NO CHOICE

Leonel's aura seemed to carry with it a towering, unsuppressable fury. The veins beneath his skin twitched wildly as he stood in silence, trying to rein in his temper.

Plumes of black and dark violets rose and fell around him, his Dream Sovereign crown flickering with pulses of demonic light.

Let alone Eamon, even the three Nomads felt shaken. Their own minds seemed to be corroding away under Leonel's might, and the world seemed to be slowly swaying toward shades of red.

Somewhere deep inside, Leonel had always felt that it was possible. No matter what the world said, no matter what logic said, he had always felt like he was above it all. Even after he changed his Dream Force path, the truest core of his nature had never changed.

There was a reason he had always tended toward absolute confidence. He never measured himself by what others could or couldn't do, and the only person he had ever truly respected to the depths of his heart was his father. As for anyone else, what they could or couldn't do was irrelevant to him.

And it was this very father that had given him a chance to break free of the Demoness, this father that had taught him everything he knew, this father that was the reason for the strength he held today.

His father had given up so much, so wasn't it only right that he be able to accomplish all things? Wasn't it only right that he could play with the lives of a Demi-God World on a whim? Wasn't it only right that he didn't care very much that his Fawkes identity had been exposed even if that meant becoming the enemy of the world?

Who cared if he was the enemy of the world? He would just win anyway.

There was nothing that could stop him, nothing that should be able to stop him... because his father had paved the path to invincibility for him...

So wouldn't he be letting him down by letting something as foolish as the limitations of others hinder him?

So he had held onto that hope, clung onto something he knew didn't make sense.

Until it all came crumbling down today.

It didn't matter if he truly found a way to bring his father back to life, if he somehow surpassed the Regulators and brought his father back from the jaws of death... because just by virtue of doing so, his father would never be his father again.

The man that had raised him would never return. And any attempt to reform him into that man would only sully his memory.

Ironically, it was precisely because Leonel respected his father so much that he simply couldn't do it.

There was something beautiful about life, something that no amount of power could replicate, that no amount of strength could reform.

It was a chaotic probability.

Leonel had started much of his life as a person who held morality in the highest regard. He couldn't deduce the worth of a person, so he felt that all people should be equal.

In the past few years, he had still not found such an answer, a hidden secret formula to weigh the life of a person, but he had become much more lax with his views on morality nonetheless.

He decided that since there was no objective morality, his only responsibility was to himself and those around him. Only by doing right by them could he leave a fulfilling life.

But now he understood that it wasn't just that all lives were equal, nor was it that all lives were equally worthless. In fact, every life was so individually precious that it was simply impossible to ever replicate them again.

Were his brothers even the same people they were before they died? Was Rollan the same person? Was Goggles the same person?

Was Aina the same person?

The bloody streaks fell from Leonel's eyes and the courtroom shook more and more violently as though it might collapse at the seams.

Eamon huddled up in a corner, too afraid to look up. The pupils of Patriarch Khafra continuously trembled from side to side, his heart rolling in waves. Little Fox's large eyes flashed with denser and denser hints of fear.

None of them could understand what kind of monster was standing before them.

On the one hand, he seemed to be a normal human. But in their minds... he seemed to project out as large as an entire world, as though he was a looming Void Beast rather than a simple boy. owns all content.

Just when it seemed like the courtroom would truly crumble, a figure stepped out from the Segmented Cube.

Aina appeared in the midst of Leonel's aura, pressing a hand to his cheek. She couldn't seem to feel the stream of blood running down the back of her hand as she looked into his eyes.

Leonel met her gaze, his own flashing with a towering hatred and helplessness. He truly hated the world, and for a moment, he felt like it should just all burn down.

He had never felt so much hatred in his life.

Hatred for the Four Great Families. Hatred for the Demoness. Hatred for the Regulators. Hatred for Existence.

Aina smiled weakly and slipped into his arms. She pressed her ear to his chest, listening to the thunderous booms and echoing war drums.

Somehow, her warmth felt separate from the heat rising in his body.

Leonel's breathing slowly calmed down. He subconsciously wrapped his arms around her until his beating heart returned to a steady, slow rhythm. At this pace, it only thrummed once every several minutes.

He wasn't the only one that had lost people. His wife had lost her mother, his brothers had lost their parents, there were people who lost loved ones every day.

The difference between him and them is that they had already accepted it, but he never had.

And today, he had no choice but to do so.