Dimensional Descent

Leonel wiped at his blood with a thumb, rolling his shoulders back until he heard a satisfying crack. Beside himself, he released a yawn, stretching his neck from side to side.

It seems he was still a bit tired from yesterday, but that couldn't be helped. As for Myghell's words, they were probably true. At least in that exchange, he really was the weaker of the two.

The envoys of Void Palace couldn't help but frown. The wielder of an Amethyst Token bleeding was something that had never happened since its inception. Or, more accurately, one had never bled during their Selection. The entire point of the Amethyst Token was to represent invincibility, and Leonel was decidedly not that.

The rest had dismissed his battle with Isac, thinking that he was just fooling around. After all, Leonel was a spearman, not a bowman. This made perfect sense considering which family he came from as well. But… This was getting harder and harder to accept.

It didn't matter that Leonel was in Tier 4 while his opponent was a half-step from the Sixth Dimension. Invincibility was invincibility. You either were or you weren't. There were no technicalities in real life.

Leonel, though, didn't seem to care about the opinions of others. He was just a bit intrigued that Myghell had actually spoken.

"Oh? Is that a justification?" Leonel smiled.

"Justification? Why would I need something like that?"

"Oho." Leonel chuckled. "That's not a bad response. Indeed, why would you? And here I thought you were caught up in a few words written long before you were born."

"Whether those words have anything to do with me or not is meaningless. If they have nothing to do with me, I will force them to change their minds. If I have no fate with them regardless, then so what? Do I need the legacy of a fool who can't see straight?"

Leonel erupted into laughter when he heard these words. With each bellow, a stronger and denser violet fog seemed to waft out from him. Beneath its presence, the world itself seemed to slow.

"I really want to see what expressions that indifferent face of yours can make in defeat."

"I've never lost a battle in my life, and the first most definitely won't be to you."

The two shot forward in unison. This time, they took no care to hold back, the entire platform shattering.

A surge of cracks raced toward each other from opposite sides of the stage, following the wake of the two young men as though they were speeding to catch up.

BANG!

Leonel's forearm collided with Myghell's own, the cracks finally catching up to them as they hung in the air for just a fraction of a moment.

The ground beneath them sunk and collapsed, forming a pit gained depth before blasting outward and blowing even the surroundings stages to smithereens.

With a single tap of her foot, Alienor surrounded the entire region in a familiar golden glow, saving the audience from another potential horror story.

Leonel and Myghell didn't miss a beat. Even as they fell from the skies, their knees and elbows clashed, each boom resonating like the collapse of a mountain.

With every collision, Leonel felt his internal organs shake and quake. The gap in their strength was undeniable and the penetrative power of Myghell's Force was deep and immeasurable. Not only was his strength beyond Leonel's, but his application of it was in another world.

However, the smile on Leonel's face became a grin, and that grin quickly became a fiendish spread of pearly whites that seemed to radiate a light of its own. In that moment, Bronze Runes raced into existence around his skin, a crown marking his forehead and a halo hovering above his head.

BANG!

The next collision of their knees sounded like metal meeting metal, their elbows clashing soon after to sound like hammer meeting anvil.

The two crashed onto the ground, Myghell's body suddenly erupting with a mysterious golden-white Force that twinkled as though tiny crystals were falling within it. The moment Leonel landed collided with him again, it was as though he had gained ten layers of armor.

Myghell was as unmovable as a mountain. His strikes were sharp and decisive, and though not as fast as one would expect from a Luxnix, it carried an overbearing quality to it that made one feel as though a giant was stomping down on you from above.

This sort of momentum alone was enough to make most fall into despair. It filled you with the kind of emotion that made you feel small and insignificant, like a speck of dust among the stars or a drop of water amidst the ocean.

However, something about it only made Leonel fight back harder. As though he couldn't feel the pain of his limbs and fists crashing against an immovable wall, he collided with it again and again, his movements becoming faster and faster as he seemed to release everything he had.

Myghell looked like a deity, his golden hair hanging in the air unaffected by its surroundings, his fists and kicks jetting out while his torso seemed unmoved and unhurried, even his gaze didn't flicker as he met Leonel's onslaught, almost as though he was watching a toddler put together their final tantrum.

"Lament."

The word came out of nowhere, and yet the strike that followed behind it was unlike any that came before. A mysterious energy layered Myghell's fist, his strength crashing toward Leonel like a fall meteor.

Leonel's gaze flickered, his own fist jetting outward, wrapped by Universal Force he had been holding back on all this time.

BANG!

Leonel felt his arm threaten to collapse, his feet leaving two trenches in his wake as he shot backward.

"Overwhelm."

Myghell didn't move from his spot, he didn't feel like he had to. One meter, tens of meters, it didn't matter. When he spoke, the world listened.

A second fist surged forward, the air snapping and cracking as sparks of fire formed beneath the sheer speed of the strike alone.

Leonel's pupils constricted. This strike was at least ten times the strength of the last, he had no chance to block this with his fists.