FAIRNESS

Leonel held his hands out and the earth rolling in the skies fell like a rain of meteors. Fire wrapped around them like a vortex and suddenly the dark and gloomy in-between world became lit ablaze.

Grimm unleashed a roar, three glaives appearing in his hands. The one he used with his main body was the largest, having a polearm of over two meters and a curved blade of an entire meter on its own.

The ones his floating hands held were smaller, but only relatively so. They moved with an added nimbleness, dancing through the air with the agility of an assassin's short sword.

He seemed to form a formation all by himself, a rolling wave of glaive blades filling the skies and crisscrossing with menace as they faced off against the falling meteors.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A rain of rock fell. Grimm's entire body felt like it was on fire, the effort it had taken was beyond what it should have. He didn't understand how earth that was so tough could be so easily controlled by someone like this...

His eyes suddenly widened.

Leonel appeared before the man like a ghost, his spear dancing through the wind as though gliding upon its coattails. And much like the wind, it felt ubiquitous and omnipresent, appearing exactly where it was needed and suffocating all those that wanted to avoid it.

Grimm's eyes practically glazed over, his heart skipping several beats. It was the most beautiful spear he had ever seen.

Leonel had spent a long time as a layman of the spear. There was even a point in his life where even Amery dared to say that he didn't deserve to wield a spear at all.

The current Leonel however, could dazzle the world with a single sweep.

Spear and glaives met, Grimm hurriedly retreating to regain the initiative with some space. However, he felt his movements suddenly become sluggish as Leonel's own accelerated. It was as though the friction in the air was assaulting him from all sides, making it feel like he was trying to move through sandpaper while Leonel was like an arrow through the wind.

Grimm only seemed to barely realize after several terrible exchanges that he was in the middle of a Domain of sorts. The Universal Force cascading down from above seemed to be fueling it in part.

Unfortunately for him and many others, he was completely unable to use Universal Force. No, it was more accurate to say that he was unable to use Universal Force that could actually impact his combat strength at all.

This was the situation of most powerhouses of the Complete Worlds. Even youths found it extremely difficult. Aina herself didn't battle a single person who made use of Universal Force.

Leonel was an anomaly in more ways than this man knew.

Suddenly, the silvery bronze mask that covered Leonel's face grinned wildly again.

The tendrils of silver wiggled and pierced out in the air, Force Arts appearing in the skies once more. But this was on a completely different level entirely. It felt like a God of the Bow was bearing down on him.

BANG!

The air fissured and Grimm was instantly overwhelmed. He tried to circulate his Force, but once again, he found that it was incredibly sluggish and didn't move the way he wanted it to.

Grimm roared, his Middle Impetus State Glaive Force flickering with a white-silvery light. The blades of his glaives came together in a tri-tip and swung down as one. The blade lights fused into one and more than tripled in strength, cutting into the blazing lights of Leonel's lasers one after another.

Grimm coughed up a mouthful of blood as he was sent flying back. He landed heavily on the tips of his toes, but as though he was pushing against an immovable force, he kept sliding back for several dozen meters before he managed to stop.

He exhaled a heavy breath, blood leaking from his lips as his eyes snapped up. He looked toward Wicked.

"Run. This isn't a battle you can partake in."

He had seen some oddities surrounding Wicked, but no matter how he looked at it, he couldn't see an excessive amount of strength coming from this youth. Staying here would do him no good.

He didn't know how Wicked could survive now that the gateways were gone, did he even have the strength to break through another Bubble? But staying here was certain death...

Wicked didn't even look at Grimm, his brows tightened into a frown.

Suddenly Wicked vanished and before Grimm could react, his heart had been pulled out from the back. The latter didn't even get a chance to see who had done it before his gaze dimmed.

Grimm's body broke down and he collapsed in a pool of his own blood. Soon, the wisps of Anarchic Force had swallowed him up.

Unfortunately... unless you had a Creation State Force, death in an in-between world was a true death even for a Ninth Dimensional expert. Grimm probably never expected that he would fall like this. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

Leonel stood and watched this scene without much of a care, his spear resting on his shoulders and the smaller rocks that had once been his meteors floating around him. He looked toward Wicked, trying to understand what this man's ploy was.

If Wicked had wanted, there should have been a good chance to reach the Finals and save his Bubble like Aina had. It wasn't guaranteed as Aina was on a completely different level than this man, but Leonel could say that there was a good 30% chance at the very least. That was better than most could hope for.

"There's no need for us to fight, right?" Wicked said with a smile.

Leonel didn't respond. He had no intention of letting this man go, he was too much of a variable. Who knew what he would be capable of?

Wicked sighed. "Ai, the young are always so unruly. Where's the fairness?"

Wicked suddenly vanished.