2001: Kill.

Kill.

Leonel stood in silence for a long while.1

Despite his fatigue, his mind raced at a mile a minute, moving through all sorts of scenarios. Nothing seemed to make perfect sense, though. Ultimately, no matter how he sliced it, this was Second Nova's best chance to deal with him, there was no advantage to gain by waiting unless he truly wanted to wait until Leonel was in an even more sorry state than this one.

That meant that there was a better than 60% chance that Second Nova hadn't come here with the intention of dealing with him at all, his original intention was just to probe him, and it might even be potentially true that Second Nova planned on giving up on the Heir Wars in their entirety.

But if he was willing to give up on the Heir Wars in the first place, then why did he participate? Even if he didn't like the optics of giving up without trying, what was the big difference between that and giving up midway?

That seemed to point to the fact that Second Nova wanted to test the Heirs and pick whomever he liked best. But in that case, why did he vanish? If he had decided on Leonel, then wouldn't he be helping Leonel? What was the intention in just leaving directly?

It had to be remembered that each family was limited to two Heirs, but there was a very obvious exception to this, and that was the Morales who had seven Heirs.

This was tacitly allowed by the other families for a few reasons. First, the Morales were already the targets of everyone to begin with. Second, while the others were simply here for glory or to deal with Leonel, the Morales family Heirs were here to fight for the position of Heirs. As such, they inherently could not work together as they were competing with one another.

The other families would obviously step in if it seemed like the Morales Heirs were teaming up, and it would counter whatever advantage they could gain by doing so. It was probably even best to separate the focus of the families by doing this though this would likely place even more pressure on Leonel was one of the main focuses to begin with.

Why was this all so important? It was because if Auran really wanted to help Leonel, he wouldn't just injure him and then vanish. There were many other things he could do even if he didn't participate himself, plus why did he have to test Leonel in the Heir Wars themselves? He had had plenty of opportunities in the last month to meet Leonel privately.

All of this pointed to the fact that Auran had something he wanted to do in the Heir Wars specifically, and whatever that was, he felt that it was more important than even his chances at becoming an Heir. In fact, he might have no intention of becoming an Heir in the first place.

'I'm missing something, what is it… What is it…'

Leonel didn't like this feeling. Usually, when he didn't have enough information, he wouldn't' bother to waste time trying to deduce, but this felt different. He felt that this was too important to ignore, and yet he still didn't have the information he needed to deduce the answer, it was endlessly frustrating.

Suddenly, Leonel's gaze sharpened.

There was no doubt that Auran was targeting someone, someone that the Heir Wars made much more convenient to target. Who could that person be? That person had to be someone that was difficult to target outside of this place. That seemed to point toward one of the Heirs of the other families, but why would targeting a Seventh Dimensional existence be so important to Auran?

There were only two explanations. Either this Seventh Dimensional existence had offended Auran in a way that was far too great for him to ignore, or this Seventh Dimensional existence would, in the future, become a world changing sort of threat.

Leonel knew quite a bit about Auran and the other Heirs. Auran was the head of an exceptionally powerful information network, but he didn't sell his services. This made sense to many people at the time, after all they all assumed that he had built it up because of the Heir Wars.

But if Auran had never had any intention of becoming an Heir, then why did he build an information network he had no intention of profiting from?

That led Leonel right back to the first two explanations… Either to find someone who had greatly offended him, or find someone who posed an existential risk to the Morales family or maybe even the Human Domain as a whole.

Leonel's brows glowed like two torches. He felt his Dream Force shifting, his simulations becoming sharper and sharper.

What if the reason Auran gave up on being an Heir was because he knew that his actions would lose him the right?

How could a Seventh Dimensional existence be an existential threat, they were too weak… Well, how could a Sixth Dimensional existence like Leonel possibly have become a threat in the eyes of the powerhouses of the Human Domain?

The explanation was the same. This Seventh Dimensional existence had to have the ability to gain access to a power that no one else could.

Leonel was a Prince of the Ascension Empire and an Heir of the Morales family. This was unacceptable in the eyes of many as they believed that this was just the Morales family laying claim to the only Eighth Dimensional territory of the Human Domain via unscrupulous means.

Suddenly it all seemed to click and the pieces slid into place.

Leonel's aura suddenly flourished and his strength took a large leap forward. From Tier 7, he stepped into Tier 8, his Dream Force Stars gaining more runes as they swirled about with a strong, pulsing, silvery light.

'He came here to kill. He came here to kill an Heir of the Morales.'

pqdm.com