Dyon’s master kneeled before him, taking his rough hands in her small and delicate palms. Dyon didn’t seem to react to think, remaining listlessly staring off at nothing.
He hadn’t had a single coherent thought in as long as he could remember. All he felt was a torrent of emotions.
Rage had engulfed his mind and the boiling of his essence blood, balanced only be a woefully inadequate amount of celestial deer blood, was steadily overtaking his crumbling will power. His demonic intentions were overriding his rationality, and the grief in his heart seemed to be the only thing stopping him from doing something that fell in between ripping his master to shreds and ravaging her dignity – forever tainting their master-disciple relationship.
Dyon’s master knew this. How could she not? But, she was willing to bear the consequences. If it meant even a sliver of a chance at saving Dyon’s mind, she would allow it. As a consciousness, there was little she had left to offer Dyon. All that remained was the small bit of power she had left within, most of which she had had to use when saving Dyon from the demolition cube Chenglei had tried to use against him.
“After we sealed your people, our clan was already in ruins… Because of The Seal, this universe lost its desirability to many and was soon forgotten…
“So many clans participated in the war under the coaxing of the entity that many of the most powerful clans of our quadrant were washed away completely, allowing the current Pakal and Ragnor clan to take root as the two ruling Emperor God Clans of this quadrant…
“All we were able to do for your people was to ensure that our wars never effected them obviously… And because the route of cultivation was completely cut off to you mortals, you developed something never before seen in the cosmos: science.
“Although faint concepts of such a thing can be seen here and there, your people were the first to take it so far. Even the Sapientia pale in comparison to your methods. If our celestial deer sect could have survived, we would have loved to learn from your methods…
“Before you all, everyone believed the only way to comprehend the universe was through philosophy and understanding. To slowly tease apart the daos and truths of the universe. But, the mortal realm began to understand the universe at a far faster rate than any other population in history…
“Your modern history reaches back a mere 5000 years, and yet you’ve already comprehended something like heat death – a concept martial world populations take billions of years to grasp.
“You’re all so physically weak, and yet your structures don’t pale in comparison to martial world concepts at all.
“There are so few of you, and yet your accomplishments can be said to be otherworldly and almost magical…
“However, you’ve all paid a price that no one should have to pay… You carry the burden of having your future prospects chosen for you… Who’s to say that with your superior talent that you wouldn’t have even greater accomplishments had we not interfered?”
Dyon’s master raised her small jade-like hand, gently wiping the tears of blood from Dyon’s face. She worked slowly, as though Dyon was a fragile doll that could collapse at any moment. Many people forgot just how old Dyon was, but the 25th White Mother never would. She saw Dyon as her own son, she was more clear than almost anyone how brittle his mental state was.
She had thousands of years of life lived… But Dyon had only sixteen… Just sixteen years…
“Dyon… I –“
Her words were immediately caught in her throat.
She hadn’t noticed when Dyon moved, but when she looked up, she found a pair of dark red eyes staring into her soul. Even as a former dao formation expert… Even as someone who had stared the dragon king in the eyes… Even as someone who had fought bravely against the entity… Never had the 25th White Mother felt such pressure.
It was as though Dyon’s soul was bearing down on her consciousness, threatening to stomp it out completely.
His eyes were like calm crystals, reflecting no emotion at all. And yet, she could feel the deep seeded rage within him. She could feel the sorrow and despair…
Dyon didn’t move. He only looked. Scanning his master’s eyes as though he was searching for a reason not to lash out.
In the next moment, the 25th White Mother did something that went against all of her instincts as a beast. Everything in her was yelling danger… Telling her to run away…
But she refused to abandon Dyon… Not again…
Tears sprinkled from her eyes as her soft lips planted a gentle kiss onto Dyon’s forehead. Her arms wrapped around him tightly, cradling his head in her embrace.
“After everything was settled, the events were not a secret to the martial world. However, we soon found out why the entity allowed himself to be voluntarily sealed. He had placed his own seal on us, disallowing the harm and talk of what had transpired.
“That seal wasn’t broken until 16 years ago, with your birth. However, people continued to follow it, not knowing that they were free of the burden.”
What Dyon and his master didn’t know is that Elder Daiyu and those under the rule of the entity were subject to a completely separate seal. One that acted on them to this day. This was why Elder Daiyu suffered a penalty for alluding to the truth of things when he spoke to Dyon just months prior.
