Dimensional Descent

Leonel shot up, his body covered in cold sweats as he breathed heavily.

When a normal person hyperventilated, maybe the worst thing that would happen was light head and some noise. However, when someone like Leonel did so, it was like the entire room had become infused with a raging tornado.

Winds whipped into the surroundings, crashing against the walls and sending whatever was light enough to not remain anchored down spiraling into the surroundings.

It took Leonel several moments before he realized he was no longer stuck, but the fear made his heart thrum. He couldn't be sure, was this really the real world?

Leonel looked down, finding Aina sleeping soundly on his lap. Even through all the commotion, she remained in a deep sleep.

She sat in a chair by Leonel's side, leaning forward to rest her cheek on him. There was definitely more than enough room in bed for her to sleep by his side, but she must have been worried about him not healing properly.

Seeing her sleeping so peacefully helped Leonel's heartrate to calm considerably. Bit by bit, his heavy breathing slowed and returned to a normal cadence.

'What happened to me?'

Leonel's brows furrowed. He subconsciously checked over his body, but what he found was even more difficult to accept than anything he had put the crowd observing him through. It was so baffling that he almost couldn't accept it.

Had he been in a coma for years? It was the only way he could explain what he was seeing.

No, that didn't make sense. With years, considering Aina's talent, she would have most definitely progressed into the Sixth Dimension. There was no way she would still be at the Fifth.

Leonel had no one he could ask except Wise Star Order. He almost felt stupid doing so, knowing full well that the old man shouldn't have been able to see what was going on in the tower. But, something compelled him to do so anyway, feeling that he had nowhere else to turn to.

'Old man? What the hell happened to me?'

Leonel's question was met by a long silence.

At first, he thought the old man was taking his time to respond, something that happened sometimes. But, as the seconds ticked by, Leonel felt that there was something wrong. Where were the snide remarks? The sarcastic comebacks? The rain of insults?

Leonel sent his mind into the Segmented Cube and what he saw left him frozen.

There was nothing. An empty, vast, nothingness.

No, this wasn't entirely true. In the place of what should have been Leonel's greatest reliances, there was an odd swirling portal and fragments of space. The only time he had ever seen something like this was when he entered Sub-Dimensional Zones, but there was very clearly no Zone magically hiding within his Segmented Cube.

Realizing what this could mean, Leonel's expression went ashen.

He rarely reacted like this to any change. In fact, he could ever remember reacting like this to anything. However, if he was correct, this sort of event warranted exactly this kind of shock and horror.

The Segmented Cube was ultimately a powerful spatial tool. If the inside of it looks like this, then the only explanation was…

That the inner space of the Segmented Cube collapsed, taking with it everything that had been within.

The Bronze and Silver Tablet, the Cleansing Waters, the tentacle womb, Wise Star Order, the two Savants, and… Little Blackstar.

Leonel's heart seized, his jaw clenching tight. He didn't want to believe it, but he didn't have any other explanation. The resources, he could accept the loss of. He had no idea what happened, but things were ultimately things. He could even accept the loss of Wise Star Order, though the old man had been useful, Leonel had already lost count of the number of times he had tried to kill him. Even the tentacle womb and the golden scaled koi fish, he could get over it.

However… Little Blackstar, Candle and Vice… That he could not accept.

Leonel's gaze flashed with red, his teeth clenching so hard the blood dripped down from their crevices.

What happened? What happened?! WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?!

Leonel balled his fists, trying to calm himself down, but he found it hard to do so.

There had to be a way, a way to reverse this, a way to turn it back around. The Segmented Cube was the Heirloom of the Morales family, how could it possibly collapse so easily? How could something like this happen?!

'No, there has to be a way. I don't believe it.'

Leonel wouldn't accept that this could just happen. Little Blackstar had been injured, but Leonel had always been keeping up with him. Thanks to Leonel killing the Shadow Sovereign, the little guy had been able to absorb another's Shadow World into himself, strengthening him and helping him to heal faster.

By the time Leonel had entered the Void Tower, Little Blackstar had already recovered to easily 90% and was prepared to surpass his former self.

This was all to say that given his abilities, the one most likely to survive the collapse of a spatial device was most definitely the little mink. It was impossible for Little Blackstar to just sit there and wait for death. Even if the little guy couldn't save everything, he could most definitely save himself.

'Wait, connection?'

Leonel placed a hand to his chest.

If Little Blackstar had died, their connection would have definitely been severed. Even though Leonel couldn't feel Little Blackstar right now, he knew that their connection was still intact.

This thought helped Leonel to relax slightly, but it still wasn't enough for him to settle down all his worries.

'There has to be a way, but I won't find it by panicking. I need to find out what happened in these last few days, and to do that, I'll need to first understand the changes to my body… Maybe then I can get an inkling as to why the change was so drastic…'

The change wasn't just a little drastic, actually. The main reason Leonel had been shocked was because the Snowy Star Owl Lineage Factor wasn't within him any longer.

It had evolved.

Twice.