Dimensional Descent

Leonel took a breath and exhaled. He pulled the finger sleeve off of his hand and placed it on top of the Life Tablet that stood as tall as his waist, sparkling with its array of rainbow-colored light blues, pinks, and violets. He swept a gaze over everyone and took his wife’s hand.

Aina still seemed too angry to move, but Leonel smiled lightly and pinched her cheeks.

“It’s alright,” he said lightly.

Aina lowered her head, looking at the ground. She really didn’t want to leave like this, but they had no points remaining and nothing left to give. There wasn’t any other option.

Leonel took Aina’s hand and left without a word. He didn’t gaze at Minerva, nor did he give the other geniuses another look. He didn’t have to.

Those that saw what happened here today would understand what happened, and those that didn’t just didn’t care to in the first place.

Minerva frowned. She hadn’t expected Leonel to leave without a word. She even had intentions of forcing him to stay to watch the rest of it. There were many losers of previous rounds here too, so she had more than enough precedent to do so. However, for some reason, she hesitated long enough that he completely vanished.

It felt like he had suddenly gone from antagonistic anti-hero to sympathetic figure, and if she took action again then it would only play into the latter even more.

But then she looked at the Life Tablet and her gaze was mixed with shades of worry and anticipation. Not because of the Tablet itself, that thing was a ticking time bomb in this situation.

When she had joined the Challenge Sequence, she had planned to claim it. But those were under completely different circumstances. After all, there was a mad scramble at the time and there was blame to be spread around. In addition, the Owlans had been out of the spotlight for a long while…

A spotlight that Leonel had just thrust that back in.

No. Since the Celestial Embers had taken action, they clearly wanted it, and she would let them have it. Only the-

The Life Tablet trembled, and the spatial ring and Segmented Cube on its surface were suddenly sucked into it.

Minerva frowned. What just happened?

She immediately thought of Leonel, but he had already left and severed his connection to the Tablet. She wasn’t a fool; she could see such things.

She shook her head. For now, it didn’t matter. All things in due time. Acting rash would get her in trouble.

That said, she still sent a message. It wasn’t the right time to kill Leonel just yet, especially since he had so much sympathy on his side now. However… that didn’t mean they couldn’t monitor him.

He had a fun time obscuring his journey here, but doing so on the way back was impossible. The Force Arts of the Owlans were on a completely different level.

Her lip curled and for the first time, she relaxed, enjoying the spectacle below.

…

Annoyance flickered in Leonel’s eyes, but he slowly pressed it down.

“Are you okay?” Aina asked lightly, her voice dripping with concern.

“I’ll feel better in,” Leonel looked down at an imaginary watch, “about three days, sixteen hours, nine minutes, and three seconds.”

Aina rolled her eyes, not because Leonel was spouting nonsense, but probably because that was the true exact period of time and he was probably occupying a portion of his brain just to count down properly.

She shook her head. She knew compared to her, Leonel was even more annoyed. He absolutely hated losing, even if it was on purpose. It had nothing to do with the opinions of others because he never gave a damn about that either. There was just something about losing that made his skin crawl.

“Let’s go home,” Leonel said lightly.

Leonel walked to a familiar location, the very same place he had stepped into when he first came to this world and found the winged knights and Aurora’s husband waiting. Of course, they weren’t waiting for him in particular, and most of them were just watching the stream of the events. Aurora herself had a big smile plastered onto her old face.

Leonel didn’t say a word as he walked up to the teleportation platform and took a step onto it.

Aurora frowned and seemed to notice his presence finally. “Teleportation is closed, come back another day.”

Leonel gave her a glance and then tapped a foot. The platform lit up without her input and before she could do anything, they vanished.

She was just about to rage when her husband caught her arm.

“Leave it be. Is it necessary to get angry? Let the wounded animal go lick its wounds,” Lyric said lightly.

Aurora’s gaze flashed. Her husband was always a gentle man, rarely fought and only dealt with administrative matters. But when he wanted his words to be sharp, they could be.

She found herself feeling better. She smiled and didn’t mind it anymore.

Indeed. Was there a need to be enraged about a broken beast?

ƈοm

…The Gathering of Minds continued, but all of Existence, in quite quick succession, people stopped paying attention.

What entertainment was there left now that Leonel was gone? It felt like they were just watching the same people win over and over again. The best story was Aerin and Lyra who managed to secure third place for themselves, but after they completed their final two necessary challenges, they too withdrew.

The result was uglier than Minerva thought it would be. It ended up being a head-on-head battle between the two remaining Demi-God pairs, but the irony of it all was that after Verma’s carefully chosen challenge, no one else managed to secure nine runes, let alone the 12 runes that Leonel had managed to get.

In the end, Verma and Celestia managed to claim first place, with Talon and Somnus managing to claim second.

…

At the moment, Leonel with Aina by his side in the middle of an Inbetween World.

“Three days…” Leonel said lightly.

“Stop counting the time,” Aina said with exasperation.

“What would you like me to do instead?”

“How about me?” Aina said with an innocent blink.

Leonel looked at her seriously, then looked her up and down before sighing.

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Huuu, gasp!” Aina said with a laugh. “I heard about erectile dysfunction, but I didn’t think I would suffer such a fate as a young wife.”

She pressed the back of her hand against her forehead and fainted into Leonel’s lap.

Leonel grinned. “You know, I’ve been meaning to bring that up. You really call yourself a Five Star Health Professional?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aina pouted.

“Well, aside from the fact no Health Professional would make fun of their patient for such a sensitive matter, shouldn’t you also know about other things?”

Aina blinked in genuine confusion. “What other things?”

Leonel grinned. This felt like an “I’m on my period” or “I need condoms” situation all over again, when Aina knew damn well she didn’t get periods like normal women, nor would she get pregnant without her own will to.

“You think I don’t know?” Leonel cleared his throat. “The Feminine Illusion, written by Celeste Aubrey, co-authored by Aria Mauve. Page 121, line three.

“‘…If we are talking a matter of statistics, the female body is far more likely to reach orgasm through anal penetration as opposed to vaginal penetration…’.”

Aina was speechless for a moment before she burst into a fit of laughter.

She couldn’t believe Leonel had just quoted something from their sex-ed textbook. She hadn’t thought of that book since she was fifteen years old.

The couple laughed, seemingly forgetting about everything else for a moment.

Indeed. The world could be collapsing around them and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.