1836 Trust Me Leonel stood over the war torn Planet Viola with the very same indifferent expression, unmoved by it all.
'He isn't here.��
These were the only thoughts Leonel had toward Rychard since the start of this war. He hadn't taken the latter seriously at all. But he had predicted that there was a better than 80%
likelihood that Rychard would lose his temper and attempt one final all out assault against him before he perished with the remains of his family.
However, not only had Rychard not done that, he seemed to have vanished without a trace. There were only two conclusions Leonel could see for this. Either Rychard had evolved more as a man that he had initially given him credit for, or someone else had interfered.
Almost as soon as he had these two thoughts, Leonel knew that it was the latter of the two. If he hadn't met Rychard face to face already, he would have thought it to be the 30-70 toss up, where the likelihood of the first option was 30%. But he had, so Leonel knew there was a better than 95% chance that it was the second option.
The real question, though, was who would be able to steer Rychard off of his path of murder and destruction.
Just putting himself in Rychard's shoes, Leonel knew that he would be livid. Rychard had had his family destroyed once, but back then, the Luxnix had only attacked the main family branch, went meant that almost all of the Viola family's side branches had survived to live out suppressed existences. However, that had happened again, but this time in reverse as Rychard seemed to have escaped with most of his elites.
In one way or another, his family had been forcefully suppressed twice over. Even a monk would find themselves at the end of their rope, let alone someone like Rychard.
To be talked down from a ledge, whoever this person was had to both be highly intelligent and highly respected by Rychard. And, maybe most importantly, this person should be quite likely to have a close relationship with Rychard.
'A woman? Less likely due to Rychard's previous trauma related to these matters. He also didn't have a second throne in his throne room, so he's unlikely to have a wife, or at least a wife he deems to be his equal.
'A respected minister? Also unlikely. Those ministers of his blindly worshipped him and they were almost all exceptionally young. If Rychard said to run through a brick wall, they wouldn't hesitate. Those people wouldn't have the mind to ask him to turn around, and even if they did, Rychard wouldn't listen to them.
'The only explanation then is that this person comes from outside of the Viola family, likely an ally or a friend, probably both given the circumstances. In that case, likely someone from the Void Palace, also likely someone who experienced similar to near identical circumstances as himself in the Cataclysm Zone.
'In that case, there's a better than 60% likelihood that this person is from a background that's not too powerful and also happens to have a World Spirit that gave them an advantage within the Cataclysm Zone.
"Interesting...
Leonel's gaze flickered and he turned to his right.
"Yuri, what families had the largest sudden boost in recent times."
Yuri blinked, clearly not expecting for Leonel to suddenly ask her such a question.
"... There are a lot. But if you mean the ones who've displayed the most improvement, there's probably only three prominent ones. One is the Viola family," Yuri cast a glance toward the planet below them, "the second is the Eamon family, and the last is the Etazi family."
"Eamon and Etazi? What do you know about them?"
"Not much. They were fairly middle of the road in the past and they're not exactly bigshots now either. It's just that their improvement is disproportionate to the amount of time that has passed. They were formerly in the bottom rung of Seventh Dimensional Sectors, now they're nearer the middle."
"Is that all?"
"There's not much other than that. There might be even weaker families than that that have had larger overall improvement, but no one pays much attention to the Sixth Dimension given the scales of things."
Leonel nodded.
Unfortunately, Leonel didn't know anything about Orinik's background, because if he had, he would have recognized the Etazi last name as being Orinik's family name!
"Emna." Leonel called out.
Suddenly, a flash of light appeared to Leonel's left like a bolt of lilghtning before a young woman stepped out from its midst.
"Yes! mn
"The Eamon and Etazi families... During the expansion, tell the higher ups to focus on the two of them."
Emna's brows raised.
The Etching Metal Organization was, indeed, preparing for expansion so that they could be properly prepared for the coming Heirs Wars. But originally, they were going to focus on the larger fish. This sudden pivot was unexpected.
"Don't worry about it," Leonel said with a wave of his hand. "I have a feeling that there won't be enough time for the organization to expand adequately enough to be useful in the Heir Wars."
Emna's brows jumped again.
Not enough time? The Heirs Wars wouldn't start until Leonel entered the Seventh Dimension, no one would even blame Leonel if he purposely delayed a bit. Even the quickest estimate was a decade, although that was a bit of a time crunch, Emna was confident that as they became more powerful with Leonel's backing, they could do it even half that time if they really went all out.
So why was Leonel saying this now?
Leonel smiled and didn't explain. "Just trust me."
"Okay!" Emna nodded.
When Emna vanished, so too did Leonel's smile. Yuri looked toward his side profile, wondering where the naive boy of back then went.
Even as this conversation came to a close, news of the unification of Earth's Sector spread like wildfire, there was simply no hiding it.
Leonel had only just come back, and yet Earth's turmoil, or at the very least the worst of it, had been suppressed in less than a single year.
The Human Domain was lit ablaze.