The Dimensional Gap really was as dangerous as the stories said.
The original story had never gone into much detail about this place, and Leo had never had the chance to experience it firsthand. But now, drifting through the void, he finally understood why everyone treated it with such fear.
There was no sense of direction here. No up, no down. Even the flow of time was imperceptible. Leo had no idea how long he'd been flying or which way he was headed. It was the most disorienting thing he'd ever experienced.
Along the way, he encountered various things that had been exiled to this place since ancient times. Some were useless debris. Others were genuinely dangerous.
At one point, he came across an unidentifiable corpse floating in the void. It looked unremarkable enough, but the moment he got within ten meters, some unknown toxin hit him. Black spots appeared on his chest, corrosive and vicious, nearly rotting through his lungs before he pulled away.
His Perfect Devil constitution saved him. The enhanced regeneration and poison resistance kicked in fast, and he recovered quickly. But after that, he gave every unknown object a wide berth.
That wasn't even the worst of it. At one point, he nearly touched a Void Fragment.
Void Fragments were exactly what they sounded like: pieces of nothingness given form. Anything that made contact with one, whether living or not, would be assimilated into the void. Erased completely.
The terrifying part was that they were invisible. Nothingness by nature couldn't be seen with the naked eye. If Leo's magical detection hadn't been sharp enough to sense something deeply wrong approaching him, he might not have made it.
"Should've studied up on the Dimensional Gap beforehand."
After several close calls, Leo was starting to feel genuine unease.
The Dimensional Gap was feared by all factions, but they weren't helpless here. Devils had trains with protective formulas. Fallen Angels had their own methods. Vali would eventually use specialized spells to explore ancient ruins in this very place.
Every faction had some knowledge of how to survive here. If Leo had access to even a fraction of it, he wouldn't be stumbling through blind.
"This is what happens when you don't do your homework."
Leo sighed, but didn't let his guard down. His magical detection stayed at full output, maximum focus, scanning for anything abnormal so he could dodge in time.
All he wanted now was to find a spatial rift, anything that could get him out of here. He didn't need to land back in the Human World or the Underworld. Even stumbling into Heaven would be better than staying here.
If he was lucky enough to encounter an Underworld train, or some faction's exploration team, even better.
But the Dimensional Gap was incomprehensibly vast. Without any sense of direction, all Leo could do was fly aimlessly and hope.
"I'm not going to be stuck here forever, am I?"
The thought made him restless. Staying here indefinitely was psychological torture, and Leo wasn't someone with nothing to care about. He needed to know what happened to Cao Cao, whether his peerage was safe, whether the Hero Faction had beaten them.
And the Summit meeting. Had the Old Satan Faction's attack played out the same as canon? Or had his existence caused some butterfly effect that changed the outcome?
Were Rias and Sona okay?
Too many unanswered questions.
"Overthinking won't help. It'll just make me more anxious."
Leo shook his head and forced those thoughts down.
"The Summit should be fine. Sirzechs is there. Even in the worst case, nobody's dying on his watch. If someone actually pushes him far enough to trigger his true form, not even a god would walk away from that."
"Yukino and the others should be alive, at least. None of them have lost their lives."
That much, he could confirm. Every member of his peerage had been reincarnated through Servant Conversion. Their souls bore his mark. Even if their bodies died, their souls would return to him. None had. So they were alive.
Knowing that much let him breathe a little easier.
"Compared to them, I'm the one who should be worried."
With that thought, Leo continued drifting through the Dimensional Gap.
He didn't know how much time passed.
Just as he was about to give up and try something drastic, like breaking through the dimensional wall by force, a massive shadow appeared ahead.
"What's that?"
Leo's spirits lifted. Without hesitation, he flew toward it. At this point, he was desperate enough to investigate anything. Whatever it was, it was better than nothing.
Of course, he hadn't forgotten how dangerous this place was. His magical detection stayed at full power, sweeping over the shadow as he approached.
What he found surprised him.
"An island?"
Not quite. More like a fragment of a continent, as if someone had carved a piece off a landmass and hurled it into the void. A vast stretch of earth, just drifting through the Gap.
"There's something on it."
As he drew closer, his detection picked up more details. The land held an ancient castle, enormous and crumbling, surrounded by barren, yellowed earth. The whole place radiated age and decay, like a ruin abandoned by time itself.
"Should I go up there?"
Leo considered it, then approached cautiously. What else was he going to do? Keep drifting?
"Here's hoping there's something up there that can get me out of this place."
He flew toward the desolate land. To avoid another incident like the toxin, he triple-checked with his detection, confirming nothing abnormal before setting foot on the surface.
Even then, he kept Nature's Hope on standby, ready to activate the instant something went wrong.
But nothing happened. He landed safely.
"At least this place is explorable."
Leo exhaled and turned his gaze toward the castle at the center.
It was massive. More than ten times the size of the Gremory estate. It looked like it was built for giants, not people. Cracks covered every surface, and sections of the outer wall had collapsed entirely.
"This castle's been here a very long time."
Leo studied it briefly, then walked toward the entrance.
He reached the front gate and stopped.
Something was blocking his path. Not the gate itself. The gate was wide open, probably couldn't close anymore.
But lying in front of the entrance was something impossible to ignore.
A low, rumbling breath. The kind of sound only something enormous made in its sleep.
A dragon was sleeping in front of the castle gate.
It was beautiful. More beautiful than Tiamat, even. Its body seemed covered not in scales but in fur, soft and fluffy-looking. It didn't look menacing at all. Almost cute.
Its coloring was unusual too. Not the fierce reds or blacks typical of dragonkind, but a soft gradient of purple fading toward white.
Despite the gentle appearance, Leo's expression grew serious the moment he laid eyes on it.
The dragon's aura told a completely different story. It was immense. Not quite at Tiamat's level as the strongest Dragon King, but not far off either.
Which meant one thing.
"A Dragon King..."
This was a Dragon King-class dragon. And Leo was certain it wasn't any of the known five.
He knew every Dragon King by sight. Tiamat was deep blue. Fafnir was golden. Vritra was dark purple-black and sealed in Sacred Gears. Yu-Long was green and living on Mount Sumeru. Midgardsormr was the largest dragon in existence at five or six hundred meters. This one was a few dozen meters at most, with coloring that matched none of them.
An unknown Dragon King. Not among the five.
Leo rubbed his temples.
"What's a Dragon King doing in a place like this?"
Was this floating ruin the dragon's territory? Or had the land been cast into the Dimensional Gap because of this dragon?
He couldn't figure it out. After a moment's thought, he walked toward the castle anyway.
Might as well try to make contact. A Dragon King-level creature should at least have the intelligence for conversation, unlike the feral lesser dragons.
This was the first living thing he'd encountered in the Gap. If communication was possible, Leo wanted to talk. And if the dragon knew a way out of here, all the better.
Leo approached the sleeping dragon, deliberately releasing his own aura to wake it.
The dragon's eyes snapped open. It sensed Leo's presence and fixed its gaze on him.
Then, without a shred of hesitation, it opened its jaws and fired a breath attack straight at him.
Lightning. A torrent of electrical energy dense enough to vaporize the atmosphere and shatter the ground beneath it, crashing toward Leo like a divine hammer.
Leo's body was engulfed by the lightning breath. But within that storm of electricity, another bolt of lightning shot free and streaked into the air, reforming into Leo's shape.
He looked down at the dragon that had attacked him on sight, a smile on his face that carried more irritation than amusement.
"My mistake. Even a Dragon King can apparently lack the intelligence for conversation."
The dragon, whether it understood the insult or not, spread its wings and launched itself into the air.
It charged straight at Leo.