Dimensional Descent

Aina took a deep breath in and exhaled. The wind whipped around her, but there didn't seem to be enough to fill her lungs.

Across from her, Orion stretched. He had just awoken from a nap, and though he was a bit surprised to see Aina here, it wasn't too much. It was bound to happen.

His lip curled into a smile as he watched her trying to catch her breath.

"Unfortunate. I asked them not to put such a beauty through hardship, but there was only so much I could do," he shrugged his shoulders. "Those guys are pretty heartless. Well, I think one of them is just acting out of jealousy. Maybe you'll meet her, though it seems unlikely at this point. Lumina is her name. No need to thank me."

As Orion spoke, he suddenly moved.

In truth, he wasn't too worried about wasting enough time for Aina to completely recover. An expert on Aina's level, to be tired to the point she was heaving for breath, needed to have been pushed far beyond the point a few seconds of rest would be helpful.

That was the way of the world. The stronger your body was, the harder it was to injure it, but when you injured, it was also far harder to heal it with external items.

And in this case, when you were tired...

Orion appeared before Aina, a bright smile on his face, a strong punch suddenly coming from him. Aina almost didn't get a chance to read where it was coming from. Orion didn't seem to be using Dream Force, and yet his ability to obscure vision and trick the mind was on a level that Aina had only seen from Leonel.

Aina reacted quickly, smashing her polearm into the ground in the path of Orion's fist.

Just as the two, fist and polearm, were about to collide, Orion's arm suddenly came to a grinding halt.

The sudden burst of action made Aina's breathing even heavier. Even such a

"A shame, a shame."

Although this was only Aina's fourth

to rest, but this "good news" was

tired and it was just the fourth battle of ten.

Every single finalist

once Aina made it to the Finals, she would

make it there given

the back of his head disappeared. Soon, he was a handsome young man with pale violet

Aina's gaze turned cold.

what's with that reaction? Did I not do your hubby justice? I thought

hand

"Better? No?"

head, seemingly

eyes lit up and his expression turned colder and different. "This is it, right? I was too cheery. Why a woman like yourself would want to marry a man who's nothing but ice cold all the time is beyond me, but to each

who looked ready to commit murder felt out of place. Even his voice itself was laced with the same

moved again and spear shadows filled the skies. But they quickly lost their form, becoming

her ax to block, withstanding the barrage with the smallest movements possible. Some lashed against her