Risks

Leonel took deep breaths, sweat falling down his brow. All around him, corpses lay, blood flowing along the reflective surface of the now distorted metal fort. Content is property © .

Leonel could have never done such an outrageous thing if not for the golden scaled koi fish. Even if his strength was enough, his stamina wouldn't be. Plus, with his three Vital Stars, his body's innate fortitude was beyond anything his enemies could have ever imagined.

With a single more deep breath, Leonel's breathing slowed, steam slowly billowing out from the layers of his armor.

'There's more than a few who've escaped…'

Leonel looked off into the distance and through the two now collapsed gates. He wasn't a fool, he knew that there'd be some stragglers. But, just because he didn't usually spread out his Internal Sight several hundred kilometers for the sake of conserving his stamina, that didn't mean he couldn't do so. He was confident in dealing with those individuals very quickly.

'Hm?'

Leonel gaze shifted, landing on the body of Dynmo.

'He's alive?'

Dycon was most definitely dead. There was no way that anyone could survive having their head imploded like that. Well, maybe not nobody. At the very least, Heira somehow managed to survive having her chest destroyed. However, Dynmo himself seemed to have survived Leonel's assault.

With deliberate strides, Leonel made it to Dynmo's side and looked him up and down.

Truthfully, Leonel was very interested in completing the Silver Empire's legacy, but not for himself. Leonel wasn't entirely sure what the complete inheritance was. However, logically speaking, it should be very powerful. Though, there was a chance it could be mediocre as well.

It had to be remembered that the Silver Empire, at its peak, controlled several Sectors all to its own. It was a powerhouse of epic proportions and though Leonel hadn't asked the dictionary about it just yet, not having really had the time to focus on miscellaneous things, Leonel wouldn't be surprised if this Silver Empire rivaled or even surpassed the Morales family in the past.

Logically, then, a Variant Zone triggered by the coming crossroads of such an Empire would be life changing. After all, Variant Zones were depictions of a possible future and appeared when an Empire or world had to make a decision that would decide its future life and death.

Functionally, Variant Zones were the safest Zones to enter. After all, they had to facilitate the hope of their generations. Why would it be made purposely difficult?

So what was the problem then?

Well the main issue is the fact that the Zone landed in the hands of the Florer, Radix and Midas families to begin with. A Variant Zone's ease extended to the ability for its people to find it as well. It could be said that if Aina's luck wasn;t extremely good, she as an outsider would have never had a chance at the Zone of Terrain's people.

This made it obvious that the Zone manipulation of the Silver Empire had led to all sorts of odd downstream effects. In that case, who was to say that the Zone's rewards were as powerful as they should be? The only way for Leonel to find out would be to combine them into their true form and observe the outcome.

If, at the same time, Leonel could get the helpers he would need for the Morales family's Heir Wars, then that would be a major plus. Whether or not he could actually do such a thing, though, was still up in the air.

With the state of things, there was no way for Leonel to trust these people in battle. In addition, even getting them to fight for him would become a tall hill to climb. After all, what was he supposed to say: "Sure, I massacred your people, but clearly you attacked first?"

That might sound logical, but when you were dealing with the emotions of others, things were rarely if ever so clear cut.

Still, Leonel had already begun to way his decisions on a basis of risk versus reward. He was likely far behind those other Heirs, whether it was in development, connections or starting point, he was severely lacking. If he didn't take risks, it would be nothing more than a dream to compete against them. In addition, on that stage, he would no longer have the advantage of talent and bloodline that he had been mostly relying on to this point as well.

If Leonel learned anything from Kira, it was that comparing the talents of his corner of the Dimensional Verse to the true grand stage of Humanity's Domain was nothing short of foolish. Leonel had just defeated an entire army of existences between the Tier 4 to Tier 7 just now. If he tried to do the same to an army of comparable Dimensional level from the Morales family, he wouldn't have even made it through the gate.

Of course, if Leonel knew that he was also the youngest of the Morales family's seven Heirs, he would only be able to smile bitterly.

Leonel shook his head, unconsciously looking down toward his right hip. Had his Innate Node not been taken, it would have been able to grow with him. Instead, because he rashly tried to form a Tenth Node out of it, it grew out of his control and now he couldn't even use his own strength. Even after entering the Fifth Dimension, Leonel wasn't sure how long it would take for his own power to truly be his own power again.

His gaze flashed with killing intent, his pale violet irises flickering with a crimson light.

Leonel retracted his hand, realizing he almost crushed Dynmo's shoulder.

With a single movement, Leonel tossed Dynmo into the snowglobe. He would deal with the future when it came. Right now, he couldn't get ahead of himself. He couldn't make Earth the center of his Kingdom if it was taken by others, now could he? First, he had to destroy these invaders.