Immortal Kingdoms

"You're a genius!" Leonardo exclaimed, directly holding Ingrid by her cold cheeks and kissing her forehead. Then, he jumped to his feet, feeling refreshed.

"You overpraise me, my lord. I have no idea what I said that could help you."

Ingrid didn't feel embarrassed as she understood this was simply a young man feeling too enthusiastic after failing about 4,000 times every day for almost an entire week. Of course, he would overreact.

...

Leonardo laughed, "It's alright! Actually, I've been biting off more than I could chew, that's what held me back. I would need to at least reach the third cycle of sainthood, and grasp the motion of the laws, then I should be able to follow this method and directly conjure my domain outside the focal point of my body. However, until then, the correct method to get accustomed to this process is creating my virtual reality and using that as a proxy for my practice."

"Virtual reality? Proxy?" Ingrid somewhat understood, but she was still confused.

"Exactly!" As Leonardo spoke, his desolate domain expanded to envelop the room in a dull gray world. Then, Leonardo picked up the soccer ball on the bridge of his right foot.

Then, think ink-black lightning serpents began to streak through the domain, overlapping with the desolation. Under Ingrid's eyes, the desolate domain was firmly rooted in space while the lightning domain began to shrink and compress slowly.

Leonardo's eyes were sharp as he needed absolute focus to maintain the equilibrium between the two domains. If this was done between his desolate domain and Eternal Night domain, it wouldn't have gone so smoothly.

About five minutes later, the soccer ball had transformed into a dense sphere of lightning on Leonardo's foot. Then, with a deep breath, he bounced it off the bridge of his foot to start juggling.

Once…

The lightning didn't disappear.

Twice…

Thrice…

Only after the eleventh time, the lightning exploded, blowing up the soccer ball into charred bits as Leonardo was flung tightly into a sidewall. However, despite the unsightly injury, Leonardo began to laugh out loud until he passed out from exhaustion…

…

Leonardo woke up half a day later in an artificial hot spring with various supplementary herbs that compensate for energy exhaustion and counter mental and physical fatigue. He found himself submerged to his chest, and surprisingly, Juvia was accompanying him in the hot spring, skinny dipping while hugging his right arm with a blissful expression on her delicate face.

'She must have been invited over by Ingrid,' thought Leonard to himself. However, recalling that he grasped a clear direction to engineer his personal martial technique, although it couldn't even be considered at the rough around the edges stage yet, he was sure that the rudimentary form of this technique would be an absolute heaven-shaking attack.

He had enough knowledge from the black silhouette to figure out that this technique's rudimentary form could only be accomplished when all four of the dense spheres were at a state of equilibrium, at least in density. Current, other than the Eternal Night martial intent that took solid form, the remaining three were gaseous masses, yet to condense into liquid and then solidify.

Perhaps only once he achieved the Rebirth realm would that happen, and only once he achieved divinity would they transition from gas to liquid. Nonetheless, he was still happy with utilizing this technique with three out of four domains. Thus, his hand instantly moved to rouse Juvia awake by pinching her soft, pink nipple through the water.

The elf woke up with a muffled, erotic moan, as her mouth was already under siege by a pair of particularly energetic lips, even the main infantry; commander tongue was dispatched for this siege and capture operation.

However, this battle was senseless as the enemy Queen willingly surrendered herself to the invading army, which only aggravated the commander into committing vile, rough, and immoral acts that smeared this woman from the heavens of sensual pleasure to the hell of sadistic pleasure.

Ingrid knew that Leonardo wouldn't have a lot of energy from his overly enthusiastic self after this great success, hence her call to request for Juvia's presence. Sadly, the Winter Soldier would have to carry through this war without her comrade-in-arms White Specter, and the invader was quite ruthless.

He violently charged through her sacred fields, and explored the depths of her mountains and valleys, not even the hidden abyss in the rear continent was spared from the expedition; not an inch was left uncharted.

Translucent rivers and viscous white rain drowned this Winter Soldier, the intensity of this battle that lasted from high noon to the brink of dawn left her senseless, helpless, and blissfully unconscious.

…

"My lord, you look refreshed."

Ingrid was paying attention to the storms of war that raged in the artificial hot springs courtyard, immediately coming over to greet Leonardo the moment he left the room, sweat, and steam coiling around his body.

Leonardo laughed, "Were you scared that I'll eat you as well, so you called in for Juvia?"

Ingrid bowed, "Of course not; if my lord desires, you can have this one anytime you wish and anywhere you want. However, I felt that my lord would rather do things rationally, and not out of a happy impulse."

Then she added with a glimmer of bewilderment, "I wonder what has put my lord in such a good mood recently? You look like an entirely different person, but not in a bad way." She wasn't merely changing the topic, but she was genuinely curious.

Leonardo thought back to that little thing that called out to him subconsciously, an even brighter smile itched on his face despite how flat and simple it looked on the surface.

"Just something personal, you don't need to worry about it." Leonardo waved his hand, reaching over for his new set of clothes. "Did anything happen outside while I was out of it?"

"Yes, actually. Your methods are truly brilliant, a few investors urged their representatives to sell their shares to you, my lord. We had them sign the original draft, now you are a major shareholder with 42% of the shares, House Exodia with 12% which surprised many people, and another dark horse, a feudal lord who used to be a vassal kingdom's House Lord, he holds the remaining 36% of the shares."

Ingrid took a deep breath, "According to our— I mean your secret intelligence delivered by White Specter, this man renounced his status as a feudal lord and embraced the Arcadian Faith in secret long ago, it is but a matter of time before he declares to the world that he isn't simply a rich lord, but a devout believer of the Arcadian Doctrine."

Leonardo nodded his head.

"You can recall Pandora and the girls now, they did great. The field now has shrunk to three champions; House Grace, House Exodia, and finally, a feudal lord. Haha, interesting."

A faint smile surfaced on Leonardo's face as he thought about the parties deeply involved.

Tesla's…

House Sylvia…

House Exodia…

House Venus, who sold their lot with House Exodia…

House Erudite…

The Arcadian Church…

The Elven Royal Family…

"Ah well, the more the merrier, right?" Leonardo gave this mature woman with hazel eyes a wink before leaving the hallway, still feeling refreshed.

…

Once news of the final allocation of shares and the respective shareholders was released publicly, all hell broke loose in the Forbidden Domain.

The gunpowder that was constantly brewing finally erupted with a massive explosion, and everyone seemed to tacitly agree that the gentle phase of talking and negotiations was over.

Let alone the public, even Jeffery couldn't believe his eyes and ears.

He knew that if Leonardo won, the Sovereign Ascension was guaranteed to land in the hands of House Sylvia.

At this stage of the game, House Exodia, House Sylvia, and House Erudite would invest everything they could in their respective champions without any hesitation whatsoever.

Leonardo even had the time to think that a loyal Game of Thrones fan would say:

"Winter is coming…"