Dimensional Descent

'Son of a bitch!'

Leonel had never experienced so much pain in his life. He had had almost all the bones in his body broken before, suffered Runes being etched directly onto his bone, he had even almost been cut in half just hours ago.

But somehow this was worse than all of it.

The group had managed to complete the teleportation thanks to the fact that this black rod hadn't fallen onto the ground until just a split moment after they teleported. As a result of this, the rod managed to enter the range of the teleportation and was taken along, thus ending in the current situation.

Beads of sweat fell from Leonel's brow.

'Come on, come on, come on…'

Leonel could vaguely feel that Aina was trying to help him, but this rod was way too heavy, it was denser than anything Leonel had ever felt before. Despite being only a small bit longer than a usual polearm, its weight was unfathomable, it was to the point Leonel was more so shocked that his hand hadn't been directly severed instead.

For the first time, he lamented his sturdy skin. That result would have most definitely hurt less than this.

The only way out of this situation was to send this rod into a snowglobe. But the problem was that in order to accomplish this, he had to envelop it with his Internal Sight.

However, not only was this rod seemingly resisting his Internal Sight, it was hard to focus at all with this much pain racking his body.

'Fuck!'

"LISTEN TO ME!" Leonel roared at the rod.

But it didn't seem to matter.

Leonel thought of just pulling his hand away, allowing his fingers to be severed. But, he knew that he couldn't allow such a thing to happen. Although it would make the pain go away, he wasn't sure how recovery would work after that.

The pain here was clearly originating from how much superior this rod was in comparison to him. An injury from a higher Dimensional being, existence or object tended to scale accordingly. Leonel couldn't even focus enough to see what level this rod was at, but he knew that it was at least well into the Gold Grade.

The only thing keeping him sane was the thought that whichever bastard Rapax threw this thing at him after he helped saved their little baby king was probably lamenting their poor choice. If he ever met that guy, he would definitely use this same rod to bash its head in.

'Come on!'

Leonel failed to envelop the rod again.

'I've tried one too many times, I need to try something else.'

If he was in the right headspace, Leonel would have given up on this endeavor after the first failure. The definition of insanity was repeating the same action over and over, knowing it would fail.

Leonel had realized that he would never be able to envelop this rod with his current level of Internal Sight. He didn't know why, and he had never run into such a problem before, but there was no denying it. He needed a different approach.

His opposite palm flipped over to reveal the White Lion Bow once again. His thought process was simple. He hoped that it would be able to suppress the rod enough to allow him to do what he needed to do.

It was a wild thought, quite frankly. He had never thought of doing such a thing before, but he assumed that if weapons could eventually grow to have personalities of their own, then this wasn't too far fetched. This was especially so since he could subconsciously feel that this rod was fighting back against him.

It was similar to his Duality Spear when he first claimed it. It hadn't wanted to listen to anything he wanted to say and refused to allow him to use its Domain as well. It was clear that some weapons had their own sort of pulls and preferences, even if it wasn't as exaggerated as having a real soul.

However, what happened when Leonel brought the bow shocked him.

The good news was that whichever Rapax threw this weapon was definitely kicking themselves, absolutely furious that they had lost such a weapon. In addition to that, it seemed that Leonel was right, weapons could suppress one another after reaching a certain level.

The bad news…? Well, it wasn't the bow doing the suppressing.

'What the hell?!'

Leonel really didn't know what to do at this point. Would he really have to sever his hands? This would… it would be a huge issue.

He would have to restart his Designation from scratch, and that was only if he was lucky enough to regrow them or reattach them. He was beginning to feel that he was getting a raw deal.

What kind of idiot just throws a Life Grade weapon like that?! A Seventh Dimensional being's ability to calculate should be beyond even Leonel's. It should have known it wouldn't make it. Or, at the very least, it shouldn't have made its rod divert at the last minute like it had just for the sake of targeting him. Now he was in this mess.

'—Goddammit you annoying brat, listen!'

Leonel, who had practically cut off everything around him to deal with this situation, finally heard Wise Star Order's voice ringing in his head. Well, it was actually ringing in his soul. The old bastard had really gone the extra mile.

'What?!'

'It's not a spear you idiot, a spear you can touch without it disintegrating beneath the presence of the Spear Domain! Put it in the damn ring!'

'… What?'

Leonel looked again. He was absolutely certain it was a rod or a staff. It was a dense black, perfectly smooth, not the slightest blemish, all while warping the space around it just the smallest bit.

There was no blade to be seen anywhere.

However, now that Wise Star Order said it… It really, really, really…. Felt like a spear.

Leonel didn't hesitate, acting immediately.

The relief was almost instantaneous. He fell over, gasping for breath.

Unfortunately, the reprieve didn't last for long. The commotion around him, the very same he had ignored until now, wasn't small in the slightest.