Somnus didn't immediately reply to the words. But soon enough, his handsome face split into a shit-eating grin that quickly became uproarious laughter. His laughter boomed so far and wide that it caused ripples in the Anarchic Force.

"You speak more boldly than anyone I have ever met. Do you really think yourself to be so great even after all that's happened?"

Somnus' reply was a spear, one that caught him off guard. He was almost completely certain that he could pull Leonel into a chat, but he didn't receive what he wanted at all, nor did he even manage to gain the information he wanted either.

Leonel was definitely correct. He was pretending to be calm. And condescending to his opponent wasn't something ingrained into his personality either. Rather, he just thought it was the best approach to use against Leonel.

Unfortunately, he was incorrect.

Leonel spoke when he wanted to; no one could goad him into speaking. And for that matter, no one could goad him into anything.

When he moved, even if his enemies thought he had fallen into their trap...

It was more than likely the very opposite.

The strokes Leonel left in the air stunned Somnus. As he fell on his back foot, retreating, he couldn't help but feel that Leonel's spear was too beautiful. It almost felt like he was drawing constellations through the darkness, each stroke a line so profound that it could connect the stars...

It dawned on Somnus in that moment that he had truly never seen such a perfect spear technique before, something that made his heart skip a beat.magic

How could that be possible?

Unfortunately for Leonel, though... the strikes were simply far too weak.

Somnus' back foot planted, and he was prepared to explode forth, when Leonel's spear suddenly rotated in his palms as he sidestepped.

The butt of Leonel's spear parried the strike to the side, its spin continuing in one fluid motion that slashed out a strike from bottom to top across Somnus' torso.[Finality].

lightsnοvεl Leonel's strength suddenly had an explosive increase of 10 times, slicing apart Somnus' robes and into his fleshy scales.

The searing pain hit Somnus all at once, and he hurriedly circulated a technique to gain some distance. He seemed to split into three, retreating even faster when he split again into nine.

It looked as though every time he split, he shed more mass, and due to that he accelerated even faster. It was a physics-breaking technique no different from any one of Leonel's three...

Unfortunately, it relied on Dream Force to obscure the mind. Something that was entirely useless against Leonel.

Before the shadows could come together again, Leonel had pursued one of them, the tendrils of his armor poking at the skies and forming one Force Art after another.

In that moment, it looked like they were targeting all nine-eighteen clones at once, causing Somnus to sneer inwardly...

That was until they converged into one.

"[Finality]."

BOOM!lightsnovel

At first, it was just a slight spark through the air, a bolt of obscure lightning that drew a crooked line between the layered Force Arts and Somnus' retreating form.

But then the world fell silent for just a moment before a beam that split it in two took shape.

A roaring wave of golden Force shook the Inbetween World, appearing before Somnus so quickly that he had absolutely nowhere to dodge.

He was entirely enveloped by the beam, unable to escape.

Leonel's figure flashed forward, pursuing the streak of gold as though he would never be satisfied. Maybe even Somnus didn't expect such a dogged pursuit... nor did he really have the luxury to think so far ahead.

Somnus' figure finally appeared, and in that moment, he truly looked like a demon for the first time.

His body was revealed to be a dense canvas of violet scales, though these very scales were beaten and bloodied beyond recognition. His teeth were bared with malice, and his horns had grown considerably in size, the shock painted deep within his eyes.

Had a human really left him in such a state? No... this strength definitely wasn't Leonel's own, what are these techniques? Why are they so powerful? Why were they so much better than his own?

[Domain] suppressed him. [Universe] suppressed him even further, even to the point of breaking the laws of physics. And then [Finality] was like the nail in the coffin.

It was his fault for not really taking Leonel seriously, but it still didn't make any sense. Even if he stood still and let a Fifth Dimensional expert like Leonel attack him with all of their strength, he shouldn't even be able to feel it, let alone end up in such a state.

How could he know that Leonel had been storing up strikes for [Finality] for months already? He had diverted one of his minds to that task permanently, and he was even storing up more than just one Force at a time as well.

With Scarlet Star Force, because he had not just one, but two Innate Nodes, he could fill a new one every few seconds.

The only limitation was that every new fill required a new [Finality] Force Art to be formed and maintained...

But was that difficult?

Not at all. Leonel had simply created a new ability he called Dream Finality that did all the work in the background for him.

This was the might of the Control Ability Index.

Right now, he could easily maintain just over a thousand Finalities at once, and every time he used up one, it would be filled in instantly.

At his current pace of battle, even if he could withstand more, there was simply no need to...

He would never run out of Finalities.

Somnus suddenly punched out at the approaching Leonel, causing him to raise an eyebrow and slip out of the way, vanishing into thin air.

"Seems he finally wants to take this seriously now. Wife! It's your turn."

Somnus froze.