“What are you moping around for? Your body is healed, wakeup!”
Dyon slowly opened his eyes to find himself back in the cultivation room, lying naked on a platform.
He shivered thinking about what he had just gone through. There had been no time in that state… Dyon’s everything had been blanketed with endless pain.
‘You could have at least warned me old man…’
“You should be getting on your knees and thanking me for saving your future. Not spouting this nonsense. Get up. I’m sending Alidor here.”
Dyon suddenly jumped at the old man’s words. There was more to do, he could just lie down and be complacent.
Flashing forward, Dyon leaped off of the platform.
“Whoa! Wait!” Flipping in the air, Dyon’s feet landed on a far wall before he flipped back. ‘What the hell…’
Dyon suddenly felt as though he was a spirit inside the body of a puppet he was controlling. Even when he looked down at his hands, it was as though someone else was moving them for him.
‘That’s not good…’
Arrays flashed around Dyon, giving him a pair of sweat pants to cover his lower half. ‘At least that still works?…’
Dyon had no idea why the change was so drastic… It wasn’t as though he had never gotten a massive boost in power all at once before. On the day he lost his virginity with Ri, his body’s strength had jumped an entire full cultivation level – but, it was nothing like this.
His body seemed to breathe everything in through its skin, his lungs seemed to have an endless capacity for air, and even his organs seemed to have an entirely new system pulsing through it.
Dyon could suddenly even feel his soul, something that had been foreign and abstract to him. He could see the demon sage’s essence within his – something he had never been able to do before. It was as though an entirely new world had been opened up to Dyon.
The coming together of his energy cultivation had directly boosted his insight into his body and soul… it felt like the epitome of perfection.
Swirls of wills started forming around Dyon, sending a raging wind through the room. ‘It’s so much less draining…’
The tattoos on Dyon’s back even seemed to be deeper, holding faint golden accents to their previous white and black.
Now that Dyon knew his soul was really the accumulation of soul talent that was meant to have been spread through the mortal realm, it was suddenly very clear to him why his manifestations were so powerful. Not only was it dripping in his own arrogance, it also had abilities few other, if any, manifestations could live up to.
‘This feeling… Is awesome…’
“You? What are you doing here?”
Dyon’s head snapped back to find a young man with a flower in his long black hair. He had an oil paper umbrella in his hand and had a serious expression on his face as he stared at Dyon.
‘Did the crack in the game lead him here?’ Thought Alidor.
It did make sense. It was unlikely, but maybe there was a spatial distortion that led Dyon to this very location.
“Oh? Did you finally decide to stop impersonating me?”
Alidor remained silent, his normal reserved expression resurfacing. Dyon hadn’t said much, but it was enough for Alidor to understand quite a few things. But, the most important was that Dyon had followed him in here and had almost definitely witnessed the death of fifth son and Alidor’s attempted framing.
It didn’t matter too much to Alidor, considering the people he wanted to trick had been tricked… Unless. ‘Did he catch up with Kaeghan? Or did he come here without doing so?’
Alidor suddenly thought of many possibilities he didn’t like as well. Dyon’s one sentence was like a choking point on Alidor… and the worst part was, it took Alidor the longest to figure out the most crucial point. ‘My sister!’
This was a duel between innate aurora wielders… where the shortest of phrases and the most insignificant of actions suddenly become important. Alidor’s mind ran just as quickly as Dyon’s did… But, what would be enough to win? Who would win?
“What did you do with my little sister?”
Dyon chuckled to himself, turning his body toward Alidor. ‘It seems I really don’t have to use but so many words with you.’
“Are you sure your sister is someone you should be worrying about right now?” Dyon’s eyes subtly darted toward the key orb in the middle of the room, drawing Alidor’s attention.
‘This…’ Alidor’s eyes sharpened. He hadn’t spoken to the old man for as long as Dyon did because he spent most of his time in his trial. But, for the past few days, he had been inexplicably pulled from said trials and told to recuperate.
And now, he was thrust in a room with maybe the only other man in this gate that could feasibly enter this tower under his own power… The goal of that voice was clear.
“I swear if you did something to my little sister… Death will be something you beg for.”
Dyon didn’t seem too perturbed by Alidor’s words. Instead letting his senses wander through his body as he pushed himself to get accustomed faster.
“If anything happened to your little sister.” Dyon said faintly. “It would be as a result of the will you, yourself, sowed.”
