(anwhile, Planet Ixtal, Leo's POV)
Just like Leo expected, Amanda was not thrilled in the slightest when he inford her that he needed to leave for a few days to retrieve an item of grave importance to the Cult, as she imdiately reminded him of the quiet promise he had made after the war at The Pit, where he had reassured her that he would try, truly try, to be present as a husband and father rather than vanish whenever ambition called.
"You said things would be different," she told him, her voice calm but edged with the kind of restraint that hurt more than anger, as she stood across from him in the study with folded arms and searching eyes.
"Things ARE different," Leo replied evenly, not defensive but pragmatic, as he t her gaze without flinching.
"I have been here. I have eaten with you. Trained Caleb. Helped with policy instead of disappearing into war. I am still being a family man. This is a short work trip, unavoidable under the present circumstances, and I will return in a couple days."
Amanda studied him for a long mont, weighing his words against the last three months of consistency he had shown, and though reluctance lingered in her expression, she eventually exhaled and nodded faintly, conceding not because she was fully convinced, but because a couple of days did not seem like a betrayal of the stability they had rebuilt.
"Co back soon, okay?" she said quietly.
"I will," Leo answered, and this ti there was no hesitation in his voice.
According to the coordinates left behind by the Tiless Assassin, the
incomplete manual was hidden on a unique tidally locked planet
designated in ancient records as planet 'V-Star, a desolate geo-world bound eternally to its parent sun, such that one hemisphere remained in perpetual daylight and blistering heat while the other lay frozen in endless night.
There was no axial rotation.
Only slow revolution.
One side of V-Star was a furnace of molten stone and superheated winds that scraped across blackened crust like liquid fire, while the opposite side was an abyss of crystalline ice plains where
temperatures plunged so low that even trace gases crystallized upon contact with the surface.
Between these two extres existed a narrow twilight strip, a thin ring encircling the planet where the sun forever lingered at the horizon, and where temperatures, though harsh, were survivable for a limited ti.
As it was within this fragile equilibrium zone that the coordinates converged.
"I wonder why he chose to leave the manual on such a planet of all places?"
Leo wondered, as there was no atmosphere on V Star to speak of.
There was no breathable oxygen, no protective magnetic field shielding the surface from solar radiation.
As for ordinary life, V-Star was an impossibility, while even for a Monarch like him, it was a training field constantly testing his limits rather than a comfortable training space.
*FSHHHHH*
A Fourth Dinsional fracture tore open above the twilight strip as Leo stepped through calmly, erging onto cracked basalt ground beneath with a calm *Thud*.
*Ears pop*
The absence of air was imdiate.
Silence absolute.
He did not inhale.
Instead, he sealed his lungs and circulated mana internally, while a dense layer of protective aura coated his skin, reinforcing him against pressure fluctuations and micro-particle abrasion drifting across the surface.
The ground radiated residual heat from the sunward side, while behind him, barely a few kiloters away, frost crept across jagged terrain like an advancing tide of death.
He could feel the environntal hostility pressing against his aura, testing it.
His current limit allowed him roughly two hours without oxygen, perhaps slightly longer if he minimized unnecessary exertion, though prolonged exploration would require either a spacecraft or
specialized survival equipnt.
"This place would kill anything below Monarch-tier in seconds," Leo muttered softly, observing how even standing upright here required continuous mana regulation.
The terrain ahead was uneven and fractured, ridges of volcanic stone rising sharply before descending into narrow ravines that glowed faintly from thermal gradients between the hot and cold hemispheres, while distant rock formations cast elongated shadows under the
eternal twilight.
Sowhere on this narrow habitable band lay the ruins left behind by the Tiless Assassin.
Leo narrowed his eyes, extending his perception carefully across the terrain as he began walking forward, boots scraping against mineral crust in a world where no wind blew and no life stirred.
"I suppose you chose this place deliberately," he murmured, recalling
the Assassin's words about how this technique needed comprehension and a stroke of genius to complete.
And perhaps of all the planets, the Tiless Assassin felt like this was
the best place to do so.
Leo felt a faint flicker of anticipation beneath his calm exterior.
He had at best a couple of hours before oxygen deprivation would force him to retreat, and within that window he needed to locate the hidden structure, breach whatever protections guarded it, and secure the incomplete manuscript.
[Absolute Vision]
Leo used absolute vision to cover every square inch of the twilight
strip for a 15 kilotre radius, as he ensured that there was nothing of note in the area, before using [Enhance] to take a single leap, as he crossed the whole area and re-started his search.
Compared to his days back in the Rodova Military Academy, where he could barely cover a radius of 500 ters using the skill, he felt like he had indeed co a long way, as although he was using the sa skill even at the Monarch Tier, the difference in range was
imasurable.
'Not bad, at this pace I can cover a significant portion of the strip in
the next two hours....
He thought, as he repeated the process for the next thirty minutes, until suddenly, he ca across an area with unusually high
concentration of mana just a few kilotres ahead.
'Interesting, I wonder what it could be....
Leo wondered, as he took another leap, and arrived at the mana
density site at once.
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