Chapter 43: Bishop (2) (2/2)

'So it wasn't an ability but a technique he was using?'

The more Leonel read, the deeper his frown became. This technique, or rather, this Art was gruesome. It required etching the Art into one's skin with deep gashes to the bone. Pierre was most definitely a fanatic for putting himself through this.

However, this also explain something else to Leonel. It was no wonder he had seen multiple shadow figures. Each of them probably had an Art etched onto their bodies, giving them this ability.

Leonel described what he found out to Aina, causing her to frown. At first, Leonel thought she was just grossed out by the methods, but when she spoke again, he realized that this wasn't the case at all.

”Something's wrong…” She said faintly. ”… From what you describe, this Pierre should have been much weaker. But, his abilities were far more wide ranging than what that book describes.”

Though Aina still defeated him easily, that said more about her abilities than it did about Pierre's. At the very least, she gave him more credit than the book did.

”Could it be that he maybe had more than one Art and he stacked them?”

Aina frowned for a moment before shaking her head.

”I don't think that's possible. All of his abilities seemed to fall under the same umbrella and were all related to the shadows. In addition, external Arts that fall under the Body Art category like this are still limited by the physical fitness of the person in question. With this person's level of constitution, it should be impossible for him to handle more than one etching without imploding.”

Leonel raised an eyebrow, what exactly was Aina getting at?

”Where does the book say it's best to do the etching?”

”Well… It says that the best place is directly onto the heart, but that's next to impossible. Its secondary suggestion was to compensate for lack of quality with size and draw as large of an etching as possible. So… The back.”

”Can you…” Aina blushed slightly.

Leonel understood her instantly and went over to Pierre's corpse. Holding down his feelings of discomfort, he flipped the latter onto his back and ripped his robes apart. He believed that Aina most definitely had a good reason for asking him to do this.

But, he was stunned to find that there wasn't a single scar on Pierre's back. In fact, it was so pale that one could even see greenish blue veins pumping with the last of his life force.

Leonel tilted his head in confusion. 'Maybe he couldn't handle drawing such a large Art so he drew on a lesser body part?' He thought to himself.

”… It's as I thought…” Aina's voice interrupted his words to himself. ”… Someone studied Pierre's awakened ability and converted it into a Force Art, allowing it to be passed down, in part, to others…”

Hearing these words, Leonel was left speechless.