Dimensional Descent

Leonel took a breath and exhaled. He pulled the finger sleeve off of his hand and placed it on top of the Life Tablet that stood as tall as his waist, sparkling with its array of rainbow-colored light blues, pinks, and violets. He swept a gaze over everyone and took his wife's hand.

Aina still seemed too angry to move, but Leonel smiled lightly and pinched her cheeks.

"It's alright," he said lightly.

Aina lowered her head, looking at the ground. She really didn't want to leave like this, but they had no points remaining and nothing left to give. There wasn't any other option.

Leonel took Aina's hand and left without a word. He didn't gaze at Minerva, nor did he give the other geniuses another look. He didn't have to.

Those that saw what happened here today would understand what happened, and those that didn't just didn't care to in the first place.

Minerva frowned. She hadn't expected Leonel to leave without a word. She even had intentions of forcing him to stay to watch the rest of it. There were many losers of previous rounds here too, so she had more than enough precedent to do so. However, for some reason, she hesitated long enough that he completely vanished.

It felt like he had suddenly gone from antagonistic anti-hero to sympathetic figure, and if she took action again then it would only play into the latter even more.

But then she looked at the Life Tablet and her gaze was mixed with shades of worry and anticipation. Not because of the Tablet itself, that thing was a ticking time bomb in this situation.

When she had joined the Challenge Sequence, she had planned to claim it. But those were under completely different circumstances. After all, there was a mad scramble at the time and there was blame to be spread around. In addition, the Owlans had been out of the spotlight for a long while...

A spotlight that Leonel had just thrust that back in.

No. Since the Celestial Embers had taken action, they clearly wanted it, and she would let them have it. Only the-

The Life Tablet trembled, and the spatial ring and Segmented Cube on its surface were suddenly sucked into it.

Minerva frowned. What just happened?

She immediately thought of Leonel, but he had already left and severed his connection to the Tablet. She wasn't a fool; she could see such things.

She shook her head. For now, it didn't matter. All things in due time. Acting rash would get her in trouble.

kill Leonel just yet, especially since he

his journey here, but doing so on the way back was impossible.

the first

...

in Leonel's eyes, but he slowly

okay?" Aina asked lightly, her voice dripping

feel better in," Leonel looked down at an imaginary watch, "about three days, sixteen hours, nine minutes, and three

because that was the true exact

even if it was on purpose. It had nothing to

home," Leonel

very same place he had stepped into when he first came to this world and found the winged knights and Aurora's husband waiting. Of course, they weren't waiting for him in particular, and most of them were just watching the stream of the

walked up to

to notice his presence finally. "Teleportation

then tapped a foot. The platform lit up without her input and before she could

rage when her husband caught her

Let the wounded animal go

gaze flashed. Her husband was always a gentle man, rarely fought and only dealt with

found herself feeling better. She smiled and didn't mind it

there a need to be

...

Minds continued, but all of Existence, in quite quick succession, people stopped

was there left now that Leonel was gone? It felt like they were just watching the same people win over and over again. The best story was Aerin and

irony of it all was that after Verma's carefully chosen challenge, no one else managed to secure nine runes, let alone the 12 runes that

first place, with Talon and Somnus

...

moment, Leonel with Aina by his

Leonel

counting the time,"