zero-gravity neutral zone.
"Whaa—!?"
Darlene quickly exclaimed, feeling her body become light and floated away from Leon's body as he released her.
She reached her hand in a panic but failed to grab hold of Leon, causing her to cry, "Hubby, help me!"
"Relax, this place is a zero-gravity zone. You won't fall here. Try and move around on your own," Leon explained with a smile.
After the initial scare, Darlene quickly calmed down before she threw Leon a dirty look.
"You're too mean! You should have warned me!" Darlene pouted.
"Hahaha, I'm sorry," Leon chuckled in apology before saying, "I wanted to give you a surprise."
"You're not sorry at all!" Darlene grumbled while looking at Leon's grinning expression before she gasped at a sudden discovery.
"Huh? I heard the outer heaven was a vacuum-like empty space with nothing, a complete void of space. How we still breathe and move like this?"
As Darlene raised her questions with doubt, she waved her arms and legs furiously to paddle through the air like she was swimming in water.
For someone with zero flying ability, her action appeared quite comical and cute in Leon's eyes as his lips curved up into a smile.
He could see that Darlene was fascinated by the experience as she seemed to have forgotten the previous thoughts that made her despondent and dejected.
"Like I said, this is the fourth sky layer, a zero-gravity zone. There is still an atmosphere. It's just that some repelling and counteracting force has negated all the gravity in this region of space," Leon explained patiently while watching Darlene play and explore the neutral zone.
"This place is fun! Is this what freedom feels like?" Darlene muttered before she doggy-paddled her way back to Leon's side.
Shortly after, she grabbed hold of the corners of Leon's clothes before pulling herself into his embrace.
"As I thought, this place is still better," Darlene muttered in Leon's arms, making Leon want to pull her cheeks for being too cute.
Shortly after, he shook his head and asked with a slight chuckle, "Aren't you forgetting something important?"
"Something important? Oh...!"
Darlene pondered for a short moment before she quickly felt the abundant spatial element in the region and exclaimed, "This place is so rich in spatial elements!"
"Of course, there is. This is the sky layer closest to outer space after the exosphere layer, silly." Leon smiled and said, "Make use of this chance to cultivate and refine as much Spatial Energy as you can."
"Mm, mm! Thank you, hubby! You're the best!" Darlene repeatedly nodded with excitement before positioning herself.
Once she found the correct meditative position, she closed her eyes and began cultivating immediately.
It did not take long before a stir appeared in the atmosphere, transforming into a powerful suction force that pulled in all the spatial elements in Darlene's surroundings like she was a ravenous black hole.
The tyranny of Darlene's Void Soul Constitution was put on display, showcasing her superior absorption and refining ability that ordinary cultivators can only look at with envy.
'As I thought, Darlene's cultivation speed will be frightening—given the condition that there were enough spatial elements for her to absorb,' Leon quietly observed Darlene.
Shortly after, his brows furrowed slightly.
'It'll be easier for her to cultivate without the hindrance of the Wrathful Demonic Energies in the surroundings,' Leon thought.
He raised one hand and began pulling in the surrounding Wrathful Demonic Energy hidden in the atmosphere before dumping everything into the Black Vortex for refinement.
'I can never have too much Demonic Energy if I want to keep producing Artificial Demon Cores for my rune-engraved creations—'
Leon suddenly felt a pair of eyes spying on him from behind before he quickly turned around swiftly to check.
"Who?!" he shouted.
His strong voice echoed into the distance, causing the skies to reverberate slightly, and even Darlene was roused awake from her concentrated cultivation state.
Leon searched the distant skies with his sweeping gaze, but he failed to discover anything except the silent night.
'Was it my imagination?' Leon frowned.
"Is something wrong, hubby?" Darlene asked with a cautious look, afraid of annoying Leon. The sudden shout had startled her greatly.
A moment passed before Leon shook his head and looked back at Darlene apologetically, "Sorry for disturbing your cultivation, my dear. I sensed someone spying on us just now, but I can't find anyone."
"Might have been my imagination," is what he said.
However, Leon did not really believe it was. He trusted his instincts quite well. Unfortunately, he could not find anything, so he can only put it off as such for the time being.
"If you think you felt someone spying on you, then I think someone really was spying on you," Darlene also chose to believe in Leon's feelings before she asked, "Will it become a problem if we don't find out who is spying on us?"
"Whether it's a problem or not, just let me worry about it." Leon poked Darlene's nose with a smile before saying, "Go back to cultivating. You only need to focus on getting stronger for now."
"Mm… alright."
Darlene nodded solemnly. Only when she is stronger can she share Leon's burden.
Shortly after Darlene resumed cultivation with her eyes closed, Leon took another glance in the direction of the spying gaze that he had sensed earlier and narrowed his eyes.
'Wonder who it could be?' Leon pondered.
He could only think of two possibilities why he could not locate the spy.
One, the person had impressive stealth abilities beyond his means to detect, or two, the person was spying from an inexplicably long distance beyond his sight.
Either way, it did not seem like Leon was their opponent.