Ulu strained her neck to stare down at Dyon’s fingers. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Did he really not care about the threat of a saint level expert? Why had it ended up like this?
A dull pain throbbed just below Ulu’s belly button. Dyon’s fingers hadn’t pierced her skin, and yet it somehow felt much worse than if he had.
Dyon released Ulu, letting her drop to her knees.
The receptionist trembled in anger. As a man talented enough to become a saint level expert, he too had once ranked highly on the cumulative rankings. He didn’t see himself as any inferior than these so-called geniuses, and yet Dyon had disregarded his existence completely. How could he stand for this?
Taking a deep breath, the receptionist calmed himself. The truth was that he had made a move to stop Ri from attacking initially, but, the young master of the Cavositas God Clan had told him to stop, seemingly knowing that Ri would be ganged up on. And yet, that very same young master had told him stop the proceedings now. The goal was clear: use this moral high ground to teach Dyon a lesson. But… Dyon’s next words were completely unexpected.
“What are you so mad about?” A light smile played Dyon’s features as he turned to walk to he and Ri’s sitting area to pick up his turtle neck and jacket. “I let her go like you wanted me to, didn’t I?”
“Who are you trying to fool? You clearly did something.” The members of Planet Nix raged from behind Dyon’s defensive formations.
“Oh? Did I? Prove it.” Dyon waved his hand, removing the defensive barriers.
The warriors were much too scared to attack Dyon now. They settled for glaring at him before running toward their queen.
The receptionist watched this silently. After he heard Dyon’s response to the situation, he understood exactly how Dyon wanted to end this. If he wanted the moral high-ground, he had to be able to prove that Dyon had done something. But, could he?
There was a reason why Dyon had said there wasn’t a single person in this universe who could help Ulu. He was confident that his array alchemy had touched an unreachable level for those here. Even his soul strength was nearing the best this universe had to offer. Even a peak saint expert might not have a soul strength at the peak of the 6th stage.
In order to help Ulu, you’d not only need to have a soul strength above the 6th stage, you’d also have to be a grandmaster array alchemist. And even then, you’d need to find a way to counter a death infused array. And that was all after detecting and seeing through the concealment array Dyon placed around it.
Dyon leisurely put on his clothes as the Planet Nix warriors tended to Ulu. The truth was that Dyon could have infused enough death within his array to make it act as a slave seal as he had for Alidor. But, he chose not to for very specific reasons.
For one, if Ulu couldn’t plot against him, then Ri would never have a proper rematch against her. Dyon saw first hand how broken Ri was after this loss. She felt as though it was her duty to win, and yet she had failed. Dyon didn’t want to do this for her, so he had to Ulu the ability to act against him and by proxy, act against Ri. It would be easy to just tell Ri that it wasn’t her fault so many had attacked her at once. But, he knew Ri didn’t need flowery words. She needed goals and motivation.
The second reason would be the evidence. Something like infertility would never be able to be directly tied to Dyon. But, suddenly having to follow Dyon’s every word? That would give the receptionist the exact thing he was looking for to justify his attack.
Sure, Ulu would always know that Dyon was the culprit. But, the important part was that Dyon was working in the same greys as the receptionist. Because Dyon couldn’t prove that the receptionist was being biased, despite how obvious it was, Dyon lost the moral high ground. And, because the receptionist couldn’t detect Dyon’s array, no matter how obvious it was that Dyon had planted one, he would lose moral high ground if he chose to attack Dyon.
It was a simple move. Dyon had adapted to the game the Cavositas God Clan wanted to play perfectly.
However, when Dyon turned to walk out of the exit, he found the receptionist blocking his way.
This was a man of the saint stage, and almost fittingly, he was about a head taller than Dyon. He had black hair and eyes matching that of the Cavositas clan and despite his clear older age, he had a vibrant youth to him that made it feel as though he had hundreds of years left to live.
Dyon smiled, “Something you need?”
“Nothing in particular. Only wondering about a couple disappearances. Two, to be exact.”
“Oh? And what disappearances are those?”
The receptionist tilted his head, a clever glint lighting his eyes as though he had seen through Dyon. “One is very important to you. And the other, is quite important to me.”
“Important to me you say?” Dyon chuckled, completely unperturbed by the saint energy emanating off of the receptionist.
“Do you have any real concept of what it means to be a saint?”
“Well. I’d assume to be a saint means having better things to do than being a door man for children and harassing a meridian formation expert, no?”
The brow of the receptionist twitched at Dyon’s subtle dig. But, he kept his composure. “Mm. One would think… But, saint energy itself it quite interesting.”
“Please enlighten me, elder.” A polite smile pasted itself onto Dyon’s features. He was quite interested in finding out just what this man thinks he knows. He mentions two disappearances, and yet now he wants to speak on the prowess of a saint? How did this connect?