“You…!” Alidor felt as though he was losing his composure for the first time in a long time. His little sister wasn’t something he was willing to play with, and yet, all Dyon was doing was spitting in his face repeatedly.
Dyon rolled his wrists and stretched his back out of habit, but, it seemed his body wasn’t cracking like it usually did. It was as though he had truly been reborn.
“My younger sister is a child. She was not a warrior on the battle field like your fiancée.” Alidor’s features steeled. He looked at Dyon with a burning hatred in his eyes. “Today. You die.”
A raging and dense will manifested around Alidor. It was as though a sand storm had picked up, and yet, the will was ethereal.
“Say whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better. But, know this well. The minute you decided to attack my fiancée, was the minute I had already decided to punish you.
I don’t care what your backstory is. I don’t care what your goal is. I don’t care what purpose you had or have. You don’t touch my family.” Dyon said faintly.
Alidor didn’t reply, choosing to instead brandish his oil paper umbrella as his long robes fluttered around him.
The cultivation platforms seemed to have a mind of their own, immediately escaping to the extremities of the room as the two men faced each other.
One had a fire lit in his eye for revenge. The other’s raged in anger. But both had one goal in mind: win.
Dyon launched himself forward, his eyes reddening as the Mathilde family’s asura eye bloodied his vision and his pupils darkened.
Alidor’s eyes sharpened. He couldn’t tell why Dyon was suddenly so fast, to him, Dyon still had no cultivation.
It was exactly like with Madeleine… Their meridians were so pure that no one could find an accurate gauge on their cultivation… Until, it was too late.
Dyon’s fist grew in Alidor’s eyes, forcing him to retreat while he pointed his umbrella forward.
A magnificent array appeared at its tip, smashing into Dyon’s fist and lasting a mere instant before it crumbled to dust.
Dyon suddenly laughed. “I don’t need to hold back anymore!”
A raging silver and black swirled around Dyon, molding together into shimmers of eerie light that blanketed the room around them.
Alidor suddenly felt as though his weight had multiplied, his knees creaking underneath the pressure. ‘What is this… I’ve never felt or heard of this will… But I felt… He fused them?!’
Dyon’s body bulged, reddening under the strain of his technique as a slow steam escaped his lips. “First act, second stage, Demon Emperor’s Will: perfection.”
Before this, Dyon could never have dreamed of using will fusion and his body enhancement techniques together without serious consequences. But, now it felt as easy as breathing.
His body was constantly replenishing itself. Essence energy flowed to where it was needed, acting as a magical elixir and filling Dyon with a constant calm feeling.
Suddenly, Dyon’s weapon’s hall manifestation blasted into existence, dripping the already dark area in a bloody red as a flash of light escaped its doors.
Dyon grasped at the air, smiling to himself as the light materialized into an oil paper umbrella.
‘He’s mocking me?’ Alidor’s brows furrowed, his grip tightening on his umbrella as thoughts of his little sister swept through his mind.
Dyon pointed his umbrella forward, demonic qi dripped from its tip to blacken it completely. The umbrella seemed to roar to life, lengthening as Dyon pierced toward Alidor.
‘Since you think this is a game. I’ll crush you. Allow me to show you what a supreme law can do.’
Dyon’s eyes sharpened, his technique immediately picking up the oddity in Alidor’s movements.
His feet slammed into the ground, propelling him to the side just as a blast of dark gold will flew by him…. He could only watch as it ate through the cultivation platforms, crumbling them to dust.
‘Those platforms couldn’t have been so flimsy… Could they?’
And yet, Dyon didn’t have much time to think about it.
Arrays bloomed into existence behind Alidor, whirling in the air with pockets of dark gold energy.
Dyon was aware that Alidor couldn’t move freely under the effects of his gravity will combination. So, he had anticipated that Alidor would use his arrays to make up for it… But, this will was too problematic.
It didn’t seem to be a power unto itself. But, it was, rather, an amplifier. An odd vibrational energy that destroyed things from the inside out.
‘No wonder why the old man said it didn’t need to be high to work… The vibration is decided by the extent to which the will is learnt, but, the power behind it is decided by what technique you meld it with… This technique is the ultimate offense…’
Dyon had the sinking suspicion that if he was hit by this will, unprotected, it would rampage through him like it had before. But, this time… Alidor was serious…
“Weapon’s Hell: Ethereal Permeation!” Alidor’s voice boomed.
