Dimensional Descent

Galienne's furious roar thundered across the skies. Never in her wildest imagination did she think that Leonel's words would actually not be nonsense, but now that she was aware, what she had to do was even less of an uncertainty. 

The role of Void Palace was of one track and of one mind: protect the Human Domain from other races. It was that simple, and it was a mission that hadn't changed for countless years. 

Wimword's expression changed. 

At first, he wanted to see if he could do something to change his current situation, or at least take control of it, but he quickly realized that all of his ideas were ridiculous. 

Take Leonel as hostage? What good would that do when the entire purpose of their trip here was to detain him to begin with? Plus, it was likely that a part of the reason Galienne's reaction was so explosive was because she had finally found a target to vent on. 

After just a second, Wimword realized that he had no other options outside of running. He sent a furious gaze toward Leonel. Even now, he had no idea how he had been exposed. If it was so easy to see through the disguise of the Cloud Race then they wouldn't be the Cloud Race. Someone like Leonel was, without exaggeration, an existential risk to their very being. 

The only race of people that the Cloud Race didn't dare to play around with were the Spirituals precisely because they could so easily see through them. Wimword had no idea how a human race brat could do the same thing. 

Seeing Wimword's fury, Leonel smiled and waved. 

"You should probably start running now, maybe you can make it out. Good luck." 

Seeing Leonel's smile, Wimword's body trembled with fury. In a spike of rage, the aura of a Seventh Dimensional expert rippled out in all directions, emitting from his body in waves. However, rather than being shocked or scared like Wimword thought Leonel would be, Leonel's smile still hadn't faded. 

What a joke. If Leonel could see through Wimword's Cloud Race disguise, why wouldn't he be able to tell that the latter was actually in the Seventh Dimension. 

But now Wimword had to make a choice, he could either test his luck and try to kill Leonel, or he could run. If Leonel managed to survive his first strike, he wouldn't have time to send a second before avoiding detection would be impossible. 

The Void Elders were still far enough away that he and the others could escape, and it would take far more than just a few exchanges to bridge the gap, but the main issue was a matter of whether they would be able to track them or not. 

If Wimword left right this moment, his trail would disappear by the time they caught up. But if he delayed… there was no telling. 

It was clear by Leonel's smile that he seemed to understand this quite well. 

Wimword grit his teeth for a moment before all of his fury vanished into a puff of air. In an instant, he had regained all of his calm and there was no longer the slightest ripple in his eyes. Without hesitating anymore, he turned and vanished, plumes of cloudy fog and energy following his path. 

The corner of Leonel's lip curled as he watched Wimword run. 

At the same moment, Zylgella and Urrith no longer hesitated as well, breaking free from their formations and rushing away. What Leonel found interesting, though, was that they were all alone. He couldn't help but wonder what the plan was, exactly. 

Did the Cloud Race plan to overturn Shield Cross Stars with just three individuals? That didn't seem likely. It was either that these were rogue members, or… 

Leonel's expression flickered for a moment as chaos ensued. With the collapse of just three formations, logically, there should have been more than enough organization remaining to deal with the situation, but the Cloud Race had quite some spectacular methods of their own. 

As they escaped, a dense foggy grey energy rose into the air, obscuring vision and making even Leonel feel as though his mind was being attacked. 

One after another, the formations wavered and collapsed, the glorious shields cracking and shattering right after them. 

Leonel's eyes narrowed. 

With a step, he appeared by Aina's side. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he took another step and crossed large distances at a time. 

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! 

'Perfect.' Leonel thought with a grin. 

He didn't need to see to know what happened. Just now, Wimword had definitely reached the spatial lock barrier and used some method to destroy it. In an instant, Leonel felt his Emulation Spatial Force loosen up and he felt freer to move. 

In reality, Leonel had many other plans for this day. If he had the skill to draw spatial arrays capable of helping him escape a Zone, something that was supposedly impossible up until the moment he did it, this spatial barrier had no method of stopping him either so long as he had some time. 

He had originally wanted to deal Shield Cross Stars a blow for being so annoying, which was why he had taken this approach. But the idea that they had three spies in their ranks that caused their collapse while they were supposedly chasing after a Fugitive was far more cathartic than anything else he had had planned. In fact, he found it absolutely hilarious. 

That said, that didn't mean that he would just leave things as is. 

Taking advantage of the fog, Leonel deployed his Starry Spirit Domain and added some fog of his own. Overlaying it with Emulation Spatial Force, he created an illusion of his surroundings that had everything but an image of himself and Aina, effectively allowing them to disappear into thin air. 

Leonel was sure that there were many still trying to pay close attention to his actions, but no amount of scrutiny would stop him. 

In just a few minutes, unbeknownst to anyone, Leonel stepped onto an empty planetary warship with Aina by his side.