Leonel's eyes flashed open.
His reaction was impossibly quick. With swift movements, he darted to the back of the shuttle, swooped Aina up, and jumped from the opposing door.
Their free fall would have led to the deaths of even evolved humans who had awakened their abilities. After all, the shuttle had a maximum elevation of 20 meters from the ground. But, Leonel was prepared.
"Aina, your rope."
Even as the fell from the skies, Leonel's gaze held a hidden sharpness. Falling from a tall height? That was what he feared the least. How many times had he done this exact same thing just on a single journey to school?
With a heavy boom, Leonel landed on a fallen building. Due to his preparedness, the fall was barely five meters.
At that time, the tentacle viciously whipped against the shuttle, crumbling an entire side of it with unstoppable momentum.
Leonel's pupils constricted.
As though a ball accepting the swing of a bat, the shuttle deformed and rocketed away at a speed almost faster than its forward momentum.
Leonel felt his teeth getting itchy. What the hell kind of power is this? If he assumed the shuttle weighed a few tons, that was still a vast underestimation. If that was taken into account with its forward impetus… Just how much strength did it take to make it deviate like that?
Luckily, the forward momentum wasn't entirely disrupted. The shuttle spun and flew into the distance, missing Leonel and Aina by a large measure.
It was only now that Leonel got a good glance at just what had attacked them.
The tentacle was massive. Just the portion Leonel could see was over 20 meters in length. The rest of it was hidden behind the building it had attacked from the back of. However, this alone was enough to make Leonel's heart quake.
A strong fishy smell came from it, marring the air with a combination of a salty sea smell and a disgusting, rotting odor. A sticky, viscous liquid dripped, hitting the ground in intermittent intervals.
Every inch of the bottom of the tentacle was filled with suction cups. They were each more than double or even triple the size of Leonel's head. They all vibrated in a rhythm that made it seem like they were breathing. And, judging by the destruction they caused to the shuttle… they definitely weren't as soft as they seemed either.
As though on cue, the shuttle landed heavily on the ground. The resulting explosion was deafening. Even the buildings beneath Leonel's feet shifted as though they might collapse into a further heap once again.
A ring of hot air blasted into Leonel, making him feel as though his skin would be burnt to a crisp at any moment.
It was then that Aina finally handed him the rope he asked for, the very same rope they had made use of to climb the castle walls in Paris. Without hesitation, he swung her to his back, tying her firmly to him with an unquestionable aura emanating from him.
At his current physical level, Leonel's body was far stronger than a horses. In that case, since a horse could carry one and even two passengers at times, how could Aina's petite figure do anything to stop him anymore? In fact, he only barely felt the weight of her family Heirloom that was now strapped to her own back.
'It hasn't launched a follow up attack in quick succession. It's likely that it still believes we're in the shuttle, which also means that its vision is either poor or obscured — let's assume the second to be safe.
'No matter what the answer, it ultimately means that it locked onto us using my Force as a guide. Which means its likely uncertain of our exact location now that I've stopped circulating [Dimensional Cleanse].'
Leonel's thoughts revolved madly. Though he had used his spirit as quickly as it formed just now, he still managed to recover a bit — about 40%. He now knew that the recovery of spirit wasn't uniform. He could recover it much quicker when he was fatigued, but the recovery became slower after 50%, and even slower above 80%.
Thankfully, this worked in his favor. As long as his spirit wasn't below 20% recovery, he wouldn't feel lethargic and his ability could work without shackles.
Leonel broke out into a run after handing the Metal Spirit to Aina to hold. At the moment, the only things in his hands were the primitive spear and the dented shield on his left arm.
The sound of breaking rumbling and collapsing buildings sounded behind Leonel. He didn't need to look back to know that whatever monster that thing was had definitely knocked the building in its way over to get to the shuttle it had knocked down from the skies.
Leonel didn't bother to look over his shoulder. Even if he did, with Aina's body and her ax in his way, he wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.
SSSKKKKRRRRREEEEEE
Leonel clenched his jaw tightly, leaping from building remnant to building remnant. He could feel the muscles in his body madly heating up, but he had no mind to pay to them. He focused entirely on increasing his efficiency, on tapping into the mind of the primitive man and controlling his body as he had controlled his.
He knew that that thing's cry was due to finding out that its prey had escaped. If he delayed by looking back at it… he would only be courting death.
'Dammit, there are other Invalids here…'
Leonel's gaze flashed, finding an Invalid with a massive upper body blocking his path forward. Its legs were far too small in proportion to its figure, making it look like a human gorilla. But, Leonel didn't have the mind to laugh because he could sense the incredible power radiating in those massive forearms and fists.
He spared a glance toward his spear and felt a pang in his heart. It looked like it would only survive a few more exchanges. He didn't want to waste them on an A-grade Invalid. To others, an A-grade Invalid already meant death. But to him, the current situation slotted them in as canon fodder.
"Use my ax." Aina suddenly said.
Leonel agreed to the suggestion without hesitation. He put the primitive spear away into his spatial bracelet, accepting the ax Aina handed to him.
A blazing aura erupted from Leonel. Though he didn't think much of it, Aina's eyes widened.
'I thought I would have to suppress it so that he could use it freely. But…'
Though the werewolf seemed to have been using Aina's ax without issue, this wasn't the case. In fact, the ax was more than ten times heavier in his hands than it was in Aina's. In addition, it wouldn't smoothly accept his Force either, or why else would Aina defeat him so easily without employing her own Force and even while being bare handed?
However, the Brazinger Clan's Heirloom didn't resist Leonel in the slightest.
There were only two explanations. Either it trusted Leonel unconditionally or it had accepted him as its inheritor just like it had Aina. The second could be thrown out, which meant that it was more definitely the former.
And since that was the case, there was only one explanation: it meant that she trusted him unconditionally.
Aina couldn't help but blush when her thoughts reached this point.
The fibers of Leonel's muscles vibrated as one. His expression remained calm, almost cold. He was completely unlike the primitive man who loved battle. To Leonel, there was nothing but objective calculation.
The A-grade Invalid roared, wildly beating its chest before raising its fists high in the air and smashing toward Leonel.
Leonel didn't even blink.
As though a carbon copy of the primitive man, his hips flexed, his thighs bulged, and his toes seemed as though they might rip out from his treasure shoes at any moment. He held onto the ax with both hands, exerting all his might.
BANG!
A small circle of air was left where Leonel's feet were last. He shot forward explosively, appearing behind the A-grade Invalid in less than the blink of an eye.
His breathing was already ragged as though that move had taken everything out of him, but the head of the Invalid flew into the air, leaving its roar swaying in the wind.
Leonel didn't even look back. He broke out into a sprint. As long as he could leave this jungle of buildings, he could pull out his bike. By then, his speed would increase by 50% and he would have a better chance at escaping the range of that ridiculous beast.
But it seemed that nothing in his life would go the easy way.
SSSKKKKKRRRRREEEEEEEEE
BANG! BANG!
Leonel didn't turn back, but he could sense what happened with his Internal Sight.
A tentacle stretched into the skies and whipped downward toward the ground.
Its suction cups bulged and became like dozens of obscenely powerful springs. They rebounded off the ground, launching the creature into the air.
The sky seemed to go dark. A massive shadow covered the land, making Leonel feel as though the world had descended into darkness.
Finally, he couldn't hold back anymore and looked back. Without Aina's ax in the way, his field of vision was much wider. And, what he saw sent shivers down his spine.
It was massive. An enormous eight tentacled beast almost 50 meters from one tip of a tentacle to another.
And… it was descending from the skies and falling down toward him.