TIRED?
'... You've got to be kidding me.'
Leonel unleashed a groan and pushed the crate off of himself, pushing it into the air with all his might and ducking for cover before the wind could knock him off his feet. He slid to the ground, gasping for breath. He pulled one knee to his chest and rested his forearm on it. With the way his pale violet hair drifted over his face, his eyes were entirely obscured.
In that moment of silence, it was truly as though he had been cut out from the world and placed in one of his own creations entirely. And within it, his heart felt a frightening cold, one that chilled him to the bone and made his flesh feel as fragile as a thin pane of glass.
If Leonel had known that Wise Star Order used the Silver Tablet to create the legend of Merlin, he would have figured this out long ago. If Leonel had known how Zones worked in Complete Worlds, rather than assuming that they couldn't exist at all, he would have figured this out long ago.
But now, he felt like it was all rushing to him at once, and he also felt that it just might be too late for him to realize all of this.
These people were truly monsters.
His breathing calmed, and the tranquil look in his eyes returned.
He understood why they had all been so casual, why they didn't react much to the deaths of so many of the youths that were supposed to be their "last" hope, why Mo''Lexi didn't seem to care even about sending Leonel and Aina off to their deaths, so much so that she had even casually allowed them to hunt demons for such insignificant characters.
He could tell. Compared to Alastar, those three young men could be considered trash. There was absolutely no way that Leonel's own potential was seen to be weak enough by Mo''Lexi to risk his life just for their sakes. If anything, shouldn't Mo''Lexi be trying her best to raise Leonel from the Fifth Dimension? She knew that his Dream Force affinity was greater than maybe anything she could have hoped from someone raised in an Incomplete World, and yet she ignored it as though it didn't matter in the slightest.
All of these disjointed actions, all of these inexplicable choices, could all be explained in a single sentence.
They wanted to wring them up like farm animals, place them on a plantation, then work them to death. And the worst part was that even if they died, it still wouldn't be an escape.
He had known something was wrong, he just couldn't fathom what it could be... Until he finally understood.
He could still remember how he felt after he stepped out of the Valiant Heart Zone for the first time, how much existential dread he felt watching all of the subordinates he had just watched die for him suddenly available again like floating characters in a game...
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It was like human lives were worthless, as though they were a joke. That was the impetus for his own change, one where he swore to become a King, just to ensure that such a thing would never happen to anyone else.
And then he killed them. He had erased them like the unspawned game characters that they were, trading their lives for the much more "real" lives of his own brothers.
Killing millions to save eight. What a trade that was. He must have felt like some sort of god, pressing his finger on the scale like that and skewing it in favor of himself.
Maybe this was what he deserved.
Those boxes, that Zone. They all pointed in a single direction.
The Incomplete Worlds could only be so useful. The people within had potential, but it was hard for them to have as much potential as the truest elites of the Complete Worlds-even among the humans. And worst of all, their numbers were far too inferior.
Of the millions that might be barely worthy enough to reach a middling standard in the Complete Worlds, there were only a handful that might be just barely good enough to make a small change.
It was too insignificant.
But what if they could make the life of one worth more than that?
What if they could pluck them out from their words, throw them into a frying pan, and force them to be revived again and again just to be herded like cattle?
What if they could create a Zone much like the Valiant Heart Zone where their lives and deaths were based on the whims of the Zone itself, like a game that could be played again and again, like characters that could be reset and reloaded whenever they felt like it?
The Valiant Heart Zone was always a Zone that Leonel couldn't probably place. Was it a Variant Zone? A normal Zone? A Mythological Zone?
He didn't know. He had always assumed that maybe it was Mythological, based on some legend of Planet Valiant that he wasn't aware of.
But what if it was none of the above? What if that was precisely the reason the Silver Tablet was within it to begin with? What if one of the abilities of the Tablet was to create these worlds?
The God Beasts of Creation had always been trying to revive the world to its original state, to fight back against the fading of the Northern Star and to allow Creation to continuously flourish. They had tried many things, and they had ultimately failed in the end...
What if this was yet another one of their families.
Leonel's eyes were closed, his tranquility becoming as deep as a bottomless well.
A choice? He bet that there was never a choice to participate in this event at all. He bet that anyone foolish enough to not take these "Gods" up on their offer was unceremoniously brought into the Zone of the human race's creation.
There was another piece to this as well.
Why didn't the humans do this with their own people? As arrogant as they were, there were certainly those of lesser birth that they would find useful.
Leonel felt that he had the answer to this as well.
There was something special about those born in Incomplete Worlds, something that made their lives so flippant and worthless that they could be used in this way, a way that the geniuses of Complete Worlds could not be.
With this method, the humans of the Complete Worlds could continuously farm them, continuously breed them, continuously wring them dry and then toss them back in to be ripened again.
The worst part was they might not even remember it happened, much like Goggles and the others didn't even recognize Leonel.
The more Leonel thought about it, the calmer he became. His breathing seemed to fuse into the world around him and the web that he was in was suddenly fully detangled. He could see everything but the faintest edges of it, the faintest edges that flashed with the silhouettes of the masterminds behind it all.
Leonel slowly opened his eyes and looked up from his seated position.
The first thing he saw was a pair of bright eyes and an amused smile staring right back at him. Material © .
Mo''Lexi squatted before him, her grin wide and her expression relaxed.
"What is it, little boy? Suddenly tired?"
That smile that looked no different from the smile of an adorable old woman held a completely different weight to Leonel right now.