Dimensional Descent

"Leonel! LEONEL!"

Aina had done everything she could, even pressing down so forcefully that the ribs Leonel hadn't broken yet snapped cleanly. But, she was well aware that when a medical professional had to choose between a few broken ribs and restarting a heart, there was almost no decision to be made. Bones could heal, but a dead heart would never come back.

The sudden flash of Leonel's eyes gave Aina hope, but the sudden and dense cloud of Auspicious Air that began to grow in the surroundings almost made her suffocate. This was the first time she was experiencing Auspicious Air personally, but she somewhat knew what it was. The trouble was that she didn't understand why it was suddenly coming out of Leonel's body in droves like this.

…

At that moment, a certain beam of light ripped through the cosmos, appearing on the outskirts of the Void Battlefield and diving through its barriers. In a blink, it had appeared above a familiar hive and in another, it had already flashed into the Segmented Cube without even Aina's knowledge.

The ball of Force appeared in Leonel's room, a region he had begun to use to keep things meticulously organized. It could be said that his room had become his functional spatial ring. As usual, it was spotless and clean, not that Leonel used it very often to begin with.

Tucked into a corner, a familiar silver disk sat. Without much hesitation, the Force buzzed and entered the dictionary, causing the mechanisms within to snap into a different configuration, its gears dancing and complex Runes beginning to form along its surface.

In the next moment, the disk began to hover, leaving the shelf in was tucked upon as a looming shadow began to envelop it. In the blink of an eye, that shadow took form, becoming the outline and eventual real body of a man Leonel was all too familiar with.

Velasco held the dictionary in his hands, flipping it in the air and letting it land onto his palms as he strolled out of the room.

"A Rapax Nest? It seems someone is getting greedy."

The moment Val stepped outside of Leonel's room, he raised an eyebrow, looking off in a certain direction. But, in the end, he completely ignored it. With a step, he vanished, appearing in the dense black fog of Anarchic Force alongside Aina and his brat of a son.

Truthfully, it almost instantly became an awkward situation for Val. Aina was a mess, her tears coming out in a torrent. She alternated between using what felt like almost way too much force compressing Leonel's chest and kissing him with her, well… very snotty face.

Val couldn't help but feel like he had walked into a melodramatic scene. But, when he looked at Aina again, he clicked his tongue.

"Not bad, at least this useless brat of mine gained at least a small bit of my skill."

Despite the fact Anarchic Force was an excellent sound insulator, Val was simply too close and his presence even as an avatar… Well, it could be said that he had certain piercing qualities that made this concentration of Anarchic Force not too big of a deal.

"WHO?!"

Aina spun around, her ax leading her turn. Despite the state she had been in, she hadn't forgotten the kind of dangerous region they were in. From the very beginning, her senses had been primed.

"Oh my, is this how you greet your in-laws? Well, I can't say you're very different from my wife…"

Val flicked a finger upward just before Aina's ax could bury itself into his shoulder.

DING!

The ax arched through the air and over his head, swinging in a long semi circle before just barely gliding over Leonel's nose and crashing into the ground.

Aina's face turned completely pale for two reasons. The first was because she had no method of fighting back at all. And, the second was because she had almost taken Leonel's head off, just an extra centimeter downward and he would have been left with only a part of his nose. The worst part was that after being placed on its trajectory, Aina seemed to have completely lost the ability to alter its path.

She ended up spinning completely around, her ax just barely slicing into the ground enough to stop. But, the issue was that she knew that she didn't have nearly enough strength to cut into this stone.

The strength difference was so enormous that she couldn't even fathom it. Even with her ability, she couldn't begin to make a plan on how she would get so strong. The peak was simply too tall.

Aina was so dazed and worried that she didn't even register the words Val had spoken until several moments later. By the time she had, she had thought of all sorts of methods she could use to run away with Leonel. When it clicked, though, she froze.

"… What?"

Aina, whose hands had already found their grips latched onto Leonel's clothing, ready to leave her ax behind to rip him away, suddenly couldn't move.

Val had already appeared on the other side of Leonel. He ignored Aina, shaking his head.

Though he seemed unperturbed, this really was already the second time one of his plans didn't go as expected. Well, maybe it was to be expected considering what his actual goal was. Maybe even for him everything going too smoothly was too much to expect.

"… Troublesome kid… This is worse than changing diapers…"

Val pressed a finger to Leonel's forehead. Almost the instant he did, half of the density of Auspicious Air vanished.

"Sealing it too much will probably have a contrary effect… I guess I should let it free itself a bit…"

The momentum of Val's press lessened somewhat but the Auspicious Air continued to recede.

"It's not time yet, brat. Try to do things on a schedule for once."

The complex Force Arts rotating within Leonel's eyes slowed, many portions of them vanishing until a far less complex Force Art remained. However, even that eventually vanished, its presence remaining barely a lingering thought.