Dimensional Descent

The Morales Ancestors hadn’t had even a moment of rest. The moment they felt they understood the situation, they had given up all thoughts of going to the Void Battlefield and instead began to spend night and day fortifying their defenses and learning the new landscape of their territory.

It was extremely difficult and there was chaos across their world. There were countless Force Eruptions day in and day out as the Force in the atmospheres began to raise themselves to an Eighth Dimensional standard. This caused the wild evolution of various plants and wildlife, not to mention the birth of new Force Crystal Mines and other ore deposits of the like that stimulated the greed of their people.

They didn’t even have time to think about Leonel. In fact, Leonel technically wasn’t their Patriarch yet because the coronation ceremony had yet to take place. For all intents and purposes, Adawarth’s father was still their Patriarch.

Even so, at the moment, even Patriarch Alejandro was nothing more than a figurehead at the moment, the reins of the family having been taken over by the Ancestors.

A large portion of the Ancestors had split off to focus on researching the changes to their Lineage Factor and how to quickly maximize the benefits that they could gain from it in the shortest amount of time possible. Using their knowledge and countless family records, they were already making great progress.

It was lucky for them that the Lineage Factor seemed to have been amplified rather than mutated, or else the progress would have been even slower and it would have taken an unknown number of decades and maybe even generations to figure everything out.

However, after just two and a half days, it felt to them that they had figured out about 20% of the new changes and they were making faster progress the more they understood. Every time they made a large discovery, they released it immediately, knowing that there wasn’t much time left. They wanted those that could take advantage of the changes to do so as soon as possible.

As for the remaining Ancestors, they were entirely focused on governance and policy. Namely, Ancestor Alvaro and Ancestor Issa took these reins. They didn’t believe that it would take more than two Ancestors to handle these matters.

Ancestor Hito, as the most senior and knowledgeable, was entirely focused on researching their new Lineage Factor.

Ancestor Alvaro and Issa were swift and decisive. They quelled greed with strict and even draconian policies, they directed large workshops of Crafters to get to work on building defenses around their new Eighth Dimensional world, and at the same time, they began to organize evacuation orders for the most vulnerable.

They realized that defending their entire territory might be impossible as much as they wanted to. So while they set up strong defenses on the outer regions, they evacuated much of their population to the core regions of their territory.

Trillions of Morales made their way swiftly and it could be said that the organization was as good as it could be for such a large scale migration. It was clear that the weight of an Ancestor’s words and appearance weren’t small in the slightest.

Whether it was the Ancestors themselves, or even the citizens who had just been praising Leonel to the high heavens, none of them felt that this was odd. After all, Leonel was still young, it only made sense that such important matters would be handled at the whims of those that were by far his senior, this was just the way of the world.

It was likely that no one expected that Leonel would be upset by this matter. Or maybe more accurately, they thought it would be ridiculous for him to feel such a way.

”We haven’t gone far enough,” Ancestor Issa spoke in her usual cold tone.

”We can’t be too cruel to our own citizens, Issa,” Ancestor Alvaro shook his head. ”No, they aren’t citizens, they are our family, no matter how distant.”

”This ”family” of ours has worked us to death in the last two days. Why haven’t they realized we’re family yet?”

Alvaro didn’t respond because he didn’t have anything to refute with. This was true enough. The mob mentality of people in these sorts of situations was nothing short of annoying. Weren’t they smart enough to realize that everyone would benefit very soon and this wasn’t the time for this?

He shook his head before his eyes suddenly lit up as though he finally remembered something.

”Right, we need to have someone call Littlest Nova back. It’s a good time to hold the coronation ceremony and officially crown him as Patriarch. It’ll help calm the people’s hearts down, the more normal we can be, the better.

”He’s an excellent uniting force. It’ll be easier to control the masses with him here. It’s like killing two birds with one stone. We can also give him much of the credit for the organization of this matter, give him a nice little boost to start his term.”

Ancestor Issa frowned. ”Are we sure we want to do this?”

”Do what?” Alvaro asked, confused.

”This Leonel is just as unruly as his father, but he has ambition Velasco didn’t have, and that makes him more dangerous. I’m afraid if we give him the family, he’ll never want to give it back.”

Alvaro fell into silence before he shook his head. ”Breaking tradition now isn’t worth it. Also, can he even do such a thing with us here? It’s a worthless worry, when the Ancestors speak to have him step down, what will he be able to say?”

Issa’s gaze flickered, but this time it was her turn to remain silent.

”Okay, we’ll wait a bit longer to call him back. Your words aren’t without merit, he may need a little reminder of what the position of Patriarch represents.”

...

Leonel looked up into the skies, standing silently. The third day’s light was waning and the formation was already beginning to flicker.

Suddenly, the formation ring collapsed entirely and Anarchic Force began to rush forward.

The third day had ended and there were no reinforcements in sight.