Dimensional Descent

1972 Agreement

A tide of violet swept through the day side supercontinent. Nothing could seem to stop it.

Leonel and Little Blackstar took the vanguard, causing death and destruction. Every time they took action, the opposing armies were thrown into chaos and disorder. After they were finished, the strongest of Leonel's subordinates would rush over, splitting up the most powerful combatants and stopping them from having the opportunity to support the more average fights. Then, the army of millions would swoop in.

The army of soul constructs was relentless. They maintained the same savage air that they had during the upgrade challenge, their bloodthirst often overwhelming the enemies before them. Even when one managed to hold their ground and fight back, witnessing one rise back from the dead as though they had never been harmed in the first place was enough to shatter even the strongest morale.

By the time half of Leonel's 13 or so hours were through, his territory had already expanded by as much as 30% and the hold he had over the day side supercontinent had begun to approach as much as 60%. He suffocated and suppressed the other territories, and his blade never seemed to show mercy.

Given the circumstances, his kill rate had dropped from 100% of Heirs. It couldn't be helped, some didn't have the fortitude to stay until the final moments, or the stupidity, depending on how you looked at it. One after another, Heirs abandoned their chances at glory and vanished.

When they appeared on the glass cube once again, they gasped for breath, their expressions pale and their gazes flickering with fear. In those moments, they had truly felt the scent of death.

Seeing the states, flashes of pity couldn't help but spark in the eyes of their elders. True death was one thing, but this sort of death of the heart was another kind altogether. The image of Leonel, standing loftily atop the back of a roaring black dragon was simply far too much for them to handle.

Maybe in their lifetimes, they would never be able to raise their heads and face Leonel as equals, in this lifetime... they could only submit.

Noah fought valiantly on the battlefield. His saber was bold and his courage was commendable, however he could only feel that the gap between him and Leonel only seemed to be widening.

Much like the elders of the Human Domain, he too had sensed the fork in the road that Leonel had just faced, and quite frankly if it had been up to him... He wasn't sure if he would have chosen to take this route.

Things seemed to be going smoothly now, but Leonel's current actions, his boldness, his trumpeting victories, was only provoking others. It seemed like a simple choice to use an army of millions to face off against groups that were only a few ten thousand at most, but that was only surface level analysis from those with little understanding of military affairs and war.

Noah had spent much of his life on the battlefield, and he knew Leonel wasn't a fool. One of the worst things a military commander could do was to overextend themselves, and there were very strong arguments for the fact that this was what Leonel was doing right this moment.

Even so, he stood in the skies with a cold expression. Every time they conquered a territory, he would snatch its city core and leave it ruins. Then, as though it was an adequate replacement, he would leave behind an outpost and move on without a word.

He continued to grind away at his enemies, making bold move after bold move.

Noah could see that some fatigue was already accumulating along Leonel's brow, but the latter didn't seem to notice. It wasn't a simple task to just reform the destroyed soul constructs, every time he did so another bit of his stamina would be sapped away. Although his Stars could quickly replenish it, he was wasting more than he was recovering.

Even so, the fact that Leonel could sustain millions of soul constructs at all was a great shock. A slight fatigue after what should have been doing something impossible for most was far too difficult to fathom, and yet it was happening right before them all.

Seeing Leonel crush the dreams of one Heir after another, though, the conflict within Noah's heart only continued to grow.

He truly couldn't understand the difference. Were some people simply born better?

He knew about Leonel's life. He knew that Leonel was a normal teen of the Entertainment stream for most of his life. Other than being a Five Star Professional, there was nothing special about him.

Whereas he had been a Prince of the Empire from the day he was born. He had the best teachers, the best resources, the best training. So why was he so inferior?

The harsh reality was that Noah knew that Leonel agreed with him as well, not just Leonel, but even his own grandfather.

Leonel had always thought he was better than others, the difference was that he felt this "betterness" was superficial and not enough to calculate the worth of a person. As such, he was determined to use the fact he was simply born better than others to help those around him and create a world where such heartache wasn't necessary. This was why he had always taken these burdens on his shoulders, why he had wanted to be a King and not an Emperor.

Although his ruthlessness had increased in recent times and his views had shifted somewhat, this was still the very foundation of his being.

Emperor Fawkes, however, was a bit more difficult to read. Even so, his actions seemed to state that he didn't care much about the world at all. He got rid of the useless, slaughtering them en masse. His true goals and aspirations were unknown, but it was safe to say that he wanted to maximize the growth of his Empire, even if it meant sacrificing innocents.

As for whether there was a deeper layer to that story... only he would know.

The irony to Noah, though, was that these two men that he respected greatly... both of them agreed on a fundamental level... There were simply certain barriers one couldn't overcome without being born with a certain advantage others didn't have...

The army came to a slow halt.

In the distance, the flag of a Silver-Grade city with walls even taller than Leonel's Gold-Grade city appeared.

Fifth Nova's territory.