Chapter 2165: The Weight of a Father's Love

Velasco's spear descended, the last of his Force piercing through the world.

Everything in its path was shredded to pieces, nothing it touched could remain unscathed. It was a strike that carried the purity of fatherhood, casting light onto the shadows and brightness upon the dark. Even compared to the strike he had used to kill King, Velasco knew that this was the greatest spear strike he had ever levied in his life.

It was his greatest pride.

Anselma's attack never touched even a single hair on Leonel's head.

Velasco fell into silence, the last echo of his laughter filling the skies. His spear was steady, his back was straight. But at that moment, his pair of glasses, a pair that he had begun to wear the day his son was born, and did until this very day, fell from his nose, clicking as it landed on the ground below.

At that moment, the seemingly normal pair of glasses began to flash with images. One after another, memories that even Leonel could only barely seem to remember began to play through their lenses.

He saw his father pick him up with the biggest smile on his face. It was the first time he had seen his son. He had never thought that he would want children in his life, but he had actually found a woman that he truly loved, a woman that he respected, and she had repaid that trust with the most beautiful of little boys.

He saw the absolute fury of his father after his Innate Node was taken away. His father, who never seemed to care about his safety at all, almost destroyed the planet entirely. If not for the pleading of his grandmother, and the state of sickness his mother was in after giving birth to him, having only just barely begun to recover after their trip, the Luxnix family would have been wiped from the face of the Earth at that time.

He watched as his father got used to raising a baby on his own. This confident man, unmoved and untouched by everything, couldn't even seem to put a diaper on properly. He read the instructions again and again, looking back and forth between a small, giggling Leonel and the package in his hands, stumped at what to do.

He could see the change as he grew older. He saw his father fighting with himself to be sterner, to be stricter. He bundled up his care and affection, storing it away. He bought Leonel his first bike and watched from the side, cross-armed and unmoved as the small Leonel tried and failed to ride it again and again, refusing to lend a helping hand.

What Leonel hadn't seen was his father bandaging his wounds in his sleep, carefully cleaning them so that they wouldn't be infected, and changing his bandages so that they wouldn't bleed through.

He watched as his father poured over dense texts, how he spent years in the lab, subordinating himself to scientists that he could have killed with the snap of the finger all for the sake of learning a discipline that didn't exist in the wider Dimensional Verse, all so that he could fully design the vomit brew Leonel had drank every day for more than a decade of his life.

The images flashed faster and faster, seemingly having no intention of stopping. And when they got to the end, they looped again, and then again, and then again. On constant repeat. Even after such a battle, they didn't have even the slightest crack on them. It was impossible to tell just how much effort Velasco had put into Crafting them.

These glasses were something that Velasco had created so that Alienor could watch Leonel grow up. Stuck in the Void Palace, there was no other way for her to experience her son's growth than to do this. At least this was what Velasco had told Leonel.

But there was an obvious flaw in his story. Leonel's mother had long since left the Void Palace, and Velasco had long since left Leonel's side. So...

Why did he still wear the glasses that he clearly didn't need?

Velasco's back was all Leonel could see. The vastness of the world around him seemed so minuscule in the face of his father's figure, completely meaningless and without the slightest sense of importance.

"Dad," Leonel called out, his dazed gaze seemingly having regained some of its focus. He called out to his father, hoping that he would answer, hoping that he would turn around, hoping that it was another one of his practical jokes.

Another voicemail prank, that was definitely what it was. He just decided to up the ante a little bit because he was getting too good at seeing through them. That must be it.

"Dad. It's not funny, the joke is played out... Old man."

Leonel reached forward and touched his father's back, pushing forward.

His dad didn't budge even an inch. Strong and steady, an ancient mountain unmoved by wear and tear.

But when Leonel touched his father, he felt like a jolt had been sent through his body. He looked down at his palm, a thick, sticky liquid dripping down it. It felt as though he had dunked his hand into a bucket of red paint, he couldn't even see a single inch of his own skin, there was just blood and more blood, endless and continuously flowing without pause.

"Old man I swear to god if you don't turn around right now I'll never talk to you again!"

Leonel had never been so enraged in his life. He had never reacted to his father's pranks like this, even after he made fun of him after his and Aina's breakthrough, he had at most smiled bitterly. But right now, he was truly enraged. This was too far, much too far.

He grabbed his father's shoulder and pulled hard, but he still didn't move.

Leonel spun around his father's body, his expression livid, but his lip trembling uncontrollably.

It was then he saw it.

That indifferent smile. Those pride filled eyes. That spear as steady and calm as the surface of a lifeless lake.

There was nothing else.

There was no breath. No light.

Leonel's world crumbled.

His tears fell, his gaze turning entirely crimson.

A banshee-like screech echoed across the Dimensional Verse, the Void Battlefield shattering into countless asteroid-sized pieces of rock.