Dyon’s feet flashed as he dodged the pillars of dark gold will. ‘There’s got to be a better way…’
Alidor wasn’t blindly attacking toward Dyon. His arrays were positioning themselves to tighten Dyon into a corner. It didn’t take long for Dyon to notice this at all, but, there was little he could do about it. If he kept dodging like this, he would eventually not be able to dodge anymore…
“I’m not some cornered rat…”
BOOM!
The Tree of Life and Death jetted out its obsidian roots, tearing through the ethereal energy and blasting the arrays apart as Dyon flashed forward.
Alidor’s eyes narrowed, ‘He shouldn’t be able to absorb that energy… What is that technique?’
Despite how it looked, Alidor was right. Dyon couldn’t absorb the energy. All he could do was dampen it before it reached himself, making it easier to deal with. A supreme law was simply too much for a technique Dyon had spent barely a week learning.
Dyon’s hand shot forward causing the oil paper umbrella to propel toward Alidor. ‘Since you’re having trouble moving, let me force you to move.’
“Weapon’s Hell: Celestial Will.” Dyon matched Aldior with his own array alchemy.
Alidor’s eye trained on the incoming umbrella. Or, at least they wanted to until massive arrays that were all too familiar began blooming behind Dyon.
Pillars of light charged toward Alidor as his feet dragged through the increased gravity.
And yet, Alidor seemed unperturbed. ‘As if a supreme law would be so simple…’
Alidor’s feet bloomed with a defensive array, causing its golden light to tear through the surrounding gravity.
Leaping backwards and continuously dodging, Alidor avoided the pillars of celestial will that threatened to remove all of his defenses from him.
Dyon’s eyes sharped. ‘He’s not just adding wills to his arrays after the fact… He’s quite literally using characteristics of the will within his arrays.’
This was a technique Dyon had yet to master. It required not only a fundamental understanding of the array itself, but, also the will. It was a rudimentary version of actually inscribing a will from scratch.
Using an array to create a will had a level of difficulty neither Dyon or Alidor could imagine… But, Alidor had grasped how to perfectly fuse his wills with his arrays much like how Dyon learned to fuse his wills themselves.
This was completely different from how Dyon usually used his wills in conjunction with his arrays. Whenever he used weapon’s hell, he would form the spears first, before then coating them with wills… But, Alidor was etching his wills into the arrays themselves. The result was magnificent!
The dark gold defensive array seemed to tear through everything. Dyon’s gravity was completely useless as long as it remained beneath Alidor’s feet. The vibrational energy shook every technique it met to its core… shattering it from the inside out.
In the end, Dyon had no choice but to retract his space and time wills. ‘So, this is a supreme law… huh…’
What Dyon didn’t know was that his gravity will shouldn’t have lost so easily… Space and time were already high-level wills. If you then considered the fact that gravity was their fusion, how could it lose out to ethereal permeation so easily?
The problem lied in the fact Dyon’s gravity will was only at the first level since it was the fusion of space and time of the first level. Dyon simply couldn’t control it at a higher output.
“Alright then.” Dyon’s hand flashed as a long sword appeared in it. Although he was disappointed that his demonic umbrella had no effect, he needed to get serious. Ri likely needed him right now.
“I learned something quite interesting from those spatial tears.” Dyon said faintly – his sword twinkling with a silver light. “Watch carefully, or else you won’t know how you died…”
Dyon suddenly vanished. With his increase in cultivation, his celestial movement technique, which had been stalled, had finally broken through to the peak of the first act. His speed was quite simply nothing like it had been before.
And then… Dyon swung.
A tear that could only be described as the crumbling of space tore toward Alidor. It sparkled the air as though it was a harmless breeze catching the rays of delicate sunlight, and yet, the killing intent Alidor felt from it was like nothing he had ever experienced…
‘This… He fused sword and space will… I can’t hold back anymore!’
Alidor threw his umbrella into the air, causing it to unravel and bob gently. His hands clapped together, a blinding light radiating from them.
Rings of gold spread outward from Alidor as the sword and space qi fusion bared down on him. “Gautama Legacy’s Reign: Buddha’s Rage!”
Arrays began etching themselves into Alidor’s back.
BOOM!
Arms of gold jetted out from them, hundreds reaching Dyon’s sword slash to tear it apart.
