TALK

The path forward was easy. Once again, the Sea Gods didn't seem to have any fail-safes, nor were they vigilant. They seemed to almost be inviting him to enter the city.

Now the trouble was exactly how should he do that?

The Force Art was comically easy for Leonel to decipher, and he had already found several weak points. But there was a difference between breaking a Force Art, entering without anyone knowing, and even further entering without compromising it.

These were three levels of difficulty, with the last being the most difficult.

Entering without alerting anyone and also leaving the Force art in the same state he had gotten it in took a bit of time. But Leonel was prepared enough to do this.

He leapt up and onto the city walls, latching onto locations that deftly dodged the detection modules. Finding the flaw he was targeting, he pressed a hand against it. His Emulation Spatial Force spread and soon the Force Art was subtly changed.

He slipped right through.

At the moment, Leonel covered the planet in his Internal Sight. Although there was a risk that there was someone from the Demi-Gods or Gods hidden in the army, he felt the risk was worth it.

For one, covering a single planet with Internal Sight wasn't impossible in an Incomplete World and they wouldn't necessarily assume he had come from elsewhere. After all, Anastasia could cover the entire universe.

Second, the information that he could get back from doing this was far more important. Plus, this was why he had waited to slip into the city first.

'No one noticed.' Leonel said after a while.

This should have been obvious to him, but for some reason, the Sea Gods just made him feel like there was more to them than met the eyes.

'Am I being too cautious?'

Leonel frowned, and he touched down into the city.

He shook his head, feeling that he should trust his senses, but also feeling that he had no reason to justify such thoughts, either.

Leonel turned his attention to the city.

It was well built, but there was nothing too special about it. The most interesting thing was the fact that it carried the feel of a Spiritual city, having a huge overlap between greenery and residential buildings.

It was the same as the outside. According to his estimations, the entire planet had certainly once been a city, and yet there had still been so many trees and vegetation around.

It was clear to him that there were certain reverberations across spacetime that caused certain things to appear again and again. Much of the architecture back on Earth was one-to-one comparison to things he had seen in wider Existence. The apartment buildings and compounds in Godlen City were the perfect example.

It was an interesting phenomenon that Leonel didn't quite understand. © 2024.

It made sense that the same sort of Races would appear again and again across the Incomplete Worlds. There were certain characteristics that evolution would always favor when the net was cast wide enough. It was still a bit difficult to accept, but it was within his range of tolerances.

The fact that architecture was so well replicated, though, left him curious.

'These humans are also a bit different.'

Leonel had kept his invisibility activated as he slipped through the city and he noticed that these humans were indeed slightly off kilter from the humans he knew.

They looked normal except for the fact that some of them had hair dancing with runes and others had opaque eyes of foggy whiteness that almost made Leonel mistake them as Invalids for a moment. But no, in reality, these were just novel manifestations of the Cloud Race's Cloud Figure.

The Cloud Figure was the bundle of white fog and runes that acted as the Cloud Race's hair. Many of their best abilities came directly as a result of this evolutionary quirk.

'But this is still odd. Spirituals tend to mate with humans a lot, but what could have happened here for humans and the Cloud Race to practically create an entirely new Race of humanoids?'

Leonel silently observed the city for three days. He wasn't in a rush to make a move because if he was correct, this place would have to be where his campaign started from.

Right now, he wasn't in competition with this world, he was in competition with the two that bought the information before him.

According to his estimates, if one wanted the best way to conquer this Incomplete World, that would obviously be to turn the Sea Gods into a puppet.

If Leonel tried to do the same, he would find himself on his back foot without room to maneuver. There was a good chance that the two groups had already taken a piece of that pie. If he tried to triple dip, he would end up getting exposed and crushed.

That was exactly why he had to do exactly what no one could expect. He would turn the humans of this world into its overlords.

And this time, he wouldn't disappear halfway through.

The weight of what happened to the Morales still loomed heavy on his conscience. He wouldn't allow it to happen again.

...

Leonel's figure flickered, slipping into what could only be described as an imperial chamber. It was lavish and well furnished, and in the center of it all, an old man slept in the midst of silk pillows and covers of lavender.

The emperor tossed and turned, sleep not coming to him. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, only to find Leonel sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed.

The emperor's heart practically beat out of his chest as he stood on the bed, ready for battle. But the soft pliability of the mattress made it difficult to get a firm base.

His breathing slowed as he regained his wits, staring at Leonel deeply. If this man wanted to kill him, he would surely be dead already.

"Calm now?" Leonel asked. "Good. We have some stuff to talk about."