Dyon’s eyes narrowed. They had conquered all of their towers but one?
He couldn’t help but feel guilty. There’s no way such a thing would happen if everyone wasn’t so focused on trying to save him. With all the talent that was here, how could that be possible?
In these two years, he had no doubt that Ri and Madeleine had become near unbeatable in the essence gathering realm. They were likely stronger than he’d been two years ago, even with his soul unsealed. In fact, Dyon had no doubt about that fact.
There was Caedlum who would’ve vastly improved as well. Even without the use of Thor and Vidar, there was still Alidor as well.
And none of this was to mention the demon generals. But then, Dyon thought of something else.
“It’s the other planets… Isn’t it?”
The atmosphere seemed to get heavier. It was clear that the aftermath of the war wasn’t so simple at all…
“We’ve been forced to station many of the demon generals on Planet Mino, Deimos, and Naiad…” Madeleine said softly.
“Planet Mino? Why Planet Mino?”
Ri shook her head, “The Shruti disappeared. We’ve found no traces of them at all. If it wasn’t for the remaining Planet Mino citizens, we could have already lost Mino Gate.”
This confirmed to Dyon the Shruti really weren’t from this universe. They had forcefully taken Planet Mino by eradicating the previous God and Royal God Clans, but because of that, Mino had no one protecting it… No one strong enough anyway…
However, this isn’t what made Dyon angry. It was Planet Deimos and Planet Naiad that truly pissed him off. These were none other than the two planets that helped the Ragnors in their attempted take over.
Planet Naiad housed the Clyte, who were now leaderless. Planet Deimos housed the infamous Aumen clan… A planet Dyon had sworn to destroy.
“We knew that they weren’t trustworthy.” Clara said through gritted teeth. “So, King Acacia took a diplomatic trip along with King Belmont to see just what their thinking was. It turned out that they had plans to willingly hand over their gates to the Uidah and submit… If it wasn’t for King Acacia, we would have been caught completely unawares…”
Dyon chuckled bitterly. “Let me guess, the Uidah asked for my head and the Aumens were all too willing to oblige?”
A wave of frustration and anger overcame the banquet hall, but it seemed this truly was the case.
“In order to keep them in line, Nora and Amell, respectively, spend the campaign months on either Planet Deimos or Naiad, effectively keeping their upper tier experts hostage. But, even that isn’t enough for us to feel assured, so we also separated out a few hundred demon generals to keep those armies in line.” Ri finished explaining.
“Luckily, Planet Nix has officially allied with us.” Madeleine said with a sweet smile, seemingly lighting up the whole room.
Dyon blinked, trying to stay awake. “Did I already teach you how to make the pill for Zabia? Where is he?”
Under Dyon’s words, Nora blushed profusely, unable to make eye contact with the young man that could hardly see her through his blurred vision.
Dyon was taken aback by the lack of response, but he didn’t have the energy to pursue the topic.
Amell coughed awkwardly, feeling bad for his wife.
This, of course, wasn’t the first time Dyon had asked this. The moment he woke up the first time, the first thing he had done was try and fulfill his promise, but obviously, he had no soul strength at the moment, so it was impossible.
However, when he found out that Nora was an innate aurora wielder, he was elated and immediately tried to teach her the method for making the pill. After all, it was exceedingly simple in Dyon’s mind, while Nora was a moon level alchemist. There should have been no problem considering the pill itself was actually just a master level pill according to Dyon’s master. But… Nora had failed time and time again. Even under Dyon’s diligent explanations.
The reason for this was simple… Nora was an alchemist. Dyon was an array alchemist. Nora had no real concept of fusing the two concepts into one, as such her view points were shallow and her understanding was lacking.
Dyon’s master hadn’t lied. The pill itself was a master level pill. But, if you wanted to create such a complex pill without the perfect fusion of the two disciplines, it became a mountain almost impossible to transcend. In fact, it was even difficult to find the ingredients!
Dyon simply didn’t have the wake hours or the energy to explain things to Nora any more than he had.
It was an odd situation. Nora without a doubt had more accumulated knowledge than Dyon, and it might be true that Dyon wouldn’t make heads or tails of comet or moon level alchemy, not now, but when it came to grandmaster and below, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Dyon was unmatched through the cosmos.
Suddenly Dyon thought of something else. He had left Clara with the Dao of Array Alchemy all of this time. With her intelligence, he had little doubt that she had grasped a solid foundation. She was the perfect person to teach Nora because Dyon couldn’t.
“Clara can you –“
“Stop.” Clara said abruptly, grasping onto her knees tightly.
“Huh?…” Dyon blinked, shaking his head.
“Stop worrying about others and worry about yourself.” Clara spoke firmly, her grey eyes reddening in what looked like a violent mix of anger and sadness.
Ri and Madeleine ignored Dyon’s gaze as he looked toward them, completely unwilling to help.
“You don’t remember what happened the first time you woke up, but we do. You recognized the problem immediately. You sat there and made the very same deductions. And then when you were finally getting somewhere, you stopped and changed the subject entirely, pretending as though we wouldn’t notice.”
Dyon froze. Something was telling him that this was the very first time Clara had said those words. The pattern… Had been broken.
“You know why your little sister didn’t come and greet you? Because she’s quite literally in too much pain to be around you!
“The very first time you woke up, Little Lyla said it clear as day. You already had the solution, you just weren’t willing to say what it was. Instead, you trudged through and tried to use the Dragon King to accomplish it. And even worse, when he wakes up, you plan on trying again!
“No matter how much we poked and prodded you, you refused to tell us the solution.
“Stop being selfish and give us our Dyon back!” Clara glared at Dyon angrily.
Dyon looked at Clara to the best of his abilities. In the end, despite his best try, he could only see two floating orbs of grey he assumed were her eyes.
“Haha, I can’t see you, but you’ve probably gotten more beautiful, right?” Dyon smiled. “It’s a shame I can’t see you three…
“But even if it means my death, I’ll never hurt any one of you.”
“Shut up.” Clara clamped her delicate palms over Dyon mouth. “You see, in the years you’ve been out of it, moping around, waiting for death, I finally figured out the solution.
“Now you have no choice.”
Dyon’s eyes widened, “Clara wai –“
In an instant, Clara’s eyes flashed with a golden light and the two of them instantly disappeared.
Everyone remained in the banquet hall stunned, having no idea what was going on. The only clues they had was a King Acacia who refused to make contact with anyone, a Little Lyla who was oddly acting the same, and a Ri and Madeleine who had devious smiles on their faces.