Orinik's pupils constricted into pinholes. He wasn't a fool, he could tell that Leonel wasn't baiting him. That sort of confident, indifferent gaze, as though it didn't matter even if Orinik got on his knees and swore to the high Heavens that he wasn't involved with Third Nova, told him everything he needed to know.
Orinik had spent his life plotting and scheming. Even Rychard and Montero had no idea where his truest allegiances lied, although Rychard did know a bit more about it. And yet, with just a single slip up, Leonel had seen right through him.
Back then, when Leonel was first entering the Void Palace, no one knew who he was. Even to his own cousins and fellow Nova Heirs he was a nobody. He had never stepped foot into the family, and other than the fact they had a vague idea that he was Velasco's son, there was nothing else.
There was no news about him, he had awakened his Lineage Factors quite late compared to the rest of them, and he was stuck far away in the Milky Way. No one had any idea he was coming to the Void Palace that year, for all they knew he would never come.
Velasco was always a wildcard to begin with, and he had a huge vendetta against the Void Palace, it wasn't too impossible to believe that he wouldn't send Leonel at all, it was quite easy to accept, in fact.
So the question was, how did it seem like Third Nova was prepared?
Manipulating the Senate into taking action wasn't something that could happen in the spur of the moment. What about gaining information about the Rapax and the importance of their next round of birthed eggs? Or maneuvering matters so that the Senate could vote out the Stalwart Polearm Party and reduce them back to a Legacy Faction?
All of these were things that took time and effort. This meant that Xavnik had to have had someone who informed him long ahead of time that Leonel was present and would be coming, and who better than Orinik who had been sent to oversee the Selection in the first place?
When you looked at things that way, it almost seemed too obvious. Leonel felt quite foolish that he hadn't seen it before, but now that everything was in line, he finally felt that a weight on his shoulders had vanished.
Leonel's lip curled when he saw Orinik hesitate. "Go ahead and use your badge to escape, it'll only make things easier on me."
Orinik shivered as he remembered the words Leonel had spoken earlier. Could it be that the Morales really had acted on his behalf? Orinik couldn't risk such a thing, he would be crushed without even knowing what happened. How could he match up to an Ancestor? They could probably kill him with a single glance.
Suddenly, Rychard roared, his fury bubbling over. A heavy black-violet rod appeared in his hands as he swung down with all his might, aiming for Leonel's head as he crossed the distance between them.
Leoenl's gaze narrowed. He could feel the peculiarity of Rychard's Violet Force, and he could also feel that the latter's strength had exponentially increased just now. He took a step back and side stepped, gliding out of the way of the strike with ease.
Although his strength had increased, his skill had very obviously not. Rychard poured so much focus and attention into the Force Manipulation of his Violent Force that he neglected practically everything else. Even when he exchanged his life in such a way, it wasn't enough.
"Rychard! Get out of the way and support me from the back! You're no match for him!"
Rychard's body trembled as he tried to retreat, but Leonel had already taken a step forward and swung a strong fist at his abdomen. He didn't want to kill Rychard. In fact, he didn't want to kill any one of them. Of course, that wasn't because he was soft hearted, but rather because he wanted what they had, whether that was information or… their Lineage Factor.
Leonel had no intention of gaining this Violet Force himself, but he felt that it was a perfect fit for the Tentacle Womb. What he saw in Rychard wasn't a person any longer, all he saw was a resource.
To his surprise, though, Rychard allowed himself to be hit just so that he could gain a path of retreat. Before Leonel could pursue, he suddenly felt a hint of danger, causing his gaze to narrow. He stopped his forward movement and clasped both hands onto his spear's body, blocking to the side.
BANG!
Leonel's wrists trembled but his feet didn't move. Across from him, Orinik wielded two sabers that Leonel couldn't take his eyes off of. Those sabers were definitely the very same twin sabers that Second Nova had used.
Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted and Leonel's gaze turned malevolent. He was uncaring and indifferent a moment ago, but all of a sudden even the air itself seemed to freeze over.
He knew that Second Nova had lost to Third Nova, but he hadn't thought that the latter would have been defeated badly enough to lose even his weapons. Not only had he lost his weapons, but Xavnik was even leisurely enough to pass these sabers off to Orinik.
In truth, these sabers were quite bland and unassuming. Most people, even Crafters, wouldn't be able to tell them apart from mass produced instances of such weapons. But who were normal Crafters compared to Leonel? He could practically see a Craft down to its molecular details with a single glance. If Orinik hadn't already been exposed before him, he would have most definitely been exposed here.
"What happened to Auran?"
Leonel's voice was as dark as an abyssal hell. Orinik's gaze narrowed once more, but he didn't say anything, his gaze flashing with a greenish violet light as an explosion of poison fog filled his surroundings.
Leonel immediately recognized this as poison, his mind moved faster than Orinik could fathom. With a quick shift, he swapped places with one of his clones in the distance. He covered several kilometers in a single thought, leaping far outside the range of its influence
"That poison…"
Leonel felt that this wasn't a pre-concocted poison, it had come right from Orinik's body as though it was a Lineage Factor or Ability Index. But what surprised him was that Orinik could even produce such powerful poison, where had that come from?
'It's branching from his Dark Force… Is Orinik a demon too? Something isn't adding up.'
Leonel had met poison demons before, he had steered clear of them.
The truth was that Leonel was probably immune to most poisons. Even the ones he wasn't immune to, he had Cleansing Waters to deal with. However, due to the current state of things, he didn't carry the Segmented Cube around him. It was needed to mass produce and process ores, it was also the main source of water and food that his people had.
It had to be remembered that due to the suppression of this world, everyone reacted like normal Third Dimensional existences would. They needed to sleep once a day, they needed food and they needed water. The only way to deal with these easily was to use the Segmented Cube.
As for Leonel's own personal immunity that came from his various Lineage Factors and powerful Scarlet Star Force, he was a bit hesitant to use them directly. He had already learned that in the Dimensional Verse, underestimating your opponent was a great way to suffer.
'Huh?'
Leonel's pupils constricted and he coughed out a greenish violet fog.
He looked up to find that his clone had already been burnt to ash. Orinik's laughter echoed through the air, his face contorting in a fashion that those familiar with him had never seen.
Leonel understood immediately. This poison was more sinister than he had originally thought, it couldn't be helped, this was only the second time he had fought a true poison expert, while the first one had been fought by Aina while he watched. That was back when Aina had fought the Heiress of the Pyius family, Simona.
But, Aina was entirely immune to all poisons due to her Ability Index, so it was obvious that this "experience" wasn't as helpful as it should have been.
Orinik's poison was able to target him through his Force alone. It was incredibly mysterious, there wasn't even a direct connection between himself and his clone, and yet he had suffered anyway.
Leonel's gaze narrowed and he immediately circulated his Scarlet Star Force, making use of its destruction characteristics to target the poison. But, his pupils could only constrict when he realized it was useless. In fact, the poison clashed with his Scarlet Star Force for a moment before the stalemate was suddenly broken, the poison using his Scarlet Star Force as fuel to attack the rest of his body.
The echoes of Orinik's mad laughter boomed across the skies.
"I've waited too long for this! Since you've already exposed me, there's no need for me to hold back any longer!"
Orinik's lips spread with a wild grin.
"Go on and use your badge to escape."
Returning Leonel's words to him, he felt an endless satisfaction.
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