Dimensional Descent

Leonel hopped down from the ledge, landing on the ground as though he was nothing more than a feather. It was especially odd since he hadn't seemed to have done anything to slow his descent. In fact, it looked as though he had even sped up his fall.

Leonel frowned when he saw Aina's bloody hands. He could tell that the skin beneath was already healed, but it didn't make him happy at all.

He sighed. "Didn't I tell you that you should always carry around a bunch of blood, it's too useful to your combat abilities not to."

Aina only smiled but didn't respond. She didn't carry around blood with her mostly because it felt like a cheat. Her Blood Force enhanced her abilities, but they weren't her foundational abilities, at least that was the way she saw it.

In her mind, her main focus should be increasing her raw ability. Then, of course, her Blood Force would be able to boost that when she needed it, thus making her stronger.

All this time, Aina's Blood Force had been like an enigmatic existence looming at the back of her mind. She never really understood it or what it meant to be a Blood Sovereign. In fact, she somewhat hated it and wanted to run from it due to the bad experiences it had caused her.

The fusion with the Gold Tablet seemed to have subtly changed those thoughts within her, but she had only combined with it a few hours ago at most, how would that be enough time to change her entire mentality?

Ultimately, she knew that Leonel was right and had always been right. If she had stored the large amount of demon blood she had gotten from the High Class Sector instead of just leaving it behind like she usually did, then she wouldn't have suffered as much or maybe even not at all.

When she faced increasingly powerful opponents, she couldn't always hope to snatch their blood from them.

Just then when she had slapped Lovira and managed to draw blood, she realized that she couldn't even snatch away the latter's Blood Force, leading to her being pushed to the edge and forced to use a technique she wasn't even sure would work.

Luckily it had, but she still felt that it was a close call. If not for this, she would have been heavily injured if not dead.

"Are you the one who tricked my junior into doing your dirty work?"

Lovira seemed to have finally recovered, but she found herself frozen again when Leonel looked at her. Once was already enough, but for it to happen twice now, she realized that this wasn't a coincidence. Something about this man was even more dangerous than her, and that wasn't a feeling that she was used to being born with her two Lightning Force affinities.

"Who is that?" Leonel asked, ignoring her question.

"A disciple of the Endless Twilight Pavilion?"

"Endless Twilight Pavilion? What does she mean I tricked you?"

"It's a female only organization," Aina explained simply.

"Oh. No wonder it's called Endless Twilight, it's probably run by an old lady who thinks her prime extends to infinity. It makes sense she's raised such bitter disciples."

Aina opened her mouth to respond but when what Leonel said hit her, she was frozen in silence for a moment before she snorted beside herself, her laughter echoing throughout the silent city.

However, Aina was the only one who was laughing. Whether it was the three women, or Tybth and the other men above, none of them dared to. In fact, even if they found it amusing in their hearts, they wouldn't dare to.

Leonel had just said those words out loud for everyone to hear and there was an almost 100% certainty that the fiery tempered Pavilion Head Ophelia had heard them.

Old lady? Past her prime? Bitter?

"You dare say such words about Pavilion Head Ophelia?!"

Leonel's head turned back. "Since you dared to injure her, why don't you just die?"

Lovira, who hadn't expected such a change, suddenly felt an overwhelming danger take hold of her.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

At that moment, the building that Leonel had just been in shrunk by three factors. No, it hadn't shrunk. Rather, it had condensed, becoming a mass of Seventh Dimensional material that snaked into the skies and quickly formed the head of a horned dragon.

ROAR!

The devastating sound broke the sound barrier, shattering the windows of countless sky rises as a huge accumulation of Fire Force began to accumulate in the horned dragon's mouth.

'Run.'

This was the only thought in Lovira's mind as she sprinted away, her eyes signaling the very same thing to her companions.

"Dammit!"

Lovira instantly realized that there wasn't enough time. The other two disciples would have time, but she most definitely would not.

The heat already began to scorch her skin, a raging tempering swirling about the mouth of the construct before it even breathed out.

And when it finally did… It was as though the world was dyed in red.

Lovira unleashed her Stars all at once. Under the shocked eyes of the spectators, she was actually able to manifest four, but the despair on her face spoke volumes.

A pillar of fire descended from above, enveloping her completely.

The concrete melted to liquid, the foundation of several buildings to the side warping and collapsing.

The fire slowly waned, but the heat only seemed to continue to rise. The only two who seemed completely unaffected were Leonel and Aina, the former because no flame could possibly hurt him, and the latter because she had his protection.

"She survived…" Leonel mumbled to himself, watching as a half charred and completely naked Lovira coughed and stumbled, the molten pavement sticking to her and causing her to scream out in horror and pain.

Unfortunately for her, though, there was no beauty to see in her naked form. There was nothing but a half bald head, boiling skin, and charred flesh.

Leonel prompted the horned dragon construct to raise its head again to attack, but at that moment the ground rumbled.

He looked off into the distance, his eyes narrowing. It seemed that the Human Class demons were finally launching their assault.