EAR TO EAR

"The Nomads and Cloud Race are especially pushy. But there's just no way we can let the Cloud Race in, what kind of commotion would that cause? Once you let them in, you'll never be able to kick them out. We'll have rats scurrying around our world again and again."

'Cloud and Nomad?' Leonel's thoughts sped through several deductions. 'Are the Cloud Race related? No, unlikely. I don't believe that this Dream Asura can just puppeteer so many Races at the same time, it's too much.

'If they did control so many Races, what would even be the point in slinking around like this? They could just directly declare war.

'The only explanation is that they either only control strategic populations of these Races and are ready to use them to change the situation at any time, or they're taking advantage of the Cloud Race's character to act as a smokescreen for their real intentions.'

Leonel's gaze flashed. '... Aerin is in trouble. His disappearance could still work against him, even now.'

Leonel jumped from thought to thought, his deductions hard to follow for anyone on the outside looking in, but the more he thought, the more assured he felt about certain things until his thought process landed on one thing.

Didn't that Cloud Race genius pair up with an Owlan descendent during the Gathering of Minds?

A flash of lightning sparked through Leonel's mind and a strong impulse suddenly fuelled him. He realized something interesting at that point.

Did he really force the Owlans into their current situation? Or was it that he just moved their plans up and caught them off balance a bit?

'I only have 12% assurance in that deduction. I need more information.'

Leonel switched off his thoughts before they spilled over with Auspicious Air. That wouldn't help with his attempt to stay incognito.

Soon, he and Aina reached their hotel room and slipped inside. © 2024.

Aina went to take a shower and Leonel checked around the place with particular focus on the Force Arts that protected it.

There was nothing out of order, and by this point, even the Ninth Dimensional experts of the Dwarven Race had no right to pull the wool over his eyes. After touching the threshold of the Self State, it would be a tall task to trick him with Force Arts alone. The way he saw the world seemed to have bloomed like a flower. He was simply on an entirely different level.

After he was done, Leonel flicked his fingers a few times and changed the Force Arts in a beat.

Then, he sat on the bed and pulled out Little Fox's hands. Aina had grabbed them after his death.

Technically speaking, any part of their enemy's body that survived should have been teleported back to the Nomads. But Leonel had been able to stop that while he controlled Aina's body. It wasn't even particularly difficult to make it look as though the hands had been destroyed while storing them away secretly.

The first time Leonel had seen these hands, he had felt a weird feeling from them. And looking at them now more closely, he felt that it was even more true.

'Angel wings... demonic scales... an aged hand... and beast fur...?'

A spark of lighting as thick as a man's waist barrelled through Leonel's Dreamscape.

'No way...'

Angel wings for the Owlans.

Purple scales for the Dream Asura.

An aged hand? One that looked completely normal aside from its pulsing green veins? Why overthink it, didn't this just reflect Little Fox's true age?

It could be humans. It could be the Cloud Race-other than their Cloud Figures, the amorphous blob of cloud-like Force and runes that acted as their hair and the back of their heads, the Cloud Race looked no different from Humans.

It shouldn't be the Nomad Race, that was because he had seen their Hands of God and this shouldn't be what represented them.

And then the fur... could obviously only be the Beast Race. In fact, when he looked closer, it was a fur almost identical to the fur Leonel had used to make Aina's military uniform... it was just on an even higher level.

Leonel let out a hollow laugh that quickly came from his belly. He couldn't imagine that they would make such a stupid mistake.

But then he understood.

Little Fox hadn't brought out these changes to his hands originally, he only wanted to protect his life. Aina's strength, or rather Aina under the control of Leonel, was so powerful that he had no choice but to bring out these trump cards.

Leonel's thoughts flickered toward Wicked and he felt that he pieced it all together.

Now he was absolutely certain. The participants in this war were the Owlans, the Beasts and the Dream Asuras.

Wicked had been able to add to his path just by regressing to a younger age, and wasn't that the same ability Little Fox had displayed?

How could a small Nomad Race member possibly come into contact with not just one, but two Demi-God Races? Now, it should be three! This beast fur was most definitely from a Demi-God Beast on a higher level than the tiger that made up Aina's military uniform.

At that moment, Aina suddenly came out from the bathroom. A towel wrapped around her, and though to the outside world she was a Pixie, how could Leonel's own disguise be hidden from his eyes? He could see her in her full glory.

Aina gave Leonel a weird look because he was holding a dead man's hands and laughing like a maniac, but before she could react, he tossed the hands to the side like they were trash and reached a hand out to grab her.

Aina dodged backward, but a sly grin on Leonel's face made her realize she had misjudged something.

Leonel's hand caught her towel and pulled it toward himself, revealing a gorgeous figure.

Leonel grinned ear to ear.