Dimensional Descent

Gervaise waved his scepter and the silent world churned. Palms filled the skies and Leonel was forced to look up to witness their majesty.

In that moment, he felt like he had been transported back in time, teleported to the day Gervaise used a single palm to swat a ship of Shield Cross Stars out of the skies.

Leonel remembered that day clearly because for maybe the dozenth time, he found himself facing his own death and mortality. However, just when he thought that his life was finished, Gervaise had swept in from on high.

He could recall feeling how grand that ability was. Although he had never thought it in so many words, he pined to one day have such strength.

Watching these palms descend now, his smile couldn’t help but grow wider.

”If someone else had said that, maybe I would change my mind,” Leonel spoke with a booming cadence, his words laced with his laughter and amusement. ”But just for you, old man, I’ll let it slide. That said, I won’t be able to spare you from the consequences. I’m putting you right into a retirement home after this battle.”

Leonel’s palms flared out and Tolliver coated his body.

He took a step as a spear of writhing silver formed in his palm before solidifying into a gorgeous blade that looked half a cross between a spear and a quill.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Leonel’s wrist flickered and the palms in the skies shattered one after another, a rain of emerald shards falling from the skies above.

The scene was oddly beautiful despite the fact anyone beneath their level of strength would find themselves shredded down to the bone just by standing in the vortex that formed between them.

Leonel took a step forward and the intent in his eyes blazed.

Gervaise raised his scepter once more, but he was suddenly forced to bring it down. BOOM!

Spear and scepter met, the noses of grandson and grandfather so close that their beads of sweat almost fused into one.

”You blocked. Not bad,” Leonel said with a grin before he was sent flying backward.

Leonel spun in the air, landing on the raging waters heavily.

He looked up to find a half dozen Force Arts rotating on the surface of the lake. There was no time to react before six eastern dragons rose out from the waters.

It didn’t seem like Gervaise had prepped the environment ahead of time. It was

nothing but normal water beneath them, albeit filled with God Realm Force.

Instead, Gervaise seemed to have incorporated the Living Construct Force Arts of the Luxnix into his battle style.

Leonel’s steps shifted as he dodged.

A flood dragon pierced into the location he had just been, only for it to curl through the waters and attack him from below even as the other five surrounded him from all sides.

Pillars of emerald water shot into the skies and tsunamis that could wipe out what felt like entire universes rose up before crashing down.

More Force Arts formed on these raging waters, claws that pierced through space ripping through them and toward Leonel.

It felt like everything the world itself was attacking on behalf of Gervaise.

Leonel’s laughter peeled through the skies as he weaved his way through the

destruction and carnage. His robes were already somewhat disheveled, and his inner organs were quaking within his body with every near miss, and yet there was a light of passion within his eyes that howled like a wolf to the full moon.

”Give me everything you have!”

Leonel’s spear suddenly vanished from his hand as he appeared high in the skies.

His bow formed in one hand, and the Laevis Bow appeared in the other.

He slammed them together, the former devouring the latter and severing the Path of this once Great Family.

However, it felt like nothing but a footnote to Leonel.

A pulse of radiant light filled the skies with a golden hue, turning the emerald ambiance into something even more ethereal and magical.

And then Leonel unleashed a torrent of arrows.

He shot so fast that his attacks blurred, forming an umbrella of energies over his grandfather’s location.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A cacophony of erupting destruction tore what calm waters there were left apart.

Suddenly, Leonel swapped out his bow for his spear once again, hurriedly turning to his back and slashing out with all his might.

BANG!

Gervaise had appeared behind him at some unknown time, and both grandson and grandfather took a step back at once. The space beneath their feet shattered and a deep abyss ripped the water even further beneath them apart.

They ground their heels into the air and shot forward, their weapons blurring as booming concentric circles blasted the region apart.

Leonel’s spear parried Gervaise’s scepter upward and his blade snaked toward the

latter’s throat.

Gervaise pretended as though he hadn’t even seen it at all, his body blurring and doubling. He slipped past Leonel’s blade and it seemed like it ripped through nothing but an afterimage. At the same time, he had closed the gap even further, his palm appearing right above Leonel’s chest.

Leonel’s reaction was just as swift and indifferent. A Force Art appeared on him like a breastplate, blinking into existence just an inch before one appeared on Gervaise’s palm as well. It was as though Leonel had seen through the Force Art Gervaise was drawing before he had even completed it, drawing a perfect counter in an instant. The two Force Arts clashed and canceled one another out. Gervaise’s palm rebounded back just enough that Leonel could step forward to send out his own palm. Gervaise reacted smoothly, his reflected palm seamlessly switching to an elbow that blocked Leonel’s hit.

BANG!

The two were forced to separate, but once again it was for nothing more than a blink

of an eye before they erupted into another flurry of exchanges.

They crossed the skies like the air was their lane, their Empire....

And yet both somehow knew that they were only just getting started.

They separated once more and Gervaise unleashed an uncharacteristic roar, Force Arts far more substantial than any he had drawn until now appearing.

Leonel realized immediately that Gervaise was summoning something.

With his free hand, Leonel’s palm and fingers formed a seal. His grandfather wasn’t the only one that could summon things.