Dimensional Descent

Leonel breathed in and out slowly.

His body was a complete mess. One of his arms had his entire tricep stripped off. Out from his back, there were at least a half dozen arrows and a broken spear sticking out of him. His face was covered in such a dense drizzle of running blood that one would have thought that it had been raining red earlier.

Every breath felt like he was inhaling scalding iron, and his body was teetering on the very edge of collapse. And yet, he was still standing.

In those moments, he had forgotten about everything. Almost like he was the iron being tempered in flames, he allowed the pain to wash over him, suffering countless blows, injuries, and horrors.

With his normal body, these injuries were nothing. But with a body suppressed to the Third Dimension, it was a miracle that he was even standing at all.

And yet, he was.

The silence hung palpably. Even until the end, those of the city didn’t know how to react.

When had they ever seen a man defeat a thousand on his own?

In the end, more than half had ended up running away once again, leaving Leonel disappointed in his own performance. But it was hard for those of the city to look at it like that at all.

Leonel unleashed a shuddering breath as he raised his head to the skies. He couldn’t help but wonder where that line existed, what was holding him back... was it still the Regulator?

His hands loosened and the broken spears fell from his hands, piercing into the ground.

He turned back toward the city, walking with slow, steady steps.

If this one battle wasn’t enough, he would fight another.

If that wasn’t enough, he would fight a third.

If that wasn’t enough, he would fight a fourth.

He wouldn’t allow himself to be stalled here. His steps would continue to trudge forward until he reached the end of this road and the Demoness’ head lay on the ground before him.

He walked directly into the city and disappeared. From start to finish, no one spoke a single word.

What could they say?

In the end, it was City Lord Anesse who took control of the situation and sent people out to clean up the battlefield and burn the dead.

In a world like this one, allowing the bodies to stay around for too long would end up spreading disease and killing off their city’s population.

However, even as they did this work, none of them could forget the scene they had just witnessed.

It was only made more shocking when Leonel did it again the following week.

And then again the week after that.

Leonel fell into a boiling vat of water Aina had prepared. They had been in this world for two months already, and at least once a week, there would be a large-scale attack that was triggered.

Every time, the enemies would be stronger and stronger, and in this most recent battle, the enemy actually had a rudimentary form of Spear Force that seemed almost about to take shape.

Not only were they getting stronger, but their numbers were growing as well. The bear man had been a bit of an anomaly at first, but now it felt like every time an army appeared, it was a thousand-men strong.

And every time they came, Leonel would fight them alone.

Sitting in the wooden tub with his wife behind him, cleaning his wounds, there was a silent peace in the air.

Leonel didn’t feel his pain at all; he just felt comfortable.

His injuries were slow to heal in this world, but Aina had managed to find a way to speed it up. After studying the herbs that were around for a week or so, she managed to find combinations of normal Third Dimensional herbs that were excellent at

stimulating his healing processes.

By now, Leonel was easily twice as powerful as he was when he first stepped into this world, and somehow he both felt like his Spear Force had advanced by leaps and bounds and that he hadn’t made any progress at all.

It was an odd feeling, to be sure.

Being twice as powerful didn’t sound impressive until one thought about how long it would take a mortal to achieve such a thing normally. To be twice as strong as the common man should take at least half a decade to a decade of training for most. But Leonel had accomplished it in less than two months.

But he didn’t feel like there was anything impressive about it at all. That was because

23:41

as others gathered, regained their humanoid forms, and slowly began to access more of their Lineage Factors and Ability Indexes, on top of unlocking their Weapon Forces, Leonel was stuck in a rut the Regulator wouldn’t let him out of.

From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed only natural that he would eventually run into a wall that he couldn’t surpass.

When that time came, he would die, and his wife, without the ability to protect herself, just might follow suit.

How could Aina fight against so many enemies in her current state?

Leonel even began to wonder if he had made a mistake by not investing in conquering more men.

In reality, there were many he had defeated that came to the city of their own volition, growing it. By now, their 300-man militia was not only fanatically loyal to him due to his power and strength, but they had more than tripled in size, giving him a thousand-man army as well.

But he pushed such thoughts down. He knew that this path wasn’t for him.

For Leonel, building an army and using it to conquer everything would be... too easy.

No one could outmaneuver him on a battlefield.

But none of this would help him unlock what he needed.

He had come to the Idol Battlefield for his own power, not to raise a power that would

be useless to him outside of these walls.

”I’m going to give birth soon,” Aina suddenly said.