Dimensional Descent

The man looked like a mummified statue. His skin was an unnatural shade of grey, and his body was as skinny as a willowy wisp. His joints almost seemed sharper than blades, his bones sticking out against his frail skin as though they might rip their way through at the slightest of movements.

And yet, despite all of this... the man seemed... healthy...

His Ethereal Glabella glittered with the radiance of a starry sky, and his expression was calm and impassive. When he opened his eyes, it looked like all his Life Force had converged onto just those two points, a great amount of vitality exuding from him.

This man was known as Patriarch Khafra of the Khafra family, and was also the current Pavilion Head of the Khafra Dream Pavilion.

When he received the notice of Leonel's challenge, he wasn't surprised. Why should he be surprised? Everything was going according to plan. All that was left to do was to secure two victories and enter the top 100. After that, the real games would begin.

With everyone's attention diverted to the Demi-God war, hardly anyone would notice the shift; they would dismiss it as a Pavilion asserting dominance after someone beneath them issued a challenge. Most might even assume that they'd fall out of the top 100 soon enough, much like Leonel's Vast Dream Pavilion had, or the former 100th place after Minerva took action.

However, what was missing in all of this was a why...

Just one top 100 Dream Pavilion wouldn't change much of the situation, and if they started trying to sneak in larger numbers of Dream Pavilions, no matter how well obscured their schemes, someone would take notice.

Patriarch Khafra took from his meditative position. He moved much more vigorously than a man who was mostly skin and bone should have. His strides were long and powerful, but he somehow seemed unhurried at the same time.

and gave it

message had been sent to the rest of the Nomads of their ilk, so he didn't need to wait

two Nomads stood

to stop from taking up so much

difference was that their own were even more obvious at a single

might expect, the Nomads had their own legends about their origins and where

a figurative representation, denoting their adaptability and their wide-ranging paths. Wicked was a very keen example of this, as his Incomplete World had been able to adjust their very foundations by undergoing

from poetry or imagery, but instead referred to a tale of a castaway race, one forced to become Nomadic by circumstance and not choice. It could even be said that the first interpretation of their name was a method of reclaiming a title that was once

to become a

of the Nomad Race themselves would be unaware of, but what they did know, and what they did take pride in, were their

circles, they termed them the Hands of God. But not all of them had such a

large, hands capable of blotting out the skies, were worthy of saying that they had

floating hands all the odder... a point only made all the more peculiar

amongst the crowd of gathered, it wasn't because he had the Hands of God. Instead,

Leonel, a man who would rot in hell just for the chance to see