Leonel appeared high in the skies, a platform of Emulation Spatial Force subtly flickering beneath his feet.

"Oh?"

Leonel had thought about who it might be, but he didn't think that it would actually be members of the Nomad Race.

Their Ethereal Glabellas shimmered on their foreheads and their extra hands danced with weapons or twisted into special seals as though they were casting spells.

Leonel had already expected for this to happen.

After the Gathering of Kingdoms ended, Existence would enter a frenzied state. It was less accurate to say that they were being personally targeted, and much more accurate to say that these people were desperate and looking for any rope they could hold onto to pull them to shore.

The goal of these people was quite obvious. They were trying to pre-emptively find a world to save themselves. Soon, they would all be destroyed. The only chance they had to survive was to find a world that had managed to survive the culling.

It could be said that this Gathering of Kingdoms had not just one layer, but two of cruelness. Not only was there the morality of doing such a culling to begin with, but then there was the inevitable carnage that would follow suit.

Even if you managed to survive by the skin of your teeth, you'd find yourself assaulted from all sides by worlds who didn't make the cut, and among them, there just might be worlds stronger than your own that just happened to get a little unlucky.

This was obviously tacitly approved by those overlords overlooking this matter. The culling alone wasn't enough, the death and carnage that followed were what they were really looking for.

However, it could be said that these people were both lucky and unlucky.They were lucky in the fact that they had one, stumbled upon a world that had survived the culling and was extraordinarily weak, and two, this world also happened to have both Leonel and Aina, two people many wanted to know the location of. There was no doubt that this information was worth a great deal and might even be enough to save their entire world.

However, they were also unlucky because Leonel had the Dream Pavilion and could sense with great immediacy exactly where a breach had taken place and act instantly. And...

They wouldn't survive the next few minutes.

Leonel and Aina took action at the same time. There were only a few dozen Nomads who had appeared, and the strongest among them was only of the Eighth Dimension. Clearly, their job was to find the worlds in the first place, then establish a connection before allowing everyone else in.

They thought that they had time. Even though most of the world would know that a breach had happened, finding exactly where should have been a nightmare. By the time they did, there would already be a flood of their fellow people rushing in from the other side.

They were practically crying tears of joy when they realized that this was, indeed, a world that had survived the culling. They could tell because the Gathering Stele was still hanging high up in the skies, whereas it had long since disappeared in their world, marking them from eradication.

Suddenly, their leader looked up and noticed Leonel and Aina. He didn't recognize Leonel, but when he saw Aina, his eyes opened wide.

"You..."

Battle Ax and Spear descended.lights

The group of Nomads was shredded to pieces without even the chance to retaliate.

Leonel took the Segmented Cube finger sleeve back from Aina then flipped a palm. He tossed it forward and the crack was quickly healed, leaving behind a formation and a doorway instead.

Leonel's understanding of the structure outside of these fused Bubbles was quite deep. Back when he was first captured into the Three Finger Cult, he noticed the existence of a large-scale Force Art protecting them from the invasion of other Bubble Worlds.

For a formation of that scale to work, it had to take into account the terrain, which was why Leonel was able to piece it together by observing several maps.

This was all to say that the Inbetween Worlds around this region were intimately familiar to him even after the changes they had undergone, and that protective formation had given him a lot of inspiration at the same time.

Due to this, he was able to create this Craft, one that could not only heal these cracks but also form a gateway to the world on the other side.

As for why Leonel put up this gateway, it was because he knew this wasn't over. The moment the Nomads realized their people had died, or that they hadn't come back in a while, their first thought would begin to investigate this region. Quite quickly, they would realize that this was a world worth coming to.

If Leonel wanted to stop this, he and Aina had to take action and kill more than just the ones aiming for their world. They had to kill until the Nomads felt there were only gateways to hell consuming them from all sides.

"Aina," Leonel said lightly.

She nodded and suddenly, her aura flared. The military outfit morphed around her as wings sprung from the small of her back. Horns grew on her forehead and her skin turned from its usual rich tanned color, a stay over from her years of training beneath the sun, to a milky white as black lightning flashed.

Her Blood Sovereignty wasn't the only thing she hadn't used during the tournament... her Demon Form was also on that list.

CLINK. DOOM.

Leonel's appearance was suddenly obscured by an armor that looked as though it was formed out of Liquid Metal rather than normal ores. It slithered across his skin and obscured his vision.

Soon, the couple was entirely unrecognizable.

Since they were about to go on a killing spree, why not let them believe that Demons were to blame?

Morality? They didn't really think about it.

Their only duty was to themselves, their people...magic

Their happiness.

With a flash, they disappeared into the gateway.