Dimensional Descent

The appearance of Leonel caught the Imperial Court Minister completely off guard; The sounds in this place were entirely isolated for the sake of privacy and safety; so none of them had even heard Leonel's earlier roars;

"Who?!"

The Ministers all looked toward Leonel at the exact same time; There were many old faces amongst the crowd, but still too few of them had seen Leonel personally; Well, more accurately, they had all seen Leonel personally, but the circumstances between then and now made it difficult to draw the connection;

Back then, when Shield Cross Stars projected Leonel's face all across, he was still a teen and he looked a lot different; His hair was bronze and his eyes were a pale green, plus he wasn't so malnourished as he looked now;

Only those intimately familiar with him would actually recognize him;

Up ahead; on the throne reserved for the Emperor; old man Fawkes sat with an indifferent expression; Despite the surprise; he didn't seem to react to Leonel's appearance at all; He simply looked toward his grandson with a neutral expression;

To his side, Leonel's grandmother was actually present as well; Compared to her husband, she was much more pleasantly surprised; She didn't seem to care that Leonel had appeared in a rage at all and only cared that he had appeared;

The two of them actually looked a great deal younger; Last time Leonel had seen his grandfather; he looked well into his 50's; albeit younger than he had originally been; As for his grandmother; she looked like she wasn't long for the grave;

However; after over two decades; the two looked like they had returned to their 30's; it was quite baffling until; that is; Leonel realized that the two of them had entered the Seventh Dimension;

There was a hint of haziness over his grandfather. though. almost as though this was just what he was willing to show; The real oddity was that this was the first time Leonel had ever gotten an inkling about what level his grandfather was at. he always seemed unfathomable. even slapping an entire warship out of the skies with a single palm back then;

The ones who had roared surged toward Leonel while the guards behind him were quickly catching up; But then Leonel spoke as though he hadn't sensed them at all;

"Old man. what the hell are you doing?! Are you trying to run this empire into the ground?!"

Hearing these words. Empress Fawkes blinked and realized that Leonel didn't look very happy; Only then did she settle down her maternal instincts and exhale a breath; Even so. just because she had always felt guilty toward Leonel. she would stand on his side if there was an opportunity. but for now. she chose to remain silent and hear what her grandson had to say;

Emperor Fawkes looked toward Leonel. meeting his gaze with his own shimmering irises; He could sense that the Emperor's Might aura coming from Leonel now was far more prominent than it ever had been in the past. in fact it felt so potent that even given the frailty of his body. Leoenl still looked like a towering mountain;

"Brat, you've disappeared for two decades and came back with the cheek to berate your grandfather?"

Hearing these words, those that were ready to deal with Leonel froze; To the side, Leonel's uncle coughed awkwardly, pushing up his glasses; He was really helpless to deal with the interactions between this pair of grandfather and grandson;

"Don't patronize me, old man; On just a single trip here, I ran into at least three separate gangs, and that was just near the outer regions;

"By the time I entered the Sector, there was some bullshit Aehorn family and Thrusting Skies organization that blocked my path, asking me for toll fees;

"When I entered the galaxy, a group of monks of the Evergreen Goddess and the Zoltene Faith tried to have me give "offerings" for their cause.

"I finally got the quadrant, only for the Force Crafting Guild to try to confiscate my ship because I apparently must have stolen it from them.

"Then when I finally made it to our solar system and I thought the bullshit was finished, the Brazinger family dared to stand in my path?

"You tell me, are you running this Empire into the ground or not? Why is there not a single level or range within this territory that's safe from bullshit? I bet if I walked around Earth for a little while someone would try to rob me at gunpoint. What have you been doing for the last 20 years? Sitting on your thumbs?!"

The Ministers opened and closed their mouths for a long while, not knowing what to say. Many of them flushed with shame, but even more of them were surprised. They had never seen anyone speak to Emperor Fawkes in this way, not even his own son and grandson. Both Leonel's uncle and Noah were entirely too respectful to even breathe too loudly in the face of Fawkes. And yet here was Leonel.

Despite the words, Emperor Fawkes didn't seem to react too violently.

"Don't we have you to thank for this?" Emperor Fawkes replied, his lips spreading into a smile that carried with it a hint of deviousness.

Leonel's gaze only flickered for a moment before his temper flared up again.

"My fault?! If you lost control of the situation to this extent just because Shield Cross Stars has been away for a few days, you really were sitting on your ass for the last two decades. If you need a corrupt organization like that to maintain control, you've been wasting your time.

"And even if it was "my fault", so what? Aren't you supposed to be my grandfather? Where's your heroic spirit? Shouldn't you be protecting me from wind and rain? But you can't even protect your own empire, at this point you might as well hand over the reins to me, what the hell have you been doing?!"

As Leonel spoke, Emperor Fawkes' smile only grew brighter and he even began to stroke his beard and nod his head.

"Indeed, indeed." Emperor Fawkes nodded. "It's settled then, Prince Leonel will become the head of Earth's police force."

With a flick of wrist, something soared through the air toward Leonel. The latter subconsciously caught it, only to look down and find a badge.

Almost the instant Leonel touched it, the badge began to vibrate.

"… Trouble in the Three Pillar Sector, remnants of the Viola family are…"

"… Alert from Thrusting Skies Sector, they are trying to expand again…"

"… Requesting reinforcements! The Zoltene Faith is gathering offerings to build another shrine…"

Leonel's lip twitched. He felt like he had been set up.