GIFT

The Gathering Stele flickered and one hundred names were quickly arranged. At the very top, the name Aina Morales stood alone.

A human. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

Everyone could remember the last time the Gathering Stele gave an award, but no one could remember the last time a human had placed in the top 100, let alone number one.

This name alone held a great amount of weight, a weight that most couldn't quite fathom, and a weight that even Aina herself wasn't sure of...

She wasn't sure what kind of storms this would kick up, but she was confident that Leonel had a plan.

They didn't have much of a choice but to place in the Finals. If not, there was no other path for them to save the Human Bubbles. But if there was anyone who could take advantage of a situation like this one... it was her husband.

All around the city, portals began to appear.

Aina looked over toward the distance and found Yuri and Savahn looking toward her with longing in their eyes. They had ultimately just spent a few days together, and for the rest of it, they could only watch Aina from a distance, too weak to partake. They knew if they tried they would just get in her way, but it was really killing them on the inside being unable to do anything.

And now, they were going to be separated again. The Gathering Stele would only return them to their homes. There was little they could do.

Aina smiled brightly so as to assure them. They would see each other again soon, that she was certain of.

With a step, she vanished and returned to the Human Bubbles. Or, more accurately, the Vast Bubble.

...

Aina stood high in the skies, looking around with a frown. The situation in their absence had only gotten worse. Despite the fact that all of the battles should have been projected, were they not paying attention to what was going on?

'Then again... most people probably don't know who I am here, nor do they know who Leonel is...'

Let alone most people, even the experts of the Vast Dream Pavilion had no idea who she was. In fact, a step further than that, even those experts had no idea how much Leonel had already done for them. They had all run away before they could see the result.

If even much of the upper echelon were in the dark, one could imagine how ignorant the general population was, and as the time continued to tick away-especially when this issue was stacked with the disappearance of the Four Great Families-the situation only became more chaotic.

Compared to the first time Aina had seen it, it seemed that there were a bunch of random small powers cropping up and trying to fight for supremacy, but ultimately they were barely much different from barbarian tribes.

Aina frowned, but she really didn't have any easy method of dealing with this.

She looked up and toward the direction of the Golden family. They should probably still be in seclusion. Ironically, in this sort of situation, it would be a power like them that would be best at dealing with this situation.

Leonel was very intelligent, but such a thing needed quantity, not quality. There was no time to subdue these people one by one.

As Aina was lost in thought, there was a sudden flash by her side and a smiling Leonel appeared.

Aina seemed to forget about the carnage below and leapt into his arms. Apparently her arms alone weren't enough, because she also wrapped her legs around his waist.

Leonel laughed. He was going to ask if she missed him, but that seemed to be unnecessary now.

He caught her, but he almost immediately frowned. One of Aina's legs was very much covered in fabric-it was torn and bloody, but it was definitely still fabric. The other, however, was completely bare.

Leonel simulated several things in an instant and he came to a conclusion immediately. His happy expression became gloomy.

Aina had lost a leg? That was absolutely unacceptable to him.

"Who?" He asked.

Aina smiled, pulling back and giving Leonel's nose a peck.

"Does it matter? That beast's dead."

The gloominess in Leonel's eyes didn't disappear. He had gone out of his way not to check on Aina because he didn't trust himself to not interfere. That dagger he sent out hadn't even been on purpose, it just happened to work out that way. He didn't even know what kind of commotion it had caused.

But it was in moments like these that he didn't like the sharpness of his mind. Looking at the wounds, or at least, former wounds on Aina's body, even without looking into her soul and looking through her memories, he could piece together most of what happened.

Seeing Leonel's reaction, Aina's smile grew sweeter.

"Okay, okay, grumpy man. Don't we still have things to do?"

"We..." Leonel blew out a breath, a hint of annoyance wrinkling his brows. The feeling in his chest right now was very uncomfortable, but he had already been ready for this to happen.

He sighed. "So everything went well enough?"

"They did. I also received a gift from the Gathering Stele, it's very interesting."

"A gift?"

Leonel checked the memories of the Life Tablet. He had a better ability to integrate them now after his recent breakthrough, but it still wasn't quite enough to integrate them all at once. He still needed to check things like this.

When he understood that the Gathering Stele did indeed, rarely, give out some gifts, he became curious.

"And what gift was that?"

"It seems to be... an Dimensional Ascension method perfectly tailored for humans."