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.

wasn't the right time to kill Leonel just yet, especially since he had so much sympathy on his side now. However...

doing so on the way back was impossible. The Force Arts of the

lip curled and for the first time, she

...

flickered in Leonel's eyes, but he

okay?" Aina asked lightly, her voice dripping with

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

not because Leonel was spouting nonsense, but probably because that was the true exact period of time and he was probably occupying a portion of his brain just to count

to her, Leonel was even more annoyed. He absolutely hated losing, even if it was on purpose. It had nothing to do with the opinions of others because he never gave a damn about that either. There was

home," Leonel said

Of course, they weren't waiting for him

to the

frowned and seemed to notice his presence finally. "Teleportation is closed, come

her a glance and then tapped a foot. The platform lit up without

rage when her husband

Let the wounded

always a gentle man, rarely fought and only dealt with administrative matters. But when he wanted

She

need to

...

Gathering of Minds continued, but all of Existence, in

felt like they were just watching the same people win over and over again. The best story was Aerin and Lyra who managed to secure third place for themselves, but after they completed their final two necessary challenges, they

it all was that after Verma's carefully chosen challenge, no one else

the end, Verma and Celestia managed to claim first place, with Talon and Somnus managing

...

by his side in the middle of an Inbetween

days..." Leonel

the time," Aina