FORGET IT

Leonel put a hand to his forehead. He didn't really understand how incompetent an organization to have someone so incompetent leading a sixth of their armies. Did they not have anyone better?

"You realize that this is only a fraction of a fraction of the Godlen's strength, right? They didn't even send decent Eighth Dimensional experts," Leonel finally said. "On top of that, the demons are probably watching their every move."

"An enemy of an enemy is a friend." Cidra's frown deepened.

Leonel looked at this simple woman. He would have put a hand to her forehead to see if she had a fever or something if not for the fact they had no familiarity with one another.

"That saying only makes sense when you have the strength to back it up. To the demons, what use are you? Even the Godlens didn't take you seriously enough to send some real firepower at you.

"Your strongest expert is my father-in-law, and that man's not even in the Ninth Dimension. The fact you've survived until now is purely based on the fact you were too troublesome to deal with, not because you held any real strength of your own.

"The further out from here we are, the more difficult it will be for me to control the situation, the higher the chance the Godlens will send reinforcements, the greater the odds the demons will try to take advantage of the situation.

"You want to chase with your armies in this situation? We should take this small victory, retreat, and decide whether it's better to bolster defenses or pack up and find a new place to call home."

Leonel's words fell like the rain. Cidra didn't understand just how lucky she was that Leonel was explaining anything at all, but she still clenched her fists.

Leonel's words were obviously logical, but she didn't feel like they had killed nearly enough.

100,000 was too large a number. Although it had been a one-sided slaughter, they had barely lost 10% of their army.

Of course, this was an exaggerated number considering how few casualties there were on their side. But compared to the overall strength of the Godlens, this was hardly a dent. She wasn't satisfied.

Leonel fell into silence, watching Cidra's reaction as the dust settled.

He understood. This Slayer Legion, it was mostly made up of people who had been wronged by the human alliance in one way or another. It wasn't just righteousness that fueled them, but rage and unwillingness.

If it had been a normal battle, with heavy casualties on both sides, Cidra would have known the right decision to make immediately. But because it was so one-sided, she was extremely eager to make them pay a heavier and heavier price.

'This will be troublesome,' Leonel sighed.

He didn't just have to manage these people's strengths but their emotions as well. That would make this matter a nightmare to deal with, but there wasn't really another choice.

He had a feeling that this was where his grandfather wanted him to be.

Leonel didn't think that Emperor Fawkes' trump card would be so flimsy. There was more than likely a deeper plot somewhere that Leonel didn't know about. However, at least for now, this was all he had to deal with.

Now that he finally understood what one of the tips his grandfather gave him meant, he thought of the others.

'The Four Great Families are not to be trusted. The Dream Pavilion will never be as fragile as they seem. The Godlens are the most aligned with goals that you might describe as... the greater good. The Cult can be used. And your best chance at survival is the Dream Pavilion.'

His grandfather mentioned the Dream Pavilion twice in those words. Much like he hadn't originally known what it meant for the Godlens to be a part of the greater good, he had even less of an idea of what the other things meant.

However, this made Leonel realize that he might need to take a trip to the Dream Pavilion, not to join it, but to understand it.

King used to be the former head of the Dream Pavilion; he knew that. In addition, back in the Vast Bubble, or the Cataclysm Zone, the Dream Pavilion had had a huge sway in the treasures he could exchange for. They had been so mysterious, and yet so powerful at the same time.

However, for Leonel, the Dream Pavilion was the most dangerous place he could try to visit. A place flooded with Dream Force experts would be the worst sort of counter to him.

'I'll have to be at least Fourth Dimensional before I try it. Anything less and I'll just be looking for death.'

His grandfather's words had been hard to decipher, and he probably shouldn't take them at face value, just like with this Slayer Legion. It could mean too many things. So he couldn't just throw his life away on a bet.

Little Blackstar landed on Leonel's shoulder, and Aina by his side.

"What now?" Joel asked. He was used to being the leader when Leonel wasn't around, so he had analyzed the situation just the same. It didn't feel like this area was safe any longer; should they try to escape to a new region?

Leonel fell into silence. This was incredibly difficult. Down below, there were plenty of old and young, not to mention fragile and weak. It was an entire city with a population in the hundreds of thousands.

Leonel had no idea why a rebel army would foolishly take in so many liabilities. At this point, they weren't even providing them a good life; they were mostly just living in slums.

But after seeing Cidra's near outburst, he realized that these people had been led by emotion for too long, and now it was coming back to bite them. They must have really believed that the Godlens would never find them.

They were lucky that Leonel had a solution, that obviously being Anastasia and the Segmented Cube. But he wasn't sure if he should do this. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

The Leonel of the past would have jumped at the chance, filled with childish ideals and wishes of grandeur, but now... now he was much more realistic.

'Forget it,' Leonel shook his head. 'Since gramps dumped this on my lap, I guess I have no choice.'