Dimensional Descent

A violent whirlwind of golden blades suddenly appeared around Leonel and shredded into his shoulders and torso.

He indifferently blinked away, his body stepping around the void and continuing his rain of arrows.

On Minerva’s side, an arrow cut into her cheek as she tilted her head to the side, but she remained unmoved.

Their cold gazes met, and lightning seemed to spark.

At that moment, Leonel made a bold move. Moving across space, he continuously fired arrows, each one capable of razing mountains to the ground.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

He released three world-ending arrows, each one targeting a specific location of the formation of swords.

In that moment, Minerva’s expression changed because she felt the Natural Force Art suddenly let out a wild jolt of energy and she lost control for a brief instant.

In that brief moment, Leonel had already stepped across the skies and released another arrow.

It appeared before her in the blink of an eye, and she had no choice but to wave her sword to block it. However, that action caused her own formation to go even more wildly out of control.

The golden feathers scattered and Minerva realized it would take her at least three seconds to fuse them back into a formation. That was only a few blinks to mortals, but to existences like them, she could die dozens of times over in that span.

Without a choice, she could only abandon the formation for now and begin a slow and impassioned defense while she brought the feathers back in line. At this pace, it would take her at least ten seconds.

But Leonel was relentless.

First, he had proven to her that he could just as easily match her with a bow.

And now he reminded her that in terms of Crafting…

He was by far her superior.

How dare she assume that her formation would be enough to stop his steps?

PENG! PENG! PENG!

Minerva’s sword left three gorgeous arcs of gold in the air, swatting away dozens of arrows in a single sweep.

She realized something and immediately abandoned reforming the formation.

The nine times 108 golden feathers rose into the skies once again, but this time not in a formation, but instead a relentless, unbridled rain.

Her crown glowed above her head and a Domain of Dream Force spread out.

From the start, Minerva had never used her Ability Index. But since things had come to this, she would show Leonel her truest strength.

The world was instantly shrouded in the majesty of a Sovereign Middle Creation State Dream Force, and the golden feathers began to dance in a delicate pink mist.

They multiplied in the skies, going from short of a thousand to several tens of thousands in an instant.

The world roared, and they whistled.

Leonel was instantly enveloped by this pink mist and he had a hard time telling up from down and left from right.

He realized instantly that it was an illusion of some sort, but that knowledge didn’t help him when the opponent’s Dream Force strength was so far above his own.

However, he didn’t panic in the slightest. Instead, he became frighteningly calm, so much so that the world seemed to become painted in black and white before his eyes.

A rush of majesty came from him as his eyes closed for but a moment before they snapped open.

The halo behind him trembled, and the diamond pressed to his forehead glowed with a majestic light.

At that moment, the halo behind Leonel began to reflect the scenes inside of his Ethereal Glabella, and the form of the Mage Core, an Ancient Tree with an array of coloured leaves in the shape of runes, appeared.

It swayed gently in the wind just once.

A sword suddenly pierced through Leonel’s gut, ripping a hole right through him, but he didn’t even flinch.

The Mage Core swayed again just as another golden feather sword ripped into his shoulder, almost taking his entire arm off.

The more wounds he suffered, the colder his gaze seemed to become.

A sword flashed by, cutting half of his neck. Had he not moved slightly, his entire head would have been lopped off and sent high into the skies.

In just a few moments, Leonel was in an injured state, even worse than what he had experienced at the hands of the elder Fallen God Beasts.

However, his expression remained cold all the same.

And then his lips suddenly parted.

“Disperse.”

The moment the words came from his lips, the world froze, and an ancient rune came from his mouth.

The strength of a second Ability Index took root and the world of pink mist was forcefully ruptured and shredded apart.

At that moment, the number of golden feather swords plummeted back down to less than a thousand and Leonel’s aura pierced into the skies like a spear.

Leonel grabbed at the air, already readying his bow with the other hand.

He stood there, beaten and bloodied, the only indifferent part of him his heart shuddering gaze. They stood like two reflective marbles amidst the carnage, polished smooth and radiating a chilly pale violet light.

“Today, your Title will be… Swift.”

A rune formed in Leonel’s palm and he pressed it into his bow.

The bow trembled and sparks of lightning took shape in the skies as though the World Spirit was infuriated, and maybe it should have been. Leonel had just forcefully taken a portion of its power.

Even though his face paled, his back stood straight. Even though his arms were injured, he still pulled back the bowstring. Even though his head seemed it might fall from his shoulders at any time, he held it high.

“Die.”

The words were spoken softly, but the moment they descended, the world around Leonel shattered like fragmenting glass, reality fissuring, and the laws of this world rupturing.

He released the bowstring and time stopped while space seemed to cease mattering.

The arrow moved so swiftly that its tip had already pierced Minerva before she could react.