Dimensional Descent

Ger’Ain’s roars filled the skies as he drove the spear deep into Leonel’s body.

The last flickering lights deep within Leonel seemed to tremble one last time before his body gave way. Even as his brain fired signal after signal to move, he had pushed himself much too far.

With so much weight bearing down from above, he couldn’t move even if he wanted to, let alone the fact his body wasn’t responding to him.

Failure.

So close... and yet so far...

In the real world, it didn’t matter how furious you were or how much passion you had. At some point, you would reach the end of your road if you weren’t strong enough. Leonel unleashed shallow breaths because he couldn’t physically breathe deeply anymore. He might not have felt the pain, but there was nothing at all that was good about that.

Faintly, he could feel his wife’s gaze from the far-off distance, but he couldn’t even turn to look at her. And even if he could... there would be kilometers, a city wall, and countless buildings in their way.

A fury bubbled up in his chest, writhing out of control like it had before, but it was likewise useless. All it did was sap up what remained of his energy.

The haggard, enraged breath of Ger’Ain lumbered on from above, pressing down on Leonel’s body and only making him feel more suffocated and disgusted with himself, ’I can’t...’

Leonel’s gaze flickered like an ember waning or a light overloading its fuse.

His will was still akin to a towering tempest, so powerful that Ger’Ain could feel it weigh down on himself as well.

But no amount of will could seem to move his body.

”You killed... a Pluto... that much is fine, I can accept it... but you... also defiled his body, you ruined his memory...” Ger’Ain gasped between breaths. ”... One of my own kind... the sort of pressure we bear for the sake of the world... you cannot imagine... and yet... you disrespect us like this...”

Ger’Ain’s rumbling words seemed to fuel his fury all the more.

He ripped his spear up from the ground, taking Leonel’s body along with it. Hanging from the end of the spear, Leonel could hardly do anything but hold onto his own. But because the gap in their size was so large, even if he managed to move his body and swing his spear with any sort of force...

He wouldn’t even reach Ger’Ain’s neck.

The Pluto’s spear was simply too long.

”I will show you what it feels like to be disrespected and defiled! A warrior like you deserves a good death, but I will not give you one! I will trample over your pride and humiliate you even in death! I will nail your tongue to your head and hang your penis from your mouth instead! You will not rest in peace for a single one of your days!”

The more Ger’Ain caught his breath, the louder his voice became, and more thunderously it boomed across the skies.

The fury of a Pluto seemed to have spilled forth from him, and Leonel only now finally grasped what Ger’Ain’s path of the spear was.

It had been hard to grasp, much harder than Vaelin. He had assumed that it was somewhat related to time, which was why it was so muted.

But the reality was that this wasn’t the case. In fact, part of the reason Ger’Ain was so agitated came from a reason even he couldn’t properly understand for the same reason.

His spear was filled with the pride of the Pluto race, the pride of a Race that stood atop the world, that bore the weight of humanity’s survival for so long.

But ultimately...

How could such a spear show its might before Leonel’s? How could such a prideful spear continue to be when it was so clearly inferior?

Now, however, this spear seemed to be gaining momentum as it sat skewered through Leonel, as it humiliated the man that once stood above it.

With dull eyes, Leonel looked down at the spear skewering through him.

Was this how his father had felt? Dying to someone so inferior to him only because there was someone much more powerful pulling the strings in the background.

He couldn’t help but wonder what his father’s last thoughts were. Were they of hopelessness? Despair? The unfairness of it all?

Leonel coughed, another weak spurt of nothing coming from him as his body simply had nothing more to give. The fact he still had the reflex to cough at all was astonishing in its own right.

”No...”

Leonel’s voice came out as weak as the flap of a butterfly’s wings. Even Ger’Ain didn’t hear it. Let alone the Pluto, even Leonel couldn’t quite hear it. Though it was hard to tell if that was because he had spoken so softly, or if it was because his ears couldn’t quite pick up sound like they used to.

As for what he was saying no to, it was his father’s last thoughts...

He knew what his father was thinking... he had seen that smile on his face... there wasn’t an ounce of despair or helplessness there.

That was because unlike him, his father had cleared a path for his wife and son... unlike him, his father’s son had already grown into a man ready to carry on the burden himself... unlike him, his father had succeeded.

Leonel’s arm suddenly moved as the weight on his shoulders grew heavier. He wasn’t just carrying his wife, his unborn child, or the memory of his parents on his back... He was also carrying his father’s burden, his last hopes, his last dreams, his last smile. Leonel held his spear in his teeth and grabbed onto Ger’Ain’s polearm with a hand. Deep within his mind, a tranquility that had been at silent rest stirred.

Control.

For the sake of his family, if it was all he had left, he was even willing to become a Demon.

A bloodthirsty light filled his eyes.