Leon had known for a long time that the Holy Spear, like the Sacred Gears of the Two Heavenly Dragons, possessed the Power of Domination.
Furthermore, that Power of Domination was different from Juggernaut Drive or Empireo Juggernaut Overdrive; it didn't rely on cursing oneself to obtain transcendent power, but was instead a much more specialized ability.
The Power of Domination in other Sacred Gears generally existed because of the magical creatures sealed within them. By releasing the seal on the internal entity to obtain the power it held in life, one utilized an ability that came with a heavy price.
The "True Longinus," however, was different. It did not seal any magical creature; instead, it sealed the residual will of the God of the Bible.
That's right—the will of the Biblical God.
As the first and strongest Longinus, this God-slaying spear was inextricably linked to the God of the Bible. While it possessed the power to pierce divinity, it was also the highest-grade Holy Relic, showing just how deep its connection to the Creator truly was.
Thus, the will of the God of the Bible was sealed within this supreme Holy Relic. The so-called "Truth Idea" did not release the power of a monster, but rather the miracles once performed by the deceased God.
Leon vaguely remembered that once Truth Idea was activated, the divine will within the Holy Spear would absorb the ambitions or desires of the wielder and produce various effects and functions based on the nature of the opponent.
In other words, once Truth Idea was triggered, the resulting effect was completely unknown.
Sometimes it was an overwhelming destructive force sufficient to defeat the opponent; other times, it was a blessing bestowed upon the opponent to win their heart. Depending on the wielder's wishes and ambitions, the nature of the opponent, or even the specific occasion, the role Truth Idea played would be entirely different.
In the original story, Cao Cao had used Truth Idea twice.
Once was against the protagonist. As a result, the divine will within the spear recognized Issei Hyoudou's desires instead, concluding that it wished to observe him. Consequently, Truth Idea had no effect at all.
The other time was on the battlefield after the release of the Beast of Revelation, 666—the creature that endangered the world and whose sealing had exhausted the God of the Bible unto death. On that occasion, it manifested a power capable of repelling the Evil Dragons and the army of fake Red Dragon Emperors, and even caused the "Dragon of Primordial Darkness" Apophis such agony that he nearly lost consciousness.
Therefore, although Truth Idea was a manifestation of the Power of Domination like Juggernaut Drive, the two functioned quite differently.
Using this move might grant immense power, but it might also backfire and threaten the user. It was highly unstable and could easily spiral out of control. So, while Leon remembered Cao Cao had this trump card and maintained a degree of vigilance, he didn't dwell on it too much.
It wasn't that he thought Truth Idea wasn't a threat, but rather that he felt there was no way to prepare for it.
How can one formulate a countermeasure against an effect that cannot even be determined?
Thus, the only countermeasure Leon could think of was to defeat Cao Cao before he could use Truth Idea.
He hadn't expected that, in the heat of the moment, Cao Cao would still decisively use Truth Idea to escape certain death.
"To use such an unstable ability in that situation... you've got guts, I'll give you that."
Leon didn't know whether to admire Cao Cao or not.
The effect of Truth Idea was uncertain. If it hadn't manifested the power to break all the soap bubbles just now, Cao Cao would have been finished.
Leon had assumed Cao Cao would use the ability of the Jewel to absorb the Heavenly Punishment and Natural Disasters. To that end, Leon had even prepared to activate "Nature's Hope" to avoid being injured by his own reflected attacks. Yet Cao Cao hadn't used the power of the Jewel; he chose Truth Idea instead.
"...The flaw of the Jewel is that it can only absorb attacks from a single direction; it can't cover all angles."
Cao Cao seemed to guess what Leon was thinking. Panting, he curled the corner of his mouth into a smirk.
"Under that three-hundred-and-sixty-degree omnidirectional bombardment, if I had used the Jewel, I would have truly been seeking my own death."
Consequently, Cao Cao had to harden his heart and take a gamble.
Fortunately, he won.
The divine will within the Holy Spear responded to his wish and rescued him from the brink.
Faced with this, Leon could only sigh helplessly at his lack of "protagonist luck."
