Dimensional Descent

The pain ripped through Leonel’s body, sharp and fast. Without his Dream Force prowess, he wouldn’t have even registered it. He had simply never seen a spear so fast.

But more shockingly than that, it embodied every aspect that it had once taught him. A continuous stream of speedy thrusts, filling the skies, covering all paths of retreat, perfect in its simplicity, endlessly complex in its variations.

In an instant, Leonel was riddled with holes, an overwhelming sense of inferiority burying itself into the very depths of his soul.

And yet, he hadn’t ever attempted to move even a single time.

A pulse of light came from Leonel’s brows, the band of violet-gold running across it radiating out into the world.

Everything dispelled, and he found himself standing in the same place, the Demoness standing across from him with the same placid expression.

”Do you feel the gap now?” she said lightly.

Leonel looked down at his spear and didn’t reply immediately.

”I have been refining my spear for so many trillions of years I have lost count. When I grew bored of the thrust…”

The Demoness’ palm flipped over and a new spear appeared. It looked almost like a glaive, having just a single edge to it. But it was thin, light as a feather, and flutteringly fragile.

Then, the Demoness swiped out casually. It was a simple sweep, moving from left to right.

Leonel’s body shuddered, being sliced completely in half. Pain tore through his soul once more, but he hardly registered it when he found himself split into ribbons.

Cold sweat poured down his brows. He could tell that these were just illusions, but he could also feel that if the Demoness truly chose to strike, the end result just might be the very same.

A fear was being ingrained into his psyche, pressed and seared into his heart. His Ethereal Glabella itself was being molded and shaped to it. It was a sort of manipulation that was out in the open, and yet nothing at all could be done about it.

He coughed as he snapped out of the illusion once again, his breathing heavy. Beads of sweat fell down his body, his grip on his own spear tightening.

”Eventually… I grew bored of the sweep.”

The spear in the Demoness’ hand changed once again, shifting and changing into a heavier blade, one that carried such a heft to it that light bent toward it. A deep darkness exuded toward it as a result, an event horizon just barely forming in its midst.

The blade descended from above.

Leonel could do nothing as he was cut in half. It practically felt as though his body had presented itself to be spliced and diced. Once again, he was instantly cut into ribbons, every slight bit of pain was as real as the projections in his mind.

There was no escaping it. He was made to feel every split in his cells, every shear of his flesh, every break in his bones.

”… So I mastered the slash.”

The spear in the Demoness’ hand kept changing. Every time it did, a new spear strike would be the focus. And every time, the end result would be the same.

By the time the tenth spear vanished from her hand and the original stinger spear appeared, Leonel had fallen to his knees, his breathing heavy and labored.

It felt like he had just experienced a countless series of deaths, and yet every strike made him very much feel alive, another attack on his mind and psyche that he was forced to experience every waking moment of.

”With any one of these spears, any one of these attacks, I could end this battle. If I ever cared to use them all in a seamless combat style… well, I would never need to do such a thing because there hasn’t been anyone in a very long time that could parry even one of my attacks.”

Leonel didn’t reply, his mind replaying every strike. And yet, no matter how he went through them, he couldn’t find the flaw, he couldn’t find the gap. It wasn’t a matter of his body being unable to keep up like it usually was. In this case, even his mind couldn’t track what was happening.

He had never experienced such a thing in his entire life. No matter how powerful his opponent, his bottleneck had always been his body. For the first time, he was meeting something his Dream Force simply couldn’t see through.

Leonel coughed, raising a hand to his mouth subconsciously. His pupils constricted when he saw the blood that coated his palm.

Dream Force transcending reality…

At that moment, he understood something, but it hardly changed his situation. Maybe he had overestimated himself in thinking that his Dream Force had reached the same stage as the Demoness.

This was a level more unfathomable than even influencing space and time directly. To turn illusion to reality, and for reality to become illusion.

The lines blurred, and suddenly his mind couldn’t tell the difference, couldn’t feel the difference, even with his Dream Force Affinity.

This was beyond a Dharma, beyond an Idol, beyond Existence itself.

For a moment, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was correct. Was she a God? Were there truly Gods in this world? Not in the sense of an Idol or mere power under their control, but in terms of omnipotence, omnipresence… omniscience.

”Heh…”

A flicker of a flame appeared in Leonel’s palm, burning the blood away.

He slowly stood, looking back onto the chaotic battlefield. It was entirely frozen in place, locked in a frame of time beneath where the two of them stood.

The battle between grandmother and grandson was on a level the world couldn’t be privy to, and yet, Leonel was sure that the Demoness had already unleashed all of her plans onto his brothers and family.

”You think too little of me.” The Demoness said lightly.

”I don’t think I’ve ever been inferior to someone in Dream Force in my life,” Leonel spoke as though he was talking to himself. ”But, I think it’s a little interesting… I’ve never had anyone to learn from.”

Leonel’s spear trembled.

”I’ve never been very good at this spear thing.”

Leonel tossed his spear to the side as though he hadn’t built his Idol on it at all.

He grabbed at the air, and a bow that shook the world appeared.

If he was going to take the Demoness down, he was going to have to do it at his absolute strongest.

”It seems you still don’t understand.”

The Demoness’ hair began to wave gently in the air.

”What I’ve shown you… is the mere tip of the iceberg.”

A Dream Force, the likes of which could build and topple the world all at once, manifested and Leonel nearly felt his mind collapse on contact.