WAIT A MOMENT

As Aina and Leonel were rolling and tumbling in the midst of an Inbetween World, oblivious to the fact that they were probably one of the very few couples who dared to do this, and more than once at that, the proceedings were slowly coming to a close and an award ceremony began.

Minerva and the rest of the Owlans were incredibly gracious. They tried to pretend to not notice the drop in viewership and continued with things as promised.

Though, Minerva was still a bit annoyed. Not at the drop in viewership, though that was its own problem. Rather, she was annoyed that her people had actually failed to stop Leonel from leaving.

'No matter,' she thought to herself. 'It should be an easy matter to track him now, Lyric should already be on it.'

She also had another reason to smile as well. Technically, Leonel should be fourth place, and that had earned him a lot of reward, but because he had let his pride get the best of him, even to the point of leaving first, he had not only lost everything, but he got nothing.

Minerva chuckled to herself and suddenly wondered why she even had to put in so much effort to kill Leonel in the first place. She had the Segmented Cube now, so everything else was meaningless. Plus, Leonel had suffered for his arrogance greatly.

In Minerva's opinion, a large reason for Leonel's Crafting skill should be the Segmented Cube as well. Now that it wasn't with him anymore, soon enough, her disciple would surpass him and the last worry would vanish.

Leonel would fall in obscurity just like the rest of the Human Race and become a footnote in history. No, that was probably more than he deserved.

Minerva smiled a gorgeous smile, one that seemed to light up the world as she handed her disciple the Minerva Spirit she had prepared. It was a gorgeous little fairy, with the chubby cheeks of a six year old and the childish grace of a 13 year old. All around, it broke the cuteness scale, flying around somewhat clumsily, but also endearingly.

With that, the competition came to a close.

...

"You're going already, Somnus?" Talon asked.

The one person who didn't seem happy about the ending of these events was Talon. He took no pride in what had happened afterward, though he also made no attempt to stop Somnus.

Somnus gave Talon a look. Of course he was getting the hell out of here. He felt uneasy and he couldn't really describe why. He was probably not going to return home either, maybe he should go to one of those Demi-God worlds ruled by Mortal Races and dip his toes in with the common man for a bit.

No matter what, he definitely didn't want to be anywhere near here.

Without answering Talon's question, Somnus stepped into the teleportation platform and disappeared. What a joke, he wouldn't explain his thoughts. If he told Talon, who knew what Talon would think? It was best if Talon thought he was disgusted with him, that way he could get off scot-free.

Talon raised an eyebrow, but then his gaze narrowed. He was much more intelligent than most gave him credit for, and that made picking up on things others didn't want him to easier than normal.

'To stay... or to go...'

Talon raised a foot to step onto the teleportation platform when he felt a wave of uneasiness in his heart.

Many thought that the only methods of the Barbarians were their strong bodies, but this hid something deeper... a warrior instinct. They were extremely in tune with the world and there were some strands of their lineage that tied with the Plutos, allowing them a sense for the weaving tapestry of time that others couldn't fathom.

Ultimately, though, in most Barbarians, this was dormant, and even in those who could grasp it, it only appeared in very specific situations.

Right now, something was telling him not to step onto that teleportation platform.

Talon slowly lowered his foot, standing in silence for a long while before he suddenly chuckled.

'You can have your intelligence,' he thought, turning around to return to the city, 'and I'll raise you omniscience.'

...

The atmosphere was quite cordial.

Verma and her Ancestor sat across from Celestia and Minerva. Clearly, the latter Celestial Ember had the ability to shrink her size considerably, or else fitting into such a space with what she displayed before would have been entirely impossible.

"... No, of course not. There's no problem here," Minerva said with a light smile. "It's because of Little Verma's efforts that the Life Tablet was procured in the first place, we will not fight for this. We only want the treasure of our Ancestors."

"Good, good..." the Celestial Ember Ancestor chuckled, a sweet sound that tickled the ears. Whether it was her or Verma, they both had voices that could rock the most irritable of babies to sleep. "In that case, we can proceed."

The two experts sat around the Life Tablet and began to check it. They assumed that it had to have an inner world of sorts to have taken the spatial devices into it, so they just had to form a connection with this world. © 2024.

However, even after several minutes, they realized they couldn't.

Minerva's brows furrowed and a bad feeling began to form a sinking feeling in her gut.

Could it be that only a Wise Star Order could access that inner space?

Minerva was beginning to feel that this was more and more of the case. Could this Life Tablet be nothing more than a brick without being a Wise Star Order?

No, that wasn't true. According to the records, it should have the abilities of resurrection even without it... so why...

Minerva stood to her feet. "Esteemed guests, if you could wait a moment. I will have the human youth return and we will have this situation dealt with shortly."

The Ancestor Celestial Ember nodded with a smile.