"My name isn't Montez, it's..."

Montez's voice trailed off. He felt like he had suddenly been hit by a truck and sent flying into the distance. His body shook, and his mind was suddenly filled with a splitting pain.

Leonel didn't say anything else. He knew that he had already succeeded.

In the past year, he had spent a lot of time probing into his uncle's mind and trying to unravel what was holding him back. He used a combination of his Dream Force and even sometimes his words.

All this time, he didn't mention the Morales name even a single time. Even Leah and Leo didn't know their last names just yet. They didn't even know people had last

names.

Leonel didn't believe that this would stunt their growth very much. If there was anything that would, it was the fact that they had been living off of Force for their entire lives and had yet to have a real taste of food other than their mother's breast milk. But they had stopped relying on that months ago.

For the first time, Leonel was actually quite thankful to the Regulator.

Without the Regulator, he wouldn't have had the chance to sit so near his uncle for so long. Without all this time, there was simply no way that he could have succeeded in doing all of this.

Whatever the Demoness had done to his uncle, it ran deep. It couldn't be broken with raw strength. Even if he was at the same level as the Demoness, he would have never been able to do so. That was how intricate it was.

Even though Leonel felt that he had now caught up with the Demoness' Dream Force, she had taken her time to pull his uncle into this abyss, so it had taken him time to pull his uncle out.

In the end, he had ultimately won out, and his children had been the final straw to break the camel's back.

Montez was shuddering from head to toe, looking at Leonel with familiarity, longing... and confusion.

"My wife..."

These were the first words out of Montez's mouth. Where was his wife? He was sure that she had been by his side in the last memories he had. What happened to her? Leonel frowned. He didn't know the answer to this question at all. As far as he was aware, his aunt wasn't in the Morales family when disaster struck. She had already left

to na namauhava kau aurarniith his umala

to go somewhere far away with his uncle.

He just didn't know where that was.

He thought that after Montez regained his memories, he would have that answer, and then they could reunite the whole family. But the fact he didn't know wasn't good.

Was this a backup plan by the Demoness?

But. Leonel still didn't even understand why she had done all of this to begin with. What was the point?

It couldn't be that Montez's wife was so useful. She was a decent talent, but that was only by Dimensional Verse standards. She only awakened the Spear Domain Lineage Factor of the Morales Clan, so she had never been a Heir candidate, and her Ability Index wasn't anything special either. If Leonel recalled correctly, it was an odd oil Ability Index. She could coat her skin and anything she touched in oil, allowing a frictionless surface to appear.

It was a simple Ability Index, and though Leonel could think of a great many ways it would be useful in battle in the Dimensional Verse, it was hard to say if things would continue to be so simple in the wider world.

After all, these days, only half of Leonel's battles were fought on the ground somewhere. That would eliminate at least half the potential use cases for this Ability Index.

"I do not know where she is." Leonel shook his head. "I only recently found you. Do you remember what you were doing up until the point you lost your memories?"

"I..." Montez paused, his frown deepening.

He was originally exploring the Dimensional Verse. After Velasco died, something weird happened to his body, and it was like a new power was welling up.

Now, he knew that that power was his Dream Asura Bloodline. He had heard some inkling of this stuff from his elder brother, but Velasco never liked to explain things clearly, mostly so that he could carry the burden all on his own.

All his life, he had thought that he didn't have the Bloodline at all, only to find out it had just been dormant.

He didn't think it was a coincidence that it appeared only after Velasco died as well. But who knew that those machinations would only just start?

His wife had insisted on following him, so they did that for a long while until he found a path out of the Dimensional Verse.

After hesitating, he chose to take it. The only way he was going to get revenge for his brother was by doing things the hard way.

But he didn't expect to become a puppet practically the moment he took a step out. It was like the world was out to get him.

What Montez hadn't known was how generally hated the Dream Asura were. Normally, Dream Asuras wouldn't go out easily, and when they did, they would carry all sorts of trump cards with them.

The result was he and his wife getting into all sorts of trouble, and because their strengths weren't the best, they were often on the losing side. Their enemies would often come with ample preparation, thinking they were dealing with a real Dream Asura, only to find that Montez was pitifully weak.

So Montez learned and adapted. He became more like a real Dream Asura, not only growing in power but in scheming ability.

He deviated from the path that most Morales took as a result of that.

But in the end, it led to him slipping into a deeper pit of quicksand... one that he hadn't even noticed.