Even now… He was under the power of the entity…
The 25th White Mother continued to hold Dyon, speaking softly.
“The mortal realm became a taboo. Nearly untouchable. If it wasn’t for mortal realm technology becoming so powerful that they could threaten even weaker essence gathering martial artists, all ties would have been cut from the mortal realm entirely, so as not to anger the entity.
“However, you all continued to advance at such a rate that you could no longer be ignored. As such, so as to bend to the pressure left behind by the entity, weaker martial academies began to have yearly ceremonies in partnership with the mortal realm. This allowed friendly trade between us and your world, which allowed our cultures to mix to a certain extent.
“This was all meant to be for show, of course. Everyone knew that it should be impossible for a mortal to have enough talent to be accepted by the martial world. After all, your talent was sealed away.
“Until… You.”
Everything Dyon’s master said was the truth.
Originally, the martial world was going to ignore the mortal world completely. Only then could they ensure that they would never anger the entity.
However, as the mortals became more and more powerful, they began to have further and further reach.
First they build learned to build sail boats. Then there were cars. And then there were planes. Then submarines. Then satellites. Then space ships!
The more the mortals built, the smaller and smaller the meaning behind the large planet meant. It was only a matter of time before the human world realized that there was an entire half to their planet that they had never explored. And, even more glaringly, and entire population of people with a completely different culture as well!
The martial world could no longer hide themselves away from the mortals and ignore them. It had become impossible.
In addition, with how human history had been, expansion had become the norm. Had the martial world not extended a hand of diplomacy first, who knows what might have happened?
As such, the solution became a partnership between the mortal and martial world.
With the mortal world intrigue about the martial world, the martial world would allow a yearly test for suitable mortals to teach their ways. This test was of course kept secret by individual countries, because what a martial artist loyal to a country meant was something the world wasn’t ready to handle.
This partnership was only meant to be simple lip service. Only the martial world knew that it should be impossible to for a mortal to have any martial talent… And yet, after hundreds of years of this always being true, Dyon took the test!
Under normal circumstances, Dyon should have had no talent at all. After all, his energy and body cultivation abilities were sealed. However, his soul cultivation was so domineering that it tricked the test into thinking he had normal talent…
This caused waves among the older generation at the time and even caused the Focus Academy Elders to immediately try their best to get Dyon to quit and go back. After all, if Dyon was hurt in anyway, and the entity found out, there may be hell to pay!
The problem with this was that not everyone knew about the treaty – especially not the younger generation. After all, since their parents weren’t allowed to tell them, how could they know?
This made Dyon’s stay in the martial world particularly thorny.
The members of the older generation treated the mortal world like a taboo. But, the younger generation misinterpreted this as meaning that they should look down on Dyon, while what the older generation really wanted to do was to protect him.
However, when the first younger generation member almost successfully killed Dyon – that being Darius Storm – another possibility came to fruition for the older generation. They came to realize that as long as the one to attack Dyon had no idea about the treaty, there would be no punishment!
Little did they know, all this time, the treaty had ended nearly two decades ago!
In the end, this was also why the Elves didn’t seem to have any adverse reactions about Dyon being from the mortal realm. None of their members were present for the war because their kingdom was destroyed before it. It wasn’t until the Ragnor made it here that they arrived.
On that same hand, this was also why Madeleine’s master was so against her being with Dyon. Being a Sapientia, how could their clan have not been in this universe at the time of the battle and the treaty? They were based in nearly every universe!
To Ester Sapientia, Dyon’s people were the most taboo thing in the world. From her perspective, Dyon being with Madeleine would only bring her endless pain… She would have just been a child at the time, but it left enough of an imprint on her to remember it to this very day…
Maybe if the elves hadn’t missed out on the war, Ri wouldn’t have so easily been promised to Dyon either… Even if he saved their kingdom…
“I’ve done many selfish things in my life.” Dyon’s master spoke softly. “I burdened you with the weight of our sect. I burdened you with looking after my child. And even worse, I sealed memories that would have helped you make a smarter decision for yourself… Even choosing my husband for love instead of for the sake of my clan was nothing but selfish on my part.
“However, in my last moments in this world, I want to do yet another selfish thing. I won’t allow you to erase your mind to escape the pain. I want you to fight to live.”
