Dimensional Descent

Although the Human Domain had been liberated, not enough time had passed for the Human Race to fully return. News hadn't even quite spread anywhere but the highest echelons of the various races. It was perfectly natural for some humans to still think that their lives were hanging on by a thread.

As Leonel entered the dark region, his thoughts were spinning with one thought that he had yet to resolve. If the Barbarian Race had helped the Human Race rise up, why let them be destroyed? Why even participate in their destruction? And if their destruction was important to their plan, why let Leonel reclaim so much territory so easily?

Sashae and Talon hadn't even appeared again after their first disappearance.

That belied another question, and that was why were they propping up the humans, Oryx and Sea Gods all at once? What had they done that managed to create Barbarian Invalids?

Were they participating in the war as well? Were they on the side of the Fallen God Beasts and Owlans?

Leonel felt that the answer to these last few questions was no, but that also meant that these waters were far murkier than he assumed.

'This should be the product of the pressure the Gods are placing on the lesser races. How could there be no resentment at all? Sure, for now the Culling doesn't involve the Demi-Gods, but what about when they ran out of Mortal Races to kill? Wouldn't they move on to the Demi-Gods before they looked to themselves?

'If the Demi-Gods were smart, they would certainly be trying to find methods of saving themselves for the future. If the path toward Godhood meant experimenting with Invalids, then that was what they would do even if Invalids were far more hated than even the Fawkes had been.'

This explanation made sense to Leonel, and he felt there was a better than 90% chance that it was correct.

But this meant that he had started the fuse on something much larger than he expected.

If things continued like this... wouldn't the whole of Existence be embroiled in war soon?

Leonel's gaze became serious. It was even more important that he become as strong as possible as quickly as possible.

...

A city appeared before Leonel, if it could be called that.

The city walls were formed from the bones of enormous beasts, and the buildings inside seemed to all be constructed by similar materials. It felt more like a graveyard than a city.

By this point, he had come across several Rapax, but not one of them reacted very much.

As expected, the Rapax were the least likely to care. The real danger came from the violence of their culture.

They walked around with their steel covered, pill-shaped heads. Their metal tails whipped out behind them like a scorpion's, their digitigrade feet digging into the ground with every step.

They were intimidating creatures. Leonel had yet to run into any Rapax in the Complete Worlds, but they certainly existed. Many were ranked in the top 100 of the Gathering of Kingdoms, but they were ultimately still a Mortal Race as well.

When Leonel got to the city gates, though, a Rapax blocked his path.

Its pill-shaped head bent over, its maw opening wide to reveal a row of translucent teeth dripping with saliva.

"Scram, weakling."

BANG!

Its head exploded.

No one even saw how Leonel moved. In one moment, the Rapax was growling, in the next instant, it was dead.

Leonel kicked its corpse to the side and continued to stroll forward.

He knew why the Rapax guard had reacted like that. This was one of the more sacred cities of the Rapax. Even if it was a weak Rapax, it would have reacted the same.

All the Rapax knew were the weak versus the strong. Nothing else mattered to them.

And Leonel had proved his standing more than enough. In fact, he had already forgotten about the earlier encounter. He had suddenly remembered something about the Rapax that greatly interested him: their immunity to Internal Sight.

This was no longer a limitation to Leonel because he could sense and feel the Dream Plane. So the Rapax couldn't escape his senses anymore even if they wanted to.

But he had always been curious about this ability. It was an interesting chance to study this potentially.

After entering the city, Leonel didn't really have an aim. He just came to the largest city of the Rapax Domain in hopes of looking for some clues.

But since he had already entered with a bang, he should probably leave some impression of a powerful human.

The easy thing to do was envelop the city in his Internal Sight, then check on all the people who weren't immune in the same way.

But he wasn't quite sure if he should go so far just yet. Even if he wanted to play the role of arrogant Overlord, he needed at least some foundation first.

What he wanted to know was if he shone fiercely enough... would the power hidden in the dark approach him?

'Unlikely. I doubt a Demi-God, or God if I'm really unlucky, would feel the need to approach a weak human like me. Hm, I guess the best option is to see if there were any odd movements.

'News of what happened to the Human Domain should spread quite quickly. This will be the best chance to see how the Rapax read and react to this.

'From the perspective of this hidden party, this should be a clash between two of their competitors. Will they try to gang up on the Sea Gods along with me? Will they try to gear the Rapax for war and sit back? Will they maybe attack the more vulnerable humans and team up with the Sea Gods instead?'

The last one was probably the most likely, and Leonel had to be ready for that potential outcome.

'Oh?'

Leonel felt the ground rumbling, but it wasn't an earthquake. There was a ruckus coming from a coliseum of bone.

There seemed to be an event going on.

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