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C1908 Palpable

Maia's eyes widened but it was already too late.

"Die."

The spears moved as though they had minds of their own, raining down from the skies like Armageddon.

To Maia, these events could only be said to be a blur. Watching her people get slaughtered like this left her without the will to retaliate. She only managed to gather up some strength when it seemed that her sons were about to be slaughtered next, but the end result of that was all of them being captured at once.

Like this, the second infiltration of the Cloud Race was suffocated and restrained.

"Put on some clothes, look at you," Aina finally got a hold of Leonel, exasperated.

Leonel laughed. "It's not my fault, do you think I have a streaking fetish?"

"You're narcissistic enough for it," Aina rolled her eyes.

"Is that your way of saying I look good? Can you say it clearer," Leonel bent down so she say it into his ear, but in return he got a light bite to his earlobe.

"Behave," Aina said somewhat sternly.

"Are you sure you're the one who should be saying that? That felt kinky..." Leonel mumbled.

Aina was speechless. She couldn't help but think of James at that moment, the two of them really couldn't take anything seriously. By this point, she actually felt sort of bad for Elorin, the latter was beaten to practically an inch of his life, but James' mouth was just... too foul.

Leonel smiled and stopped teasing Aina, looking toward the four pillars of Black Wood after he put on a pair of sweats. Their screams had been drowned out for a while, but now they were front and center once again. They were unfortunately in the Sixth Dimension, or else their vocal cords would have given in by this point.

"It seems that everything went well, I'm surprised. Was the Cloud Race really this incompetent?"

"... I have a feeling that they never took us seriously to begin with and they paid for that."

Leonel nodded. Using "Graros" as an entry point, Leonel had come to understand that the efforts of the Cloud Race in the Human Domain weren't necessarily holistic and well-coordinated. They had many different factions, each with their own thoughts on how to best deal with the Human Domain. "Graros" had been one, those that had infiltrated Shield Cross Stars had been another, and Maia was yet another.

Among this number, there were bound to be a few that were more incompetent than the others. Comparatively speaking "Graros's" efforts and "Captain Wimword's" efforts weren't incompetent, they were just unlucky to have run into Leonel.

Maia seemed to have been quite diligent and patient, but that was only if one used the perspective of a human.

Due to the special ability of the Cloud Race, Maia was able to "skip" large amounts of time. Effectively, it was like falling into a dream for long periods of time and finding yourself to have woken up a year or two later.

To the people of Earth, decades had passed, but to Maia, it may very well have only been a handful of months. She would judge the time based on how much of it she had personally experienced, not how much had actually passed.

If things were framed like this, then Maia wasn't actually patient and diligent at all. She was just looking for the quickest path to victory and she had suffered for it greatly.

Leonel looked toward Maia and her two sons. He wondered if he could get information from them. It wasn't guaranteed due to the other ability of the Cloud Race to retreat into their own minds and induce a coma, but he hoped that Maia's activation of their race's trump card would hinder her ability to do so.

'Time will tell..."

Leonel's thoughts came to a pause as he suddenly looked in a certain direction.

In the distance, a young man with a blade wound through his shoulder stood in silence. They must have been separated by at least a kilometer, and yet they might as well have been right in front of one another given their vision.

The two didn't say a single word and silence fell.

The battle had long since come to an end. Of the thousands of Cloud Race there had been, only a few dozen remained. There were simply no other battles to fight and Earth had withstood another tribulation.

Aina blinked, looking from Leonel to James and back again. She sighed inwardly, stubborn, indeed.

Objectively, it was true that James had betrayed Leonel. That said, Aina didn't believe that James ever wanted Leonel's death, although it was a bit naive, he likely believed that the worst thing that would have happened to Leonel back then was a period of imprisonment. Leonel likely understood this as well, or else he would have never made any plans that required trusting someone who legitimately wanted his death.

No matter what, what James had done was wrong, and more than a little stupid. He had seen that the Royal Blue Fort was willing to use explosives against Leonel, even at the expense of the lives of innocents, and yet he still thought that Leonel would live if he was caught. That was a dangerous amount of ignorance.

ƥαṇdα- ηθνε|·ƈθm Even so, that ignorance had stemmed from his blind trust in his father, something that Leonel was very obviously guilty of as well.

In addition, on the other hand, Leonel had been aware that James was struggling with something at the time, but rather than getting a sure answer of what was going on, he did what he always did, moving those around him as though they were puzzle pieces to fit into his own worldviews.

That was a frustration that had been bubbling up within James for a long time, and it had almost frothed over after the championship game, before it finally couldn't be held back any longer after their last exchange of words that day so many years ago...

Suddenly, the two men began to walk toward one another at the same time. They were separated by over a kilometer, and yet it only seemed to take the both of them a few steps until they stood no more than a half meter apart from nose to nose.

The silence was palpable and the atmosphere was even heavier.

BANG!

Two fists moved at once, Leonel's landing on James' cheek and James' landing on Leonel's nose.

Both spewed out a mouthful of blood, taking a single step back before they charged toward one another, butting heads and clasping palms.

BANG!

A concentrated blast of air rippled out in all directions.

To be continued