Wrong Path


    When Leonel walked out of his residence, a shadow of swirling dark energies appeared over his shoulder. Little ckstar''s body was almost a meter long by this point, but he still insisted on acting like he was still an infant. Even so, his antics brought a smile to Leonel''s face as he patted the little guy on the head.


    "How about it? Did it help you out?"


    "Yip!"


    Leonel smiled. Little ckstar still couldn''t and probably would never be able to speak humannguage, but that didn''t mean that the little guy hadn''t matured. Leonel could sense his thoughts bing moreplex and what he wanted to express was likewise much moreplex.


    The little guy was bragging again, but Leonel knew the truth. Little ckstar hadn''t made much progress at all. Though, he had already expected this.


    Little ckstar had ignored the corpse of the Shadow Tail and had instead focused on the Void Beast carcass against Leonel''s rmendations. The little guy wanted to take arge leap immediately rather than taking one step at a time as was only natural.


    It seemed that Aina wasn''t the only one consumed by wanting to keep up with Leonel. In the past, if one wereparing talents alone, Little ckstar had thought that he was even beyond Leonel. After all, those days where they had first met, Little ckstar had actually almost killed Leonel several times.


    Of course, the little one hadn''t really understood what he was doing back then, but the truth was still the same. If one had to power scale Leonel and ckstar back then, thetter would have been far superior.


    Since then, the reverse had be true.


    What was most amusing about it all was that the way their rtionship was formed, Leonel was technically the beast to ckstar''s master. They hadn''t formed it normally, and as a result, ckstar could sense Leonel''s state far clearer than thetter could do the reverse.


    ckstar watched as Leonel got further and further away every day, and as his thoughts grew moreplex, that sort of dissatisfaction he would feel and thensh out toward Little Tolly with had be a strong drive to be better instead. It only made it worse that Tolliver had returned with such a great boost to his power as well.


    Why should he have to take one step at a time when his rival had taken such arge leap immediately?


    Leonel smiled somewhat bitterly.


    In the beginning, it was true that ckstar could feel his state and hear his thoughts far clearer than he could do the reverse. Back then he was so pathetic that he couldn''t even stop this troublemaker from turning him into his beastpanion.


    But how could it still be the same now? ckstar''s mind might as well have been an open book to him.


    "Just think about it, ckstar. You have the bloodline of a Void Beast within you, and I have a feeling that I was far too hasty back then, forcing you to swallow that kind of strength. You could have very easily died.


    "I''m happy that you did, but I have a feeling that I stalled your progress as a result. Absorbing too much too early, instead of supplementing you, just buried what potential you had. That''s my fault as yourpanion, but don''t let my mistake be what keeps you anchored for so long.


    "I want you to follow me for a lifetime, so do as I say and not as I do, okay?"


    Little ckstar''srge ck eyes, reflecting like two beautiful marbles, blinked. His whiskers drooped a bit and hisrge body seemed to sink into Leonel''s shoulder.


    "Yip..."


    Leonel smiled bitterly.


    From what he had learned in the Void Library, beasts progressed easier than humans, but time worked differently for them as well. Little ckstar was an infant when Leonel met him, and even after experiencing a 20-plus year time dtion, he was still an infant. Little ckstar might have to turn a century old before he could transition into adolescence.


    Leonel realized that he had been too hands off with the little guy.


    If he had never done anything to alter Little ckstar''s path, he could continue to be. The problem was that he had pumped ckstar full of a bloodline that wasn''t his own, causing the usual instincts ckstar would have had toward his path forward, something innately born to him as a beast, to dull considerably.


    It was all Leonel''s fault. He had messed with things he shouldn''t have when he was far too ignorant to do so, and now ckstar was suffering the consequences.


    Somewhere within ckstar, there was talent and potential strong enough to consume Void Beast blood without dying. ckstar needed to take his time building up through the ranks, starting with the Shadow Tail, so that he could understand exactly what the Void Beast Bloodline represented.


    The God Beasts of Destruction had built a perfect step by step n on how to be one of them. The Dark Northern Star Lineage Factor was that blueprint, and ckstar had it before him.


    Once ckstar perfectly understood what was Void Beast within him, and what was his own talent, then he could begin to properly separate them and maximize the use of both.


    Little ckstar was special, he knew that. If you could just inject Void Beast blood into a person and gain their abilities, then why was it that they had to experiment with humans? Why not just find a whole bunch of beasts and pump them full of their bloodlines?


    And yet, he had done exactly that with Little ckstar.


    Suddenly, Leonel''s eyes lit up. Indeed, Little ckstar was just an infant, or maybe a toddler by this point. Why was he trying to talk to him like an adult? So, he stopped holding back, telling the little guy of something he had thought of much earlier.


    As Leonel spoke, he strolled toward the battlefield as though Morales territory wasn''t under threat of imminent copse.