The Emberheart Lord wasn't sure of what to do, this was horrible. What would that person do if they believed this? No, was that person stupid enough to do so? They could easily check the internal workings of the Spirituals and find out such a large secret, they certainly wouldn't make such a mistake. If they "fell for it", they would do so on purpose.

Did the Dwarven Race know that? No, how could the Dwarven Race even do this in the first place? Were they enraged that the world wasn't giving them the credit they deserved for the Gathering of Minds? But this didn't seem to be in-line with their character.

'Wait, was this done by that person?'

A cold sweat poured down the Emberheart Lord's back.

While it was true that the slandering of the Human Race was ordered by that person, using it as an excuse to bring the two Pure Blood Bloodlines together and finally become a Demi-God Race was their idea alone.

Was this the means that person was using to counter this? After all, Lyra's marriage to the Moonstone Lord's son was a fairly large part of the original plan as well.

Was the Dream Asura onto them? Were they dissatisfied with their actions?

The thoughts paralyzed the Emberheart Lord and he didn't know what to do.

If he went out into the world and told everyone that this Lyra was fake, would he be offending that person? And if they did so, could they even bear the consequences?

And even if this wasn't the case, wouldn't this outright offend the Dwarven Race?

This didn't seem to matter because this was clearly an open sign of provocation on their part...

But was it?

Who was to say that the Dwarven Race wasn't being tricked by someone else? He had gotten news that the Cloud Race was pressuring the Dwarven Race a great deal for the sake of their Blueprints. Was this part of their plan? The number of thoughts truly paralyzed the Emberheart Lord.

Sometimes, being too intelligent was a handicap of its own. He had thought of many things most wouldn't even see through on the surface, and he had no idea that he was playing right into Leonel's palms by doing so.

This kind of paralysis of choice was exactly what Leonel wanted to do.

This sort of game was truly the most fun to play.

...

Flaura sat up in her chair, her gaze flickering as she read the report.

How could she not be paying attention to what was happening? As far as she was concerned, this was a little interlude. They would push the Dwarven Race into the eye of the storm and conveniently use them to springboard back to the top 300. But this... was far out of her expectations.

'Someone is playing on my board.'

She finally seemed to realize that there was someone else playing in her arena, but she had no idea who it was. The more she thought about it, the more she felt like she was running around in circles.

This feeling... she didn't like it at all.

Why did it feel like she was slowly losing control?

...

Leonel looked at the challenges. Unfortunately, right now, since he was playing the role of Aerin he had to be more soft-spoken and careful with his actions.

Many had thought of the potential that Aina was in disguise, but no one could have guessed that it wasn't just one of them, but both of them. And what the Dream Asura nor Lyra's father knew was that he was probably the biggest trap here.

'Interesting,' Leonel smiled inwardly. 'Seems I finally have some luck on my side.'

He picked one and then looked at Aina. He gave her hand a squeeze and then let it go.

Aina knew that Leonel wasn't doing this because he was worried about her, nor was he just trying to be needlessly intimate. The point was to show the world that they were more than just friends. Just these subtle actions alone were more than enough.

With a flash, Aina disappeared into a one on one challenge and Leonel took a seat and closed his eyes in meditation, ignoring the Patriarch.

...

Aina appeared on a large translucent game board. It looked like a constellation, somewhat, and every cross was filled with a complex partial array.

It was a half-complete game of Portal.

This was certainly the twist of the challenge. Originally, it should have just been a game, but it turned into a game that had already started. Depending on several factors, that could easily leave them either at an advantage or a severe disadvantage.

The two were on opposite sides of the board. Aina was given the white pieces and the man with blooming hands was given the back. Almost immediately, the two began checking over the board, but what the man didn't expect was that Aina would move almost instantly.

She landed on a point and the portal swirled to life. The pieces moved and shifted, and the man found himself moving out of his control.

Aina continued to move, her movements quick and agile. From an outsider's perspective, you would have never thought that she was being controlled by someone else, her understanding of her own body was simply immaculate.

She moved again and again, seemingly never needing the man to make a move of his own first.

And that was the fearsome part about Portal. Who went next was based on the relative number of pieces on the board. Whoever had less pieces would go.

That meant that if you could control the portals to carefully sacrifice your own and the opponent's at the same time, while maintaining a tailing position, you could continuously move, putting yourself in a more and more advantageous situation.

Usually, this couldn't happen until mid-game. But because the game was partially completed, Aina and Leonel could immediately take advantage.

The man swiftly felt a sense of helplessness. He simply couldn't calculate fast enough.

He could only kill.

His aura soared.