1838 And Yet..

Leonel sat in silence, his thoughts unreadable. It was hard to tell whether he was happy or unsatisfied with what was going on around him despite the fact that it was a clear and undeniable victory on his part.

In his mind, though, Leonel was quite unsatisfied. He didn't believe that there was anything to be happy about at all. As far as he was concerned, the moment he came back, this result was essentially inevitable. Was there a need to be happy or prideful about something that was guaranteed?

It had been about half a month since the collapse of the Viola family and the Etching Metal Organization had already begun to work on Leonel's asks. In fact, a preliminary report on those two families had already been given to Leonel and he had circled one very important thing.

Head of the Etazi family: Orinik Etazi.

It was a simple bit of information, one accessible to almost anyone even without such a large and robust information network. And yet, when Leonel saw it, his lip couldn't help but curl into a sneer.

His relationship with Orinik couldn't be said to have started off with the latter being in the wrong. In the eyes of Orinik, Leonel was someone who had relied on his mother to gain a position that he didn't deserve, and that much was true.

However, after stepping foot into the Void Palace, it was Orinik spreading this information that put the life of not only Leonel, but also Aina and the others in danger. Spreading it wasn't particularly the problem, the real issue stemmed from who he had spread it to. There was deliberate and malicious intent in his actions.

Not long after that, Leonel and Aina entered the Dwarven Race Zone and Orinik once again took advantage of that situation in an attempt to make money off of their deaths, a choice he paid dearly for at the hands of Leonel.

In reality, neither of these two things deserved death. Whether he had malicious intent in the first case or not didn't matter because if he chose to spread the information, it would have reached the ears of those people regardless. At the same time, when it came to the matters surrounding the Dwarven Zone, just because it left a poor taste in Leonel's mouth, didn't mean that it was worthy of death either.

Due to these reasons, Leonel had never really given Orinik much thought after he had gone through so much. He wasn't interested in dealing with such things anymore and he had bigger fish to fry. But to his surprise, Orinik insisted on becoming one of those bigger fish.

Leonel flipped through the documents in just a few moments before setting them down. There was absolutely nothing special about them, but this was only the first round. It took time to lay down proper networks and communication paths, he didn't expect anything more than this at this stage.

'It should be about time that Anastasia finished. I'll see what I can find out about the Silver Empire's inheritance before the tribulation descends."

"When are you going to let me go?"

The voice knocked Leonel out of his state of focus. He looked to the side to find that Harmony had come to the bow of the ship.

"You want the serious answer?" Leonel asked.

"Obviously." Harmony said, annoyed.

It could be said that a large part of why Leonel was able to crush so many armies with relatively average talent was because he used Harmony like his sharpest blade, sending her to all the most troublesome areas.

She had done her job well... not that she had much of a choice.

"Okay. You can go after I destroy the Three Finger Cult."

Harmony's pupils constricted. The murderous intent coming off of Leonel in waves suddenly made her realize that if it wasn't for the fact he owed her sister a favor, he really wouldn't have hesitated to slaughter her in cold blood.

After a moment, Harmony exhaled a breath. "You have no idea what you're dealing with. Even your father hasn't succeeded, let alone you."

Leonel's aura receded and he chuckled as he stood to his feet.

"I don't know why that old man's dragging his feet, but I guarantee it has little to do with you all. There are larger things at play. I dare to say that no one in the universe can look my old man in the eye."

Harmony frowned. Wasn't Leonel too confident about things he knew nothing about?

But her skepticism made sense. She had heard all sorts of disparaging remarks about the so-called "cowardly" Velasco from the Cult. In fact, the higher ups seemed to go out of their way to be certain that everyone knew how little they respected him.

"You're talking nonsense."

"Am I?" Leonel stretched out his hips, his lip curling into a smile. "In that case, why don't you ask yourself the same question in reverse."

After saying this, Leonel turned and left, leaving Harmony quite stunned.Têxt belongs to .

Indeed... Velasco was just one man while they were an entire organization. What pride was there in saying he couldn't take them down? Wasn't the real question to ask why it was that after all these years, they hadn't been able to kill him?

Also, it wasn't as though Velasco's location was unknown. He had spent nearly 18 years, almost two decades, in the same spot, living in the same house, sitting on the same couch. He was entirely casual about his actions, and if he could figure out a method to enter a Third Dimensional world with his strength, with the resources of the Three Finger Cult, why couldn't they?

And yet, they hadn't even made an attempt to kill him in that time as far as Harmony was aware...

During those two decades, Velasco couldn't practice, he had no Force to absorb, no higher energies to meditate upon, no method of improvement... But they still did absolutely nothing to him.

Harmony's gaze snapped back just in time to see Leonel's back view vanishing. For some reason, she felt as though her heart was pounding out of her chest.