Dimensional Descent

Suddenly, the orb in Aurora's palm shattered, catching her off guard. She was thrust into a state of confusion, not quite understanding. She had only caught it with enough pressure to maintain control, she hadn't put in nearly enough effort to crush it. Just considering the speeds the orb had withstood just to fly over here in the first place, it would take hundreds of times more strength than she applied to crush it like this.

Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat. Could it be? Aurora panicked and her aura flared out. She entrapped the bits and pieces of the orb that she could, and she directly destroyed the ones she couldn't.

Obviously, she thought that Leonel had expected this to happen. So, he set the orb to detonate as a way to get around her defenses and make it to the Pillar of Truth anyway. If those pieces touched the pillar, then her stopping it wouldn't matter anyway.

But unfortunately, she miscalculated.

That was never Leonel's intention at all.

Instead, the world watched as a supposed elite Owlan panicked at the thought of the shards touching the pillars and rushed to stop them.

Was the Pillar of Truth really so fragile that it couldn't stand such a thing? Why were the Owlans trying so hard to stop it?

Aurora blanched when she realized how bad the optics of what she had just done were. She stood frozen, unsure of what to do. However, when she looked up at Leonel, his smile had never faded.

"If this was such a problem, you could have just said so. Why did-"

Leonel was silenced and his lips seemed to be pressed close under some mysterious power.

It would have been perfect if Celestia had done it, but the Owlans weren't such fools. Instead, it was Talon and the Dream Asura who had taken action.

However, Leonel didn't seem fazed in the slightest as he turned his smile toward them.

of silencing them, you had to have a rebuttal for what they were going to say. Leonel really wanted to

would only get worse. And, clearly, Talon knew that. However, this was simply a matter of

Or two, should they take action to stop it now and take the backlash that might come

answer was obvious. Sometimes you had to take a

during this debate. I won't make any accusations about what may or may not have happened between yourself and these two, but as the

Talon spoke, his pillar glowed as well. It was inevitable. Now, he was roped into a three-way battle. In addition, when he finished speaking, it seemed that the pillar had taken it as an adequate enough rebuttal because his

the next hour... he had no ability to

such a thing from the member of the Barbarian Race. Novel, indeed," Leonel

"That's the second time you've

Leonel's pillar began to dim while his own grew

that Leonel was playing the same game she was. He had never come here expecting this to be a completely fair arbitration of his skills and intelligence. He was more than willing to play as dirty

issue was that Minerva suddenly couldn't see his depths. Why did Leonel keep digging himself into

even though that was probably the easiest dig to take at Leonel. But now, Leonel had disparaged the

how this would benefit

reason the four of you were able to reach the same exact standard is because of

Lumina with a quick side glance before focusing

thoughts on the world are so twisted," Somnus

his head, sighing deeply. When he spoke, the world seemed to resonate and listen. His voice was