SWALLOWED

Leonel took deep breaths.

He had been able to ignore his fatigue carlier because he was pissed off, but that battle against his father had taken its toll on him. The main trouble, of course, were those spears that had gone through him.

He was lucky his father hadn't used his Destruction on the first spear that went through both his shoulder and neck. But judging by his final words, maybe he had done that on purpose. If not, Leonel would probably be dead right about now.

However, that didn't change the fact the rest of his body was riddled with holes pooling with

Destruction energy.

Luckily, he could restrain that quite well. At the very least, he was far more equipped to do so than anyone else with his Creation Sovereignty,

But it was hard to reverse damage that was already done, and even harder to unwind the stamina he would use up to deal with the situation as well.

There was a heaviness to his body now that went beyond just the illusory weight on his shoulders. If he was too casual about it, he could end up suffering greatly.

However...

Leonel vanished.

When he appeared again, instead of appearing at the next phase, he found himself standing at the beginning of a very long corridor once again.

The only difference between this one and the spear trial was that the statues wielded bows. Leonel looked ahead in silence for a moment before a fiendish grin spread across his face.

Did the Idol Battlefield think that this would break him?

Maybe if he had struggled so much with Bow Force first and then he was sent off to face the same challenge of Spear Force he would feel a heaviness to the situation, maybe even a little bit of despair that he would have to temper down.

But this Idol Battlefield had underestimated him far too much.

Between his Spear Force and Bow Force... his Bow Force talent had always been on a level all to itself.

Even if he had to start from square one again, building up his Bow Force from nothing, he would still perform far better in this long corridor...

Let alone the fact that he had no need of doing such a thing.

The insights that he had gained from his Spear Force could be translated at least in part to his Bow Force as well.

When his talent and this foundation was brought together into one...

What chances did this corridor even stand?

A hint of pride threatened to spill forth from Leonel's brow again. But this time, he didn't do much to try and suppress it. Suppressing it wasn't the way to deal with this pride of his.

If he kept suppressing it like he always had, he would just end up dulling his own blade, and over the long run, he might even end up weakening his Forces overall.

Instead, the image of his father's smile flashed in his mind. He was a man who had a great deal of pride himself, but it never stopped him from sacrificing. There was nothing that could stop him from taking the steps he needed to protect his family.

He was completely unlike Leonel's future self who had just watched as his friends and family died one after another. Eventually, he held all the power in the world...

But who did he have to share it with?

Leonel clenched his fist and the spear in his hand shattered. Motes of light fluttered around it as his Scarlet Star Force surged along with his Violet Winds.

Soon, a red, violet, and gold bow took shape.

Leonel's aura thrummed with a valiant light as he took a step forward and entered the first statue. Not even three seconds later, he appeared outside once again and moved on to the second. Ie tore through the line of Bow Force experts like they were ants on his cutting board; one after another, he plowed through them, making the experts of Existence look like toddlers.

The eyes he had for Bow Force couldn't be compared to others. He seemed to be able to sense their Paths with a glance and swallow them up with a slight intent.

Bowmen that focused on speed, power, trickery... it didn't matter. He seemed to adapt to them all with great ease. In fact, many of these paths were things that he had thought of personally before in the past and incorporated in some way into his Bowmanship.Content © provided by .

It wasn't until he was over 90% of the way through that he found anything of interest at all, and yet these still only took a fleeting moment to grasp.

Bow Paths on the same level as Infinite Radiance and Timeless Radiance were like cookies on a platter to Leonel.

One female bowman had an arrow path of space that ignored barriers to attack vital points directly. There was another arrow that echoed through time, striking down an opponent across several iterations, so no matter how they dodged, they would be struck.

There was yet another that concentrated a singularity into the point of an arrow. Not only did it have the near-infinite weight of Infinite Radiance, but it sucked an opponent in, making it impossible for them to dodge as well.

The second to last bowman, a man who took up the same level of strength in the Path of the Bow as Leonel's father did to the Path of the Spear, had a Bow that could attack across dimensions.

He could use an arrow even to sever one's connection to the Dream Plane, killing a person silently without them ever knowing.

But this also meant that by attacking through the Second Dimension, he could ignore distance. There was nowhere in Existence that someone could hide from his arrow.

He blurred the line between physical reality and intangible will, even capable of cutting off the connection people had between their affinities and themselves.

And yet... he too was swallowed up by Leonel.