After an additional half hour—
Baa Althera landed in front of Robin with tremendous force, her eyes blazing with anger so intense it seemed as if they could burn through steel. "You could have shrunk the portal from the very beginning?!"
"Hold on a second!" Robin raised both hands laughing, his voice carrying across the battlefield. "I had already exhausted almost all of my Soul Force just to pierce the barrier; shrinking it at that moment was impossible. I had to come back and expend about fifty million Pearls worth of Soul Emerald just to reduce its size again—it's not something you can do casually!"
By now, the atmosphere of the battlefield had shifted completely.
Robin didn't lower his hands, and the portal began to shrink slowly but steadily. The nascent space beast that had been crossing the portal mid-flight had to retreat immediately to avoid being split in half, and the balance of the battle shifted entirely.
