Dimensional Descent

Overlord Tarius took a breath and calmed herself. She refused to allow herself to remain flustered over a child. After a moment, she summoned the remaining two Ancestors of the Tarius family and the remaining two from their subordinate families. The fact that the Tarius family still had an Overlord remaining was actually a secret from their subordinates, but now wasn’t the time to still retain a trump card.

The appearance of Overlord Tarius immediately settled the growing fissures between the Tarius families and their branch families. However, it also made them realize just how bad the situation was if the death of five Ancestors wasn’t enough.

Once they appeared, Overlord Tarius began to speak immediately, taking control of the situation.

“My ability to communicate with the other families has been closed off, and I assume that their ability to contact us has been likewise cut off. I also cannot leave for fear that another attack might be launched, and the Alliance needs a stabilizing force right now.

“I will lay out the situation as plainly as possible. We have lost our World Spirit, Nazag was used as a gateway to enter our Holy Land and locate it, while some method unknown to me was used to capture it. It’s safe to say that within a certain range, the Morales family has the ability to steal any and all World Spirits, I did not even have the chance to resist, let alone speak of resisting.

“With the current situation, our Constellation will gradually weaken until our connection with it is lost entirely. Our Lineage Factor will follow it in weakening. As that happens, the hold that the Morales have on our territory will strengthen until this region is no different from any one of their other territories. Within a few years, this location will become an Eighth Dimensional world as well, but this boon will have nothing to do with us as we will be beneath the thumb of the Morales.

“As things stand, there are only two options before us. The first is to kneel to the Morales. The second is to kneel to the Suiard family and the Spirituals Religion.

“A family without a World Spirit has no right to raise their heads high, and I only have a limited time left to affect change and help position us well for the future.”

When Overlord Tarius finished speaking, there was nothing but somberness and frailty in the air. The four Ancestors seemed to sink into their positions, realizing that they were almost helpless to do anything.

…

This very same conversation occurred all around the Human Domain. These families found themselves stretched thin, their World Spirits snatched. Some were in an even worse position than others, not having even a single Overlord to rely on and their speaking power being even weaker as a result.

The Cancer family, the Ram family, the Virgo family, the Pisc family, the Cornus family. Of these, only the Ram family surprisingly had an Overlord, a secret they had tightly held to themselves all the while, but in the end, it did them little better than the chance to jockey for position in the future.

Some families were in more complicated straits, though, finding themselves torn in two directions for more than just benefits… but rather emotion as well…. One of which being the Quarius family.

…

Vega Quarius sat in her family’s hall, her mind quite blank. Unlike the other families, there was no traitor among the Quarius, but that had only made their fate all the more devastating. Leonel’s armies didn’t pull back, instead they were led by the true Leonel. He bulldozed through their ranks with sheer force, and a great number of starships descended onto their planet.

Leonel hadn’t given the week-long timeline for most families. The families like the Tarius had fallen in just a few hours. In fact, 10 of the 12 Constellation families had fallen within a few hours, without even the chance to retaliate. The Gemin, the Lio, the Libra, the Taur, the Cornus, the Cancer, the Ram, the Virgo, and the Pisc families had all fallen.

Ironically, it was due to her connection with First Nova that Vega’s family had ended up among the worst. Well… relatively speaking. Many more of their Seventh Dimensional experts had died, but their Ancestors were intact. Of course… that was relative as well.

Their Ancestors were all bedridden, each one so heavily injured that this meeting could only be led by Vega’s great grandmother, and the only Overlord of the Quarius family.

The Quarius, the Gemin, the Libra, the Taur, the Tarius, and the Ram families, the six that all had Overlords among their ranks.

In these past few weeks, Vega had gotten into a habit of blankly staring out into space. After Velasco had died, she had been called back to her family. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought much of it. Leonel’s mother had spoken out to help her and Adawarth’s relationship, but now that Velasco was dead, her words held much less weight. She had had no choice but to return, not wanting to put undue pressure on the Morales. In fact, she had even returned in secret.

What she hadn’t expected was that when she returned home, she would hear of a war plan.

She immediately tried to escape, but that had ended in her imprisonment, and imprisonment she had only been “released” from today so that her great grandmother could interrogate her about her involvement and learn of whether she had been aware of this plan or not.

She had been “spared” since she truly had no idea, but her fate in the family was precarious… not that it mattered much since the family’s fate as a whole also seemed to be.

BANG!

Overlord Quarius’ wrinkled palm slammed into the throne beneath her, nearly shattering it completely.

“The Quarius family will not stand for this. We will storm the capitals of the Morales and wash them over with rivers and oceans.”

Her roar thundered.

…

Leonel didn’t seem to particularly care about what choice the families would make. At the moment, he strolled through Pyius territory, his armies around him.

In the distance, he could see a furious Simona. She couldn’t seem to believe that Leonel would do this to her. Hadn’t they been allies?