Dimensional Descent

Leonel sat in silence as he watched his friends lose one after another, realizing that he was quite helpless to do anything about it.

In truth, he blamed himself. He spent so long away from all of them that he never truly helped them to grow like he should have. He buried his head away, chasing a woman he couldn't even explain his attraction to and leaving them to fend against the Dimensional Verse on their own.

He spoke of helping people, but he couldn't even properly help those closest to him. In fact, he had only made things harder on them.

The mountain they would have had to climb to earn a spot to enter the Void Palace was tall to begin with, but now with this target painted onto their backs, and their number disparity, an improbable cause had instantly become an impossible one.

There was not the slightest hint of remorse. Without fail, the geniuses of Earth were the first to be cut down every time. If not for Leonel wising up and giving them some protection before they went up, it was likely that each one would have died.

Leonel's brothers didn't fair any better than the rest. They, too, found themselves on the losing end of their battles.

"Fuck!"

Franco kicked his chair over. It flew out with such speed that it shattered into wood splinters the instant it hit a wall. But, that didn't seem to make him feel any better.

Losing wasn't something Leonel and his brothers were used to. They had been a team for so long and could count on two hands the number of games they had lost in that more than decade span. Yet, each one of them, no matter how far apart they were, hit just as bad.

There was a heavy silence, a fury… a subtle feeling of inadequacy…

gloominess that Leonel didn't

brothers responded to adversity. Giving them words of encouragement now would only undermine and insult them. He was certain that

more and this time, Noah stood, his gaze having long since turned from indifferent

two didn't exchange any words, their meaning

were even and measured while the sun seemed to dance off the edge of his blade. Every reflective light seemed to make those that saw it reflexively recoil, worried that one of

already, Jessica was among them. Her beast taming ability was useless against these enemies as her pets were simply too weak and hadn't grown. On top of that, the wilderness of Planet

to not even summon her partners, resulting in her losing even faster than the others

seemed to display, every time Noah sent a

to summon them was because she knew well that she would be ganged up on. It simply wasn't worth risking the help

as long as Noah could remember, Jessica had always followed by his side, a silent help and a right hand woman that

sway of her short cut hair to the way she crossed her legs screamed to Noah that she was feeling sadness and guilt to the

failed… Guilt because she couldn't follow in

all the

you? Are you all still stepping up to

His steps were silent and his blade lightly bobbed just above the hard stone flooring. Everything from his breathing to the beat