Dimensional Descent

Alejandro stayed silent for a long while. It would be one thing if Leonel asked this question based on something Velasco had said, but he knew that man too well. And considering Leonel had just tried to give over something he shouldn’t have, it was safe to say that his level of understanding toward the family was nearly zero.

This meant that Leonel had deduced this on his own from the outside.

Alejandro wasn’t sure if this was impressive or maybe even a bit said.

”... It is true that the Morales have a bit of a temper problem, but it’s usually not much of a problem. It used to be much worse, but after a certain age, the elders and Ancestors of the family enter the Holy Land where the incense can calm their minds and soothe their soul.

”The reality is that the ability to assimilate the elements with your body is a... demonic ability. For humans, the root of our affinities should be our Ethereal Glabellas. However, the Metal Synergy Lineage Factor takes root in the blood and the affinity is birthed from Runes that are ground into our bones and flesh.

”This is far more comparable to demons whose affinities are rooted in their bodies.”

Leonel’s gaze flashed. That was true, now that he thought about it. When Aina refined the Force Pills to refine their foundations, the most important aspect was the flesh and blood of the demons, they had already been the foundation of the strength of demons.

Leonel had never really seen things from that perspective, but indeed, the Metal Synergy Lineage Factor truly did align much more with demons than it did humans.

His mind couldn’t help but drift to the Demoness once again and the connection between the Silver Empire’s Inheritance and that of the Morales family’s. Was it a coincidence? Or could it be that demoness wasn’t just referring to the personality of this mysterious woman, but also her race?

How were these things related, though?

Just the timelines alone didn’t seem to match up. If the Demoness was related to everything, she would have had to have been there from the start of the Morales family to this point, the same would have been true for the other two founders of the Three Finger Cult as well.

Even someone with a Tier 5 Immortality Ability Index couldn’t live that long, Wise Star Order had made it obvious many times that his lifespan was actually quite limited. And even if the Demoness had a Tier 5 Immortality Ability Index that was somehow beyond that of any Savant ever born before and she really had lived for so long, what about the current head of the Three Finger Cult? He was still alive as well. Was Leonel supposed to believe that two such anomalies were born into the same generation with the exact same Ability Index? What were the odds of that?

It was all very confusing and even he couldn’t piece together what was happening.

”But...” Leonel started, but didn’t quite know how to put it.

Did demons have ingrained anger problems? He hadn’t personally experienced this, at least not from intelligent demons. The Cobra Demon was actually quite calm and calculating, and Coldar had actually been quite funny when he did speak, although Leonel was pretty sure he still seriously believed that the former swung for the same team.

And also, even if they did, why did it seem based on age?

”There are always consequences for going against the natural order of things. You’ve probably also noticed the other oddity in our Lineage Factor, that being that it unlocks in stages. Rather than being at a set level from the very beginning like most other Lineage Factors, it requires being unlocked over time.

”There’s a reason it’s like that, our bodies wouldn’t be able to handle it all at once.”

Leonel’s gaze flickered, this was also true. Though, he no longer had this problem. After assimilating the Silver Empire’s Inheritance, he had access to the full range of the Metal Synergy Lineage Factor, though... it probably wasn’t appropriate to call it that any longer as the synergy it had with the other three portions had created something entirely new that Leonel had yet to fully explore.

On top of that, he had formed a Sixth Doorway that would allow his Metal Synergy Lineage Factor to cross from the Eighth Dimension into the Ninth.

But as things stood now, he had no idea how to open that doorway. At the very least, right now, he felt like he was a very far distance from it.

Leonel had yet to battle with this new body of his because he had to enter the tribulation right afterward. In truth, he was a bit eager to see where his limits lay, but that was a matter for another time.

”... Although we don’t know the exact reasons, we can only guess that this is a large part of it.”

Leonel felt that this explanation was more than enough.

In Earth’s past, there was something colloquially known as Mad Cow Disease. This was a disease caused when humans ingested cow brain, but more accurately, it was caused by a particular fold of protein found within the meat. This disease was named as such because of all of the cognitive changes it could cause in both cows and humans, even to the point of changing one’s personality entirely.

If something as relatively simple as a protein, at least compared to an entire Lineage Factor, could cause a thing, then forcing something decidedly not human into a human form-factor was bound to have its own consequences.

Leonel had already seen Lineage Factors casually make changes to his brain on a macro scale through the Spear Domain Lineage Factor. What was happening on a micro scale that he had missed?

But beyond that, the real question was... by completing the inheritance, did Leonel save himself from such a fate? Or did he just cosign himself to damnation?

Only time would tell.

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