Dimensional Descent

Leonel’s aura seemed to rip through the veil of the world itself, towering up with such ferocity that even the clouds were pierced.

A Royal Crest Dharma appeared in the air once more, but this time it grew more shimmering and resplendent.

The spear hidden within became flooded by Force as it poured in from all directions. Like a dam that had been breached, the floodwaters barraged their way forward, moving with such momentum that even the Regulator couldn’t hold them back anymore.

Leonel’s spear howl shot through the air, the cracked blade in his hand shuddering as it underwent a baptism that shocked the world.

The bow followed suit.

Leonel had lifted his bow up a single time since coming to this city, and there was a reason for that. He had always been confident in his path forward when it came to the bow. He knew that if he could succeed with his spear, his bow would only naturally follow.

That was his confidence as a marksman.

And he was proven correct.

As Force began to spill over into the bow construct of his Dharma as well, the world trembled to its very core, shaking to the point it seemed that it might collapse.

In these months, Leonel had had several ideas for how he might reforge the Spear and Bow, but none of them felt perfect.

Every time he thought of a change, he realized that it was less of something that was appropriate for a Weapon Force and more so something that was more appropriate for a Path.

However, none of that was good enough. Just making the spear faster, or heavier, or sharper, was useless.

What made Weapon Forces so special was the underlying fluidity of it all. It was precisely because Spear Force could be used in such a wide variety of ways that it was so special as a Weapon Force. Or, more accurately, it was precisely this that made all Weapon Forces special.

Changing something so surface-level as weight, or speed, or sharpness, wouldn’t get Leonel the results he was looking for. If anything, it would just box in his Spear Force, get rid of its fluidity, and create something that was much weaker overall.

But then Leonel had a breakthrough in his thought... a breakthrough triggered by a spear surging into his palm.

Leonel had always taken his casual control of spears for granted. He could resonate with them, causing them to snap into his palms. It was also this very same mystical connection that allowed his Sovereignty to destroy most other spears he came into contact with.

In truth, the Idol Battlefield was the first time Leonel had ever actually fought against spear masters. All his life, spears would crumble every time he faced off against them. It was only while fighting the strongest spearman in Existence that things finally changed and he was able to feel what it was like to combat a spear.

And it was also because of that that he felt the tug, push, and pull of Sovereignties all the more clearly. He couldn’t destroy these spears as easily, but he found that he could apply pressure onto them, suffocate them, even.

And when he began to analyze these spears, taking what he wanted for himself, he created the foundation of what would be the first change he made to his Bow and Spear Force.

The Spear had the Absolute Domain, a range of influence that made it invisible in a middle-range distance. It was such a large part of its abilities that the Spear Domain Lineage Factor was even built on this principle.

The Bow was an even higher level of control than that. From the limited range of the spear... it became rangeless. There was no target it couldn’t track, no general it couldn’t slay.

And now they would have this foundational concept ingrained even further into their being with... Suppression.

BOOM!

The golden Forces became brighter, piercing an even larger hole into the skies as Leonel’s Dharma became more complex.

Now, the Spear and Bow didn’t just have range. Suppression was a fundamental part of their being. The Suppression of distance, the control of a region, the suffocation of other weapons.

However, this still felt more like a Path than it did a fundamental change to the Weapon Force. But there was a reason for this... that was because of the next change.

BOOM!

Leonel’s aura continued to skyrocket as madness unfurled. Tinges of red seeped into the foundation of his Weapon Forces, fighting and combating the violets that appeared at the same time.

They roared and raged, tugged and pulled.

Dream Force.

Leonel wanted it to become his key to everything. It was what would separate him from others and what caused the fundamental divide between his current Weapon Forces and his Weapon Forces of the past.

But it was tricky. If he was going to rely on a new Force, then it obviously wouldn’t be a Weapon Force anymore...

Or was it?

What were Weapon Forces if not amalgamations of Forces?

What separated the fundamental laws that constructed a Weapon Force from any other? Why couldn’t you just add Fire Force to Glaive Force and create a new Weapon Force like that?

The problem stemmed from the same reason you couldn’t just melt together metals and hope they had a good outcome in the end. If you could, there wouldn’t be such a large dividing line between normal Crafts and the Life Grade... or even a larger dividing line between the Life Grade and the Self Grade.

But that was precisely what Leonel had come to realize.

These Weapon Forces... all of them were at the Life Grade. They were constructs that many might tweak here and there, but they were fundamentally a Life Grade existence.

It was Sovereignty that tweaked it further, pushing it toward the Self Grade...

But it wasn’t nearly enough.

It was at that moment that a precipice of combat and Crafting came to a head.