Dimensional Descent

Leonel appeared in a world of ice. He wore a fluttering cloak of white that would have looked perfect for an assassin if not for its bright shade. Every time the wind rebuffed against it, it would radiate a delicate sky blue light that made it look absolutely magical.

He was still experimenting with "cool" uniforms and he had to admit that he quite liked this one, especially when the white gloves and snowboarding goggles matched with it.

'Seven out of ten,' Leonel thought to himself. 'We can still do better. Much better.'

All this said, he didn't just wear this outfit for the sake of the looks. It was truly cold in this world.

This place was under the control of the Nomad Race, a special variant of them with skin that looked drained of all blood. They were especially lanky, and it looked as though they were in a constant state of hibernation.

This wasn't much different from Patriarch Khafra, but whereas the latter's situation was almost certainly caused by a technique of some sort, for the former, they were naturally born this way.

Leonel had come here for a very specific reason, and that was obviously to kill.

He had used Somnus' information to pinpoint a few likely locations where the Nomads were involved in Flaura's plot. Though he wasn't here just for revenge.

As he had said to Aina, he needed to speed up everyone's growth a bit.

"What weighed the most heavily on the Dream Pavilion's scale were Impetus State Dream Force users."

"Well, this wasn't actually true. Obviously, Life and Creation State users were even more important. But it wasn't realistic for Leonel to suddenly come out with a bunch of them, and even if he could, it would be foolish to do so."

"However, if Leonel could create a few hundred or maybe even thousand Impetus State Dream Force experts, that would be a game changer and shift the Vast Dream Pavilion's formula enough that he could finally purchase some top of the line stuff."

"In order to do that, he had used the souls of Gemmes and the other Deputy Heads in an experiment that worked better than anything he expected."

"He used [Assimilate] on the souls and the Forgetful Orbs. His goal was to create a Forgetful State that could find a balance between what the Deputy Heads had comprehended and what the person absorbing the new orb had comprehended."

"This way, they could easily make the comprehension their own, giving everyone a shortcut to progression."

"It had worked... almost too well. Well enough that Leonel almost understood why so many had ganged up on the Fawkes Family. It could be said that that side of his family comprised nothing but monsters."

"What Leonel hadn't considered, though, was the fact that most Fawkes could do nothing of the sort. Even if they knew of the three most powerful techniques, that didn't mean they could use or understand them. There was a reason Leonel had almost died earning the recognition of the Golden Tablet before he could do anything with it."

"There were only a handful of Fawkes capable of doing what he had done and was currently doing."

"Hm, there it is," Leonel thought to himself.

The icy wind whipped against his cloak as he pulled up the scarf that covered the lower half of his face. His snowboarding goggles flickered and images flashed by until he had peered into the Dream Pavilion that hung high in the skies a long distance away.

"Now we wait."

It took over a day before Leonel saw his target. The old Nomad left, soaring through the skies on one of his large palms with a substantial amount of speed. It looked as though he was tearing through the wind itself.

"Fast," Leonel's eyes narrowed. "More than likely headed for the city, there'll only be one suitable spot to catch him...."

Leonel shot forward. From high above, he blended into the snow so well that the Dream Force expert didn't see or sense him at all.

Time ticked by and when Leonel felt it was right, he suddenly sprang upward.

"A bow formed in his hand, and the skies were almost instantly blanketed by a rain of arrows. From afar, it might have even looked like a meteor shower had fallen onto the mountain range."

"The Nomad was taken aback by the sudden attack, but he reacted fast, looking for a place to dodge to, only to realize that Leonel's rain of arrows seemed to have an almost mysterious quality to them, as though they were both separate and together at once, as though they were the cogs in a machine rather than a random burst of attacks."

"Beautiful."

"It was the one word he could use to summarize it."

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"The Nomad had no choice but to take the attacks head on, a frosty energy coming from him as he surged to prepare for a counterattack."

"What he didn't expect was for Leonel to suddenly appear behind him even amid his large Hands of God."

"Leonel had already swapped his bow for a spear, thrusting toward the Nomad's back with a swift momentum."

"The Nomad didn't understand what was happening. There was a strong spatial force around all of his Hands of God, suddenly teleporting by him shouldn't have been possible, and even in the case it was he should have at least sensed it before it was too late."

"An eruption of Water Force blanketed the region and a shimmering ice armor that almost looked like it was carved of diamond appeared on the Nomad's back."

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"The Nomad was sent flying forward as Leonel's spear bent into a crescent moon."

BOOM! BOOM!

"Plowing through the mountain range, the Nomad was beaten like a rag doll. He tried to stand to his feet quickly to escape, only to run the spear blade that appeared before him right through his own forehead."