[Bonus chapter courtesy of Firemonster <3 4/6]
So that was what Leonel did.
He used his Ability Index to take stock of his body, understanding it to the deepest and darkest depths. Then, he used his Unnamed Lineage Factor to take control of those depths, forcing them to accept a breadth of outside power.
They became like a vessel for his strength to leap forward by leaps and bounds.
In a way, he was "devouring" his own body, its potential. Using it as a conduit to cause his basic strength to soar.
He didn't care what it was. So long as it was a Mine Core with some sort of Light, Dark, Star, or any related Force to both sides of his Northern Star Lineage Factor, he devoured it.
All he could think about as he moved was El'Rion.
He could remember the sheer magnitude of his bodily strength. A single drop of his blood could destroy a Void Beast corpse he could hardly put a dent in. His body was so sacred that it refused to bleed even when he lost an arm. His vitality was so powerful that his language alone sounded like the roars of dragons and lions, and the claps of thunder and the strikes of lightning.
That was the body he wanted. He didn't know how far from it he was, but he wanted it.
He could feel that his body was like a bottomless well. It could take more, imposing his will on more, make more his own.
Just the Unnamed Lineage Factor alone was like an insatiable black hole. When the Golden Tiger and the Death Pulse Deer were added to the mix, Leonel's body was truly akin to a brewing storm in a bottle. Lightning alone couldn't crack it.
Every time he swallowed another Mine Core, his body would thrum with excitement. His blood would move faster, his heart thump louder.
The air began to shudder and quake around him as though his body alone had gained a will that imposed itself onto the world.
More. More. More.Even after absorbing a hundred Mine Cores, he didn't feel anywhere near complete.
Even after a thousand, he felt like he could have far more.action
Even after ten thousand, it felt like the world wasn't large enough for him.
His body so far surpassed the levels he had been able to match in the past that it was hard to believe that it was him... and in the Third Dimension at that.
The deeper he went, the more he realized just what kind of insatiable beast he was creating. If even tens of thousands of Mine Cores weren't enough to satisfy him, what would happen in the future.
Right now, he could gather this amount only because he had several worlds at his beck and call and he was only aiming for the weakest mines of them all. At this level, they were so numerous that many remained hidden not because they couldn't be found, but rather because they were worthless to find.
By the time Leonel crossed the hundred thousand mark, his heartbeat had slowed even more considerably. But every time it pumped, his blood would be akin to a tsunami and the sound alone would cause ripples in the air.
The phantom images of a tiger's claws and a deer's majestic antlers projected out from him from time to time. Death Pulse and Golden Force exuded from him not due to his comprehension but almost as though he had become a Mine Core that produced them himself.
As his body grew stronger, so too did his Forces by proxy. He gained more and more access to his strength.
His power doubled, and then doubled again. He suddenly felt that this world was too small for him.lights
He crossed the 200,000 mark.
Then he crossed the 300,000 mark.
Then the 500,000 mark.
He was completely focused on devouring his next meal, his eyes shifting from orbs of black to the pupils of a roaring tiger.
His hand formed a claw, ripping into the earth and pulling up with a tug so hard that a slab of almost a hundred meters across shot into the skies.
He reached forward, beckoning the Mine Core toward him and devouring it in a single swallow.
At that moment, Leonel exuded the truest aura of a Destruction Sovereign.
The days ticked by, and he became like a maddened beast, zipping around from location to location and moving with a purpose that caused space itself to ripple.
If the Ninth Dimensional experts of the human alliance could see him now, what they would feel the most deeply was fear.
,928.
That was the number he reached before he felt that his body could no longer take anymore.
It was a perfectly even number, each half being presented to one portion of his Northern Star Lineage Factor.
He found a place and fell into a deep state of meditation. He suppressed the power within him, making it not just an external power-up or one that would dissipate with time but one that was truly his and his alone.
When every breath he took, the thumping of his heart grew more soothing, more controlled, less wild and destructive.
The rushing blood within his veins slowly became a calming stream once more.
He pulled it all in.
It was under his control, not the other way around. Much like he had gained perfect control of the Dream Asura Lineage Factor after purging the influence of the Demoness, he would do the same here. But this time, he would be suppressing the influence of the Golden Tiger and the Death Pulse Deer.
His body wasn't a place where it could rampage about as it pleased. His body would always be under his control, never under anyone else's.
His eyes opened with a flash.
BANG.
A crater of several hundred meters appeared around him. This sort of destruction was the kind that even Ninth Dimensional experts couldn't impose onto this world. However, his will trumped all.
'It's time to go to the Dream Pavilion.'