“One with mind. One with heart. One with body. One with soul. One with will. One with intent. One with law. One with world. One with Dao.
What it means to be a saint is to have mastered an intent. What it means to have mastered an intent is to have a view of the world few others have. Too many are quick to ignore the namesakes of the nine intent stages for overly simplified numberings, but those names mean something.”
What the receptionist said was true. Often, the levels of intent were broken into stages of one to nine, when, in reality, each had their own name. And, in fact, that name gave insight into how to master or come to understand that will to that level. In addition, the name also often gave clues as to the scope the intent would reach.
When Madeleine improved her celestial will to a celestial intent, it was because she had received a calming reassurance at a moment where her connection with her surroundings was deep enough to take the next step. This connection was provided by her essence gathering cultivation, while the peace of mind had been given to her by Dyon’s message of reassurance and encouragement.
All of these culminated in Madeleine reaching a state of one with mind, thus stepping into an all new level of power that only a rare few could match at the essence gathering level. In fact, the only reason the third daughter of the Uidah King God Clan had beaten Madeleine so easily was because Madeleine had spent weeks fighting and protecting her fellow clansmen. Couple that with the fact that she had higher cultivation than Madeleine, and the ability to fuse wills, and Madeleine simply did not stand a chance.
“So, what’s your meaning?” Dyon asked, a smile still on his face.
“Like I said. Two are missing. And there’s little you can hide from a saint expert. You may have released the planet Nix queen, however, you’ve taken something from us that you should be giving back, don’t you think?”
At this point, it was clear to Dyon that the receptionist was referring to Eli.
He was using his explanation as a saint to show Dyon that he wasn’t just making a guess. The connection that saints gained with their surroundings far surpassed that of essence gathering experts and without a doubt surpassed meridian formation experts.
Since he realized that he had lost the moral high ground in one instance, he had decided to gain it another way.
The truth was that the reason it had taken Dyon so long to come back, even to the point that Ri ended up being taken advantage of, was because he was doing his due diligence in saving Eli.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to find any others of the Viridi family. But, it was likely that Eli knew where the rest were and could thus direct Dyon.
The problem was that Eli had passed out due to blood loss and was thrown into a cage filled with other warriors – seemingly with their only hope being death. Dyon had wanted to save them all, but that simply was not realistic. The movement of one slave might fly under the radar, but all of them? It was too much to maneuver. It would have to be a plan saved for another day.
However, Dyon had exercised the utmost caution. He used a clone to replace himself so that he never disappeared from view and used the best concealment array he had in his disposal. But, therein lied a problem, even as Dyon saved the unconscious Eli.
Even though the saint didn’t have any specialization in array alchemy, what he did have was a soul comparable to Dyon. This meant that his sensitivity to Dyon’s concealment array, even if it was a peak master level array, would be there. And the worst problem was, to avoid detection, Dyon hadn’t used his peak most array because that would require releasing his manifestation. Therefore, he had only used a mid-level master array.
The receptionist was a mid-level saint. This was simply the scale of a God Clan. They could afford to use warriors so powerful as doormen because mid-level saints simply weren’t powerful enough to be elders. And, considering how old the receptionist was already, he was unlikely to ever reach that level.
That aside, despite the receptionist’s cultivation, his soul strength still rested at the lower essence gathering level… But, that was enough to catch that something was off when faced with Dyon’s concealment array. And now, he was acting on his hunch.
“I believe one you’re speaking of is my wife. But, where she is has nothing to do with you. The second, the one who is important to you, I have no idea about. Because, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dyon smiled calmly because the saint’s words had already revealed his own lack of understanding.
When the receptionist had said there were two missing things, one of which was important to him, Dyon had been confused. But, when he made the connection between the receptionist’s soul strength and the possibility of it being enough to see through his mid-level master array, things clicked. The receptionist didn’t know that Ri had been put into a spatial ring. He thought that Ri was still in this very room, hidden by Dyon.
Essentially, the receptionist was threatening Dyon. He was saying that because he was a saint, he could use his intent mastery, and the connection it gave him to the environment, to see through Dyon’s array and find Ri. And, because he could do that, Dyon should give back the prisoner he took and accept punishment.
However, Dyon found this all very funny because the receptionist couldn’t be more wrong. Not only was Ri in no danger whatsoever, even if she was in the room under the influence of a concealment formation right now, Dyon still wouldn’t be scared of this so-called saint level expert because he had two trump cards he had yet to use.
The brows of the receptionist furrowed at Dyon’s response. He didn’t know who he was talking about? Was this kid really willing to put his wife’s life at risk on his gamble?
The truth was that the receptionist had no idea whether Dyon took a prisoner or not. What he did know was that Dyon had acted weirdly right before his fight, and his eyes were seemingly trained on one of the fighting stages.