The 25th White Mother began to glow with the last embers of her life. The last bit of power she sealed away… Without it, she would no longer be able to hold onto this world, not in the true sense… Without any remaining aura, even The Seal would have nothing to seal…
Despite her words, her last act as Dyon’s master would be one of pure selflessness… A peak she had only reached one other time in her life…
“Be cleansed of this, my disciple…” The last of the 25th White Mother’s consciousness slowly faded away as Dyon’s skin began to glow with a fierce light.
Dyon’s eyes brightened as a sudden relief washed over him. “Master? Wait! That’s enough!”
The 25th White Mother only silently shook her head, her tears falling like precious crystals from her eyes. She didn’t have enough power to fully cleanse Dyon, if she didn’t go all out, it would be meaningless.
Her arms softly wrapped around Dyon, sighing in relief in her final moment.
Dyon felt one final gentle kiss find its way to his forehead, before all feelings of warmth and softness disappeared.
By the time his eyes cleared of the blinding lights… His master was gone.
However, one sound lingered on in his ears…
“Live on.”
Dyon sat on his knees silently for so long that he lost track of how much time he had spent in the sealed world.
He had heard every word his master had spoken, although at the time, his anger disallowed him the ability to truly process everything. But, now that he had gotten a small bit of reprieve from that endless pain, he could finally start piecing things together like he usually did.
In the end, Dyon couldn’t bring himself to blame his master. In fact, he was pained by her loss to the point he nearly fell back into the pit of despair she sacrificed herself to dig him out of.
However, he had fought back.
The news of him never being able to even have a chance to fight to revive his parents had hit him hard. It was made even worse by the fact it really would have been possible had their souls not been wiped from existence.
Dyon wasn’t used to giving up. When he saw an impossible task in front of him, he wanted nothing more than to leap over the barrier and look down at those who thought he couldn’t do it. But this time… This was different.
If he continued to let the pursuit of his parents consume him, he would only keep losing the things that were right in front of him…
If he died, how would Ri and Madeleine feel? What about Clara? He had left her in an unknown world without so much as a comforting goodbye. For all she knows, the last person from her world was gone now…
He hadn’t come here with intentions of dying, but he’d be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t come to vent anger.
What a dangerous mind set to have. How was he as a measly meridian formation expert supposed to vent his anger against celestials? He might as well have been looking for death.
“Ha, since when was there something you believed you couldn’t do Mr. High and Mighty?” Dyon laughed at himself self-deprecatingly.
Dyon fell silent again, staring at his hands.
He didn’t know when it happened, but they were almost as large as his father’s now. The feeling of his master’s small hands in his had reminded him of something.
For much of his life, Dyon had had his father right by his side. He was a man of few words, but strong resolve. And he had taught Dyon to be the same way.
Dyon almost felt ashamed to have let himself crumble so easily. He could allow himself to be pissed. He could allow himself to feel sad. He could allow those feelings to churn within himself and spur him onwards. But, allowing them to make him give up?
‘Remember Dyon.’ His father had said. ‘The hands of a man are meant to be large not just so you feel strong. They’re large so you can use that strength…’
“To hold everything together.” Dyon whispered.
Dyon would be lying to himself if he said his pain was gone. In fact, his anger was still boiling to a point where he didn’t dare to finish his thought process on many things… Because there was still one glaring hole in all of this.
Dyon’s grand teacher should have known that the seal was gone with Dyon’s birth. And yet, instead of saying he wouldn’t tell Dyon for fear that he would lose himself in anger, he said that telling Dyon would kill him – implying that although he could circumvent the treaty, Dyon couldn’t.
There was only one explanation for why he would do such a thing, and Dyon refused to think about it. Because if he did… He would only lose himself in anger again…
**
Outside of the cave entrance, Evelyn Niveus giggled lightly as she held onto Lionel’s arm, staring at Ri with contempt. It was pretty obvious by this point that the man who had taken her virginity was none other than Prince Lionel Belmont.
When Lionel was campaigning with Madeleine, he had fought against Mekhi Uidah, the fourth son of the Uidah King God Clan. At the time, the battle had been fairly even at the start. However, as soon as Amethyst’s legacy temple appeared, that even battle turned completely one sided…
There were two glaring things in this exchange that were of worthy note…
The first was that Lionel seemed to have long since prepared for the arrival of the legacy temple. In fact, he knew was it was without even looking and immediately disappeared from the battle field to search for a chance to enter.
