Leonel really wanted to punch his grandfather in the face, but he felt that that might not be appropriate given the moment. He had really been about to let the old man go. When you were faced with these sorts of issues, the only person who could choose to live was the person themselves. Unless Gervaise could realize that being an Emperor was never something he wanted, but something he had forced, hypnotizing himself into believing he wanted, then there would be no amount of bringing him back that would change anything. In the end, if he had revived his grandfather without his input into it, then they would have just ended up locked in battle again and Leonel would have been forced to kill him once more. Or… Gervaise might have accepted his loss and become a twisted version of the man Leonel knew him to be. Regardless of which of these happened, it wasn’t something that Leonel wanted to see. At that point, the man he knew would be dead… so what would be the point in bringing him back? This was something that Leonel had accepted long ago. What part of a person did you actually value? If it was just their fleshy bits and the blood that ran through them, then yes, the younger version of him was right… life was worthless. He could remember having a crisis when he realized that the Silver Tablet was capable of reviving people from the dead. Back then, he had assigned too much weight to the physical existence of a person, and not nearly enough on the other factors that made them who they were. Now… he knew far better. Leonel didn’t think that there would ever be a point in time that he cried for this grandfather of his. He wasn’t the sort of person who got attached easily, and all things considered, he didn’t know this grandfather of his very well… Or so he had thought. But he realized during their battle, and as he was dying, that he was truly tired of losing people. He had lost friends, lost family, and lost countless more things in pain, anguish, and hardship. He was so completely and utterly fed up with it all. His reaction to his grandmother’s near-death had said it all. He truly didn’t want to lose a single more soul… But it was deeper than just that as well. In fact, it was deeper for two reasons. First, this grandfather of his meant more to him than he had realized. He was the man who built the foundation for him to grow into the man he was today… in a lot of ways, Fawkes was akin to a second father to Leonel. Just because he hadn’t known him from his youth like he had his real father, didn’t mean that Gervaise was any less impactful. Recalling everything he had gone through, from being a refugee of Shield Cross Stars, to being given the chance to reaffirm his Dimensional Foundation from the Third Dimension upward… all of these things were matters that his grandfather had helped him accomplish whether from the shadows or actively. Even now, Leonel had no idea how his grandfather had managed to allow him to do the impossible and return to the Third Dimension. Though… after their battle, he had a pretty good guess. It was almost surely on the long list of broken Ability Indexes that he had. Gervaise was still in a bit of a daze, but understanding slowly overcame him. He looked down at the hand Leonel was using to hold him up. "How long are you going to hold me by my collar like that?" "I don’t know, old bastard. How long are you going to dangle like a toddler? Aren’t you a man? Stand up yourself." Leonel let go, but Gervaise, who should have fallen to the waters below, just hovered as though nothing had happened. Then, as though nothing had happened at all, he brushed away the wrinkles on his robes as though they weren’t littered with holes and wounds, and then began to walk away. Leonel was speechless. That was it? "Where are you going?" "To see my wife." Gervaise replied casually, already over a kilometer away. "Don’t you know how to say thank you? How about: "I love you, grandson?". I can also settle for: "You are my lord and savior and I’ll worship you to my final breath."." "No." These were the only words Gervaise said before he disappeared from Leonel’s sights entirely. This time, Leonel was truly without words. He had thought that Nilrem was shameless, but his grandfather truly took the cake. Leonel shook his head and then began to laugh, his tears becoming motes of violet light that danced in the surroundings. It seemed that there was another way to save people as well. ’There’s still much to do…’ Leonel thought to himself, looking toward the tall ceiling of the underground catacomb as though he could see right through to the skies above… or maybe it was that no matter where you were, it was impossible to miss the Northern Star’s influence no matter where you were. That aside, there was indeed much to do… The Four Great Families… The Void Race… The Pluto… The Minerva… The Sylvans… The Demoness. Leonel should be raising war banners and charging out onto the battlefield. But at the moment… He had no desire to do so. The matters of the world would come. The end of the world would come. His enemies weren’t going anywhere. So why should he rush to deal with them? There was no reason to not spend every moment as though it might be their last. And that was precisely what Leonel did. He too went to see his wife. … It wasn’t until over half a year later that Leonel finally seemed to recall that the world was in chaos and there were things that he finally had to handle. He peeled himself out from under his wife’s body, swinging his legs to the side of their bed and standing to his full height. Exhaling a breath, the breath of calm in him solidified into a hidden coldness. Putting on his robes, he stood a strong step out, appearing high above Anastasia’s world. Seemingly sensing something, Anastasia appeared by his side a moment later, her aura glowing. "How is it?" Leonel asked lightly. "Everything is prepared." "Explain it to me." Leonel truly hadn’t been paying any attention this time. He hadn’t wanted to make Anastasia do all the work on her own, but she had insisted. It seemed that she was still feeling guilty about what happened back then. So… Leonel took his grandfather’s lessons to heart. Controlling the heart of the people wasn’t nearly as easy as controlling his own. And a step further than that… he shouldn’t want to control their hearts either. Otherwise, what made them the people he wanted to love and surround himself with would be erased, lost in an endless tide of space and time. Anastasia was still carrying around guilt surrounding his father’s death. She knew that in exchange for herself, Velasco very well might still be here today. Leonel didn’t want her carrying around extra unnecessary guilt, so he had allowed her to do as she pleased. And she truly performed. "The Morales have all been fast-tracked properly. Their compatibility with Valor Force is extraordinary and it evolved their Constellation perfectly. The Morales Dimensional Method we created paired well with [Dimensional Cleanse]. The Constellation allowed their Stars to synergize excellently." The plan with the Morales was multi-layered, but it built upon functions that they had already come to understand. The Spear and Creation halves of their abilities were combined thanks to Valor Force. But the true shocking displays of their abilities came thanks to the synergy between [Dimensional Cleanse] and their Constellation. Experience exclusive tales on freewebnovel As the creator of [Dimensional Cleanse], Leonel understood it the most intimately. So doing something like tweaking it was excellent. But it was also thanks to Anastasia workshopping a special Morales Dimensional Method that everything came together so well. The short of it was that he was able to use [Dimensional Cleanse] to help the Morales form Stars of their own. These Stars would then arrange in a formation when they were activated, and this would in turn form the foundation for the army’s Force Art. Ever since Leonel had learned about army syncing in the Cataclysm Zone, he had been playing around with and tweaking it. Now, he felt that he had created the strongest army formation in all of existence. Not only was it built into the family’s Constellation, but it also fed off the Idol of a True God… Valor Force. And all of that was tied together perfectly by the Morales Dimensional Method. By now, Leonel understood that the Demoness had created the Morales Lineage Factor for her own whims and wishes… but now she would face the fruits of her labor herself. [Important Announcement Below]