Dimensional Descent

”Really? I get to be a big sister?”

Leah excitedly put her little palms onto her great grandmother’s large belly. She seemed to want to pull the baby out right here and now. She was growing tired of Leo always making fun of her for being born just a few seconds earlier.

Not long ago, Leah had pouted to her mom. With Aina’s control, she could have easily let her be born first.

Toward her daughter’s dissatisfaction, Aina could only smile bitterly and chuckle while Leah wasn’t looking.

”So what?” Leo said with a wide grin. ”Then I’ll just have two little baby sisters.”

Leah pouted, giving her brother a glare.

The Empress of the Ascension Empire watched the two siblings squabble with a happy smile on her face. It had been a very long while since she had felt such a simple joy. In this warm little garden, with her great grandchildren around her, and her granddaughter-in-law braiding her hair, she felt at peace.

Aina had a light smile on her face as well, sitting cross-legged on the soft green grass and listening to the bickering of her children like it was the sweetest joy.

Neither of the two women looked toward where their husbands likely were.

Maybe it was because the two had an undisguised confidence in their men. Or maybe it was because they were content no matter what the result was. Or maybe they had truly forgotten about it, choosing to lose themselves in these final moments of peace. Their hearts were settled and their thoughts were unrushed and unhurried.

They didn’t take even a single second for granted. If the world ended right this moment...

They would be alright with it.

...

Leonel stood in silence, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed toward his grandfather.

A droplet of water fell from on high, rippling down to the ground below and spreading out across the calm surface of the lake of emerald they were in.

Gervaise, however, sat silently on his throne, seemingly hardly acknowledging his grandson’s appearance.

The region felt dark with the only light coming from the waters beneath their feet. The lake stretched for seemingly an ungodly distance. Even Leonel’s eyes couldn’t see it

through to the end.

This location was in the depths of the Ascension Palace.

wy www.

When Leonel arrived here, his grandmother was already waiting in his courtyard. He simply greeted her with a smile, spending some time with her before he climbed the stairs to the Ascension Palace.

This time, there was simply no one capable of laying a finger on him. Even when Mordred and her wife appeared, it was useless. If before they could stall him, now their weapons weren’t even able to penetrate a domain around Leonel.

They would have died with a single thought if Leonel so chose it to be so. But he didn’t feel that there was a need.

In the past, Mordred had been one of his men along with her father, King Arthur.

But oddly enough, King Arthur hadn’t appeared, while Mordred had.

That told Leonel something quite profound.

Mordred’s views had changed. She chose to side with her wife and thus the Ascension Empire.

Arthur, by comparison... was still not fully under the control of Leonel’s grandfather. The difference was that Gervaise didn’t care. What Emperor could claim absolute loyalty from all of his subordinates? Such a man didn’t exist.

All that mattered was having the power to keep everything under his control, and Gervaise felt that he had that.

And much the same way... Leonel didn’t care very much about Mordred’s change in allegiance either.

Would it matter when he claimed the throne for himself?

Leonel suddenly smiled.

”You’re quite confident, old man. I know you could have stopped me from triggering the Pluto like I did, but you didn’t.”

Gervaise looked up and met Leonel’s gaze, his expression still calm.

”I did that for my wife, not you,” he said lightly.

Leonel’s smile deepened. ”And that’s exactly why I’ll let you keep your head. Aren’t I nice?”

”Is that so?”

Gervaise slowly rose from his throne.

As he did so, the world seemed to rumble around him. A violent torrent of Force rose

to the skies.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A whirlpool with a depth that sunk into an endless abyss appeared between grandfather and grandson, a clash of emerald green and gorgeous amethyst.

separating the world into two.

They were separated by over a kilometer, and yet, given their strengths, they might as

well have been just a single step from one another.

”I, however...” Gervaise continued lightly. ”... Am not so kind.”

The band that held Gervaise’s white-gold hair together broke apart, causing the strands to dance in the skies like filaments of crystalline energy.

”This Empire is my own, crafted by my calloused hands, my sacrifices, my blood.”

Gervaise waved a hand and a scepter appeared in his palm. It was a meter and a half long, carrying a beautifully polished pearl half the size of his head on the end of it. This pearl swirled with a depth of cotton pinks and sky blues, looking as though it had plucked out the clouds of a Dream Pavilion and sucked them into its marbled surface. Gervaise’s momentum grew so fiercely that the harsh flapping of Leonel’s silver-violet robes made it feel as though the material might be shredded to pieces at any time. And yet, as powerful as it already was, it only seemed to be accelerating its growth as though a slumbering Dragon was awakening right before his eyes.

A vortex appeared beneath Gervaise’s feet and the roar of a dragon filled the cavernous space, shuddering space until it fragmented into the shapes of the mythical creature’s scales.

BOOM!

Gervaise’s aura reached a peak before it suddenly vanished. Like a shredded leaf in the wind, it disappeared in the blink of an eye and the world fell into silence.

”Who do you think you are? I will have your head today.”