SEE IT

The two powerhouses looked toward one another. Of them, Mo''Lexi was the only one confused as to why the other would speak for her, and Vivak was already prepared to explain. What Vivak didn't expect, though, was that Mo''Lexi's gaze would turn almost fiery when he spoke.

"Sent him into the in-between world? I mean, I did do that, but he had already exited by the time the incident was triggered. He was actually quite close to the center of the explosions, so when I didn't find him afterward, I thought he had died."

Vivak's gaze narrowed. That was definitely not how Leonel had described it. Leonel had said he had been in the in-between world at the time and was lucky enough to escape. But if what Mo''Lexi said was true, didn't that mean that Leonel had lied to him?

It wasn't that Leonel hadn't thought of the possibility of Mo''Lexi and Vivak exchanging information, but he had chosen to lie anyway for a couple of reasons.

First, Vivak knew that he was Mo''Lexi's subordinate and still chose to take him in. That means he was already fine with lying to her and the odds that this would slip out was slim to none as a result. After all, Vivak would be doing his best to gloss over the matter so that Mo''Lexi couldn't demand to have him back.

Second, it was impossible for him to tell the truth anyway. Even if he cut out the part where he broke through Mo''Lexi's restrictions and made it into the portal, just surviving those spatial tears would be unbelievable.

It had to be understood that the spatial tears resulting from the Bubble Worlds fusing and the stable spatial portal that connected them to the in-between world were two completely different things.

If a normal person entered the latter they would be fine. However, if a normal person tried to enter a spatial tear they would be shredded to pieces, the sections of their body being flung across space and time. The only exception would be if you were powerful enough.

This was to say that if Leonel admitted he hadn't been in the in-between world at the time, he would be admitting to one of two things. Either he would be admitting that he had been able to decipher Mo''Lexi's restrictions, or he would be admitting that he could survive in a spatial tear.

The latter was obviously not true, but either one would put far more eyes on him. In fact, the latter would be so unbelievable that most intelligent people would assume the first even though it was highly unlikely as well.

This sort of attention was something Leonel didn't want, so he had obviously lied. But even he couldn't imagine that he would be exposed in this way.

Not that it mattered, though. Hadn't Simona's words caused Vivak to take action to kill him?

Mo''Lexi suddenly laughed her familiar, hearty laughter.

"That little brat."

Her grin was as wide as it was savage, but then she remembered Vivak's words and her thoughts of torturing Leonel went out the window. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

"What do you mean he's dead? If he made it to you, what happened?"

Vivak realized then that he had been too eager to speak. If he had just remained silent and let Mo''Lexi speak, the end result would have been the same. After all, one way or another, Leonel was dead. But now he had to admit to what he had done.

Vivak sighed. "He managed to come out of our own portal, and I caught him while he was trying to survive in the carnage. I couldn't save him as I was focused on trying to keep as much of the formation's original foundation as possible."

Vivak left out the fact he had recruited Leonel and mixed fact with fiction. There was no need to let Mo''Lexi get a leg up on him, and lying completely to a Dream Force master was almost imp-

"You're lying," Mo''Lexi growled. "What really happened."

Vivak almost rolled his eyes. Whatever, was he scared of this old woman?

"I wanted to save you some face, but since you exist. I recruited him for a time, my daughter said he was dangerous, so I took her advice to see what his bottom line was. He ended up being pushed too far and was killed during the sparring session."

"You dared to steal my people from me?" Mo''Lexi looked like her eyes might spit out fire.

"Your people? Have some shame, you act like you wanted to take him in as your grandson."

"Don't try to twist my words. I gave up recruiting anyone else just so I could have that boy. Even his corpse and his Ethereal Glabella belong to me. Do you think that the Cult is a push over? Hand what's left of him over! NOW!"

Mo''Lexi's booming words carried the weight of her Peak Impetus State Dream Force. It looked like she might drown everyone in rivers of blood if Vivak didn't comply.

At the moment, Vivak himself was quite troubled. His slip of the tongue had caused all of this.

Unfortunately, he wasn't some innate, high level, cognitive genius. Not everyone had minds as sharp as Leonel, and when most everyone's minds were more than half taken up by protecting themselves against poking and prodding from the Dream Plane, they didn't have the normal advantage they should have in terms of thinking speed either.

Now, he really only had two choices. Either he could double down or he could try to compensate Mo''Lexi. Regardless, after all of this, how could he possibly give Leonel's corpse back so casually? At the very least, he couldn't do so until Liana had finished the autopsy, and even then there would definitely be some parts they wanted to keep.

"I can compensate-"

"I don't want your damn compensation. I already gave up-"

"Enough." Anselma said coldly. "His corpse, where is it? I want to see it."