BLINDING
Leonel took a step forward and the earth shattered. A mountain appeared high in the skies above him as he struck out. The laws of reality bent and twisted, and it seemed that for a moment that it wasn't his spear descending, but the mountain behind him.
The Demoness caused Flaura's wrist to flick out again, and then again. She was as steady and unmoving as a titanic ship in raging waves. Every one of her movements flowed like water, but Leonel seemed to be improving at breakneck speeds. His heart shone forth like a guiding beacon and he had never wanted anything more in his life.
His spear underwent a myriad of changes, even warping time and space around it. However, these warps in time didn't seem to affect the Demoness at all. She stepped through blades that appeared to her back, slid out of the way of blades that pincered her from the sides, and stepped through attacks from her front with a flick of her wrist.
Everything was seamless, everything was unhurried, everything was almost...
Careless.
And it was exactly this that pissed Leonel off all the more. Even when she was playing with the lives of people, she didn't seem to care in the slightest, as though it was all just another game to her. The more he felt that way, the deeper the cold settled in, and the hotter his Innate Nodes burned. © 2024.
His Scarlet Star Force seemed to catch fire and the roar of beasts came from his body.
Again, again and again, he unleashed strikes that would make even Ancestors of Demi-Gods feel trepidation and seriousness, each one landing like a clap of thunder. Above every strike, the dome of the sky would shatter like fragile glass, and below it, craters the size of meteors would appear.
And every time, Leonel's power only seemed to grow sharper, swifter, more violent.
Every strike carried the roar of a thousand beasts spearheaded by the heart of a man infuriated enough to want to watch the world burn to the ground. Even as his body was being spent to its last drop, he didn't seem to care in the slightest, pulling on more and more until he saw a sea of blood red.
His heartbeat echoed like the shattering of the sound barrier, every ripple causing space to collapse. The World Spirit hurried to repair everything after him, but it wasn't long before it was shredded apart once again. He dug deeper and deeper until something suddenly snapped.
The crimson fissures across his body grew a size and the roars coming from his spear became twisted and demented. At that moment, the black crown above his head pulsed with a dense air of death, and deep in his Destruction World, a pair of eyes seemed to appear out of nowhere.
They were as deep and cool as an abyss, as unfathomable a pool of nothingness as the end of one's life. There was nothing but despair and hopelessness to be seen reflected back from it, and Leonel was only able to be reminded of a single thing when he looked into their depths...
Void Beast.
His heart suddenly ruptured and a rain of blood fell from his body. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and his spear blade wavered for just a moment. There was just the slightest flicker in the eyes of the Demoness, but as though understanding something, her smile never faded and her calm returned to much the same state it had always been in... Almost like someone who was surprised by the result, but felt that the outcome was close enough to her initial goals regardless.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
With sheer will, Leonel shrugged off everything, even pain was nothing more than a distant memory of the past as he shed it through Dream Sense. He forcefully reined in control of his body, keeping it together and his heart beating regardless of the lacerations running through it.
With blood seeping through his teeth, down the corners of his mouth and along his chin, he seemed to have come to exude a savage air from ancient times. And deep in the reflection of his eyes, a pair of eyes that didn't seem to be his own shone out into the world.
He erupted with three spear strikes, a dense blackened red aura coming out from him in waves.
The first attack splintered the whip.
The second attack shattered its body.
The third pierced through its handle and destroyed it from the inside out, causing an explosion of Force to burst out from Flaura's palm.
There should have been a rain of blood and bone, but somehow she seemed to be just fine. And yet, Leonel almost didn't notice as he continued a relentless barrage. The Demoness began to control Flaura's body to retreat step after step. Leonel seemed capable of cutting through every and anything. Worse than the Borne Banes, it was like he was created for nothing short of Destruction.
Every step he took turned the ground beneath him to ash. Every stride across the skies caused the clouds above him to become greyed and worn. The world seemed to wither around him, and in his relentless barrage, he forgot any and everything but the woman before him.
With a swipe of his spear, the broken wine bottle was shattered to pieces.
With another swipe, an arm was sent flying into the skies.
With another, the tendons of her knees were cut and she fell to the ground.
With yet another, a blade was drawn across her neck.
Leonel forgot it all, every strike still coming fiercer and fiercer, his blood overheating to the point it became a crimson vapor emitting from his pores. Even his heart seemed to only be pumping half gas, half liquid.
His spear pierced into her mouth and shredded her tongue to pieces and a hole out the back of her skull. He pulled back then drew a line right across those infuriating eyes, blinding them forever.