But, the second thing was surprisingly even more glaring. The moment the temple appeared, the even fight became completely one sided because Lionel’s red and blue flames combined into a violet flame!
This was something unprecedented. Even his own father could only do such a thing for a short period of time if he made use of his rudimentary domain. And yet, Lionel did this on a whim while barely being past twenty years old? Only very few understood just how ridiculous this was!
The truth of the matter was that Lionel wasn’t some super genius, nor did he beat the fourth son and the subsequent third daughter of the Uidah King God Clan because of his own talent and merit. No, the reason he was able to do this was all because of Evelyn Niveus from the very beginning.
The primordial yin of a young woman is precious, especially to a cultivator. However, that level of value is raised ever higher when this primordial is attached to a woman with a God Level Constitution.
The reason Evelyn was willing to give her virginity to Lionel, knowing very well that it was ruin her own cultivation, was because her primordial yin was exactly what Lionel needed to finally surpass the barrier that barred Belmont after Belmont for generations!
The late Niveus God Sect Matriarch used a devastating attack to annihilate half of the Earth in her final breath. That legacy was called ‘Immortal Balanced Arts’ and was something that Evelyn was destined to be unparalleled in…
The primordial yin Lionel received from Evelyn was known as Eternity’s Balance. It was a constitution that allowed one to build two diametrically opposing daos with great ease. Even more domineeringly, it allowed the combination of them to be as easy as breathing.
The combining of wills that so many labored and struggled over would be mere child’s play for someone who fully awakened this constitution…
So, Lionel decided to use Evelyn to his benefit. By taking her as his wife, he made promises that Evelyn was sure only he could keep.
Suddenly, Ri laughed. Inexplicably, her first reaction to being surrounded by hundreds of enemies, all of whom were threatening her life, was to laugh. In fact, she did so, so freely that it forced those around her to double check the situation to see whether it was themselves who were in fact surrounded.
But, when they noticed that the situation was exactly as they thought, they could only look at this beauty as though she had lost her mind.
“I don’t have time to waste,” Lionel interjected. “Hand over Madeleine.”
Ri held her sides, catching her breath, “Do you believe that this is a secret you held so tightly to yourself? Dyon figured this out ages ago. Do you think he’d let me walk into a trap just like this one?”
Lionel’s brow furrowed.
“Who are you trying to bluff?” Evelyn sneered.
“No, no.” Ri laughed, “Your little lovey dovey relationship is a surprise, I guess. Although that’s more so because my husband couldn’t bother to care about who you were or weren’t sleeping with.
“The best part is, he was irritatingly right about exactly how this would all go down.” Ri shook her head mockingly.
Lionel calmed his features. Analyzing the situation, whether Ri knew or not hardly mattered. She was still surrounded, and if she had called for reinforcements, they could easily use her as a hostage. All of that made Lionel think that she really was just bluffing.
Dyon had figured this out as soon as he spoke to Meiying, the very moment she opened the box she stole and it revealed an ice and fire phoenix feather!
When you put it together, it all made sense. Lionel wasn’t satisfied with his father’s way. It had to be a Belmont that helped open the Belmont Holy Land. It had to be a Belmont that helped the Daiyu pass the Belmont Holy Land defenses. And It had to be a Belmont that stopped the defending soldiers from awakening the Belmont ancestors! It all pointed to him.
In his final moment with Ri, Dyon had whispered into her ear, and among the things he explained, was this very scenario.
“Ah, I know why you’re confident.” Ri mused, tapping her lip. “You think you know who and how many I having supporting me right now.” An amused light flashed in Ri’s eye. “Look at that, now you’re trying to calculate how many more I could have than you previously thought.”
It was true. Lionel had only taken these measures because he thought the limit was 10 demon generals at the saint level. As for the hundred essence gathering demon generals Dyon had used, he hardly cared for those. What could they do in the face of all of these saints?
However, Ri was going to have to disappoint him and his math…
“How about I just save you the trouble and tell you?” Ri’s eyes flashed with the anger she had buried, ready to vent her frustrations.
Surrounding Ri, ten demon generals instantly appeared, causing Lionel to almost sigh in relief.
“Is that all?” Evelyn sneered. But, in the next instant, she ate her words.
Ten.
Fifty.
Hundred.
Five Hundred.
Thousand.
Two Thousand.
Three Thousand!
A stifling aura filled the Belmont Holy Land as white haired devils descended from the skies, prepared to massacre everything in their wake…