Chapter 2302 Leonel's Web
His plot was quite simple, truth be told. Well, at least it was simple to Leonel. The actual thought required not only a deep understanding of his own people, but also how the enemy might be reading and reacting to his actions, the latter of which probably seemed far more difficult, when in reality both took quite a bit. After all, he had to understand his own people intimately, and often, the closer you were to a person, the easier it was to shroud their true intentions or what their weaknesses were in your mind.
Leonel had known from the beginning that his entering the Dream Plane couldn't be hidden, and this wasn't quite his fault.
For one, in a world where so few had the ability, any new addition would be immediately sensed. Secondly, there was the fact that just by giving him a warning, Maxx was exposing Leonel to the elements.
As such, Leonel had lost the right to work from the shadows from the very beginning, and he had to approach this in a different way. Since everyone thought him to be an arrogant young boy who thought too much of himself, why not play the part?
After just a moment, he made the choice to not only not make a foolish attempt to hide himself from the world, but he also pushed it to the max, leaking out his aura any and everywhere and arrogantly making his presence known.
To Veiga, he probably seemed like a brash idiot whose Dream Force control was limited and crude. Of course, his Dream Force control truly was like that, at least compared to experts like Veiga. He had great talent in Dream Force, but he didn't have the systematic training that those of the Dream Pavilion had, and he was almost entirely self-taught considering just how rare Dream Force affinities were in this world.
That only made his ploy all the easier, but this was only the first part.
None of this was enough to lure Veiga in, or more accurately, none of it was enough for him to lure her into a situation where he had the de facto upper hand, that was where the latter stages of his plan began.
The first leg came from the information he had gathered. He might have released Amery, but that didn't mean that he hadn't gotten anything out of him, and the information he did have wasn't restricted to the Suiard family either. As the fiance to the Heiress of the Half Spirituals, how could Amery not have some information about his in-laws?
Of course, this information was scarce, but it was enough for Leonel to be aware of the large scale formation that protected the Spirituals and also be aware of some of its baser functions... like the ability to lock down space.
And then it came down to how he would use that information.
He had learned from the seven memory wells that he had absorbed just how useful the Dream Plane could be. It wasn't just about gathering up clues and knowledge while others were unsuspecting, but it could also be used to subtly suggest people.
Of course, this wasn't an ability that could be used casually unless one had the Ability Index to match it, and even then it was hard to change a powerful person's mind. That meant you had to prey on their basal instincts, pulling at strings that already existed and make them looser, more susceptible to manipulation.
This was what Leonel was certain the demoness had done with the relationship between his father and uncle. Maybe she found it to be amusing, sealing away the talent of one and making the other the crown jewel of the Human Domain. Maybe she wasn't to see how interesting it would be if they fought it out, and maybe the reason she had stopped Leonel from using his own bloodline to save Aina was because she was unhappy with him ruining her experiment.
Whatever it was, that sliver of understanding allowed Leonel to understand just how the Dream Plane could be used. It wasn't as straightforward as hiding what his plans were, he had to also be mindful of the mental state of his people and which of them could be used for what.
And that was when he thought of the perfect plan. Yuri couldn't have been more perfect for this job even if she tried. In fact, even if he engineered a person to fulfill just this one role, he would just end up with a clone of her.
The specialty of the Spirituals array was that it was meant to protect the freedom of Half Spirituals. Due to this, it couldn't be used against anyone with Spiritual Bloodline within them, and the formation ignored all those with that lineage.
That said, Leonel couldn't just strap a rocket to Yuri's back and send her in. What good would that do? She was far too weak in comparison to Overlords. Let alone an Overlord, she wasn't even a match against the weakest of Ancestors.
However, if she was the one to act, the formation wouldn't retaliate, and thus she was perfect as a tipping point, a final push to get them over the hump.
So he gave her a simple task. Once he collapsed the outer ring of the formation, she would take action. While shrouded in the power of the formation, the Half Spiritual Overlord wouldn't even sense Yuri before she acted. With a single strike, the Overlord would fall without even realizing what happened, and then the rest would be easy.
It was the perfect plan, and it took advantage of the greatest weakness of the Spirituals.
From Veiga's perspective, it was also perfect. In fact, she would find it amusing how Leonel would try to mask his attentions by giving everyone in his army different decoy orders. With her skill, she could easily tell what was true and what was false...
But that would be her downfall.
She targeted Yuri immediately, peeling away the layers of protection on her mind. It was all too easy, especially since she knew that Aina was nowhere in this world, where else could Aina be if not dead?
And in the end she won... Or so she thought she did.
All the while, she had been intertwining herself further into Leonel's web.
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