Dimensional Descent

Leonel appeared outside the courtroom as the Khafra Dream Pavilion's projection vanished. He found Old Bastian standing before him, his expression somewhere halfway between relief and rage.

He could see the kind of storm that Leonel had embroiled them in, there was simply no escaping it now. However, to his back, the rest of everyone else was looking toward Leonel, or rather Aerin, with worship in their eyes. They were even looking at Lyra like she was already their Queen, their gazes sparkling.

At this point, even if Old Bastian wanted to, he couldn't reprimand Leonel. Not only would it ruin everything, but it wouldn't change the outcome.

"Come with me," Old Bastian finally said, sighing and releasing what felt like a pent-up breath.

The skies rumbled and Old Bastian shook his head as he looked up. It seemed that what would come would come.

Leonel sent Aina back into the Segmented Cube and pulled Aerin out before he changed his own appearance to that of a normal looking Sparrow.

Just as he finished, two auras descended and entered the Dream Pavilion.

They were both about the same age as Old Bastion. One was an old Sparrow with three pairs of translucent dragonfly wings to Old Bastion's two. The second, however, was an old Pixie.

If Sparrow's wings grew larger in their old age, then for Pixie's, it could be said that their souls became larger. In fact, her eyes practically seemed to sparkle, carrying the youthful vigor of a teenage girl despite the fact she had the features of a woman well into her sixties.

It could be said that these were the main flaws of the Dwarven Race. They unlocked exceptional talents in their old age, but by then, they were already past their physical prime and had a problem with taking true advantage of them. This was just the reality of their lives.

"Avlauren, Spector," Old Bastian greeted with a smile.

Despite the Pavilion Head's politeness, the two old fogies didn't seem to be very happy. Their eyes landed like daggers on Aerin who immediately went pale.

In truth, Aerin had always been pampered. It was rare for his elders to look at him like this. Even when he wanted to go to the Gathering of Minds, their reactions weren't so fierce. It was obvious that he had definitely crossed their bottom lines this time, but what else could he do? He felt like they were being slowly pushed into a corner; if they didn't take action now, then when could they?

"What the hell is going on, Old B? I know this wouldn't have gone through without your approval," Avlauren turned her attention back to Bastian.

"Ask him," Old Bastian tossed the ball to Leonel.

"What the hell, old man? Where's your backbone?" Leonel asked half-jokingly.

He suddenly felt two auras lock onto him, as though they were wondering who he was. Originally, they had wanted to kick Leonel out, but they realized that just because they were angry, it didn't mean that they should take it out on an innocent party. The Dwarven Race had always been harmonious... for the most part. There was no reason to harm one of their own unnecessarily.

Old Bastian looked away as though he hadn't heard Leonel's words at all.

Leonel shook his head. All the old people in his life were so unreliable. He still had no idea where that useless grandfather of his was, was he just supposed to handle all of this on his own?

It had to be remembered just how severe the time dilation between the Complete and Incomplete Worlds were. Leonel had only been delayed a fraction of a second during his teleportation back to the Dimensional Verse from the Vast Bubble, and yet he lost almost 20 years of time.

By this point, he had already been in the Complete Worlds for years. It made no sense for his grandfather to be delayed this long. In fact, logically, he should have died of old age by now.

Leonel shook his head and focused. He looked the two old Dwarven Race members right in the eyes, and unlike Aerin, he didn't waver.

"Tell me clearly," Leonel spoke word for word, "do you want to spend your whole existence under the thumb of others?"

The expressions of the two changed before they got angry. They were about to speak, but they were cut off by Leonel.

"The Cloud Race and Nomad Race have been hounding you at your borders, coming after something that you earned with your own two hands. Or, rather, your courageous Prince did.

"Do you want to hand it over?"

The words of the two were caught in their throats. How could they be willing?

"I can help you crush all of these people."

"Why should we trust you? You're not even a member of the Dwarven Race, are you?" Specter looked at Leonel. Although he couldn't see through the disguise, the way Leonel talked about them clearly drew a line between them. He even called Aerin "your" Prince.

"Because I have information on all of you that could completely cripple your empire, do you believe me?" Leonel asked with a smile.

This time, even Old Bastian frowned. Leonel hadn't mentioned this before, so why was he suddenly doing so now? What was he playing at?

Was he just using different tactics for different people?

"I can tell you what's going to happen right now. For now, there's a great number of people who are in awe and worshiping your Prince, but very soon there will be many dissatisfied voices.

"They'll be asking why their Prince is marrying outside of his race, they'll question the motives of the Spirituals and try to drive a wedge between you all.

"No Race is perfect, and as harmonious as you all seem on the surface, it just makes you all the more susceptible to such ploys.

"And you know why this will work, right? Probably because you all know that there's a certain Pixie noble that's already madly in love with Aerin, no?"

Leonel's lip curled.

Somnus had done so much of the legwork collecting all of this information for him; wouldn't it be a shame if he didn't use it?