Dimensional Descent

[There's an odd situation going on in the comment section of last that claims that I passed off a normal chapter as a bonus chapter yesterday. I'm not sure where this narrative came from, or if it's a joke that's going over my head, but to clarify, I uploaded 4 chapters yesterday, one more than the promised three, that much should be obvious. I'll post screenshots of the discord bot activity with time stamps as proof in the comment section of this chapter]

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Orinik's forehead beaded with sweat.

The more Leonel talked about the rules, the more he felt like he had forgotten something. But, no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't come up with a reason why Leonel would sound so confident.

A part of him wanted to believe that Leonel was just a fool, but as he recited the laws basically word for word, the sinking feeling in Orinik's gut only grew heavier and heavier.

"Aina."

"Hm?"

Leonel grinned. "What rank am I?"

Aina blinked, seemingly thinking. But, she eventually shook her head.

"I don't know, the Void Senate hasn't given you a rank yet."

The moment Aina said these words, Orinik's dark skin flushed, his eyes almost rolled to the back of his head. It felt like his heart was about to fly out of his throat.

This wasn't a small problem in the slightest. Not only had he broken the law, it was a law with the harshest of punishments. Killing was prohibited in the Void Palace, but another enormous taboo was negatively influencing the Human Domain.

They were chosen to be the protectors of mankind. They couldn't be protectors if they were exploiting the people they had to protect. Even the lightest punishment for such a thing would be dozens of years of hard labor. On the other end, there was direct execution!

If Leonel reported this, he was finished.

But, that was only the first issue. Orinik still had to deal with the Gold Standard Faction. Orinik suddenly realized that no matter what he did, he would be suffering this time around.

Through his blurred vision, Orinik could see the crowd looking around in confusion. It made him realize that Leonel had spoken these words for only him to hear.

But of course he would. How could Leonel allow someone else to take advantage of this juicy piece of meat he had caught? How ridiculous.

However, when everyone saw Orinik's reaction, their expressions changed. None of them were fools, they realized that Leonel had caught onto the latter's weakness even if they wouldn't be privy to what it was.

"What… What do you want." Orinik spoke through gritted teeth.

Leonel smiled lightly. "I'm glad you've come around. This makes things easy. I'll sign a contract to keep mum about these matters, and you just have to do a few things for me.

"Firstly, I'm in need of some clothes, there's an uncomfortable draft around here."

Aina bit her lip, trying to refrain from laughing. Did this man even feel the cold to begin with? He had a raging furnace inside his body. By the time he sensed a wind, it would have been charred to a smoldering heat.

Orinik's lip trembled, his fists clenching tight. But, after a moment, he began drawing up a contract, placing down Leonel's demands.

"… I'll need the token you received to the Void Library as a reward for your work done as an envoy and I'll also need 70% of the profit you made on this bet."

When Leonel finished, Orinik was nothing more than a deflated man. However, his expression had regained its calm, his hands becoming steadier and steadier the more he wrote. In the end, he didn't hesitate to hand over everything Leonel asked for.

After reading through the contract, Leonel nodded and signed it, accepting all of his rewards.

He left Orinik with just enough to pay the Gold Standard Faction the 30% cut he owed them while stripping him of practically everything else. Leonel would have taken more, but he felt that he already had enough enemies, there was no need to be on the bad side of a Silver Grade Faction when he had already gained so much.

Soon, Orinik returned with the clothing he owed Leonel and disappeared, not saying another word from start to finish.

"He's a problem." Aina said after Leonel finished dressing himself.

She didn't like the fact Orinik had regained his calm so easily. Or, at the very least, she didn't like that it looked like he had.

Leonel smiled, but it was decidedly colder than it had been previously.

"I hope he continues to be a problem. If not, then what excuse would I have to humiliate him some more?"

The crowd watched Leonel and Aina stroll off as though nothing special had happened. The speculation about how Leonel had done it ran rampant, but no one had a solid clue about exactly what had happened, they could only make their own guesses.

Leonel knew what the most likely rumor would be, so he knew it would be troublesome. But, he chose to ignore it for now. Orinik had given him what he needed most.

A Token to the Void Library was difficult to get and cost a pretty sum of Void Points and Merits just for a small time. However, now Leonel had one in his hand at no cost to himself.

The Void Palace wasn't fond of hand holding so there was no easy way to learn anything. Everything cost.

However, this time, Leonel wasn't going to learn about the Sixth Dimension's God Path like most thought he might. Instead, he was going to see what he could find out about the Segmented Cube and how to get it back. If he had the time remaining, he would also see what he could find out about the Spear Domain ring and learn what was going on with it.

"I think only one of us can enter. This token gives me one day, so I'll be back after that."

Aina nodded. "Alright. I'm going to see what I can find out about getting us a place to stay. It shouldn't be difficult with how many points we have."

After saying this, the couple parted and Leonel soon found himself at the bottom of a winding set of black stairs built right into the side of a mountain he couldn't see the peak of. In fact, now that he thought about it, he couldn't see the end of the stairs either even when his head angled all the way up.

Leonel sighed.

'Why can't anything be easy in this place?'