Dimensional Descent

’That’s right...’ Leonel suddenly thought back, trying to remember his exact state of mind back then. For some reason, it felt a bit foggy, something that he wasn’t used to. It was as though two separate memories of the same thing were overlapping, but both just slightly different from each other.

But then those two memories became three, then four, then eventually they weren’t memories of anything, but rather probabilities and deductions. His mind went blank, and he felt a heavy overflow of fatigue and dizziness that didn’t stop until he forcefully stopped himself from thinking about it anymore.

’What was that?’

Leonel frowned. He had never experienced something like that before. It was like he was trying to deduce his own memories, but that was ridiculous.

’No, it’s like I was trying to think of other possibilities that might fit with that timeline, but that’s...’

Leonel was taken aback. He understood. He was making an attempt to find a perfect string of events that could have occurred in that moment, leading him right back to where he was now. But the number of possibilities was truly infinite. No one in existence should have a mind that powerful, let alone his current self.

Though he understood the what, what he couldn’t understand was the why. And even if he had succeeded, what would have been the purpose?

He had a dark thought, but he didn’t even want to go down that road. It threatened to make him frustrated once more and it almost brought him right back to that broken state. The words that El’Rion had spoken echoed in his mind, and the supposed uselessness of The Hourglass was put on full display.

Wasn’t it obvious? He could think of thousands, tens of thousands, billions, even, of possibilities that would lead him right back to this very same state... as though the present was a rubber band fixed at two ends, no matter how much the past changed, the beginning and the present would stay the exact same.

Leonel clenched his fists. He had thought of many useless abilities of the Ability Index in the past, but this one was most definitely at the very top.

He took a breath, steadying his beating heart and going back to his original thoughts. He made himself calm down and focus. Then, he finally completed the loop on his initial thoughts.

’It goes right back to the soul again. It seems that I don’t need Cleansing Waters after all; from the very beginning, [Dimensional Cleanse] was capable of doing it for me. Not just this, but it should even be able to steadily increase the state of my body as well. That man is an arrogant prick, but this technique... is truly genius.’

It wasn’t that Leonel didn’t understand the man was implying that he was himself. Only a fool wouldn’t understand, and Leonel was probably the furthest from.

He didn’t acknowledge it for one reason and one reason alone. If even that version of him couldn’t bring his father back to life, he didn’t want to be him. He would become someone else.

That was all the thought he needed on the matter. He didn’t care about anything else, and now that he had understood how [Dimensional Cleanse] truly worked, he didn’t have the time to think of anything else either. But first...

The star path beneath his feet rumbled, and the star before him quaked and then suddenly split right down the middle as though it was hiding a ship within. But out from within, tendrils of white gold shot out, piercing toward Leonel like roaring vipers.

Leonel’s body flickered, and he danced out of range.

He had never thought that tentacles could be beautiful, but that was precisely what was before him, a gorgeous sight. The movement of this enormous tentacle beast was like watching streams of golden light descend from the sun, peeking through the misty beauty of a day right after rain.

Unfortunately, it was just as gorgeous as it was deadly.

There were two problems that Leonel needed to figure out, both of which were probably quite important.

If this was Little Tolly, why was he attacking him? While he was in El’Rion’s body, he had had full autonomy, and that was a Pluto. Why didn’t Little Tolly? Or did that mean that Little Tolly did have autonomy and simply chose to attack him anyway? Had the mutation failed and was his Little Metal Spirit still rampaging? Or was it something else?

The second problem was, obviously, how to separate Little Tolly from this... beautiful creature? The Void Race entity had done it with a simple shout, but Leonel obviously wasn’t at that level, so what could he do?

Surprisingly, Leonel had only just thought of the question when he had thought of an answer, for the second, anyway. As for the first. Well... he would just have to find out.

Leonel came to a grinding halt, the tips of his toes gliding along the starry road until he came to a stop.

With a pulse of light, his Divine Armor manifested, his halo bouncing to his feet then back up.

Before his armor could even solidify, he had already surged forward, his speed impossibly fast.

He weaved through countless golden tendrils. The creature felt sluggish for some reason, as though it had yet to wake up properly. If he wanted to do this, he had to do so swiftly.

His body shot into the splitting star, looking for something that could be considered to be a core. But for a creature that could fill up the insides of a star, just how large was it?

’I’ve seen bigger just this week alone,’ Leonel thought to himself, flashing forward and appearing in a mass of tendrils so deep he had to continuously move about just to avoid being crushed to pieces.

By this point, he almost believed that this creature didn’t even know he was here, he was too small and insignificant. But there was no telling what would happen if it truly awoke.

’There.’

Leonel dove in and crashed down, his body suddenly lighting up with a roaring Vital Star Force.