Dimensional Descent

The Spear Domain ring looked as though a hurricane had rampaged through it.

Spear Peaks had been flattened, spears that managed to survive the carnage had been ripped out of the ground and wildly strewn about, and it might have been a figment of Leonel's imagination, but it also felt like the rumbling storm above was also far more violent than it ever had been before as though the entire Domain had been provoked.

Arcs of thick black lightning continuously rained down the tallest peak in the distance. The scene half left Leonel in a trance where he couldn't take his eyes off of the magnificence, and another half of him felt as though the lightning was crashing into his mind, threatening to tear him apart piece by piece.

This scene made Leonel realize that what happened to his Segmented Cube couldn't have possibly been a coincidence. Whatever happened while he was out happened to both.

But, this realization made something else settle in for Leonel, his mind sparking and his thinking speed heading into overdrive.

'This opens up a separate sort of possibility for what might have happened to the Segmented Cube.

'Originally, if I had to guess what happened to it, I would have assumed that it was related to however I ended up injured. The Void Tower was supposed to be a virtual trial. However, if the change to my mind somehow allowed my Dream Force to mess with that process, then the lines between virtual and reality could have blurred.

'If I was forming a virtual reality simulation in the Dimensional Verse, I wouldn't use technology. The obvious choice would be Dream Force. If manipulated properly, you could make things as realistic as you wanted them, and rely on the processing strength inherent to the human mind to deal with it all.

'But let's say that barrier is breached. If you're toying with that line, then injuries would theoretically be the obvious result of crossing a safety line that shouldn't be crossed… That doesn't exactly explain how what should be illusions could injure me, but the answer to that isn't exactly important right this moment.

'What is important is that if that line was crossed, what else would distort? I would assume that fundamental laws related to gravity, electromagnetism, and especially space would be the first to distort. And, in the case something like that happened, wouldn't the Segmented Cube obviously collapse no matter how high grade of a treasure it was?'

Even as his mind worked at warp speed, Leonel did the only thing he could to check this: the spatial bristle rings.

Most of the spatial bristle rings Leonel had had been traded in for points. But, he had kept just one on his person in case of future issues.

But, when Leonel looked at the finger he had kept it on, as expected… It was no longer there.

Leonel could imagine that if the space of a spatial bristle ring collapsed on his finger, it would have most definitely taken his finger and most of his hand with it. But, here was his hand, perfectly fine.

'This isn't the first time I've dealt with warping spatial rings either. Whenever you take a lower level Dimensional ring into a higher one, the space within shrinks. When you take it back to a lower level Dimension, the space within increases once again.

'The spatial rings are always responding to their environments. The theory is sound. But that is just the first step, the next logical step is how?

'I didn't think about this earlier because I let my emotions get the best of me, but any collapsing space is not some quiet event. The casing around it would definitely suffer as well. But, why is it that the Segmented Cube is still perfectly shaved into a jig-saw-like finger glove?

'The only explanation is that someone or something stabilized it and protected it.'

There was only one thing that Leonel could think of that could possibly do this. The image of an illusory little girl came to mind.

If the Segmented Cube had an AI of sorts protecting it, what would that AI decide to do in the case that Leonel's actions placed it and everything it protected in danger? The obvious course of action would be evasive maneuvers.

Now, the question was, how could he get it to come back?

'One problem at a time.' Leonel's gaze narrowed, turning his attention back to the Spear Domain Ring.

It was clear that whatever hardship the Segmented Cube had been forced into, so too had the Spear Domain gone through. But, rather than the Spear Domain folding or running, it fought back and eventually managed to stabilize its space.

The result of that, though, was a far more volatile and dangerous world, not to mention the destruction of many spears.

The good news was that many of these spears would be able to heal themselves in time. However, the bad news was far heavier.

For one, the difficulty of crossing through the Spear Domain had increased far more than a thousandfold.

Leonel had been standing within the Black Grade region of the ring just now, and yet he still felt like his mind was about to collapse. Usually, he appeared in the last place he had left, but seemingly sensing his weakness and protecting him, the Spear Domain had shuffled him all the way back.

Secondly, due to this change, Leonel lost access to even the Quasi Bronze Spears he had been fond of. This wasn't because they were being repaired as some had still managed to survive. It was because he quite literally could not reach them.

Leonel had gone from being able to enter the Silver Grade region, to not even being able to freely walk throughout the Black Grade region. Let alone calling out his Quasi Gold spear, he would be hard pressed to claim a Black Grade spear from the ones around him.

It felt like he was right back to square one, standing at the same place he had been when he hadn't even completed his Nodes yet.