Blue dust sprayed up when Leon slammed his fist on the ground as his vision cleared. He looked to his right and saw the giant wall of Opal stone, while the kinetic-drift shield gleamed on his left, waiting to be lifted.

The glow of the stone stretched toward him when he shifted his gaze to the wound on his left shoulder that had closed, except for a torn sleeve that hadn’t. "Not that bad."

He glanced at the sky once, then slammed his palms on the ground, pushing himself up with it. "Gia, what is the synchronization level now?"

"Eighty-nine percent, Leon."

’Slowly building up,’ Leon said in his head while taking in a slow, deep breath. He shifted his gaze to his fist while bone-crackling sounds echoed around him. "Then it’s left with a few hours to face him."

"A few hours to face who, Leon?" Gia’s voice rose, but Leon didn’t answer. He simply crouched down to retrieve the Hi-no-Kami, then smiled at the road ahead.

"Nothing," he said while tucking the sword back at his back and slowly picked up the kinetic-drift shield.

"Gia, how do I fully control this without your help?" His eyes blazed when he looked at his reflection in the smooth surface of the shield.

"Without my help?" Gia’s voice echoed with a mixture of fear that wasn’t supposed to be there. "Leon, what are you planning to do?"

Leon sighed, then pulled the red-gold cloth upward, covering his nose and mouth. "I just need to know how to operate it. You won’t be with me all the time."

"I can activate it whenever you want." Gia’s voice rose as the blue wave appeared at the center of the drift shield like a caged snake.

"Remember the South to North shortcut that came with the ultrasonic scan?" He said and gave the Opal wall a last glance.

"The one that takes thirty minutes to reach instead of three days?"

’Why do I feel like I’m being watched?’ He turned and glanced at the cave mouths inside the stone mountains to his left, then shook his head. "Yes, we are taking that route."

"But that is the route that has the strong magnetic pull and also the domain of the Devilish Ghost and the Umbrakhar."

"I know," Leon said while squinting at the green light that kept on appearing and disappearing in one of the caves.

Gia’s blue waves spun on the shield while green stormy dust began to approach from a distance.

Leon frowned when he saw the shield still normal and not in its drift mode. "Should I take the route on foot, or are you activating the thing?"

Dusty wind flew by the kinetic-drift shield when a faint red light lanced through Gia’s blue wave, as if showing anger. "Alright. Activating it now. Suit yourself, Leon Storm."

A deafening hum echoed from the drift shield as its circular core began to rotate. With a series of sharp, metallic clicks, the solid plate fractured into segments and fanned outward like a predatory insect’s wings.

Leon moved a step back when the central hub locked into position. A pulsing vortex of blue kinetic energy surged from the shield’s base and anchored it to hover above the ground. ’Did it transform into this shape and I didn’t see it earlier? Whoa!’

He jumped and made the hovering shield bounce once, even before Gia could speak.

"Activated."

’Ready to roll,’ Leon said in his head with a wide smile on his face. "Let’s go!"

His silver-black war suit glowed as air bounced off him while the red-gold cloth flared behind him like flames when he drifted through the green storm like lightning.

The moment Leon vanished from the front of the Opal wall, the green sparkling light at the front of the stone mountain stopped.

Water-dripping sounds echoed as heat began to radiate inside it, when two Serakels materialized into existence.

Sharp air flew out of Yoru’s mouth as it threw a sharp glance at the half-snake form that had materialized and was waiting for its human upper part to join. "Did you see that, Trag!"

A loud hiss echoed when Trag materialized fully. "I don’t think we need to follow it anymore."

It tilted its gaze from the green storm and hurled an acidic liquid on the cave’s wall.

"We are close to finally getting him down. Why should we stop, Trag?" Yoru’s snake tongue flared in the air as it sneered at Trag.

"We’d rather help him increase his Destroyer self if we chase after him with a fight."

Without saying another word, Trag turned and dashed into the gold city, leaving traces of burnt earth on the ground.

Yoru, the second to appear, moved toward the cave’s mouth and watched the human from above. "Trag, what if he also becomes a bandit to him like all the others were?"

"Then we have no choice but to obey the king’s command."

Trag’s statement hung in the air even as they dissipated into motes and transformed into their invisible state.

...

A few meters away from the Serakels’ domain, countless Devilish Goats stood at the valley of huge rock stones.

The horns on their heads glowed as their ultrasonic communication activated, while the ground beneath their jagged, six-legged titanium hooves shook.

Many of them lifted their heads and focused on the shaking mountains, when a faint blue light blinked from a distance.

Before a cry could escape them, all the thousand and one Devilish Goats’ human faces turned pale for a split second. The light flashed over their heads while a human on a drift shield passed through them like a blur of sound.

As soon as the faint blue light and the human vanished, black blood sprayed out of the Devilish Goats, while their heads spun off their bodies and hit the ground with dancing thuds.

...

Huge rocks rained on the ground when the kinetic-drift shield flew by their front.

Superheated air buffeted Leon as he swung the bloodied Hi-no-Kami while his war suit tightened on his skin, as if wanting to become one with him. A grim grin formed on his face when he saw countless Devilish Goats at a distance howling.

"No one stands in my way!"