COINCIDENCE

The information seemed to spread as though it had legs of its own, and no one could seem to understand where it started from at all, and that was because they had no right to know.

After awakening his Fawkes Lineage Factor once more, the options available to Leonel were on an entirely different level. While it seemed that he was lazing around after he fought the Moonstone Lord, this wasn't the case at all. In fact, he had already forcefully turned several, turning them into useful puppets that did his bidding.

These people had already died after the 24 hour period was up, and it had already been weeks since then. It could be said that Leonel was on an entirely different level.

You couldn't just casually spread news and expect for it to catch on, it took time and patience. He had gotten this plan moving long in advance so that it was ready to explode forth this very moment.

After the oddity of the Spirituals targeting the Humans during their ceremony, there were many intelligent people who had their brows furrowed. Not everyone could be led by the nose so casually, and that allowed them to be just susceptible enough that Leonel's methods spread like wildfire.

However, this alone wasn't enough. Or rather, it could be said that this was just the first leg of Leonel's plans. Relying on just one, vastly variable method was difficult. Even for him, it was impossible to account for every single variable at once.

So that was where the Dream Pavilion came into play.

The Life Tablet had more control over the Dream Pavilions than any other treasure. Even if Leonel stepped into the territory of another Dream Pavilion, he would likely wield more power than even their Pavilion Head, whether by actively taking strength of his own or suppressing that of others.

But that didn't mean that this was all he could use it for.

The projection abilities of the Dream Pavilions, the capability of spreading information far and wide and nigh instantaneously was maybe the most underrated of the Dream Pavilion's abilities. But it wasn't just this alone... it was the method through which this information was spread...

Dream Force.

Manipulating people with Dream Force was difficult. Manipulating experts of the Eighth and even Ninth Dimension was even harder. And manipulating those with Dream Force affinity was a completely different can of worms.

However, Leonel had not just one opportunity, but three. Two of which took place over several long months.

And he didn't need to lie to them either. He just had to tell them parts of the truth and let them fill in the gaps for themselves.

Nothing that Leonel said was a lie.

The Cloud Race and Owlan descendants did team up. The Owlans were now in a war after receiving the ire of the Void Race. Lumina did make her hatred of humans and inferior races clear. The Cloud Race was aggressively going after the Dwarven Race for their treasures.

Each one of these things were true. You couldn't fool a Dream Force expert by pulling the wool over their eyes or trying to outsmart them, but preying on their emotions and making them draw the wrong conclusions on their own...

Now that was something that was extraordinarily difficult to defend against.

And the best part about all of this was the fact that Flaura had her own younger brother to blame. It was by studying the methods that Somnus had taken with him when he left the Clan that Leonel was able to piece these things together.

How was it that Flaura could manipulate the Spirituals from so far away? How could Somnus gather so much secret information about the Dwarven Race? Information their own Prince wasn't even aware of?!

Studying those methods gave Leonel ideas that he had never thought of before and it opened his horizons toward how Dream Force could be used to wreak havoc on a large scale.

However, even all of this was just the beginning. It wasn't the nail that drilled into Flaura's coffin. Not just yet.

In fact, that nail came not from an expected source, but rather the fact that Leonel had revealed himself to be a Fawkes.

The moment he did, Leonel knew that Flaura would almost certainly try to lash out with this information. But like he had said, sometimes you had to reveal a weakness to force your enemy to overextend themselves.

Information about Leonel being a Fawkes began to circulate not long ago, triggered by Flaura's intentions. The problem with that was that the man who "revealed" himself as a Fawkes in the Spiritual world was a man who was distinctly not Leonel. And yet, despite so many Spiritual experts being around, no one could see through his disguise?

Were they supposed to believe that on top of being a Spear and Bow Sovereign, and a Destruction Sovereign and Dream Sovereign, Leonel had yet another shocking level of Force control that allowed him to display such might?

Plus, who didn't know that the Fawkes had golden hair and green eyes? Even when he used the supposed Emperor's Might Lineage Factor, it had a purple aura and not the usual green aura.

Normally, this might still be acceptable. Though rare, it wasn't impossible for Lineage Factors to mutate. With how many people there were per given family, it was bound to happen once in a while.

But there were too many issues.

One, the Fawkes had been wiped out. Even if there were some stragglers, wouldn't that also mean the odds of the Lineage Factor mutating plummeted to an already near zero chance to near impossible? © 2024.

Second, why would such a weak Fawkes randomly expose himself? If he was going to, shouldn't there be some incoming wave of Fawkes as well? Where were they? Or was it just one idiot?

Third, wasn't this sort of timing too coincidental? It just so happened to appear all at the same time?