Dimensional Descent
chapter-2201

Leonel sat in silent meditation. Absolutely nothing was happening around him, and the same was true within him. His mind was completely clear, and his thoughts seemed to have entered a state of dormancy. He was truly doing nothing at all, simply waiting.

It was a novel sort of feeling. He hadn't been able to clear his mind like this for a long time, staring at the blank, dark space of his own eyelids. But it did nothing to change the negative emotions stirring within him.

He could feel it bubbling upward, that cold indifference toward everything, that look that gazed down upon the world itself as though nothing was important before his whims. It was the very same emotion that he had feared taking root in himself for so long, and yet he had inevitably reached this point despite his efforts... and the greatest shame of it all was that he simply didn't care.

He originally valued lives only because he couldn't think of a logical method to differentiate human lives, but there was another reason. It was because his father had instilled certain values within him, and if he ever reached a point where he simply stopped caring... the result on the other side wasn't something that he would want to see.

He had said himself many years ago that this was the case. He had avoided it, he had dodged to the best of his ability, running away from his own nature, and yet here he was...

He could feel that there was something inside him. That very same feeling his usual laziness stemmed from, the same feeling that encroached on disregard for all life, it was the kind of feeling that came from someone who already sat atop it all. He was lazy because nothing was worth his effort. He was indifferent because he had already seen it all. He didn't care about life because he had already seen too many people die, and maybe he was waiting for someone to finally kill him.

Too bad they were all too weak.

Insignificant creatures. All of them. Rushing around the world, pretending as though they were accomplishing something when, in the end, they were just pawns on the chessboard of someone else.

When those Ancestors looked at him as though they were so much more knowing, so much more experienced, so much stronger, it took everything in him not to kill them. Quite frankly, he didn't know why he had. What use was this worthless Morales family? Why was he even trying...

It felt like it was out of habit, a muscle memory that extended beyond him, or maybe it was the muscle memory of a version of him that still cared.

Little princes and princesses, was it? He could do that. But it was amusing, the woman he was doing it for he had hardly looked in the eye in the last several weeks. He could see that hopeful expression in her eye, the hope that he would smile and turn everything around in a blink like he usually did, that disappointment when he inevitably didn't.

He could see something similar in his mother's eyes.

They probably thought that they had hidden it well, and maybe they had... in the face of someone else, that is. But he could practically see the fluctuations of their souls. He couldn't read their thoughts, but it might as well have been the same. And maybe that was also part of where the indifference came. The fleshly nature of a person was so irrelevant, it told nothing but lies, it was far too weak and fragile, able to collapse at just a single touch.

What worth did it have?

She was trying, though, that woman he hardly knew. It wasn't her fault; she had been forced to stay in the Void Palace, that place that he would raze to the ground soon enough. She wanted to support him, to be by his side, and it was admirable, especially considering how much her soul was hurting, how much she wanted to no longer be in this world.

Maybe that was the kind of weight a parent's love should have. He wondered if he would look at his children the same way, or if it would be just like this. Maybe he would be able to love them as babies, but what about when their thoughts became more complex, when their cries turned from something instinctual to something manipulative, as though they could fool his eyes.

Or maybe they would be like him, their father. Would they look upon the world with indifference as well? When they gazed down upon the structure of all that was, realizing that their father had handed it to them on a silver platter without even their effort being necessary, just what kind of person would that make them? How could they not end up like the current him, carrying that same indifference to all things...

And maybe that was why his own father had always been that way. Velasco had thrown him to the wolves, forcing him to fend for himself every step of the way. If he never reached the pinnacle of the world, then maybe it would have been a perfect tactic, so long as there was someone above him, that indifference would sit at bay...

Maybe his father wanted to be that very person... But he couldn't be that anymore; he was gone, forever.

He knew it was useless to even think about. He had already asked Aina exactly what that version of himself had said, and he had already deduced the meaning of those words.

... This time was a failure too ...

Even with all the strength in the world, it was useless, entirely useless. Without his father, it would be impossible for another to be above him, and so the cycle would continue. That cold indifference, that certainty of the meaninglessness of life...

And maybe that was his purpose. His father couldn't be here, so maybe it was simply his task to become that insurmountable mountain for his own children...

So that they wouldn't experience this level of coldness.