Dimensional Descent

Leonel and the others stood above a familiar location. The last time they had been here, they had come for the opportunity to enter the Void Palace. Back then, only a few of them had been able to enter, the rest of them being turned away.

It could be said that this place was one of the turning points of Leonel's life.

This place was none other than the three central planets of the Three Pillar Sector, a location that had once been overtaken by the Luxnix family, stripping away control from the Viola family and Montex family.

But now, this was a region solely under the control of the Viola family as the Luxnix family, or what remained of them, had moved to be closer to the core regions of Earth's territory, regions where the resources were far more abundant. Ironically, this had allowed the Viola family to finally gain exactly what it had been that they were looking for throughout the effort of several generations.

Technically, there was no reason for Leonel to have any hatred for the Viola family. In reality, they had never really done anything to him, and though Rychard had tried to make Aina his wife, back then he and Aina weren't together.

As things went, the Viola family was just unlucky. They had gotten the Luxnix who were on the upswing, resulting in them losing generations of hard work before they could get their own chance to rise up. But it seemed, now that they were able to even cause trouble, they had recovered quite well.

Leonel had many thoughts about how this would be possible. A portion was the treasure his mother had tipped him off about back then, but he also had other thoughts swirling in his mind as well.

At that moment, a ship suddenly broke through the atmosphere of Planet Viola. Much like the past, the airspace of the three planets was quite crowded with a ton of traffic coming in and out. Due to this, the appearance of Leonel and the others was quite inconspicuous despite the fact they stood on surfboards.

Even so, this spaceship didn't hesitate to make a straight line toward them, causing Leonel's gaze to narrow. And then, a voice projected out toward them.

"It is our honor to welcome Your Highness. If you could please follow me, I will bring you to Patriarch Viola. He is very eager to see you."

Leonel didn't say anything for a long while. He had just come, but apparently his presence had already been seen through.

Well, this wasn't necessarily impossible. It had already been several days since he dealt with the four families and long enough since he removed the Zoltene Faith from existence. It wasn't impossible for this news to have made it to the Viola family. They knew best what they had been doing and it was likely that they were likewise prepared to take the approach the Zoltene Faith had.

Toward this, Leonel could only inwardly chuckle. It seemed that everyone seemed to think that he was a pushover. His grandpa was really too casual with this sort of stuff, but that only made Leonel more curious about what the old man was hiding. Leonel didn't get the vibe that his grandfather was a passive man, nor was he the kind of man to be indecisive in action. If he was, he wouldn't have allowed over 99% of Earth's population to be wiped out just to save them the trouble of dealing with Invalids.

Thinking back, if Earth had formed billions of Invalids, something that was likely to happen considering the huge hurdle their talents had to face especially in comparison to other worlds, the sheer number of Variant Invalids that would have been formed by now would have overrun the Human Domain.

Although he didn't like the decision his grandfather had made back then, the current Leonel was more than capable of seeing the logic.

Leonel faintly nodded eventually, sorting his thoughts.

Gaining acknowledgment they were looking for, the attendant manning the spaceship breathed out in relief and turned the ship around to guide them back toward Planet Viola.

The planet swirled with the very same violet and white colors it had the last time Leonel saw it, but the expanse of the Viola family estate was easily double the size it had been before, taking up the entirety of the planet. It could be seen at a glance that while there was a ton of traffic above the three planets, very few if any came toward this direction.

…

It wasn't long before Leonel and the others were standing in a grand throne room, the gazes several individuals looking down toward them from all sides. This space was no less grand than the imperial court of the Ascension Empire, making Leonel somewhat amused.

While the gazes they were receiving couldn't be considered outright hostile, they lacked any sort of respect one would expect from greeting a Prince and Empire you were supposedly subservient too.

Another thing that Leonel noticed was that the ages of the individuals in this courtroom were particularly young, some were even younger than Leonel himself. While there were older individuals, they were most definitely in the minority, but in comparison to the youth, the gaze of these older individuals was even closer to hostile than the youths. –

At that moment, a set of doors behind the throne opened up and a young man wearing glistening violet and gold robes stepped out, his long black hair tied into a noble bun and violet eyes seemingly piercing through the veil.

Leonel recognized this young man all too well, he was none other than Rychard Viola. However, his bearing was even sharper than it had been in the past, and the maturity between his brows was far more prominent.

What was maybe the most shocking was that he seemed to be a middle aged man, something that was impossible even if he didn't improve even a single step since Leonel last saw him. 20 yeaars wasn't enough for a Fifth Dimensional expert to exhibit such signs of age.

Leonel's lip curled and he spoke even before Rychard got a chance to sit on his throne.

"It seems your World Spirit has treated you well."