When Issei Hyoudou faced Truth Idea, the power recognized him instead and backstabbed its master, Cao Cao. Leon didn't have that kind of destiny.
Luckily, it wasn't a total loss.
"Even if you gambled correctly, so what?" Leon narrowed his eyes at the breathless Cao Cao. "Since you were forced to use the Power of Domination, you can't be in very good shape right now, can you?"
While Truth Idea and Juggernaut Drive were fundamentally different abilities, as forms of the Power of Domination, they shared one common trait.
Namely, the price of use was immense.
For an ordinary person to use the Power of Domination, a reduction in lifespan was a certainty, and they might even drop dead on the spot. Even Vali could only barely use it for a few minutes thanks to his massive demonic power. Cao Cao didn't have Vali's level of mana; how could he possibly use it without paying a price?
Of course, the price of using Truth Idea was also variable. If the manifested effect was powerful, the price would likely be high; conversely, it would be small. For instance, in the original story when it was used against Issei, there was no price at all—after all, Truth Idea hadn't done anything then.
Now, to break the soap bubbles Leon had distributed throughout the entire other-dimensional space, Truth Idea had displayed staggering might. As a result, the price was significant, subjecting Cao Cao to a heavy toll and leaving him gasping for air like this.
"You probably can't use it a second time, right?"
Leon slowly reached his hand out toward Cao Cao.
"So, what do you plan to do next?"
One by one, soap bubbles began to appear around Leon, slowly expanding.
It was easy to imagine that once these soap bubbles spread out, the entire world would once again be filled with Heavenly Punishment and Natural Disasters.
"Don't even think about it!"
Alarm bells rang wildly in Cao Cao's heart. He let out a desperate shout and, ignoring his exhausted body, activated the ability of the Assaratana (Horse Treasure), instantly teleporting behind Leon.
"Parinayakaratana (General Treasure)!"
He threw the last of the Seven Treasures, the final ability he had held back until now—his ultimate killing move.
The pitch-black jade orb flew out with incredible speed, zipping toward Leon's face like a lethal bullet. Leon's reaction was equally swift; he directly unfurled the twelve obsidian Devil Wings on his back, snapping them shut in front of him like an impenetrable shield to envelop his body and block the incoming black orb.
BOOM!!!
The pitch-black orb struck the layered devil wings. Immediately following, an incredibly terrifying force erupted, triggering a deafening roar.
The ability of the Parinayakaratana (General Treasure) was very simple: it was a spherical attack that generated extreme destructive power and impact upon contact with a target.
At first glance, the orb seemed to fly toward him lightly, but the moment it hit the target, the burst of destructive and kinetic energy was horrifying.
Leon felt as if he had been slammed into by a massive mountain. In the resulting shockwave, he was sent flying backward, his form turning into a blurry afterimage as he tore through the air, crashing toward the ground amid a sharp sonic boom.
Crack—
This was the sound of the devil wings folded in front of Leon snapping.
Without a doubt, under the attack of the Parinayakaratana (General Treasure), Leon's devil wings were likely broken.
Enduring the agonizing pain, Leon decisively activated his ability against Cao Cao a second before he hit the ground.
Rumble—
Cao Cao, who had just thrown the Parinayakaratana (General Treasure), was suddenly enveloped by appearing soap bubbles. Before he could react, countless natural disasters manifested.
Violent fire tornados, fierce gales capable of shredding flesh, frigid air that froze everything, lightning like the wrath of God, sandstorms that blotted out the sun, and terrifying floods—various natural disasters shrouded him like divine retribution, swallowing him instantly.
BANG!!!
Simultaneously, Leon's figure crashed violently into the ground, kicking up dust dozens of meters high. The earth shattered and collapsed, forming a massive crater that shook violently.
With Heavenly Punishment appearing in the sky and violent tremors and roars on the earth, Cao Cao and Leon were successively caught in the aftermath of each other's desperate final strikes, their fates unknown.
Snap—
Finally, a strange cracking sound appeared within this realm.
It was the sound of this other-dimensional space developing fissures under the influence of chaotic, powerful energies.