Alidor’s eye being golden was just not enough to describe it… It was as though his entire being had become encased in gold, leaving even the balls of his eyes to look like the precious stone.
The arms battled against the wave of sword and space qi as Dyon watched. Although it seemed like he was winning, it was very much clear to him that the arms coming from Alidor’s back seemed endless. And… It didn’t look like that was the end of it.
“Gautama Legacy’s Reign: Buddha’s Ethereal Permeation!”
The bright gold of Alidor’s body suddenly became a dark gold… His robes blasted from him, revealing his scarred and muscled torso.
At this moment, Alidor really did seem like a buddha. Sitting on an array, his hand suddenly reached up toward his floating umbrella. “Ethereal Rain. Buddha’s Tears.”
The umbrella spun viciously in the air, a dark gold jetting out from it and seeking to blanket everything.
Dyon’s eyes sharpened. ‘Not good.’
Buddha’s rage sent arm after arm after Dyon, not allowing him time to rest as the umbrella continued to spin in the air.
It was as though Alidor’s projections wanted to slap Dyon down from his pedestal and end all chance of victory. But, Dyon kept dodging, his celestial movement technique working in overdrive as ripples of space tore through his every step.
But then… There was no more room…
Dyon’s sword slashed outward, sending spatial tear after spatial tear into the sea of dark gold arms, but the ethereal permeation seemed to end all thoughts of Dyon cutting through. ‘Dammit.’
There was no space left to run… Dyon found himself in a corner, his sword in his hand as he tried to defend to no avail.
Dyon and Alidor had been fighting for more than an hour… And yet, neither had sustained a single injury… Until now…
The hands slammed into Dyon, sending him blasting against the wall. They shattered through all of his attempts at forming defensive arrays and the Tree of Life and Death simply couldn’t keep up…
“Ugh…” Blood dripped from Dyon’s mouth as endless hands slammed into him, burying him further and further into the wall.
And then… Buddha’s tears finally hit.
It was silent and almost comfortable at first, and yet, even as the Alidor’s own Buddha’s rage technique crumbled under them, Dyon was crumbling too…
‘Huh… Still doesn’t hurt as much as the past two months…’
Needles of supreme law shot into Dyon as the umbrella furiously raged in the air, seemingly intent of tearing Dyon from the inside out.
And yet, all Dyon did was stay still… Almost as though he was dead…
Minutes later, Alidor’s stamina finally ran out. The umbrella touched down to the ground.
Staring at what looked like Dyon’s corpse, Alidor landed. He didn’t seem happy or content with his victory… All he could think about was his little sister and what must have happened to her.
He wanted to get up and mutilate Dyon’s corpse, but… How would that fix anything?
Alidor could only turn toward the key at the center of the room. So, he slowly dragged himself toward it.
But, just as he was about to reach it, a golden light suddenly caught his attention. “What?…”
Alidor couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched Dyon leisurely walk out of the hole in the wall, stretching his limbs as dried blood flaked off of him.
“That’s quite some technique… Unfortunately, I don’t know if I can ever feel pain the same way anymore… And maybe just as unfortunately, you didn’t output enough for it to be useful to me…”
If Alidor knew that Dyon meant that he was trying to use the Florence family technique to absorb the onslaught of attacks as a catalyst to form an ethereal permeation humanoid… Who knows how he would have reacted.
To think someone would allow themselves to get mutilated just for that. And yet, Dyon’s wounds were healing at a visible speed… The combination of his aurora and energy cultivation was just too much.
‘How is this kind of healing possible…’ Alidor didn’t know what to think anymore. He could only prepare himself for the next round.
“Since you’re no longer of any use, I think its time we end this.”
Dyon’s humanoid manifestation slowly bloomed under the eyes of Alidor. But… Something was different.
Tattoos of grey and black started to crawl over Dyon as the stench of bloody roses filled the room.
Dyon’s hand reached for a dense black light that flew from his weapon’s pagoda, grasping it firmly.
His eyes darkened into black and lifeless holes, staring emotionlessly at the trembling Alidor.
‘This… This is death…’
There, Dyon stood, matted with tattoos that looked like ancient inscription patterns. And yet, his most striking feature was the ten foot tall staff that he held in his hand… Well, that was until that ‘staff’ materialized a blade of fogging darkness… A blade that curved menacingly in the air… The blade of the reaper himself… The blade of a scythe.