Dimensional Descent

How many layers of schemes was that by now? As cautious as Leonel tried to be, he still almost fell for this old man's trap. After so many centuries, millennia even, of scheming, how could Wise Star Order be so simple?

First he had tried to gain Leonel's trust by playing the part of amiable elder. When that was seen through, he was prepared to take over Leonel's body in a more forceful way. He then pretended to fall for Leonel's trick when in reality he had read through his junior's thoughts like a book, perfectly countering the ability of the Silver Tablet.

After that, he ran into a roadblock with Leonel's Scarlet Star Force, but rather than giving up there, he tried to trick Leonel into a pact that really would have given him full control over him. Then, when Leonel saw through that, he already had a secondary trap laid with and was waiting for Leonel's soul to be sucked away.

By then, Leonel was already four or five levels deep into Wise Star Order's schemes and felt that he was fine now, especially since he could read his Ancestor's mind now. It could be considered an equal exchange…. Or so he thought.

Leonel had no idea that while he was distracted and meditating upon , getting lost in an all new world, Wise Star Order's screams in his mind no longer had anything to do with his Scarlet Star Force, but were rather due to his Ancestor splitting his soul in two using a technique he had snatched from the Spirituals.

Leonel executed with one of Wise Star Order's soul, but his second half was completely unfettered. Not only did this allow Wise Star Order to bide his time and wait for an opportunity, due to the oddities of two souls and how they could interact with , Wise Star Order was still able to keep bits and pieces of information hidden away from Leonel.

At the same time as all of this was going on, Wise Star Order could slowly build up immunity to Leonel's Scarlet Star Force. With one half of his soul perfectly healthy and the other in perpetual pain, he could use the former half to continuously heal the latter half while using the latter half to deepen his comprehension.

The core ability of Soul Manipulation was the power to allow the soul to adapt to any environment, even if that environment was an entirely new body, and Wise Star Order had been prepared to push this to the absolute limit. If he succeeded, not only would he be able to evolve the durability of his soul to an all new level, but when he was finish, he could still take hold of Leonel's body and no one would be any wiser.

By that time, he would have spent so long observing Leonel that he would know all of his habits, all of his quirks, all of his manuerisms. In addition, the incident with the Luxnix would be so far behind them that even if Velasco or Alienor suspected anything, it would be unlikely to come back to him.

had never thought that when Wise Star Order shot out of his body with just half his body left that it was because he had split himself. He had assumed

as he would only consider this to be so if both parties had access to the same

old bastard. But he was

so. The tenacity and grit

have feared my dad

time that day. But this time, Wise Star Order truly

"Hey, mom."

was still enjoying torturing Wise Star Order for daring

necklace, he won't be able

He gave it to me

don't kill the old man.

Though this necklace worked once, with the scheming nature of Wise Star Order, what guarantee was there that it would be enough next time? For all they knew,

better. If I have such a looming guillotine over my head everyday, I'll always be on my toes. If

glowed as he met

and he seemed quite relaxed and indifferent, smiling even, there had been a fire lit

want to remind him just how insignificant he was, just how worthless his accomplishments to this point had been.