Dimensional Descent

Leonel exhaled a breath. His body was covered in cuts and bruises, blood coating some of his white furred armor.

On the ground before him, Alerina laid at the end of her rope. It was clear that even after Leonel had given her a chance, the ultimate victory still remained in his hands. At this point, Alerina didn't feel like she had any more excuses to give.

Even so, Leonel didn't seem to be proud of his achievement. In fact, he was a hint unhappy. Even with his advantage in strength and speed, the battle had been a tough one. After Alerina copied his movements, she seemed to know everything he would do ahead of time, one would think that rather than copying, the ability of the Cloud Race was to see the future.

Compared to the first Cloud Race individual Leonel had fought, Alerina was definitely on an entirely different level, and Leonel felt that if their strengths were equal the one on the ground now would probably be him. But that was precisely why he had taken this chance to begin with, he wouldn't risk a loss here, especially after he had already confirmed victory, that would be nothing more than hubris.

Leonel reached down and took Alerina's spear, he had gotten enough from her.

"Who are you?" Alerina asked weakly.

"Leonel Morales," Leonel replied blandly.

Alerina fell into silence. She didn't recognize the name at all. Not only had she lost to a human, but he didn't even seem to be a place she recognized, or maybe he was, but was from a weaker family... but then how did he get his hands on a Spear Domain Ring? There was no way the stronger families would allow the weak to monopolize such a treasure.

Unfortunately, Leonel didn't have the answers she was looking for.

Alerina's body shimmered out of existence, leaving behind nothing but her armor. Leonel looked at the armor for a moment before shaking his head. Truthfully, although his own armor had less functionality, he preferred it.

Reaching down, he picked up the armor and thought for a moment. Although he didn't want the armor, it still felt foolish to just leave it. He thought about modifying it, but the main problem was that without Little Tolly by his side, manipulating metal was too difficult.

"Hm?"

An idea flashed in Leonel's mind.

Obviously since this armor had been left behind, he could use it. Though Alerina was a member of the Cloud Race and not a human, she still had the more petite body of a human woman, meaning her and Leonel's sizes couldn't be compared.

This meant one thing: the armor had shape and size changing functionality.

'I can... take advantage of that."

Leonel began to take the armor apart quickly, finding the Force Arts responsible for the shape changing. After making sure to preserve them, he began to restructure the other Force Arts, piecing together what he had while throwing away much of it.

'Good... good."

About an hour later, Leonel finished. What was left of the robust armor were just a few wrist, elbow, knee, ankle and neck bands. Every time Leonel snapped one piece on, a radiant aura would echo outward and seamlessly fuse with his hermit-like armor.

Soon, it became exceptionally subtle. It was hard to tell he had changed anything at all, but the aura his armor exuded alone seemed far more powerful.

Grabbing Alerina's spear, he allowed it to fuse with his original spear. With a WHOOSH, his spear broke through the Bronze Grade and entered the Silver Grade.

Leonel waved the spear around for a moment and then looked at the lance spear. He decided to keep using the latter since it came with the added functionality of Knight's Charge.

After exhaling a breath, Leonel's gaze sharpened.

'Bring it on.'

With a thought, Leonel's territories fused and the roar of beasts began to echo. The powerful evolved beasts spawned one after, their furious roars echoing with greater and greater vitality with every passing moment.

Leonel took a step and vanished. His white fur coat fluttered, with a spear strapped to his back and one in his hands, he dove into another blood thirsty battle.

**

The commotion that gripped Earth seemed to have overturned everything. There was chaos, and yet in some regions everything was quiet, too quiet. It was as though pockets of different worlds were forming along the planet's surface one after another.

Hacker Hutch stood in the midst of the commotion, stunned. He didn't quite know how to react to this situation. His blade, which had always lusted for battle, seemed to have gone dull.

Inwardly, he sighed. Despite the fact his improvements had allowed him to keep living, he had always felt old at heart. This era had come far too late and his prime had long since passed. He didn't have the raging will he once had as a youth, and that was simply something he had no choice but to accept.

Seeing everything he had worked all his life for come crumbling down, he simply didn't have the heart for it. During the war with Terrain he had sensed something amiss, as though a shadow was slowly circling his Slayer Legion and waiting for an opportunity to pounce, but it had already been two decades since then so he had hoped that he was wrong.

He had poured everything he had into this Slayer Legion, he had bled real blood. Back then, it was he who stood at the front lines and fought against so many City Lords all on his own just to protect the budding youth of the Slayer Legion...

And yet now what? Was he supposed to raise the same blade that had protected them to cut them down now?

Hutch's heart trembled as his head slowly turned.

In the distance, through the burning fires that threatened to raze the palace to the ground, a young man wearing a white tracksuit walked forward seemingly quite slowly, and yet whenever his afterimages snapped back together, he would have already moved countless kilometers.

Hutch's lip quivered and he closed his eyes, a single tear falling down his cheek.