Dyon lightly stepped on a branch before taking a sharp right. The celestials were following so closely behind him that his action almost ended in him being caught by one of them on the flank. However, this left the celestials stupefied.
‘Did he find out?’ They all thought at once.
There were only 9 of them here, but how could the Viserion Kingdom not have patrols? These elders had long since alerted the posts up ahead that a top priority criminal was on the way. And yet, just as they were about to complete their encirclement, Dyon drastically changed his direction? Was this a coincidence?
Dyon couldn’t be bothered with their thoughts. He had been running for about ten minutes now at a leisurely pace. In fact, it was a pace that the celestials behind him should have caught up to if they were trying their hardest. The fact they didn’t only left one obvious answer: A trap. So, he purposefully went straight ahead before abruptly changing direction when his Perception caught a whiff of their anxiousness. He barely needed to think to analyze the situation. The thinking of these people were too shallow.
However, Dyon knew he needed a feasible plan to escape. Because of his past persona’s flaws, the information the Angel Clan had on other clans was sorely lacking. As a result, much of the maps they had were dated by decades. With all of the movement in territory and conquering just the Viserion clan had been up to, how could those maps still be accurate?!
Therefore, Dyon knew that he could only use the maps as a rough estimate. Despite that, he went out of his way to memorize them all. The reason why? The one thing that wouldn’t change in a mere few decades was landscape!
Intelligently, Dyon treated land such as forest just as loosely as cities and tribes. That being because trees could obviously be cut down. Therefore, he allowed his slowly forming plan to be flexible in aspects needing the cover of these dense trees, while solely relying on things that would hardly change at all. These were things like mountain ranges, lakes, rivers, caves, etc. He graded them all on a scale, never allowing a landscape that rated too low to rate too highly in importance.
For now, Dyon was just buying time. But, as expected, the moment he changed direction, the elders sped up from about 70% of their speed, to 95%+!
“Since you don’t want to make things easy, don’t blame us for being ruthless!” An elder sneered.
Dyon remained expressionless. It was as though he didn’t notice the distance of a few dozen meters suddenly closing rapidly.
However, in the next instant, his foot landed on a particularly thick branch before pressing down with tens of thousands of pounds of force. Before the branch could even snap, Dyon’s body had already flown forward, seemingly teleporting hundreds of meters ahead.
He felt a slight pain in his leg, because he had just used his Celestial Wind Movement technique without the necessary wills to support him, but he seemed to not have noticed as the cracks in his bones began to heal rapidly. There was not the slightest shred of pain on his features, and even though he could hardly use the technique to even 10% of its normal heights, it was more than enough to deal with these so-called elders!
“Profound movement technique!” The elders gasped in awe, a cold sweat permeating their backs. When had they ever seen such an exquisite technique?
The reason they were so eager to catch Dyon wasn’t only that he had left a blemish on their Viserion name, but it was also to sneak a peak at the Dragon Refining Arts! Because of the sensitivity and importance of the technique, not even they as elders could see the original so freely. Only when they cultivated to the 6th stage would they be allowed such a chance!
However, many were dissatisfied with this rule. They thought that there might be secrets in the latter stages that could help them see a more whole picture, and thus cultivate it easier. This was why they were truly eager. After all, the Dragon Refining Arts was estimated to be a Heaven level technique! How could they, who had only ever seen Earth techniques sparingly, not drool over the prospect?
Oddly, though, Dyon didn’t use it again. Causing them to sneer. How could such a profound technique not come with consequences? So, they immediately calmed their agitated states, choosing to follow at a leisurely pace and hope Dyon tired out as their band of 9 suddenly became 12. Maybe if they tired him out, he might have some profound techniques in his spatial ring!
Thinking to this point, they nearly fainted with excitement. Not only did they have justice on their side, they would benefit greatly from it too!
What they didn’t know was that they were only partially correct. While it was true that Dyon had to pay a price to use the celestial wind movement technique, as long as he restricted the profoundness level, he would heal faster than he would be injured. For someone like him who was used to enduring pain, what did a few fractured bones that immediately healed mean to him?
The only reason he didn’t push ahead further was so he could vent some anger. If he didn’t unleash soon, who knew what would happen to his psyche?