Dimensional Descent

"Leonel, you…"

Aina didn't know what to say.

The transition into Chaos Demon wasn't something she could control. The moment she reached a certain stage of comprehension in her Blood Sovereinty and took out the heirloom of the Silver Empire, everything happened so fast she couldn't' stop it even if she wanted to. It also didn't help that she didn't even know what kind of changes were occurring to begin with.

Then, when it came to killing those three women, she was blinded by rage because the life and death of Leonel was unknown. And just by virtue of the state Leonel had returned in, their deaths were more than warranted.

Still, even before then, it was already past the point of no return.

She had thought that everything would be fine since Leonel had a method to leave this place and he wouldn't lie to her about such a thing.

But now that she knew about this, she felt as though there was a lump in her throat that she couldn't quite deal with. She didn't want such a choice to be contingent on her. Just how many of the Human Domain would die because Leonel said such a thing?

Leonel smiled, looking into Aina's eyes despite the closeness of their faces.

Despite that smile and the twinkle in his eye, Aina knew the kind of weight Leonel felt on his shoulders making this decision, she knew how he felt about taking the lives of others and the kind of responsibility he felt toward protecting as many people as he could.

He tried not to see any life as more valuable than another because even with his analytical mind, he couldn't find a logical progression toward the worth of a human life.

But now, this very same Leonel was deciding that the life of one Aina was worth more than the life of countless others.

Wasn't he just a hypocrite?

Yes. Yes he was. And quite frankly, right this moment, he didn't care.

If it was his life, he wouldn't hesitate to put it on the line 100 out of 100 times. But when it came to the life of Aina, he would deign to play with it even once no matter how many opportunities he was given. Nothing would move him from this position.

"Didn't I say it already, I can do this impossible. Without me, everyone would be stuck here regardless. Since I'm the only one who can bring everyone out, this can be considered a small price for thanks. There's a limit to my selflessness and this is it."

Leonel pulled his head back, standing to his feet. Right now, he almost felt angry, almost as though a voice in his head was telling him that he was being selfish. It made a fury boil in his heart.

He didn't know where these feelings for Aina came from, but he knew that they were here and they weren't going anywhere. Aina would forever be his bottomline, his reverse scale. If it meant protecting her, if he was honest with himself, he didn't give a damn how many people died.

You were angry about that? Alright, then. Find a method to leave this place yourself.

An arrogance far colder than usual exuded from Leonel, his irises dancing with a crimson hue.

"Let's go. Let's leave this place. We'll return to the Human Domain as soon as I finish this."

Leonel exchanged for everything on his list, save a few things for Little Tolly, before storing them all away. Then he began to bring out the items he had collected through the Sectors one by one before pulling out his Quasi Life Grade Force Quill.

He planned to finish all of these preparations in one go. Once he stepped out, it would only take a moment to fuse everything together and end it all.

Leonel wasn't in the mood to continue "shopping". He had everything he needed and he would make certain that whoever put them in here and made him make such a choice suffered.

Although Leonel wasn't absolutely certain who it was, he was over 90% sure that it was the Three Finger Cult. Only they could have such means. And, if it truly was them, then there was definitely someone within the Void Palace that worked together with them to execute such a large scale plan.

Leonel could bring everyone out, and in the future, he would make certain that they ever gave him such a chance.

As Leonel worked, his expression only became colder and colder, even the air became frigid despite the fact he hadn't released any Water Force.

Leonel had thought for a long time about exactly how to exit this Zone. In fact, he had spent months on the problem.

Ultimately, the answer lay in the full name of a Zone… It was a Sub-Dimensional. Meaning, it was a pocket of space separate from reality that, under normal circumstances, couldn't be breached.

In the past, Sub-Dimensional Zone had been described to Leonel as points in history that met the present, almost like time loops that formed small pockets of space that shared a similar history, but also a somewhat separate timeline. This was why when you failed a Zone, you would live out your life until you died rather than the Zone just directly collapsing.

While to you it would seem as though a lifetime had passed upon failure, to those of the outside world, the Zone would open up immediately, sending the next group that entered to the beginning of the time loop.

This concept became even clearer in Leonel's mind after he learned that the opposite of Spatial Force was Time Force. The two were opposite sides of the same coin, both together, and yet very much separate.

Then, how exactly could you exit a Zone after all having missed the "get off point". Well, the answer was found in the same way such Zones were formed in the first place…

A point where history met the present… Or in other words, on the other side of the coin, a point where one space met another.

Simply put, if Leonel wanted to exit, he needed to find a way to bring them back to the reset point. He couldn't do this with Time Force, but he could do it with Spatial Force.

Essentially, he had to find a way to force this Zone to touch the Human Domain once again. Once these two worlds connected, it would be like the Zone opened up again, but this time in reverse, thus allowing everyone to exit. At least, this was the simplified version of his thoughts.

This, though, still left the matter of how. How would he force such a connection to occur again?

Leonel needed a catalyst, a bridge of sorts that could force these worlds to interact once again, and he had the perfect solution to this.

What Leonel needed was a third world, a world that could force these two together once more, a world that had a strong connection to the Human Domain, but was also sturdy enough to survive a trip through space.

And to that, Leonel had the perfect answer. In fact, this world had already survived such a trip before. In fact, it had survived such a trip many times before. It even had certain abilities capable of hiding the presence of people from the eyes of a Zone.

By now, the answer was obvious…

The Segmented Cube.