Dimensional Descent
chapter-2531

[Bonus chapter courtesy of Mr. Ham <3 1/6]

Leonel didn't move for a long while. If one observed his expression, it would be hard to tell that he could feel anything at all, let alone what he was feeling.

Sometimes his analytical abilities were a bit of a curse. The human response would be to rush forward. He didn't know Clarence very well, but he had done more for the actual sake of humans than anyone else Leonel had ever met.

It wasn't that fake, pompous, uppity path those powers tried to take, sacrificing those they thought to be lesser than them and trying to herd them like animals. He had put himself on the line, like a true man of humanity should have, like a true leader should have.

Compared to the likes of Vivak, or Mo''Lexi, or any one of the Great Families, he was leagues beyond.

In the end, the Dream Pavilion hadn't been under his control. The decisions that they had made earlier had all been Kings, and the decisions made afterward could only be jointly decided by the several Deputy Pavilion Heads even if Clarence was the strongest of them all.

He was a man worthy of respect, even though he hadn't immediately had all of Leonel's trust.

However, Leonel didn't run to what was left of him. His mind knew why.

Clarence would be gone in 4.7 seconds. It would take him, even at his fastest speed, 5.2 seconds to reach him. In that last 0.5 seconds, it would feel like an eternity, such a small segment of time to a Third Dimensional existence might as well have been an impossibly vast chasm to someone with his strength, and only made worse by his speed of thought.

There was no reaching him. There was nothing he could do even if he did.

Clarence hadn't just died, he had died in humiliating fashion, and then he was forced to slowly eke out the rest of his existence a shattered remnant of what he had once been.

With his Dream Force shredded apart like that, even if his accumulated comprehensions came back together to reform him, he might not even be the Clarence of old, his previous memories, mannerisms, and personality having been lost.

At that point, was he even still Clarence any longer? He was already dead.

So Leonel stood there and watched. He didn't pay much attention to the world around him, and in those last moments, he felt that Clarence was barely able to notice him. His eyes, or what remained of them were slightly blurred. Deep within, there was still a light of madness, a slight hint of a fighting spirit that hadn't quite faded just yet.

That light only wavered when he saw Leonel, replaced by a regret, not for the loss of his life, but because he felt that Leonel's fate would likely be not much different than his own... regret that he had caused maybe the last hope of the Human Race to fall here just due to something as stupid as a miss-timed decision.

And then he was gone.

Leonel waved a hand. The Life Tablet moved, and the kernels that remained of Clarence's Dream Force were forced to condense once more. Leonel had hoped that maybe he could save some of it, that maybe if Clarence had a chance to come back at some later date, that he would at least have a piece of himself remaining to assimilate with.

But it was still useless.

The Dream Force seemed to slip through his fingers like running water, pooling down to the ground and vanishing into the miasma.

Even the Life Tablet couldn't do anything about it. Even maybe the greatest treasure ever forged was helpless to reform something that was lost.

He couldn't help but think about his father again. Would he really ever be able to bring him back? Even if he did, would he ever truly be the same?

Leonel's gripped fist loosened.

From start to finish, his expression didn't change even the slightest, a mask of the deepest indifference taking hold of his every feature.

But he was angry.

Without a word, he moved, climbing up the mountain.

He found a Tier Two creature quickly, a much weaker Snowy Star Owl. This was exactly what he needed. A flying creature like the owl would be able to reach areas it wasn't necessarily supposed to reach, and it was weak enough that Leonel wouldn't have to drain a large amount of Dream Force in order to control it to direct him.

With its help, he quickly found three Tier Threes in quick succession, two of them being around treasures with 20% boosts. After the suppression of the boots, that raised his abilities by 80% total. Even though his base Dream Force wasn't enough to reach Tier Four, the addition of the new treasures was enough to hit that point.

However, it wasn't enough. He needed enough strength to reach the top of the mountains.

He had been too focused on increasing strength that would vanish the moment he stepped out of this world, and not enough on things that could give him a great deal of help in the immediate and afterward.

His breakthrough to Peak Impetus State had reminded him of that, and instead of arranging his Dreamscape to focus on things that would speed up his victory, he changed its parameters just a little bit.

The information that the Life Tablet had given him was too vast. Much like when he entered his enlightened state, much of it slipped through the crack. But unlike when he was in his enlightened state, the information didn't just vanish because it was part of the Life Tablet itself.

Due to this, Leonel could only access information he directly focused on, so he used one of the very first abilities he had carved from his Ability Index: Dreamscape.

Dreamscape could essentially think for him, connecting dots it would usually take him time to connect. It had been a great help to him over the years.

And now it would play a huge role again.