Truthfully, all of these thoughts were simply running in the back of Leonel's mind.

After two subsequent breakthroughs of the mind, Leonel's ability to split his attention had bloomed from just over a 1 010 000 to a number approaching 5 000 000. Such a thing could only be said to be both a blessing and a curse.

When he was battling, bathing in blood, bone and limbs, his mind was quite blank. All he cared about was calculating his next attack and making those before him suffer as much as possible. Rage colored his thoughts and took hold of his heart. There was only it and everything else was a sheet of white.

But, when he saw her gaze, it felt like years of buried thoughts and feelings had all resurfaced at once. Something within him snapped and whatever had been leashed within him was released, ravaging his body like a wild beast.

He could still see that gaze now. In fact, he could piece everything that made it up. No matter how much he tried to distract himself with just how much was going on in his body now, no matter how much he tried to focus on something else, to put his mind to something else, nothing worked.

He could feel her gaze almost as though he was still looking into it.

A hint of recognition, an odd curiosity, and then nothing.

Her gaze didn't have any sadness, no remorse, no happiness, no glee. It was as though she was looking at the face of an acquaintance she had known long ago, a classmate that she remembered the look of and was mildly curious about just what they might be doing here.

Leonel wished he didn't have the ability to analyze everything so thoroughly, he wished that he could believe that it was nonsense and that he had seen wrong, that his memory was fallible and maybe his brain was playing a trick on him, forcing him to see the worst.

But, he knew that none of this true. As many minds as he had turned toward focusing on his body, he still had too many more left over. Each of them picking apart every angle, every expression, every minute detail.

Let along just her gaze, he could measure out the beat of her heart, the perspiration of her skin, the slant of her lips, the wrinkle of her nose. He could see the shift in her body, the angle of her arms, the position of her feet, the state of her hands.

In just a split moment, he had gained a hundreds of snapshots of each.

Her posture was too unmoved, her breathing to even, her heart too steady. Her hands didn't clench, her gaze didn't tremble, and her feet didn't shift.

Worst of all, her lips were just fine. How many times had he warned her not to bite those soft, pink lips of hers? And how many times had she ignored him?

It was a habit she had built up over so many years. So long as she was biting them, Leonel was certain that something was wrong and he would have traveled through the Gates of Hell to make sure that she was okay.

There was none of the characteristics of Aina he had come to know

Leonel didn't feel rage, or anger. He just felt that the abyss that had been forming his gaze was now in his heart. It was a depth of emptiness he had never felt before, a level of nihilism he had never faced before.

He had thought a lot about how this meeting after so long would go, but this was the last thing he had expected. Even indifference wasn't as bad as this. Maybe if she had been indifferent, then he could have concluded that she was still mad But this wasn't that.

Leonel's body descended into the pool of lava beneath him. The searing heat was practically like cool waters to his skin. It glided off of him and even his wounds without a sound as his swim pair of wings retracted in a flutter of falling feathers.

Two white-gold Rune marks appeared upon Leonel's back before slowly fading.

An eerie sort of silence fell over everything, no one quite sure of what to do. Seith was especially indecisive. He was the only one that had felt that aura from earlier. There was nothing that had changed between then and now. He didn't believe that this hidden individual would suddenly allow him to kill Leonel now that his breakthrough was practically finished.

'<Instant Recovery>.'

Feathers of white gold began to fall from the skies.

There wasn't a single Luxnix family member that didn't recognize this phenomenon. Though it was extraordinarily rare amongst Fifth Dimensional existences, to the point where only two could do itElody and Myghellthe same couldn't be said for the Sixth Dimensional members of the Luxnix family. So, this was a sight that many had seen before, or at least heard about.

It suddenly dawned on them all that Leonel was a master of several Branches, something that made them all numb with shock.

From the start of the phenomenon to the end, Leonel didn't move, his head still angled somewhat downward. It felt almost as though he was in his own world and couldn't be bothered with everything around him.

This place He didn't want to be here anymore.

Leonel slowly stepped out the pool of lava, walking up the slope, apparently not aware of just how naked he was.

He thought it was a shame that his Duality Spear was destroyed. It was probably the most useful and appropriate for his battle style among the Quasi Silver spears. Though the Spear Domain ring was able to repair spears, this was clearly beyond its limits. There wasn't even a single piece left.

Luckily, Leonel's Divine Armor was a symbiotic part of him. After using <Instant Recovery>, it was already in perfect shape.

The sadness and relief of these two matters didn't seem to move the needle for Leonel one way or another. Without a care for those around him, he simply walked toward the four pillars.

Seith frowned. He didn't know what those pillars were, but he knew that if he allowed Leonel to walk into them, he would be gone. But, what could he possibly do? Were things really going to end like this?

[More coming]