Heavy breathing filled the depths of the forest as a group of escapees gathered around one another and leaned on the thickness of the trees around them.

At that moment, Leonel appeared at the treetops, his face still obscured by a blinding golden light. Seeing such a thing, Myghell and Noah frowned for a moment, but after realizing the potential issues, their brows relaxed.

As the saying went, when smart people met together, there wasn't a need for so many words. The three of them very quickly came to a tacit understanding.

"Where are you all from?"C0pyright © 2024 Nôv)(elDrama.Org.

Leonel spoke in the language of the village people. Very quickly, he could see who among them grew confused and who among them responded with acknowledgment. It was just that easy for Leonel to tell who came from the Void Palace and who didn't. Aside from Myghell and Noah, there seemed to be three others.

Still, this wasn't 100% factual. For all Leonel knew, there were different dialects. But, from what he had observed around the city, at least in this region, everyone should speak the same language.

Leonel received many answers to his questions, much of which he couldn't really understand. They spoke of landmarks and locations he had never heard of, but they did so with confidence so it was obvious that these were likely common places everyone knew about.

After hearing their words, Leonel went through everyone one by one and began to destroy their shackles. It was more delicate work than breaking the cage had been, harder too, but since Leonel could use his hands, it wasn't that big of a problem.

'Their gazes toward me turn a lot more worshipful the more I use my abilities. It seems like I was right about some stuff…'

Leonel could have shot more than one arrow of Scarlet Star Force, however, he had purposely chosen not to, his mind thinking of the old man that had tired out after using his ability just twice.

Although there wasn't much information, nor enough data points, if Leonel was correct, as he usually was, this world likely separated itself into people with powerful abilities and those without. And, it was likely that the marker for "powerful" abilities was whether it could manifest itself in some sort of outward projection of Force or not.

In addition, though this was a greater stretch and a conclusion that Leonel was more doubtful of, there seemed to be more restrictions on abilities in this place as well.

These restrictions likely weren't a product of their birth, but rather the world itself. This place was more stifling than even a pinnacle Seventh Dimensional world flooded with Anarchic Force. In such an environment, the suppression of Ability Indexes was also exceptional.

If it wasn't for Leonel's ability strengthening in the Rapax Nest, even his own Ability Index would have fallen to Tier 3 or even worse in this place, let alone the average person.

As such, in a place like this one, those that could display powerful abilities were even rarer than they were back in Leonel's Dimensional Verse. And, as a result of this, there was an even clearer dividing line between the talented and untalented, even to the point there was slavery here.

Still, this left more questions than answers.

Where was this place? What point in history did it represent? The Human Domain didn't have such a powerful world anywhere.

Could it be a snippet of the future? Was this a Variant Zone?

It was possible. A Variant Zone appeared when a world was at a crossroads and it was a chance to turn things around for the better.

But, a Variant Zone was also known for its low difficulty. What about this place was easy, exactly?! And where were the rewards?!

Plus, a Variant Zone wouldn't be styled after a real world, at least not usually. It would be more like a challenge or a game, left behind by future generations who didn't like how things had turned out. This was why the only Variant Zone Leonel had ever heard of was found on Terrain and entered by Aina.

That wasn't to say that a Variant Zone couldn't be like this, but it wasn't the most efficient use of resources for a world likely on its last legs, to begin with.

Then the only logical conclusion seemed to be that this was a Zone not from the Human Domain, but another Domain entirely.

But in that case, why was it that everyone here was human? Even the powerhouses who ran the city seemed to also be human.

From what Leonel had learned from Wise Star Order, it wasn't that humans didn't exist in other Domains, it was rather that they were instead treated like second class citizens. However, clearly, there were humans in power in this place. Unless there was another tier of overseers that Leonel hadn't seen and humans were actually selling their own to their other-race overlords, this conclusion seemed unlikely as well.

Then what was the truth?

Quite frankly… Leonel had no idea.

After freeing them all, Leonel was profusely thanked and he didn't stop any of them from leaving. However, he did take the opportunity to secretly tag some of them, tracking their location for a while both so that he could place a mental mark on the locations they spoke about and… for a more unfortunate reason.

Once they were all gone, Leonel was left with just the Void Palace members, but he still wasn't quite sure if he should reveal his face just yet. If this was truly a hopeless situation, that would mean that this would essentially be their world now until they died. In that case, he couldn't trust anyone even if they were formerly from the Void Palace.

Once despair sunk in, who knew what people would do?

"You five don't seem to be able to understand me?"

Leonel trusted in the genius of the Void Palace disciples. After so many days, he didn't believe that they wouldn't have picked up at least some of the language even if they lacked his processing speed.

After several attempts, though, Noah eventually said something that left Leonel in silence.

"Body… Weak… No… Force."

Leonel's eyes narrowed. What was going on?