Dimensional Descent

Compared to the throne rooms and royal courts that Leonel had been in before, the gathering room of the Umbra family was very simple.

Up ahead, their Patriarch, a man quite familiar to Leonel, Silam Umbra, sat. But unlike Leonel's run in with the Viola family, Silam didn't seem to be flaunting his authority. In fact, he was quite eye level with Leonel and greeted him with a nod.

What was interesting to Leonel, though, was that Silam was still in the Sixth Dimension and he didn't seem to have improved very much at all. But this shouldn't have been surprising considering the fact that Silam should have already been near the peak of his potential when Leonel met him the first time. It wasn't as though everyone would have vast improvements during his absence.

However, this was still a curious matter.

It had to be remembered that Leonel had drawn the connection between the Umbra family and the Three Finger Cult. Leonel had been able to draw the connection between the Shadow Tail Lineage Factor of the Umbra family and the higher grade Lineage Factors of the Umbra family.

Even so, it felt odd that a family that was able to escape the Three Finger Cult would be so weak. It felt like it would make more sense that they were purposely putting up such a front to remain hidden, but Leonel actually felt that it was far more complicated than this. At the very least, if remaining covert was actually their main priority, they probably wouldn't have attacked Earth back then.

'Unless they attacked precisely so that they wouldn't stand out. If they hadn't tried to take advantage of such a good opportunity, it would have made them look more odd than not. But now they're probably being placed in a difficult situation because of me now that they chose to stand out and protect Earth back then.

'On top of that, in order for them to have succeeded back then, they definitely had to have more strength in reserve than what they're displaying here. Interesting.'

Leonel didn't seem very uncomfortable with the silence in the room. Despite the several gazes trained on him, and the depth of darkness in the surrounding space, he seemed to be very comfortable in his own skin whereas others might have started squirming by now.

"Can you old fogies stop staring so much? You're making my skin crawl," Radlis mumbled.

In the quiet of the room, his voice was all too conspicuous. It seemed that the years hadn't taken the jokester out of Radlis, but even so, that only earned him more glares. They were trying to be serious here, but here was this boy ruining everything.

Radlis scratched the back of his head with an awkward laugh and grin. "Sorry, sorry, I only like it when beautiful women stare at me."

"Oh? Am I not beautiful enough for you?"

At that moment, a middle aged woman turned a sharp eye toward Radlis. She was actually his aunt, and though she looked a bit aged, she definitely still had the air of a mature and graceful woman to her. Even with the faint wrinkles on her face, most men would be forced to take a second or third look before her.

This woman was known as Seltin, and it felt that the moment she spoke, the entire room seemed to shift toward her, even more so than Patriarch Silam himself.

Radlis coughed. "How could that be true, aunty? I dream about you every day. I've lost count of the number of times I have lamented the fact we are related. Why are the heavens so cruel to me? I'm forever destined to not be with the world's greatest beauty!"

Radlis spoke as though he was pouring his heart out, but his antics caused the room which had been stifled with pressure to burst, becoming filled instead with stifled laughter. Even Leonel's lip twitched.

Now that he thought about it, the first time he met Radlis he was chasing skirts. It seemed that he wasn't willing to let even his own aunt go. Toward this, observers could only be speechless.

Seltin rolled her eyes. Obviously, she was likewise used to her nephew's nonsense. Radlis was lucky that the situation wouldn't allow it, or else she would have given him a nice spanking.

After a moment, Seltin turned her gaze toward Silam for a second before looking toward Leonel.

"You are a very intelligent boy since you could expose us when even the Three Finger Cult could not, so I'm sure you understand our qualms as well, right? We are running out of time and circumstances have, unfortunately, caused you to lose almost a quarter of a century. While we were, indeed, prepared to wait even twice as long as that, I'm sure you can understand the difference between then and now, right?

"It would not be smart on our part to continue investing in you the same way. However, there is also not much we can do if you choose to hold our past over our heads either, so we are at a bit of an impasse."

Hearing these words, rather than being annoyed, Leonel was actually quite curious. Although the words seemed simple, they implied many things.

The first was that the Umbra family had a goal in leaving the Three Finger Cult that was likely beyond just pure survival. The second was that they were prepared to execute this plan so long as Leonel would allow them an amicable separation. And the third was that they weren't willing to have a falling out with Leonel if they didn't have to.

If they killed Leonel, it wouldn't be long before the spotlight was on them again and that would make remaining hidden almost impossible. In addition, they would make themselves a great number of enemies, whether that was the Ascension Empire or the Morales family.

They didn't believe that others wouldn't know that Leonel had come here today, so it was impossible for them to take this course of action casually.