Dimensional Descent

Leonel sat on his heels by Elorin, his sigh painted in the depth of his eyes. Seeing Elorin here like this, beaten unconscious by James, he already knew that Old Hutch was dead.

If it was anyone else who had killed Old Hutch, Leonel would have already flown into a rage. He hadn't seen Hutch for a very long time, and during their interactions a few months ago, it hadn't been for very long. However, Leonel still felt that he owed a lot to this man.

As a man of the Fawkes Imperial Family, he owed Hutch due to his sacrifices. This man had given up so much for his duty, and he deserved nothing short of respect, he had done things that even Leonel wouldn't claim himself able to do.

As a man who lived for himself, though, he owed Hutch even more. This man was someone who had mentored him, and although they had never seen eye to eye, he was the one who laid the foundation for Leonel's spearmanship.

Now seeing the man who had killed him, Leonel would have thought that he would be infuriated to the point of killing him outright. But knowing that this was Hutch's grandson, he found it difficult to do so. Although Hutch would never ask him to spare Elorin out of his own duty, that didn't mean that he wouldn't hope for this to happen.

Leonel thought for a moment, not entirely sure of what to do.

A shadow passed by him and James appeared. "He was a tough one."

"From what it sounds like, he went down pretty easily," Leonel said with a raised eyebrow.

that's because I'm me," James laughed before becoming serious. "His Ability Index is very powerful, if not for the fact that I can completely counter it, things wouldn't have ended so simply. It seems to me that he placed a lot of effort on learning to control his Ability Index mostly because it was

was his Ability

explained it as best as he could. Most of it came from his own instincts so the details were fuzzy, but this alone was enough for Leonel's eyes

this aspect. James had done quite well to take his

fairly alone, the amount of information he could find on the Energy Shield Ability Index was practically endless. Just for context, even within their friend group alone, James wasn't the only

Tiers of his Ability Index was. Usually, Tiers were created after observing tens of thousands, usually millions of people with

know which of the Tiers he fell into, and he likewise wouldn't know how to

was improving his Ability Index down the

he have time to hone other abilities? Outside of his blade, he had nothing. But

Leonel couldn't think of many who could defeat James, but he could think of many that would have

the Force inside of your body. Unfortunately for Elorin,

perfectly countered

that moment, Elorin suddenly reacted and his blade shot out with a great amount of speed. He didn't seem to be awake at