MONSTROUS

Hutch was speechless. This wasn't a joke; you couldn't just do this.

"The situation has changed a lot since you died, old man. I'll let others fill you in, but I want to make it clear that I'm not giving you a choice."

Leonel gave the old man a level glance.

Old Hutch shook his head. He could feel that there were two secrets hidden within Leonel's gaze.

The first was more happy and cheery, the interpretation he wanted to take while ignoring the other. And that was that Leonel was forcing his hand so that he didn't feel guilt about abandoning his position. After all, if Leonel was the one forcing him to stay by his grandson's side, it wasn't really his choice, right?

But Old Hutch was a veteran, a man of many battles who had seen countless things. He knew that this kid before him now was the same child he had known back then.

Maybe the youthful Leonel he had met all those years ago would have been like this. But that Leonel would have also let him leave if he insisted on it.

However…

The more dreary side of Leonel's current tone was that he was truly not allowing Old Hutch to reject. If Hutch resisted, he would find out quickly just how much Leonel had held back.

Right now, Leonel had kicked the ball into his court, letting him know that whether their relationship stayed so cordial or truly became one of master and servant was entirely up to his reaction to Leonel's words.

Old Hutch couldn't help but sigh, feeling a bit uncomfortable in his heart. He wasn't used to doing such things. Something like swallowing his own feelings on a matter and burying the thoughts of his heart just weren't in his nature. However…

He looked toward his grandson.

For too long, he had neglected him. There was a reason he had never blamed Elorin, and that was because it was his job as his grandfather to raise him right since his parents weren't around.

He had neglected his grandson, too obsessed with going back to his glory days, too obsessed with being Hacker Hutch again, to even see how much his grandson was hurting.

Now he was being given an opportunity to right that wrong, to stay by his side this time… how could he not take it? How could he make the same mistake twice?

Old Hutch sighed. "I don't know what happened to you, kid… but you're becoming a lot more like your grandfather."

"Don't compare me to that old fogie. I'm much more handsome."

Old Hutch was speechless, but in the end, he could only chuckle.

Inwardly, he was also feeling for Leonel. What did Leonel have to go through to become this version of himself? He would have never thought that Leonel had it in himself to strong-arm him like this.

Although Leonel's ultimatum was a bit cruel, there was a reason Old Hutch was so loyal to Gervaise. Sometimes, a leader had to have that sort of edge to them or else, rather than a little bit of discomfort now, it would be their people suffering for it in the future.

In the past, Leonel would mitigate this by taking on the entire burden himself, suffering the pain himself so that others wouldn't have to.

But he had matured enough now to know that there was certainly a sort of middle ground to take. Even if he was going to take on the burden himself, he had to put more effort into raising everyone around him up.

He descended from the skies and wrapped an arm around his wife. Aina still felt a bit fragile now, but he could see that there was some color returning to her face.

"We're going to need a lot of Force Pills very soon; do you think you're up to it?"

Aina's eyes brightened somewhat, and she nodded. Something to distract her, and something to do while she couldn't battle… that was exactly what she needed right now.

"I just need blood," she said softly.

Usually, she would use her own blood to concoct pills. But she couldn't for obvious reasons now. She was directing much of her Life Force to the baby and wouldn't misdirect it for this purpose.

However, that didn't mean that she couldn't pull the same Life Force from others. Even though she had never done that before, she was quite confident in it.

In fact, doing things that way would probably be even more efficient. After all, she wouldn't have to worry about overdrafting if it was someone else's blood. She could just focus on directing the Blood and Life Force. She would probably even be more efficient like this.

"Don't worry about that. You'll have plenty of blood soon." Leonel grinned. "Hey, old man, show me your Ability Index."

"You finally realized how much I was holding back? Is that it?" Old Hutch sneered, still a bit dissatisfied.

After he finished speaking, there was a sudden rush through the air and Leonel felt like he was frozen in place. It wasn't just him, but it felt like everyone was experiencing it all at once.

Old Hutch crossed his arms over his chest, laughing to the skies.

"How is it?"

Leonel would have blinked in surprise if he could. This was clearly an application of Spatial Force, and though it seemed to function like Nana's Bind Ability Index, he felt that it was completely different.

It was such a strong application of space that it actually crossed over to influence time as well.

He was solidifying the three Dimensions to such an extent that even Time Force itself couldn't move freely, effectively causing a result that was akin to Time Stop without quite being Time Stop. All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

Leonel's body trembled slightly and his Weapon Force tore the constraints around him apart, causing Old Hutch's lip to twitch.

However, none of this stopped Leonel's eyes from brightening into two suns.

The combination of grandson and grandfather would be monstrous.