Jayde's eyes widened in surprise, but he was too late to react. Maya's sword sliced through the air, aiming for his neck. Just as the blade was about to make contact, Jayde dodged to the side, avoiding the attack by a hair's breadth. Maya's sword bit into the ground, sending sparks flying as it scraped against the stone.
Jayde stumbled back, regaining his balance. "You won't get rid of me that easily, Maya," he snarled, his voice filled with venom. He drew his own weapon, a sleek black dagger that gleamed ominously in the light of the crimson suns.
Maya's eyes narrowed, her grip tightening on her sword. "I don't need to get rid of you easily," she replied coldly, "I just need to get rid of you." With that, she lunged forward again, her movements swift and precise.
Jayde parried her strike, their weapons clashing with a resounding clang. The force of the impact reverberated through the clearing, echoing off the trees. He countered with a series of rapid attacks, but Maya deflected each one with ease.
The two fighters circled each other, their eyes locked in a fierce stare. The tension between them was palpable, a silent battle of wills waged in the space between their strikes.
"It seems something interesting is happening to your boyfriend over there," Jayde taunted, glancing at Leo's motionless body. As Maya glanced back at Leo, she saw what was happening to him. Her body went stiff with shock.
How can this be? What was happening to Leo was something only the first-made gods of mankind could possibly achieve. What was happening was something rare even in the dimensional verse. It was a phenomenon that happens when a creature of any dimension, any race, comes in contact with the mythical tenth dimensional plane!
One had to understand, the ninth plane is the peak of the dimensional plane, but stepping beyond the peak was possible. It just meant that you had to be a progenitor! A progenitor is a being of originality, a being of perfection. They were undefeatable.
It had to be known that progenitors are very rare in the universe. Though Maya didn't know how, Leo had just done the impossible.
But she was still in the midst of a battle. Though her actions of checking on Leo seemed like they took time, in reality, from her first reaction of looking back to Leo to her shock, barely a second had passed. It might have been nothing in a normal battle, but this battle involved two made gods. Though they hadn't stepped on the dimensional path, they were still leagues above a normal human in terms of speed and strength.
In that second Maya looked, Jayde's sword was already inches from her neck. Sensing the imminent danger, she ducked. Though she avoided the sword, unfortunately, this action caused her long silver hair to be trimmed short.
Dodging the attack, Maya slid backwards as she tried to gain distance from Jayde. Unfortunately, Jayde wasn't planning on letting her get away. He dove after her, this time brandishing his sword upwards.
Following his motion, Maya's only way of escape was to let herself fall, which would leave her in a very vulnerable state. But she had no choice. She let herself fall, dodging the upward strike.
Just as she did, she felt a hand grab her. Looking up, it was Leo in his tattered clothing, his eyes glowing purple with an abyssal light.
The Previous Night
After defeating the beast, Leo lay there, broken. He knew he had to straighten his bones, if not they would regenerate wrongly, but he was tired. He fought the sleep, but he couldn't, and so he fainted.
A few hours later, he awoke, watching as the sun rose over the horizon. The problem was that now that he had anchored his soul to the first and second dimension, not to even talk of the fact that he was in the ninth plane, during all these transformations, his soul had been bolstered and was far stronger than his body.
This presented the fact that he was awake, but his body was shut down. He could see Maya coming from the distance, so he retreated his sight back, lest she noticed him.
He saw her get closer to him, saw the grim look on her face, and watched her take out the crystal and start grinding it. He watched as she approached him, apologizing as she poured its content into his mouth.
He knew what she was apologizing for, after all, she was stripping off his choice. He was nervous. Wouldn't this affect his path of the sword?
Bringing him back to reality was the powder which Maya poured into his mouth. It immediately melted on contact with his tongue, sending a euphoric, and refreshing feeling, which he felt in his soul.
But little by little, the feeling got more intense, until it turned to itching, as though a swarm of bugs were roaming all over his body. The pain was so much he would have fainted if he wasn't in his soul state.
A few hours later, the intense pain came to an end as he started feeling numb. Using his internal sight, he scanned his body and was shocked at the changes happening. He could feel it improving every second, and he was still at the first plane.
The energy in his body started to gather in his brain, shocking him as he wasn't the one causing this commotion; it was happening naturally. Suddenly, a mind-splitting pain, worse than the physical pain he had gone through earlier, surged through him.
The pain carried on for a few minutes before subsiding. Even after it subsided, Leo was still shaken by the pain he had just endured.
Bringing him back to his senses was a feeling he had suddenly; he felt he could move. He stood up, looking around and freezing at the scene before him. It was a clear space with a blue ocean stretching as far as the eye could see. The ocean was still, like a vast mirror reflecting the sky above.
Floating plainly in the sky was the odachi, the exact sword he had dreamt of. Looking around, he thought to himself, "Is this my consciousness?" It had to be because he could still feel his connection to his physical body.
Then suddenly, a phenomenon showcased itself before him. It was as though three tunnels appeared in the very fabric of his consciousness. He could feel them—they were his foundation, in each of the three dimensions he was connected to.
Immediately, they appeared, pulsing as Leo felt a very bad foreboding. Before he could react, all three energies came pouring out:
From the first dimension, the energy he created came gushing.
From the second dimension, the concept of the sword, which he had tethered to, started unleashing a devastating pressure, as though he was being skewered by a thousand swords.
The third dimension was silent for a while before it came too, a black abyssal aura with a violet tint to it.
All these three energies ravished his body and soul, breaking and healing him repeatedly. This cycle continued for a while.
By now, Leo was numb with pain; it was driving him crazy. But still, he could feel his foundation growing more robust. His plane in the second dimension kept elevating until it was also at the ninth.
Then, all of a sudden, the sword hanging high in the sky hummed as it released a crimson red energy. Like adding salt to an injury, Leo felt as though his soul was being ripped apart, and he blacked out.
Even as Leo blacked out, his body was still being nourished by these four energies. His constitution was growing more robust, and changes were occurring all over his body. Each of his blood vessels seemed to have a rune etched into them as they glowed with resplendent colors.
In another area of his body, his spinal cord to be precise, this was where most of his modification occurred. This was where all the super nano-bots that dwelled in his body were located, and they too were undergoing changes.
One had to give credit when it was due; the scientist Kamar Singh was a genius of the generation. He actually made sure the made gods' augmentations had the ability to evolve with them.
The transplants in his body along with the nano-bots that dwelled in his body were all undergoing chilling changes. They shed their metal bodies, transforming into pure energy, as they pulsed with runes.
This was the birth of the 'dimensional bots,' as humans called them. This was the elevation of the nano-bots into higher beings attached to one's soul. They had the same functions, but they would have a hundred times the effect than before.
Leo awakened, grunting as he still felt the residual pain. Standing up, he didn't have enough time to examine his body. He saw Maya in front of him, falling as she was being attacked.
Instinctually, he had already flashed to her side, catching her just before she fell.