Leonel didn't respond to the envoy's words. He simply stood there silently, his expression not giving way to any emotion. It was as though he didn't even notice that there was soone before him.
At this mont, they were in the dead of winter. Heavy snow fell all around, coating the ground, the trees, and sprinkling through the air as though to coat the whole world in white.
Still, the cold didn't seem to bother either of the two n as they faced off in an endless snowy plain. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to seek reprieve, nowhere to run…
It was then that both n suddenly moved.
Leonel's palm flipped over, revealing a four ter long, flexible spear. Aside from his Quasi Silver spear, this one was quickly becoming on of his favorites. The range of flexibility and freedom it gave him made his battle style reach an impossible level of fluidity.
At the sa mont, the envoy didn't bother to stay on his horse. He had read all the reports about Leonel. This was a man who never rode a horse, yet had felled more Titled Knights than anyone else in history. If there was anyone confident in battling a man and a steed together, it was Leonel.
In that case, why allow him the chance to do what he was familiar with?
His palm flipped over to reveal an outrageous, monstrosity of a saber.
Its blade was an obscene three ters long alone. It had a width of almost two feet and a curve that almost made it look like a scythe as opposed to a saber. Yet, it had a thickness as thin as two or three strands of hair.
When the saber was swung, it felt like the wind itself was being split in two. If swung at the perfect angle, the blade was so thin that it was almost impossible to spot. And, whether by coincidence or not, this envoy seed capable of finding this perfect angle with ease.
A streak of gold and one of black tore through the snowy plain, their clash causing a whirlwind of violent explosions to swirl around them.
Despite the size of their weapons, the two n seed to exchange hundreds of blows in a single breath. And, as though that wasn't enough, their speed only seed to get faster and faster.
Gold lights enveloped Leonel's body, massive white gold wings spanning ten ters two his left and right blooming from his back.
Ancient patterns of gold began to outline each individual feather. It felt that with each passing mont, the pair beca less illusory and more corporeal as though Leonel was birthing true wings from nothing more than light.
One would have thought that Light Elental Force would be difficult to gather in the depths of the night like this, yet Leonel seed completely unaffected.
These two years, just because he had been stuck here, didn't an that he was stagnant.
With a single flap, he retreated more than a hundred ters in a single step.
His feet stamped the ground, causing a tsunami of snow to rise into the air. The wall of white rose up more than 10 ters and was at least 20 across. Yet, what was most shocking about it all was that this was simply the result of the earth beneath heeding Leonel's call.
Leonel roared, his chest expanding as bronze runes surged over his body. The robes he wore shattered beneath the surge of Force, unable to handle it.
Beneath the shimring white gold of his massive wings, Leonel's bronze runes stood out all the more. Under the night sky, he looked no different from a Roman God descended from the skies above, his halo hanging above his head.
The massive slab of stone that Leonel had lifted from the ground shattered into tens of pieces, rising into the air to form several stones of over a ter in diater each.
"[Armageddon]."
In that instant, the stones erupted with flas.
In the skies, as though tens of miniature suns had appeared, they raged with a fiery light, their surfaces beginning to lt in a near instant.
The envoy's pupils constricted. What kind of attack was this? Sothing of this caliber could level an entire city!
The battle hadn't reached such a peak yet. He couldn't understand why Leonel had dared to co to fight him like this in the first place, especially after he had traveled so far away from their encampnt. But now, it really seed like he wanted to kill him.
The envoy roared, raising his saber into the skies.
A violent black energy coiled around him, forming countless black chains from seemingly thin air.
The ground around him suddenly exploded, the expanse of snow being washed away beneath his rippling might.
His robes fluttered in the raging wind, his eyes trained on the teors descending toward him.
"HA!"
The envoy stomped his feet.
In that instant, the earth seed to respond to his call. In one mont, there was nothing. But, in the imdiate next, sparkling spikes of black shot out from the ground, impaling the descending teors and causing explosions that rocked throughout the night.
Leonel's eyes narrowed. Those pillars were definitely not normal. In fact, he could faintly tell that they stood on a level nearing his Scarlet Star Force.
Sohow, the spikes seed to be both made out of small dust particles, yet remained solid at the sa ti. Each of these little particles radiated out with a faint black light that made it look as though it was sparkling beneath the high moon.
It was as though the envoy was controlling iron shavings and darkness to form them…
If the envoy had heard Leonel's thoughts, he would have been shocked. Just a short observation, yet he was already so close to the truth.
However, no matter what the envoy did, Leonel wasn't shaken. To use a Force on this level at this envoy's strength was akin to painting oneself into a corner. There was a reason Leonel didn't use his Scarlet Star Force so casually.
As expected, the envoy was truly gasping for breath. He hadn't thought that he would be forced to use such an ability, but Leonel's combination attack had strength beyond his wildest imagination. If he had used normal earth to counter, those teors would have blasted through with ease.
He couldn't understand how Leonel could pull earth capable of withstanding such heat from the ground so casually. Of course, what he didn't know was that Leonel's Earth Elental Force was Variant just like his.
However, this didn't an that the envoy was finished, he gripped his saber.
Since the pillars had already been ford, manipulating them was much easier.
The chains that floated around his body constricted as Leonel's wings flapped one more ti.
He appeared ten ters before the envoy.
In that mont, the latter was prepared to turn the earthen spikes of shimring black light toward Leonel. But, he stopped when it seed that Leonel had no intention of attacking. In fact, Leonel stood there unmoving, his eyes calmly observing the black chains wrapping the envoy.
"Earth Elental Force. Dark Elental Force. Star Elental Force…"
The envoy froze when he heard this.
"Chaotic Particle Force. Number one in Earth Elental Forces, top three in Dark Elental Forces, top ten in Star Elental Forces." Leonel concluded. "… Your talent is quite high for an envoy, don't you think?"
The envoy's eyes narrowed as he gazed toward Leonel.
"…You were testing ?"
"I guessed that you were an Oryx a long ti ago." Leonel said plainly.
"But…"
"But your cloak blocks senses? But you don't look or sll like an Oryx?"
The envoy didn't say a word, but clearly this was what he ant as well. This shouldn't have been possible.
Leonel didn't explain himself either, at least not with words. He had seen a long lineup of possible evolution paths for the Oryx in that hall, so he knew well that a stature like the one this young man had wasn't impossible.
As for how he had known? It was just a guess.
This envoy hadn't tried very hard to convince them to change their minds and also didn't have the tact one would expect the representation of a nation to have.
"So why don't you tell the true purpose you had for coming?" Leonel responded.
The envoy remained silent for a long while before he finally removed his cloak. What was beneath made Leonel raise an eyebrow.
It was a young man with flowing white hair and handso, delicate features that would make any woman and so n swoon. His skin was quite tanned, giving him an excellent, exotic sort of contrast and his eyes were the very sa bright white his hair was.
Growing from this young man's forehead were two branching horns that were a very pure shade of white, yet they didn't seem to detract from his beauty at all, even the vertical slit between his brows was completely unable to do so.
Aside from these clearly Oryx-like features, the young man was strikingly human. If Leonel didn't know better, he would think that this young man was so sort of demon prince risen from hell. And maybe, in so ways, he was.
"This is just my natural state. My battle state, however, is much different..."
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