Chapter 417: Shadows (2) (1/2)

Leonel put his spear away and raised the little mink in his arms, observing the little guy curiously.

When he focused in on the blobs of black, Leonel realized something astonishing. Each one of them had a different character to them.

Those with stronger presences were larger while those with weaker ones were smaller. But, it wasn't just this either. Each seemed to have a different feel.

The largest of them carried a biting cold to them. There were two of them in total. One seemed to want to completely envelop you in an avalanche while the other was sharp like a thin, cooled knife slicing into your body.

Leonel felt like he remembered them from somewhere…

'Those 12 ice guards, two of them reminded me of this feeling!'

Leonel's eyes widened in realization. These blobs, they were the shadows of the enemies Little Blackstar had killed.

'Blackstar can't absorb them?' Leonel thought, confused. '… They're disappearing too.'

Leonel seemed to realize two things immediately after understanding what he was dealing with. The first was that Blackstar didn't seem capable of swallowing these shadows like he had the shadow of Simeon's numbered warrior. And the second was that they were slowly fading. The more powerful of them seemed to linger on for longer, but the weaker ones were already collapsing to the point Leonel could hardly sense them.

'There are two potential reasons for why Blackstar can't absorb them. It's either that he had an affinity limitation or it's that he can only take in one at a time. If it's the latter, then that means the only way he could take on a new ability is if he gave the one he has already…'

Leonel frowned, sinking into his own thoughts.

The ability Blackstar could mimic now came from one of Simeon's handpicked warriors. From Leonel's comprehension, it was an S-grade ability at worse.

That said, the ice guards were SSS-grade Invalids, so their abilities obviously likewise followed suit.

The true issue was that the sharpness ability of that numbered warrior was very useful to Leonel. When he and the little mink worked in tandem, Leonel could gain an extension of this ability. This was what had allowed him to threaten Jilniya's life back then. Of course, at the time, Leonel had also relied on many other things like the General Style and his Dreamscape Battle Sense. But, it was still an important factor.

Leonel curiously reached out a hand toward one of the shadows. He didn't seem to realize that Aina was looking at him from the side with a confused light coloring her eyes. It seemed that only Leonel and Little Blackstar could see these floating shadows.

'Huh?'

Leonel shot his hand back, his heart beat quickening.

”What's wrong?” Aina finally couldn't hold back, a slight tinge of worry in her voice.

The little mink had charged over here after sensing Leonel's agitation. So, she had already appeared realizing she might have to calm Leonel down from doing something stupid again. But, this was completely out of her expectations.

”I…”

Leonel took a deep breath and explained things.

”… I felt as though something about myself would fundamentally change if I absorbed it into my body.”

”You're saying others can absorb them?” Aina's expression changed.

Such a thing was inconceivable. If this was true, then the value of such an ability would be impossible to calculate.

Aina couldn't help but look toward the little mink with a new light in her eyes.