The cracks appeared quickly and vanished just as fast.
But in the instant they appeared, whether from within the soap bubbles in the sky or from the massive crater on the ground, a battle-scarred figure was swallowed by them.
Unfortunately, no one noticed this. Even more so, no one realized that Leon and Cao Cao—the leaders of their respective factions—were no longer within this other-dimensional space.
The members of Eligos's peerage and the Hero Faction were still locked in a fierce battle, having no energy to spare to pay attention to what had happened here.
"Hiss—"
When Leon opened his eyes and regained his muddled consciousness, the first thing he felt was intense pain.
"Did I end up seriously injured after all?"
Leon felt as if every bone in his body had been put through a grinder. He couldn't help but gasp for air as he recalled what had happened before he lost consciousness.
"Cao Cao's Parinayakaratana (General Treasure)... its destructive power is indeed staggering."
In the original story, Issei Hyoudou had been heavily injured in a single hit even while wearing his Balance Breaker armor. Leon had prepared himself to be injured the moment he was hit, but he had still underestimated the damage brought by that move.
"If I had known, I should have used 'Nature's Hope' before making my move on Cao Cao..."
Leon felt a bit annoyed but had no regrets.
After all, he had launched a counterattack at the end. Cao Cao's injuries certainly wouldn't be lighter than his own. In fact, considering Cao Cao was a fragile human, there was a high chance he had died on the spot.
"By the way, where is this?"
Leon suppressed the physical pain and began to scan his surroundings.
It was only then that Leon discovered he was no longer in the other-dimensional space created to mimic Kuoh Town. Instead, he had arrived in a bizarre, surreal world.
There was no up or down here, no sky or earth, no buildings, and certainly no trees or flowers. There was only a chaotic space filled with various shifting hues, twisted and swaying uncontrollably.
Leon was suspended in this warped space, floating as if there were no gravity. Everything he saw looked like a kaleidoscope; staring for too long only made one feel nauseous.
Looking at such a strange space, Leon became alert almost instantly.
He recognized this place.
Or rather, not long ago, he had taken his peerage members on a train through this very place to reach the Underworld.
This was—
"The Dimensional Gap!"
Leon was shocked.
How could he have ended up here?
"Could it be that something went wrong with that other-dimensional space, causing me to be ejected? But instead of returning to the human world, I ended up in this gap between worlds?"
That was the only logical explanation.
The question was: was he the only one exiled here, or were the others here as well?
Where was Yukino?
Where was Asuna?
What about Utaha, Mahiru, Ravel, Ram, and Rem?
And Cao Cao and the members of the Hero Faction—were they all here?
Thinking of this, Leon couldn't help but feel anxious.
The Dimensional Gap was not a hospitable place. Not only was it a world of nothingness, but it was also a dumping ground for many dangerous items from history that no one knew how to handle. If one encountered them, they could vanish in a heartbeat, never to return to the human world.
Even if one didn't encounter danger, without the ability to break through dimensional walls, one could never escape this place and would drift here for eternity.
"This is trouble..."
Leon's heart sank.
He had no means of escaping this place to return to the human world either.
Because the space here was inherently unstable and warped, methods like magic circle teleportation were completely useless. One needed a specially adjusted, unique transmission formula to use here.
Leon obviously didn't know such a formula. Not just him—no one in the entire Eligos peerage knew how to use such a technique.
In other words, if the members of the Eligos peerage had entered this place, they would be just like him, unable to find a way out.
"What should I do?"
Leon racked his brain but couldn't find a solution.
By the time he gave up thinking, he noticed that the injuries on his body seemed to have fully healed.
"After becoming a Perfect Devil, my self-healing ability has indeed become much stronger."
He moved his limbs and, after confirming he no longer felt any pain, Leon unfurled his devil wings and took flight.
"In any case, I have to start moving."
If he didn't move and just drifted along with the current, he would likely never find a way out.
"Perhaps, if I'm lucky, I'll run into something useful here."
With that thought, Leon flapped the devil wings on his back and flew off in one direction.
Soon, Leon's figure vanished into the warped space, his destination unknown.
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