Dimensional Descent

Grey erupted with a golden flame. At the same time, Magoron's hair began to grow out wildly. At first it was cut quite short, but very quickly, it reached his shoulders, then down his back, then it touched the floor and continued to pool at a faster and faster rate.

Leonel didn't say anything as he watched.

With his fire affinity, he could tell that those flames from Grey were not normal in the slightest. In fact, they didn't seem to be flames at all, but rather a physical manifestation of her Life Force. Somehow, this flame bypassed Blood Force entirely and allowed Life Force to be directly used without a medium. It was the purest form of Life Force in and of itself.

Grey's vitality had recently been increased a great deal by Leonel, and as a result, this golden flame burned especially brightly at this moment. In fact, if Leonel was correct, Grey could use this golden flame to swallow the Life Force of external objects, and it may very well be especially potent against flames themselves.

On the other side, Magoron's Life Force seemed to have finally gained an appropriate vessel and it was flooding out of control, almost as though his body was spiking with growth hormone. It raged to the point even his eyebrows and eyelashes were growing. Soon, even layers of dead skin began to shed from him, only for newer, shinier skin to grow beneath.

At that moment, Leonel felt like he understood.

'One aspect increases Life Force. Another increases one's capacity to encapsulate and manipulate Life Force. The final allows you to transfer Life Force. But it's also not this simple at the same time. The aspect that increases Life Force is also a method by which Life Force can be snatched from others. The method by which Life Force can be encapsulated was also a method by which you could form a symbiotic relationship with an artificial extension of your body. And the final that allowed the transference of Life Force outside your body without the need for a symbiotic connection…'

The aspect which increased Life Force was the golden flame.

The aspect that increased Life Force capacity was the wooden ball.

The aspect that allowed the transfer of Life Force was the chalice.

In other words, the Midas family's Lineage Factor, the Florer family's Lineage Factor, and the Radix family's Lineage Factor in that order. They were all taken to be one.

But this still felt like just the surface, there was something deeper here.

After all, the aspect of the golden flame worked best on fire. The Midas family wouldn't have been foolish enough to not try it with other things. After all, the Shark Race hadn't had any prominent Fire affinity until after fusing with this Lineage Factor.

The wooden ball clearly worked best with living, breathing entities, such as plants, or if Leonel's hypothesis was correct, Eighth Dimensional materials that could be considered to have stepped into the Life Grade.

And, the Bronze Force of the chalice clearly worked the best with metal, and it very much seemed to be the foundation of all of this. It was the chalice that held the fire and the wooden ball. In addition, back then, the Radix family had been by far the strongest of these three families until the Florer family overtook them. Clearly, the Radix, if they couldn't get their hands on all three, would settle for what they believed was the absolute strongest.

'The wooden ball… Eighth Dimensional… Life Grade… This is…'

Years ago, when Leonel first awakened his Metal Synergy Lineage Factor, he had sensed the existence of a fifth set of nine doors, or in other words, an Eighth Dimensional tier for his Metal Synergy Lineage Factor.

Back then, he was ignorant and hadn't thought much of it. It was only now that he understood more about the world that he had also come to understand that this was a tightly guarded secret of the Morales family they didn't allow others to know about.

There was another thing of great importance that happened back then as well… the mutation of his Metal Synergy Lineage Factor.

One was the crimson aura that manifested when he nearly lost his mind, and the second the violet aura that manifested when he dug himself out of the pit he nearly threw himself into.

When the elders had seen this violet aura, they spoke words that Leonel hadn't heard. If he had heard them, maybe he would have been able to slide together the final pieces of this puzzle…

… The Violet winds rise North …

Leonel's gaze narrowed but he eventually didn't say anything. Without another word, he turned and left.

**

"Did you not say that he was dead?!"

The voice boomed.

Although he was somewhat caught off guard, Rychard had long since reached a state of absolute calm. It was very difficult for much of anything to rattle him.

"Is he not? That should explain some things, I felt that something was off."

The voice was somewhat irritated by Rychard's calmness. By now, they had expected all out retaliation of Leonel's family, but nothing had come of it. In fact, their other underground workings were being suppressed one after another at the hands of an unknown organization that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once.

"What do you want to do about this?" The voice said after a long while.

"We meant to be more forceful to begin with. If they don't want to come to us, then we will go to them. Tell the Thrusting Skies Sector that it's about time."

The voice fell into silence. Eventually, a long enough time had passed that it was clear that they had vanished entirely.

Rychard didn't say anything, but deep within his placid eyes, there was a cold light.

He knew better than anyone why he had been left alive by Leonel. He had been neglected, cast off like a useless pawn the latter couldn't be bothered to remember about. That rage had long since faded and the maturity Rychard exuded was beyond most his age.

However, there was one thing that hadn't disappeared.

He would make Leonel pay for underestimating him.