TOGETHER

'Alpha Bluestar, huh?'

"Do you know where this Alpha Bluestar is?"

When Leonel asked this question, the Beta finally began to show some signs of discomfort. It seemed that he finally understood that Leonel wanted to harm Alpha Bluestar, and as such, the compulsion began to kick in.

It was a truly interesting technique. It worked on intention rather than a rough set of rules, and the former was far more difficult to produce than the latter.

Both had their own pitfalls, obviously, as Leonel was still able to get a lot of the information he wanted even with these guard rails. For example, he was able to learn about this Bluestar just by avoiding the topic of the Void Star Innate Node altogether, that way the Beta didn't put two and two together until he had already gathered quite some information.

But he would argue that drawing a hard line at some rules would have even more pitfalls. Anyone who knew a lawyer could attest to the fact that rules would always have loopholes in them, ones that Leonel was sure he could exploit with much greater ease than he was now.

"So that's a yes." Leonel nodded to himself. "And what is he doing now, exactly?"

"He... I... I don't know."

The Beta's lips trembled, and he couldn't quite get his words out, but judging by the shiftiness within them, he definitely knew more than he was letting on.

"Speak."

The Beta almost collapsed, but he seemed to be far more afraid of Leonel right now than he was afraid of a far-off Alpha Bluestar.

"He-he-he's looking for entrances to Battle Ax Domain caves like the one you just entered. He spread out all of his people to look, but he's staying in the same spot. But that spot..."

To Leonel's surprise, when the Beta tried to talk about "that spot," he directly died.

Leonel felt like he understood why. It was clear that that spot was related to more Alphas than the ones he knew. This Beta's Alpha had already died, so for the compulsion to be so strong, there was only one of two explanations he could think of.

First was that a compulsion of multiple Alphas, even if individually weak, was far stronger than that of a single Alpha, even if that Alpha was your direct Alpha.

The second was that this information was related to an Alpha so powerful that their compulsion outweighed all others, so much so that they could have the compulsion of a direct Alpha over everyone.

Regardless of which one was, Leonel believed that he had an understanding of what was going on.

The Beta had said he's staying in the same spot, and that should mean that Bluestar never moved from their spawn point. He's waiting for his Betas to come back to him with information on what he needs.

In all likelihood, there were probably several Alphas in that location doing something similar. Maybe Alpha Magma was among those that had waited, but he was lucky enough to find his cave before anyone else.

Leonel's eyes narrowed as he bent down and took Alpha Magma's ring. He didn't think that there was anything particularly special about these Domain Rings, especially after Anastasia's explanation, but he still felt like they might be missing something.

None of what he knew now explained why those "Gods" had taken it upon themselves to hand something so good over. It seemed that he would have to find out later.

As much as Leonel wanted to try and use some context clues to find the location of the Alphas, he knew that this would be too foolish of him.

He had struggled so much with just one Alpha; he doubted they would let him stroll into a lair of them, take out one of their best talents, and then raid his corpse on top of that.

There were two choices. The first was to wait until Bluestar left his location and was on his own. The second was to grow strong enough to do something as foolish as attempt a raid.

The problem with the first was that he didn't even know where Bluestar was now, let alone where he'd be in the future. And right now he was just aimlessly walking around, hoping to stumble into something.

The worst part was that even if he was lucky enough to stumble into Bluestar, would he be strong enough to deal with him?

'It seems like getting stronger first is the best way.'

There would be time to deal with Bluestar. For now, he would continue heading in the direction of the Dimensional Verse's Seeded Participant, while he...

Leonel took out a small silver disk, running his finger across it.

'Alright, don't disappoint me old man.'Material © .

...

Three looming figures walked out from a dense swamp, and the world seemed to fall into silence along with them.

When these three Alphas appeared, the title that they all shared seemed to become hollow. Maybe if not for the necessity of their current structure in maintaining order, they would have all become Betas by now.

There was only one who looked up from their seated position with calmness in his eyes. He had eyes slitted much like Alpha Clown, but rather than a reptilian, sharp yellow, they were a radiant and almost blinding blue.

The rest of his body, though, didn't have any scales and he almost looked entirely human. The only signs that he wasn't were those cold eyes of his and the subtly sharp claws that graced his fingers.

Who else could this be if not Alpha Bluestar?

"You are all my people," Alpha Clown said in a rumbling voice, "but you all only listen to power, not reason. It's the reason I've been cruel, I've been harsh, I've been murderous. It's all our people know, that struggle. But that struggle will also be the reason we have the best chance to survive.

"From here on out, we travel together. If any of you have any objections, raise them now. I will happily beat them out of you."