NOT VERY NICE

Leonel rushed out, only to find a scene that left him floored. His heart sank to the bottom of an endless abyss, beating so fast that it thrummed like thunder in the air.

The bodies of his brothers lay scattered, splintered, and strewn across distances hundreds of kilometers apart.

Deep trenches and collapsed mountains lay in their wake, and looking at them now, it was hard to tell if they were even dead or alive. They were missing many limbs, their blood formed long lines in the dirt and grass, and their consciousnesses seemed to have long since collapsed.

Even if they weren't dead, it seemed that they weren't far off from it. What happened? He had only been gone for a few minutes at worst, and he had given his everything to recovering.

Even if his brothers weren't a match for Flaura, things shouldn't have ended this way. They most certainly should have been able to hold out, or else he wouldn't have dared to even step foot into the Segmented Cube in the first place.

His worry before had been because he hated the lack of control he had over the situation, but it wasn't to the point of feeling despair for them.

But now...

Leonel's head turned, and he looked toward where he sensed Flaura, but his pupils trembled.

She stood with a broken blade in her chest. In one hand, there was a whip, and in the other, there was a broken wine bottle.

It looked as though she was finished, and yet she continued to stand there as though she could continue to do so into infinity.

That was when she looked up.

The first thing Leonel saw were her eyes, and almost the same instant he did, he felt as though a blade was running through his chest instead.

Because he would never forget those eyes.

Those weren't Flaura's eyes.

Those were the eyes he had seen when he had to watch his wife be brutally ripped to shreds right in front of his face.

Those were the eyes of the Demoness.

Leonel's fury suddenly reached a towering peak. He forgot about his shock and trepidation, a violent air rippling around him.

His body cracked like fragmented glass, veins of crimson red appearing in the fissures. At that moment, the faint redness that had always been hidden in his eyes spilled over. © 2024.

It was only now that Leonel understood what that energy was.

It had been there ever since he almost failed to awaken his Metal Synergy Lineage Factor, back when he still called it that. His failure had caused a wisp of redness to appear in the midst of a beautiful violet. Every time he was enraged, it flared up as though it wouldn't be calm until the world was razed to the ground.

From the very beginning, it should have been obvious to him what it was.

It could have only ever been one thing.

The truest essence of Destruction.

BANG!

The world around Leonel shattered.

The fissures of crimson concentrated across his body like they were the glue holding him together. His eyes were painted red, and he grabbed at the air, forming a spear from nothing.

At that moment, his usual golden-red spear became suffused with a dark gold instead, an eerie blackness coming with it.

Its blade was also nowhere near as smooth. It looked instead like a fissure in space, jagged and irregular in its patterns.

Leonel's heart boiled over with fury.

[Star Fusion: King's Might].

A dark violent color wrapped around his spear, and as though a blackened purple nebula had exploded from inside of him, the world was painted in magenta.

Leonel took a step forward, and just as easily as it had with his bow, his spear blade was suddenly guided by his heart.

And this time, he didn't hold back his King's Might in the slightest. The violence in his chest was all concentrated into a single point. Everywhere it passed, it ripped everything to shreds. Before an attack of this level, even the likes of Minerva would lose her life to a single stroke.

And yet, wielding Flaura's body, the Demoness just continued to smile.

She reached out with the broken wine bottle as though wanting to use it as a weapon. But then she only flicked her wrist.

A droplet of liquid came out from it and soared forward, colliding with the tip of Leonel's spear perfectly.

In that brief instant, Leonel felt as though he was facing against an entire ocean rather than a droplet of wine. The power was relentless and endless in its pursuit, whittling away at his powers of destruction with the most brute force method: quantity.

He felt a shuddering impact in his wrist, and his body quaked. He was sent flying backward even faster than he came, his Star Fusion almost blinking out entirely.

Leonel coughed up a mouthful of blood and rammed into a mountain. It collapsed onto him, and the Human Bubble shook as though it would fall apart at the seams.

His fury hadn't abated in the slightest. If anything, he could feel more and more wisps of Destruction coming from his Destruction World, and soon, the mountain began to crumble to ash.

He roared into the skies, and they changed color, being painted in red.

"That's not a very nice way to greet your grandmother," Flaura said in a sweet voice that could melt bones. "You don't want to talk to me first, Little Lion? I have plenty of stories and wisdom to share with you. Don't you think you should take this opportunity to learn from your elder?"

Little Lion?

Leonel's mind went blank.

No, not blank, but it seemed as though every aspect of his mind had been consumed by the want to destroy everything.

Flames billowed out from him, and a crown of blackness appeared above his head.

How dare she call him by the same name his mother did?

Even if it was a wisp of a soul, he would do everything he could to kill this woman.