Dimensional Descent

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Leonel came to an abrupt stop.

He could finally seem to hear around him and the sound of his heartbeat was so loud that it rumbled like thunder. Every pulse sent waves through the waters, causing it to shudder and wince. It beat so loud that Leonel felt that a single thump could have shattered his previous set of bones before he had been eaten by the Cobra Demon.

Leonel hadn’t truly been aware of how powerful this new heart of his was until now, but it was exactly because such a heart was beating so wildly and strongly that it was so concerning. If not for the fact that it was so strong, it would have given out long ago.

Now, there was nothing but a searing hotness in his chest. It felt like hot coals were resting within his ribcage and billowing scalding smoke up his throat. The pain was unbearable, and the heat of the waters around was almost as well.

Looking around, Leonel realized that even the stingray beasts in the surroundings were forced to retreat a long way from him in order to avoid being crushed by their master’s might. If not for this, Leonel might have wiped out three days of hard work all on his own.

Finally, Leonel looked down to find that it was Aina. She didn’t say anything and simply held onto him tight, refusing to let go. A large portion of her clothing had been burnt away, and if it wasn’t for her tightly holding onto him, she may have very well shown the world far too much.

Leonel took a breath, and then another, and another. Only then did the searing pain in his chest seem to finally begin to calm down. The fact it only took three breaths was a testament to the strength of his recovery abilities, but even so, the dull pain continued to linger and would probably take several hours to vanish entirely.

He had really pushed his body to its limits just now, if he had been any less cautious, he might have truly overheated himself and died… again. It was also unknown if his soul could even survive the rampaging of his Scarlet Star Force, he really might have burned himself to death.

Leonel looked around at his body to find that it was truly in a mess. His left arm was half missing, his right leg was chopped at the knee, his body was caked and covered in blood. He had truly fought like a fool, he hadn’t even used his Divine Armors. But honestly, if he had taken out his Divine Armors just now, aside from maybe his third tier one, the first and second tiers would have both been destroyed under his own power, and he would have had to drain his stamina even further just to upkeep them.

Leonel could only shake his head. ’How pathetic. [Instant Recovery].’

Leonel’s hair gently waved, and a large pillar of Light Force and Star Force fell upon both himself and Aina. Not long later, though he was pretty much naked, he was in perfect condition.

He wrapped his arms around Aina and ran his fingers through the back of her hair. He felt more at peace now, the slowly calming waves of the water slowing his beating heart further.

”Are you okay?” Aina asked.

She didn’t know why she had rushed over here, she had a lot of work to do elsewhere, but there had been a suffocating feeling in her chest she couldn’t ignore until she ran all the way over here. When she saw the state of Leonel, she knew that something was wrong.

Originally, she had thought that maybe the pressure was getting to him, or maybe it was because his Scarlet Star Force Innate Node was taking over well ahead of the time that Wise Star Order had stipulated. However, now that she was here, she felt that it was something entirely different.

Leonel didn’t answer immediately, and it seemed like he wouldn’t… Until he suddenly did.

”I don’t really feel like participating in these Heir Wars anymore,” Leonel suddenly said.

Aina was shocked by these words. They seemed simple, but the weight behind them was extraordinary. This was Leonel’s dream, everything he had been working toward in the last several years, everything he had done since exiting Valiant Heart Mountain, up until this point, was all for these stretch of days. And now… he suddenly didn’t want to participate anymore?

Even on his way here, Leonel was only acting out of habit. It all felt quite meaningless. If he hadn’t been trying to stop his mind from wandering, he probably wouldn’t have even triggered this upgrade challenge at all.

Aina didn’t know what to say for a long while. All she knew was that she couldn’t allow Leonel to quit, but she didn’t even know what was wrong, so she didn’t know how to convince him to continue.

He didn’t believe that it was the weight of the situation. Leonel was the kind of person who thrived under pressure, she knew him well enough to know that.

What was the last thing he had given up on, was it herself? And why had he done that? It was purely logical. She had crossed a line that he had drawn quite early on and he wasn’t willing to forgive it at the time.

Then there must be a logical reason for this as well.

Thinking back, the entire purpose for this was his want to become a King. And he wanted to become a King to help the most people possible. And he wanted to help the most people possible because he couldn’t logically deduce a worth to a person’s life.

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That meant one of two things. Either he felt that he had found an objective metric, or he had deduced that the answer was insignificant enough to be ignored.

Regardless of which one it was, there was no simple answer to change his mind. Leonel was smarter and thought faster than anyone in existence, or at least, anyone that she had ever met. The only person who could draw a conclusion different from his own that he would actually listen to was his father, and he obviously wasn’t here now, and knowing that man there was no telling what he might say.

In that case, trying to convince Leonel that he was wrong was something beyond her.

Her gaze flickered for a moment, and after some hesitation, she spoke.

”Do you still love me?”

Leonel’s gaze sharpened as he suddenly looked down. ”What are you talking about, of course I love you.”

He didn’t even bother to add the ”still” part, to him it was an unnecessary addition. His love for Aina was constant, it would never change.

Aina smiled sweetly. ”I want our babies to be little princes and princesses, can you do that for me?”

Leonel blinked. ”They will be already—”

”Not of Earth, or even just of the Morales family. I want them to be able to go anywhere and still have people look up to them, to be able to go anywhere and not have to fear or hesitate about anything.

”Can you do that for me?”

Aina looked into Leonel’s eyes, her golden irises dancing with a reflective light.

Leonel paused for a moment, but then nodded. ”Okay, no problem.”

He spoke these words as though it was a matter of fact. So long as he cared enough to participate, wasn’t the end result guaranteed?