...
"He shouldn't be this strong," Peacock said softly. He could feel the pressure of Leonel's steps and none of this was like what the reports said it would be.
Like he had said earlier, they already felt that sending this many was overkill. It was just that to compensate for any error in judgment, plus taking into account that they might hide away in the Dream Pavilion, the Invalids had decided that it was best to send a large army.
What they didn't expect was that not only would Leonel not huddle up and hide in the Dream Pavilion like they assumed he would, but he would come to match their might in a relentless fury...
All on his own.
Or so it seemed.
"Yip! Yip!"
Little Blackstar suddenly appeared on Leonel's shoulder. Leonel hadn't called him out, but the little guy had sensed the agitation and chose to make an appearance.
Without even the need to exchange a word between the two of them, they seemed to have already formed a tacit understanding and they suddenly split into two.
Leonel flickered toward Apex and Peacock while Blackstar dove into the army.
The carnage of the two of them combined seemed multiplicative of what Leonel was capable of alone. Their tacit understanding allowed all variables to be handled ahead of time, and in what felt like the blink of an eye, Leonel had already appeared before the two Variant Invalids.
"You go handle the beast, I'll deal with him," Peacock spoke.
"Don't order me around." Apex said indifferently.
Leonel had already attacked.
Judging by the conversation between the two, neither seemed to fear Leonel any more because of Bull's death. This might have been because Invalids didn't feel emotion the same as everyone else did, or it might have been because they were truly that much stronger than Bull...
But to Leonel the answer didn't matter.
His spear strikes seemed fuelled by his fury. [Domain] descended and suppressed the two Variant Invalids, while [Universe] layered with Leonel's Absolute Domain.
His blade seemed to warp physics to his whims, it wasn't just a distortion of time and space anymore, but it carried a variability and unpredictability that came when laws weren't just distorted, but they outright broke.
The momentum of his spear would change sporadically in an instant, a strike from the left might suddenly deviate and pierce toward their legs. His spear somehow seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere at once, and the instant these two faced it, the next words of their argument died down.
Peacock hurriedly formed several rainbow-colored feathers that took aim to defend him while Apex suddenly punched out thrice in quick succession.
A battle erupted between the trio and became very obvious, very quickly that their skill paled in comparison to Leonel.
It was like Leonel had truly become a God of the spear. He didn't think to move, his spear did the thinking for him. He moved from swift and fierce to gentle but firm. He changed stances on a whim and his spear seemed capable of both being endlessly flexible and hard to track, and rigid and unmoving at the same time.
Leonel still remembered a time where others had looked down on him for lack of his skill in the spear, he still remembered the humiliation he faced at the hands of Amery when he was told he wasn't worthy of the Spear Domain Ring at all.
But since that time, he had changed.
He was no longer the Leonel who had picked up the spear for no other reason than it was the most convenient weapon at the time.
He was a man who could feel the stroke of his spear in his breath and listen to its rhythm in his heart.
His raw power was far beneath these two...
And yet he toyed with them like children.
Cuts and gashes began to appear across the bodies of the two Invalids. They could see nothing more than a blur of silver, crimson and gold streaking through the air... that and a pair of eyes as deep as an abyss.
Leonel was shorter than the both of them despite being just over 6'9", and yet, at that moment, he might as well have been a looming giant.
Crimson plumes of fog billowed off of him in waves and his spear blade became like the connecting lines of a constellation. Every stroke was immaculate and beautiful in its purpose.
The Auspicious Air in the surroundings had grown to the point that it didn't even look like they stood in an Inbetween World any longer. Rather, it looked as though they were standing in the middle of a bronze and crimson sun, solar flares echoing out in all directions and filling the surroundings in a blanket of ancient light.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Peacock stumbled backward as Leonel's spear tip split into three. They divided themselves across time and space, and in that moment it looked as though he was about to hit three different locations at once, two aimed at Apex and the last aimed at the flailing Peacock.
Apex had no choice but to defend himself, feeling that this situation was quickly getting out of hand. Leonel didn't even allow them the opportunity to catch their breath. He seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere, his shadow was impossible to trace.
ƈοm
And then it happened.The three blades, once aimed toward different locations, suddenly converged. They formed a line of blades in the air, vanishing from their originally intended targets and appearing before Peacock's forehead all at once.
The Variant Invalid's eyes opened wide but it was already too late.
PCHU!
PCHU!
PCHU!
His forehead was pierced three times so quickly that it almost sounded like a single hit. Each successive blow opened the wound larger until the last blew his head into a rain of blood and gore.
Leonel swept his spear out and destroyed what remained of Peacock's body, blowing it into a fine mist of crimson before it could even turn to motes of light.
