3074 Bestowment

Leonel pulled his hand back, taking deep breaths to try to calm himself. He didn’t have a target to vent on right now; he had already killed all of the Adurna family’s army. And, now that he was finished, he didn’t have anything else to focus his anger on.

“Leonel…” Aina said softly, looking up at him with a pleading expression.

Leonel felt his heart breaking when he saw how fragile she looked. She was one of the strongest women he knew, and yet they had made her end up in such a state.

Aina had been carrying a burden all alone since she was a child. His journey had only started days before his 18th birthday, but she had been pushing herself hard since she was a mere toddler.

Every step of the way, she took it with a grit of her teeth and hardly a falter. Part of what made her so fragile in the face of the Puppet Master was precisely because he took away the one aspect of her life that she could control completely and wholly: her own body.

But now, this strong woman looked as though she might collapse with the slightest breeze. She was teetering on the edge, waiting for Leonel’s words. She didn’t even have the presence of mind to realize their souls had been connected once again. She could easily read Leonel’s mind if she wanted to.

Leonel pulled her into his arms, pressing her head to his chest with a gentle hand.

“It’s all okay. The baby is safe,” he said softly.

Aina trembled when she heard this and tears began to fall. Her sobs reverberated through his chest and every tremble made Leonel feel as though another piece of his heart was falling away.

In the end, he still wasn’t strong enough. Part of the reason he wanted to avoid having children for now was because he didn’t want Aina to have to deal with this very problem right here.

Leonel gently stroked her hair, the rage in his eyes slowly cooling into a heart-shuddering indifference. All that anger was suppressed into a small kernel in the depths of his mind, seemingly ready to explode at any given moment.

It took a few minutes for Aina to regain her bearings, her sniffling slowing down.

“Little Nana, from now on, follow your natural path and progression.”

“Leonel, is everything…”

Leonel shook his head. “It’s fine. Things worked out and they will pay for what they tried to do.”

“… I see… I think I wasted three years, then,” Nana said with a bitter smile.

She had put her everything into training the sword in these years, and her progress was less than satisfactory… and that was probably exactly what her opponents wanted. They didn’t want her to have the chance to bring out the full potential of the shield.

She had thought that maybe it was because she was too useless before, but now, even though she knew it was because of external interference, she still couldn’t feel at ease. Was it already too late to fix things?

Leonel walked toward her and then pressed a finger to her forehead.

Dream Path.

It was a skill that Leonel hadn’t used in a very long time. Back in the Dimensional Verse, it was this skill of his Ability Index that he used to help his brothers progress more quickly by illuminating the path ahead of them.

But back then, his Simulation abilities were imperfect, and though he did help them greatly, it couldn’t be said that he had given them their perfect path.

Now, however, things were different. His Ability Index had reached an unprecedented level and his Simulation abilities were perfect within reason. If his target was singular and the variables were limited, it was a simple matter… especially now that he had the other half of his Ability Index and Emperor’s Might on top that. Not only was he capable of elucidating such a path, but he could bestow Titles much like King Alexandre had.

The difference between himself and King Alexandre, though… was that his bestowments were far beyond just mere Titles.

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