Leonel seemed to see the next step before it even happened.
A dense gas was released across the battlefield. The wind billowed and spread it wildly, but even so, the density was so great that it continued to sink, moving forward like a grotesque algae throughout the battlefield.
The moment the gas touched the shields, they began to sizzle. The Force upon them was being suffocated. Every attempt at recovering was crushed and the shields began to crack, and very soon, some of the gas began to roll up and over the shields, descending down toward the dogs below.
There was no doubt. This was chemical warfare, and chemical warfare on such a large scale at that.
Even in the Dimensional Verse, the matters of chemical and biological warfare were very much looked down upon. It could cause far too much devastation. If it wasn't for the fact that the Pyius family had such a deep and rich history, they may very well have been taken out by other families for nothing other than what their affinities were.
This was an interesting matter, actually, because it may very well have been tied to how the Pyius family became acquainted with the Godlen family in the first place.
This aside, the fact that Xavnik had chosen to do such a thing meant that there most definitely wasn't any coming back. He had fallen deep within Leonel's schemes already, and though he hadn't lost his head to rage, he knew that there was little he could do to reclaim his prestige currently. What mattered most was for him to secure his victory, everything after that mattered very little.
One after another, the lion beasts began to grow ill and shaken. Their brownish furs turned grey and then a sickly green before their bodies began to expand as grotesque tumors started to form. Then...
BANG!
The first lion beast exploded. Thick globules of coagulated blood spread out in all directions. At the same time, a second of the shield wall collapsed and flickered, causing an even larger surge of greenery to pass through.
Indeed, although Aina had a method of curing this poison, it was still a matter of time and resources. When would she have the time to concoct 200 000 such Force Pills, especially when Leonel had already put so much on her plate?
At the same time, due to the Lio family, these beasts had had their potential squeezed out entirely. They probably wouldn't live for even another year or two as their lifespan had been dwindled in exchange for power. As such, in Leonel's eyes, even if Aina had had the time, it probably wouldn't have been worth it to extend the resources needed toward them anyway.
Xavnik's sneer deepened. However, when he saw Leonel's smiling expression hadn't vanished in the slightest, his pupils couldn't help but constrict. A paranoia had taken deep root into his heart. Without even noticing, he didn't feel as though he could trust even his own judgment anymore. Everything he did, he had to double-check how Leonel was reacting to know if he had done good or not, and this sort of situation was the worst kind of leader to be in...
Especially when he was right to be worried.
BOOM!
It happened too suddenly. The beam of reddish-golden light swept out from the gap, blowing a massive hole through the dense fog and colliding with a long line of soldiers. They didn't even have the time to react before they were blown to pieces, and before those that had survived could even register what had happened, a second explosion took place, and then a third.
Each time it happened, tens of wars would fall, and the pace of the explosions only seemed to be increasing.
Xavnik's eyes widened as he suddenly realized what had happened.
Just now, it wasn't that the shield had shattered, it had disappeared. What Xavnik hadn't known was that Leonel had never expected for these lion beasts to survive a very long time; in fact, he hadn't expected much from them at all except their death.
Leonel took quite some inspiration from Aina. Back before she gained the Blood Sovereign Tablet, Aina's method of using her talent was to absorb Blood Force to increase her strength. Life Force was the energy while the Blood Force was the carrier. Throughout a person's life, in order to sustain their breath, Blood Force would use a small amount of Life Force at a time.
Aina was able to ignore that limiter, ripping a person's entire life's worth of Blood Force out for immediate use. One could imagine what years of energy expended all at once could do for a person's strength... Even if it was just one or two years.
Leonel had set a function in the collars those lion beasts wore to trigger upon their death. Once the poison was sensed, all of their remaining Blood Force would fuse with the large amount of Neutral Force that had formed their shields in the first place. Once they came together, they would explode out in a beam.
The process was so fast and devastating that even the poison fog that could easily corrode Force didn't react fast enough to stop it. Now, every single time one of those beasts fell, it was as though they were taking down dozens within them. Xavnik was watching his army fall in real-time, his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets.
He could accept the loss of the other 90 million, but this 10 million were his core, the foundation of his strength, it had taken a great deal of effort to raise them up.
"RETREAT!" Xavnik roared.
He couldn't stop himself anymore. He leapt up with such ferocity that the wooden carriage beneath him exploded into countless pieces. He pulled out a spear and shot into the skies, rushing toward Leonel like a madman.
He had to stop this, he couldn't continue to be played like this.
He wanted blood.
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