Dimensional Descent

The momentum of Aina’s palm was suffocating. Little Fox was taken off guard by her appearance alone, let alone the fierceness of the attack. It felt like, for a moment, death was standing right before him. There was no way to dodge, no way to evade, no way to…

“Mental attack!”

Little Fox quickly snapped out of it. If he was truly a little boy, his life would have ended right then and there, but his actual experience was far beyond his age.

None of them could have expected that this would happen. They assumed that there was nothing that Leonel was still hiding, but to think that Aina was such a Dream Force expert.

Even so, there was no time to regret it now. Leonel hadn’t given them any time to assess what happened. The only thing left to do was fight.

So long as he could hold on and reach the end of the maze, it didn’t matter what Aina did, the victory would be theirs.

Little Fox quickly clasped his hands together and protected himself with a shield of Dream Force.

BANG!

His vision went black as the palm landed. The disparity was far greater than he could have ever imagined.

Just now, he thought he had a firm handle on Aina’s strength. The palm was powerful, but the Dream Force control was poor and lacking. This made sense, it seemed that Aina was a lot more like Gregwyn in this respect, relying on great talent but lacking in experience.

However, when the palm actually landed, Little Fox felt as though he was nothing more than an ant facing off against an elephant.

He had no idea how Aina had done it, but despite the simplicity of her attack, the hidden complexities within were on another level entirely.

It clicked for Little Fox the moment his consciousness faded back into focus.

They were doing this on purpose! Aina wasn’t a layman at all!

But it was already far too late. Another palm came crashing down and despair took root in Little Fox’s soul.

He slapped his small palms together once more, his floating hands following suit. He couldn’t die here, he had no choice but to go all out.

Suddenly, his floating hands expanded and seemed to become the hands of adults rather than the toddler he was. They looked aged and wrinkled, and soon they began to morph even further.

One gained angel wings, another became covered in demonic scales, a third became covered in fur and the last seemed to grow pulsing green veins that wiggled about as though they had minds of their own.

The four palms formed an odd cycle between them, the balance resonating with Dream Force akin to the birth of a world. It was like, for a moment, Little Fox was truly tapping into the Second Dimension, the birthplace of Dream Force.

His strength skyrocketed as he coughed up a mouthful of blood. Whatever method he was using seemed to place a great toll on him, but it was between this and death. He had no other methods.

Aina’s second palm crashed into the combination of four as Little Fox hurriedly scrambled to his feet, rushing backward at a greater speed.

Little Fox rounded a corner, only pulling his floating hands back toward him as he increased the distance.

The floating hands of Nomads had a limited scope of influence, but that was only for normal Nomads. The more control you had, especially in the case of Dream Force experts, the larger said scope would be. For Little Fox, he could even teleport his hands back to himself on a whim, it was just that he didn’t want to display that ability just yet-

BANG!

Little Fox was sent flying backward.

He was so focused on escape and survival that he didn’t even notice a Dream Beast appearing before him. The tail of a Starry Tailed Fox slapped against him, nearly twisting his head from his shoulders.

He tried to scramble up again, but he found that Aina was already slowly walking toward him. From the beginning, she never seemed to increase her pace. In fact, it was as though-

‘She knew there was a beast here?!’

Little Fox’s heart was practically beating out his chest.

This maze was so complex. Although he knew there were patterns, the idea of actually capitalizing on them in such a life and death situation was the furthest thing from his mind.

It didn’t make sense for Aina to be able to both focus on hiding the true extent of her Dream Force abilities, while also calculating everything else in advance as well.

“No!”

Aina’s palm struck down again, ignoring Little Fox’s final plea. The little boy teleported his hands toward him in the final moment, but four of his palms barely managed to deal with Aina, not that he had to divert them toward separate attacks, he stood not the slightest chance.

His body was shattered into a rain of blood and gore, and the world fell silent.

Aina reached out and grabbed the four palms that remained, gazing toward them curiously before turning away and leaving.

ƈοm

It was a maze that should have taken weeks to navigate your way out of. Between the dangers, the traps, and the attacks on the mind, not to mention the changing to the maze over time, this was already a great time.Yet, not only had Aina found Little Fox in barely a few hours, she left the maze in less than a day.

When Aina completed the maze, Leonel’s eyes slowly opened, his gaze calm as his wife appeared by his side.

What remained of Little Fox’s body were pulled to their side, but his palms stayed with Aina.

The bars of points rolled forward and a disadvantageous situation was turned around. In a single breath of time, the Vast Dream Pavilion took their victory, rising up to the 163rd position on the leaderboard.

Victory was theirs.