Chapter 2246: Fear

Leonel watched the Shadow Tail come toward him, his body and his very soul seething. The veins in his eyes popped and seemed to roar all on their own, breaking and pulsing. They shattered, blood leaking from his eyes and splitting over. However, just as quickly as they appeared, they erupted into a burning flame.

Streaks of fire ran down his cheeks as he watched the Shadow Tail get closer and closer, but he didn't move, he didn't even seem to react at all.

The flames dripped down his body, blazing with greater and greater fervor.

"She called me a Destruction Sovereign," Leonel suddenly said, as though he was speaking to the Shadow Tail that approached him. In the vastness of space, their distance between one another couldn't even be described in simple kilometers and miles any longer, and yet it crossed this seemingly impossible distance with such speed that it only seemed normal that Leonel couldn't react.

"She said I shouldn't exist, that she felt the need to kill me for that. Is that what your people told her? Did you use a similar reason to target my father? Was he too great a threat to you? A variable you couldn't deal with? So much so that you had to use a coward's path to deal with him? Couldn't even face him yourself? Too scared to fall to a single spear strike?"

The Shadow Tail was moving even faster, the distance closing with such speed that it was already upon Leonel. It didn't even seem to respond as though it never understood his words. But Leonel continued speaking as though it didn't matter to him one way or another.

"Is that all you mighty races are worth? All the backbone you have? Are you that easily scared?" Leonel looked up, his gaze no longer even seemed to be a gaze, it was rather two blazing balls of red-gold flames, flickering with the brightness of a twin pair of stars. "In that case, I'll give you something to truly fear. Remember this promise, you and the rest of your kind. I, Leonel Morales, will not rest until every single last one of you is wiped from Existence."

"Do you think I need this power? Do you think it matters if I don't have a fraction of your strength?"

The blazing fires in Leonel's eyes seemed to catch the surface of the Shadow Tail, but they did absolutely nothing. They might as well have been a pair of gently blowing winds, gliding across its tough, black skin. The raging heat was worthless before its might. However, as insignificant as they were, the fires continued to flicker weakly as though in sheer defiance as Leonel spoke one last time.

"I swear that I will do these things, and I will do so as a human."

That power, he would never use it again. Not until he crushed that smile beneath his feet, not until she understood with or without it, she wasn't worthy of mocking him. No one was. Not even this Shadow Tail. Not even while he was merely in the Seventh Dimension. Not even when a Pluto could do nothing before its might.

Still within the range of the starship, having not moved nearly fast enough to get out of its way, Leonel suddenly stretched his Dream Force out, solidifying his Dream World once more, but not to observe this Shadow Tail. Instead, he activated the defensive formation once again.

BANG!

The Shadow Tail shot through it as though it was nothing but a thin pane of glass. It was so swift that if not for the shattered motes of Force, it would have been impossible to tell that there had been a barrier up at all. However, Leonel didn't even seem to care. In fact, Leonel wasn't standing in the same spot at all, he had already moved.

He had deployed the barrier not to stop this monster before him, but rather as a stabilizing force. He used the power of the Starship to still the raging Force in the surroundings and allow him to use his Spatial Force once again.

He appeared a long distance away, deep within the range of the starship and hovering over its body. His gaze only seemed to grow colder and colder despite the raging flames only becoming hotter and hotter. Veins of red tore across his skin and the space around him cracked and fractured, collapsing and fissuring.

BOOM!

The Shadow Tail tore through the Tier 1 Starship as though it was paper mache. The strongest weapon of the Human Domain was worthless before it, a piece of tin foil trash. It didn't matter what materials it was made out of, what could it do against an Envoy of Destruction?!

The ship was ripped to shreds, even the Fusion Core was absolutely useless, it flew through it as though it was nothing more than a slightly warm breeze, causing a deafening explosion that could be heard across the galaxy. It flung out so much matter that sound even traveled normally.

"LITTLE LION!"

Leonel finally heard his mother's screech. He had already sensed her appearance, but her Force couldn't reach so far, and the vacuum of space hadn't allowed her voice to travel. It was only then that he registered her voice for only a moment before it was overwhelmed by the BOOM!

However, his only thoughts were simple. He was here... So why was she worried?

Leonel stretched out his hands, the bits and pieces of the Starship, or rather the Force Arts that had once formed them together into a single existence, responded to his call even as the Shadow Tail closed the distance once more.

"You... Will be the first."

At that moment, the scattered pieces of debris, flying out in all directions, wildly and uncontrolled, froze into place under a mysterious power. They were linked, one after another in a pattern that would be oh so familiar to anyone who had completed the trial puzzle of the Dimensional Cleanse Zone.

The power of the destroyed Fusion Core flooded into the surroundings, pooling away, and much of it being pulled into Leonel's control under his Scarlet Star Force, strengthening the connection between the nodes.

The world froze and then Leonel and the Shadow Tail vanished.

Silence fell and a vast emptiness was left behind.

...

Leonel didn't know how long he watched the scene. Watching the Shadow Tail writhe in pain and horror, being slowly torn apart by the collapsing world around them didn't move him.

A God-like creature was being tortured beneath his schemes, beneath his own power, and yet he only felt that it was natural, a dense emptiness within his heart.

He reached forward, grabbing its shredded body as it slowly breathed its last. It was enormous compared to his body. It was like an ant holding up a silverback gorilla, looking down at it like a hunting trophy.

He could finally feel some emotion coming from it. It was palpable, hanging in the air like a thick curtain of heavy rain.

Rage, fury, humiliation... Fear.

"Yes." Leonel spoke lightly. "That's exactly what you should feel. It's what I'll make every single last one of you feel."