Hushed
Leonel returned to Earth's seating arrangements a bit disappointed, but also somewhat relieved. He didn't want to have to kill Isac. Not only had he just enlightened him to many things, but he also understood where Isac was coming from.
Leonel had long since grown past the point of allowing guilt to weigh down his soul and threaten his life. But, he had also come to the conclusion that those that wanted revenge on him for things he had done in the past weren't individuals he would hate.
In the future, he would have to cross and harm a lot of people. That was a weight he would have to carry on his shoulders and accept.
The moment Leonel sat back down, after appeasing his grandmother and insisting that he was doing just fine, he immediately entered a state of meditation as the battles raged around him.
The battles started up again in full force, but Leonel had entered his Dream World, several Dream Clones standing around and performing the same actions again and again.
Leonel was absolutely fascinated by Isac's bowmanship not only because of its applications, but also its simplicity. Although the amount of skill it took to use it at high levels was obscene, the entry was simple. It was the sort of thing that was accessible to everyone but very difficult to get extremely skilled at… Kind of like driving a car.
Anyone could take a vehicle from point A to point B. But, how fast could you drive a car without losing control of it? 150 kilometers an hour? 200 maybe? Anyone could park, but how many could parallel park with ease? And what about drifting into your parking spot? Anyone could drive manual, but how many could drive automatic?
The layers of complexity and skill increased almost instantly.
Similarly, Isac's bowmanship started simple but very quickly became complicated. In the start, it was a game of balance and projectiles, but then it evolved into aerodynamics and fluid dynamics, and at its highest levels became the physics of chaos and chaotic events.
To make a potential complex matter simple, Isac essentially coated his arrows in Bow Force, decided the shape and weight the Bow Force would take before he released the arrow. All of the random movements of his arrows from start to finish had never been a form of telekinesis or a special mind technique, but were rather all examples of Bow Force Manipulation! Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.
By tweaking and adjusting how Bow Force was applied to an arrow, you could cause delayed and seemingly random events to occur long after it had left the bow. The result was catching even someone like Leonel, who almost always had everything in his grasp, completely off guard.
The most shocking part of it was that the more clever one was with their application, and the more decoys you used, the more complicated the calculations became and the more difficult it was for a person to see through the truth.
Leonel was so used to being able to directly pinpoint the trajectory of an arrow or projectile because it always followed a simple parabolic shape. He only had to take into account gravity and the force behind it, adding in a sample of the sound it caused for extra measure, and he could tell almost everything about it from the location it was shot from to exactly where it would land in the blink of an eye.
But, with this… It was like Leonel's world had been turned completely upside down. Fluid Dynamics was among the hardest branches of physics even in the 25th Century. The variables only increased as you rose through the Dimensions. And, this wasn't even the most complicated application of Isac's bowmanship that Leonel could think of.
Leonel was so immersed in his own world that it took a tap from his grandmother for him to realized that it was actually once again his turn.
"Hm? Oh, right." Leonel smiled.
The depth of complexity was so great that even after that session, Leonel felt that he had only touched the tip of the iceberg.
The way Force interacted with regular Bow Force versus Natural Bow Force versus Enlightened Bow Force varied so wildly that Leonel had to prepare separate calculations for each. Then there was the matter of considering the atmosphere he was in, the kind of Force his enemy was proficient in, and even how fast or slow his opponent was breathing.
If Leonel wanted to be as accurate as he normally was with normal arrows, he had to take even the tiniest detail into account.
Leonel was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't even realize that the crowd released a deafening cheer when he stepped onto the arena. They were so excited by the next match up that they let it all out.
'Right, I didn't check…'
Leonel rose his head to look at the billboard. But, his eyes caught sight of something that made him realize there was no point.
Before him, a beauty holding a mask in one hand and a battle ax in the other stood. Aina met Leonel's placid gaze with her own cool amber one, the delicate sculpting of her features revealed for all to see.
No one knew why Aina had taken her mask off, but Leonel had a few guesses. Either way, she crushed the mask between the squeeze of her long and slender fingers, a bloodthirsty killing intent hanging around her.
The shards of the mask falling to the ground seemed to be the signal for the battle's start.
Aina's Force became like a towering pillar of crimson. The quantity and quality being so much that it felt like the entire arena would collapse. Even before she moved, the stage beneath their feet shattered like an egg, making it difficult to tell just where it began and just where it ended.
Leonel found himself falling as the platform collapsed, his feet still beneath him as his gaze remained locked onto his opponent.
BANG!
Aina accelerated forth. Her speed was so blazing that it put Syllar to shame. The difference might as well have been night and day.
Her long black hair fluttered to her back, her amber irises glowed with a fierce gold, the stride of her long legs and the tone of her powerful torso winding up as she raised her battle ax.
The shimmering blade reflected the sun's light as she chopped down toward Leonel's head. In what felt like the blink of an eye, she had already appeared before him, her strength causing the arena to tremble and quake.
BANG!
She sliced down with all of her might.
Orinik's expression change. 'Protection!'
The billboard in the skies hurriedly glowed, sending out a wave of Force that protected and reinforced the surroundings.
A blade Force shot through the earth, rising like a wall of dividing light and continuing to the point it crashed against the spectator stands.
Screams of horror and fear resounded as the golden barrier quaked, threatening to crack beneath the pressure and collapse entirely.
The strength was absolutely unfathomable. If Orinik hadn't reacted so quickly, it was impossible to tell just what would have happened to the arena.
Numerous gazes landed on the collapsed stage, no one caring for even a moment about the other battles that had been forced to stop amidst all the commotion.
But, what they saw when the smoke cleared was something they would have never expected to see.
Their Goddess had her head buried into a man's chest, uncaring for his bloody and sweaty mess of a ripped shirt. She wrapped her arms around him so tightly that it seemed as though she was scared he would disappear.
A hushed silence fell over the arena.