Then, after confirmation from his young master, he found out that there were indeed some Dyon cared about that had been sold into slavery. Couple that with the fact that there was only one exit from the arena, and Dyon would have been in perfect position to save someone.
But, what the receptionist could not understand was where Dyon’s confidence came from. After all, how could he know that Dyon held a ring that couldn’t even be properly scaled amongst treasures? To him, both Eli and Ri were floating around in this room somewhere, he just couldn’t detect it properly.
However… The more and more the receptionist searched, the more he realized there was nothing to be found.
Looking past the receptionist, Dyon’s eyes landed on the Planet Nix warriors. They had lifted up their deadpan queen to sit her in a chair. But, it was clear that a fire was being slowly lit in her eyes. ‘Good. Get angry. I want my little feu glace to beat you at your best.’
With that last thought, Dyon turned back to scan over the rest of the planets, his eyes faintly lingering on Eboni which caused her to involuntarily shiver.
“Despite what mistakes my fellow kinsmen have made, I hope you don’t assume that I’ll allow you to seek revenge as easily as you did against the Nix.”
Shifting away from Nix, Dyon’s eyes landed on Tau Aumen, steadily taking in his glowing hair and fierce features.
With Tau’s words, Eboni seemed to have gained her fire back, staring back at Dyon arrogantly. But, anger could only build up within her as she noticed Dyon completely ignoring her gaze. She felt insignificant… Weak. Dyon had not a care even for her beauty.
“And I hope you don’t assume that the reason she hasn’t died is because of you.” Dyon’s emotions showed no signs of fluctuation. He meant his every word. Eboni was only alive because he was leaving her for RI. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Ode sneered, “You’re so arrogant. Did you think a handsome face meant strength? Our young master is in the top 10 for a reason. Don’t assume that beating Ulu makes you anything significant in his eyes.”
Dyon had already begun to walk away before Ode spoke, brushing past the receptionist who was still searching.
“Your ranks mean nothing to me. The name at the top in the end will be mine.” With those last words, Dyon left.
After Dyon’s disappearance, silence reigned in the VIP room.
The receptionist had disappeared in a puff of embarrassment. Although he tried to follow Dyon, he had lost him. It was clear Dyon had used another concealment array, a much more powerful one. However, this only made the receptionist surer that he had been correct. But, that led to another problem… Just how powerful was Dyon’s array alchemy to be able to hide from a saint expert?…
The Nix warriors were still tending to their queen. In reality, she was hurt at all. The grip on her throat had long since healed, and the robustness of a martial body made the effects of ‘hanging’ she had suffered severely below what a normal human would suffer. The only real wound was her pride. “I’ll kill them!” She shrieked, grinding her teeth in anger.
When had the Nix ever been disrespected like this? They were three clans united under a single banner. They should have been much more powerful that the norm. They had the Nuru family and their dark arts. They had the Jafari family and their robust time control. And they had the Lebna, Ulu’s clan, which specialized in the soul – specifically sealing. They were meant to be perfect! And yet, even in under a united banner, some no name had done this to them?!
Ulu breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. She had to accept that Dyon wasn’t a no name. If she was right, this teenage boy was an unprecedented array alchemy expert coveted by the whole of the universe. But, this wasn’t something she could disseminate to the public. If others knew, it would only increase competition for the Nix.
However, there was something good about Dyon being the demon sage. This meant that Ulu could stop worrying about his ranking… Because she was almost certain Dyon had cheated now!
“Queen, should we inform king?”
Ulu shook her head. “Not yet. King and the elites of Nix are off on a mission right now and will join us on this planet soon. However, if we tell my husband what has occurred too soon, given his hot head, he’ll act without thinking and kill our pawn.
We need to first wait until just before the tournament begins, that way King won’t be tempted to act before the fact. Then, we’ll inform him of the importance of this pawn. After we do that, we can explain how he’s disrespected the Nix and me.
This child has no concept of the true strength of the warriors in the top 10. He thinks that just because he can manipulate arrays and forge points for himself that he’s among them? No. The top 10 of the cumulative rankings are nothing short of gods.” Ulu’s eyes sparkled as she thought of her husband before a dense anger formed in her eyes as she touched her belly. “Or maybe I should say top 11 considering you’re a fraud.
After you find that you have no choice to be a slave, your so-called seal on me will be removed by your own hands.”
Ulu sneered in disgust as she thought back to Dyon’s rank. At first, she had been scared of this new ranker. But, when she met Dyon, and connected his ability to the array alchemist, everything made sense. Dyon hadn’t earned his rank. He cheated. Manipulating the rankings to manufacture his results.
After all, nothing else made sense to Ulu. Why? Because Dyon’s rank was just in the top 10… In fact, it wasn’t just in the top 5…
Demon Sage. Rank 1.