Dimensional Descent

Leonel began to quickly make good on what he had missed out on.

The gems were most likely to be found in demons with spatial affinities. This made them very difficult to catch and lock down, and since they were quite rare, just finding them was a great hassle.

Leonel had no reason to hunt down such demons previously because he didn't know anyone with such a higher spatial affinity that would also be in need of such demon carcasses aside from maybe that genius of Earth, Karolus.

He had been potentially thinking of nailing down some with spatial affinities later on if he had the time remaining, but it hadn't been an absolute top priority until this moment. Now, he would go all out against them. As for their escaping abilities, he wasn't worried.

Leonel began to quickly cut down one after another, quickly racking them up.

Defeating a Tier 9 higher Fiend Class demon was simply impossible, a Tier 9 middle Fiend Class one was still too difficult. However, a hundred Tier 9 lower Fiend Class demons was something that he could just barely handle.

The first two or three were actually exceptionally difficult. At Tier 9, the gap was so large that even Leonel had trouble making it up. He had to use a series of tricks and ambushes to get his way.

However, as he grew accustomed to the kind of spatial affinities these demons had, he began to see patterns and it made deploying his Lotus Domains even faster.

As Leonel added more and more Spatial Forces to his repertoire of lotuses, it became easier to dissect and calculate new lotus formations for Spatial Forces that he didn't recognize. At the same time, he became even more adept at using the Time Forces that they generated on the other end.

There came a point where Leonel grew confident that so long as his enemy used Spatial Forces, he could one shot them.

Of course, the caveat was that they had to use Force at a level at this Lotus Domains could counter. Unfortunately, for now, the control higher Fiend Class demons had over their Forces, especially at the highest Tiers, already crossed into Realms where it was near impossible for Leonel to wrest control in.

However, Leonel had no intention of targeting such demons. He would find exactly what he needed here.

…

Leonel's illusory spear cut out once again, splitting the head of a black horned demon in two.

It had been three days since he tortured the young man, or rather Falen of the Defensive Ward Pavilion, and he finally claimed his last gem. Leonel now had exactly what he needed save for one item: the blood of a higher Fiend Class spatial affinity demon.

The good news was that this one didn't need to be Tier 9, it could be any Tier. So Leonel was hoping to find one that was either Tier 1 or Tier 2 to handle. He felt that he was beginning to run out of time as the competition on the leaderboards had only become fiercer.

The secret of the gems wasn't the only thing Leonel had learned about in these three days. According to his new understanding, the Top Prize of this Sector wasn't based on the 10% rule. Rather, it was a bit special.

According to Falen, one first had to enter the top 10 in points. Once 10 trillion points had been accumulated across all participants, the top 10 would be locked in and the final phase would begin.

Within this final phase, everyone of the top 10 would be granted a chace. This chance would be used to teleport them to a new region where a final demon would be waiting. This would trigger a one on one battle where the first of the 10 to win would be granted victory.

Then, once this battle was concluded, one could then use the exchange method to teleport to the highest level exchange and claim your Top Prize.

Due to these rules, most with a chance had likely already killed a Tier 9 higher Fiend Class demon to claim the gem they needed and would be immediately ready to do teleport should they be the first to claim victory.

However, that also left a slight problem for Leonel to face as well…

Most had ignored his existence earlier because they all rightfully assumed that he had come from the Human Class Sector. As such, they assumed that he would fall quickly from the top 10 spot he had claimed, and this much had been true at the beginning.

Leonel quickly fell and was about to fall out of the top 10 entirely when his points suddenly began to jump upward. From falling out of the top 10, he began to maintain his ranking. Although he didn't move up, his descent downward started to slow enough that those on the fringe began to panic and look for him.

The ranking wasn't necessarily entirely about strength. There were many near the bottom that would have a great chance at winning the one on one battle first.

Take Leonel, for example. A huge reason for his killing speed was his Internal Sight and Dream World, and his ability to quickly locate perfect targets for himself. Not everyone had such an ability!

In the minds of many on the fringes, hovering between 15th and 11th place, they had already realized that their only chance at claiming a top 10 spot was to take Leonel down.

At the same time, those hovering around Leonel's rank knew what those below were thinking. As such, many of them wanted to deal with Leonel themselves as a strictly defensive tactic.

Like this, every individual from 15th to 7th place had their antennas up in search of Leonel, tracking a moving dome of fog and attempting to corner him inch by inch.

Unfortunately, Leonel's escape abilities were too great and he often found them long before they even spotted him.

Leonel's luck, though… was bound to run out.

Some understood that it was best to work smarter, not harder.

Rank 13 – Thaela Urizana – Endless Twilight Pavilion.

Thaela had realized something very interesting. While noting the point jumps in Leonel's score, she realized that he was suddenly entirely focused on killing lower Fiend Class demons. Realizing this, she made a guess at to Leonel's goal and realized that once he hit 100, he would be looking out for a higher Fiend Class spatial affinity demon that would be easy to deal with.

She knew just how rare such creatures were and she happened to have the perfect ability to lie in weight.

This wasn't a camouflage ability, but rather a cloning ability.

With time running out, she was confident that Leonel would come even if he knew it was a trap.

She was very clever. Just by observing Leonel's point total, she was able to tell that Leonel had no intention of joining the final battle. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but rather that he didn't even have the strength to.

And she was very much correct. Leonel had no intention of chasing after the Top Prize in this Sector, he simply wasn't strong enough. He couldn't even defeat a Tier 4 higher Fiend Class demon, but this final demon was most definitely not just Tier 9, but a Tier 9 higher Fiend Class demon that was an elite amongst them all. In fact, there was even a small chance that it might be a Chaos Demon.

This was why Leonel was in such a rush. There was no way he could allow himself to be teleported to the final battle, but he also couldn't give up his points because he needed them to trade for the final item that would get them home.

This left him with only one choice: he had to leave the demon world, and there was only one path to doing so that solved everything…

And that path needed a higher Fiend Class demon's blood.

Thaela didn't have to try very hard. While Leonel had been fighting these last three days, she had found and marked several such demons, leaving eight clones hidden nearby their locations.

When she spotted Leonel's fog domain quickly approaching one of them, her lips spread in a beautiful smile and all of her clones suddenly vanished in an instant, fusing into her main body.

Her prey was here.

…

Within the fog domain, Leonel's eyes were narrowed and his jaw was clamped shut.

The best trap was one an enemy knew was there and still had to run into. He was very used to using his intelligence against others, but it seemed it was his turn to take a taste of his own medicine.