Dimensional Descent

The Demoness’ hand trembled in the air, but then it suddenly stopped. It dropped to her side, falling into a lull.

The space her Dream Force took up seemed to expand, and her rippling emotions calmed.

She looked toward where Leonel’s remains rippled in the air. Then, she took a step and vanished.

Honestly speaking, she wasn’t sure what Nilrem was speaking of. What was dead would remain dead. If that wasn’t the case… why would she have to try so hard to change it?

**

Aina stood on the ground, the small hands of her children resting in her palms. She stared up at the skies.

In one moment, her husband had been there. And in the next, he wasn’t.

She felt an emptiness in her heart, and tears threatened to fall from her eyes.

”Mommy?”

Two tugs came from her arms.

A smile curled her lips as she looked down, the sadness she had just felt vanishing into the wind as though it had never been there.

”Yes?”

Little Leo and Leah blinked. They thought they had felt their mother’s sadness just now, but it didn’t seem like anything was wrong anymore.

They might have been intelligent, but they were still children. Their minds lacked flexibility, so they quickly forgot, thinking that they had made it up.

In their short little lives, they had never experienced any sort of true hardship. Certainly, nothing that wasn’t manufactured by their parents.

They didn’t have the capacity to consider that something truly horrible may have happened.

For her children, Aina put on a strong face as though she couldn’t feel the vast emptiness. Even the pain of the ring on her finger being burned away didn’t so much as change the look on her face.

The space before them warped.

Out from it, a Barbarian walked out. A woman with a bosom so large that it felt like she should tip over appeared, holding a heavy club over her shoulder. Bandages stretched across her chest, loose pants hanging so low on her hips, even they seemed like they might fall at any moment.

Aina hardly reacted to the appearance of this woman, but she already knew who she was.

Talon’s wife, the very Barbarian Race woman who had once stopped Leonel outside of the Incomplete World of the Sea Gods.

She looked toward Aina in silence. Despite her valiant demeanor, and her being quite well aware that these matters were all but over, she didn’t show much arrogance. In fact, her expression was that of pity.

She, too, had once lost her husband. It took quite a lot to get him back, but the man she knew now…

She found herself absently looking into the distance.

Maybe her true husband was never coming back. She would just have to learn to love this new man.

As soon as she had this thought, she fiercely suppressed it. If the Demoness sensed it, she would truly be finished.

Taking a breath, she looked toward Aina again, opening her mouth to speak.

She didn’t get the chance to.

”If you want to live, leave,” Aina said lightly. She never let go of the hands of her two children.

It was quite rare for Aina to show any mercy at all. Between the two of them, she had always been the more bloodthirsty compared to her husband. All this talk of guilt and genocide never faded her. Leonel could kill all the men, women, and children in the world and she still loved him just the same.

It just never mattered to her.

But right now, she didn’t want to interact with anyone but her children, and certainly not an enemy.

The Barbarian woman frowned. The pity she once felt had vanished, and the warrior blood in her pumped... only once, as it was the last time.

Her head flew into the skies, the very blood thrumming in her body being ripped out of her control. All she felt was her heart beat once, far too heavily, and then a spurt of blood surged for her throat.

When it reached that location, it sharpened, jetting out like a winding scythe.

Her head was separated from her shoulders before she even got the chance to speak a single word.

…

Talon froze. His head snapped back so fast that space crackled and almost snapped apart at the seams.

A pang echoed through his heart, his palm involuntarily raising to his chest.

He hadn’t even known until this moment that the woman had so firmly wormed her way into his heart.

He knew how much she loved him, but the feeling had never burned so furiously in him. At best, he loved the feeling of her body. In this life, he accepted being her husband because she was the best option.

Sometimes he could see that reflection of pain in her eyes, but he couldn’t change how he felt. So, he just never addressed it.

At that moment, though… it was like something had been ripped out of him.

”She… died?”

His shock almost made him hyperventilate.

Without the Pluto or Void Race, with the Sylvans neutered and the Ancient Beasts being slaughtered beneath his and the Invalids’ blades right this moment, just how could there be someone left who could kill his wife?

Let alone so quickly?

”Those families? No, they were dealt with as well by…”

Talon’s eyes danced with a malevolent light.

He stomped at the air, his rotund body carrying such strength that such a simple movement, even so high up, bounced the world beneath down several light years.

In an instant, he was gone, his fury towering to the skies.

…

Aina stood in silence for a moment and then kneeled down to her children.

She calmly brushed their hair with her hands, giving them each a kiss on the forehead. Then, she hugged them tightly.

The two little ones were overwhelmed by the love they were feeling. Little Leo squirmed a bit, but Leah pinched his cheek, forcing him into obedience.

A light smile coated her lips.

Then, she pulled them into the Segmented Cube, suppressing Anastasia’s desire to manifest herself.

Rising to her feet, she exhaled.

A blood-red light coated her from head to toe.