Dyon appeared in the middle of a dense forest. Unable to hold it together anymore, he collapsed to the ground, coughing up mouth fulls of blood. He clenched the hole in his stomach, as the suppressed wound began to reel its ugly head.
‘I guess taking a spear to the gut wasn’t exactly great on my part… I lack battle experience and I should probably stop doing stupid shit like this…’
Dyon began slowly digging a small hole in the ground into the base of a nearby tree. After struggling for a long while, he was finally satisfied with its depth so he gingerly placed his spatial ring within it. With his last remaining strength, he punched the tree, letting the leaves fall around the area before quickly willing himself into the vast inner space.
‘I’ll have to hope that that hides me well enough for now…’
Just to be safe, Dyon sent his mind out for a moment just to place a discreet concealment formation, but his exertion was too much. He had underestimated the strength it would take to send a formation out from within a separate world. The last thing Dyon saw was black before he passed out.
**
Many days later, an ordinary looking girl was walking through the forest. She wore tight leather pants and a kilted short skirt above it. Her crop top was actually made of a protective armor that held her thin sword strapped to her back. Although her face wasn’t that of an extraordinary beauty, her silver-blue eyes had a calm and serene depth to them that completely contrasted with her fiery personality. Her hair was long, gently swaying across her exposed venus dimples and illuminating a beautiful stream of light blues and silvers that gave her an otherworldly feel that her barely pointed ears couldn’t match.
Her footsteps were light. Not a sound could be heard as she carefully made her way through the forest. Although she knew that this was a relatively safe area, she preferred to ensure she had no followers since she was headed to her favorite secret place.
“hmm?”
The girls silver-blue eyes caught a flash of gold to her side.
“an incomplete array? Here? What’s going on?”
She cautiously made her way to the tree roots, double checking to see if anyone was around her.
‘this… a ring? it must be a formation that’s been here protecting this for a while before finally eroding? The intricacies of the array… it must be from a top-level expert. It would take thousands of years for such an intricate array to begin eroding.’
The girl immediately came up with this deduction. To her, it was impossible to even think of what really happened. Even those who had studied array alchemy for centuries could only send arrays out from them a few hundred meters. The concept of sending an array out, and an array that actually had any sort of form, from an entirely separate world was much too ridiculous.
She flipped the silver ring around her hand, looking to see if there was anything special about it. But, when she tried to delve into it with her mind, she found that there was a block.
‘This ring is still owned? After so long?…’
The realization made the girl shiver. For such an expert to have hidden the ring for so long, yet, for him or her to still be alive was inconceivable.
However, this wasn’t a normal young person, the feeling of the unknown made her shiver with excitement. She decided to keep the ring, placing it on a simple string to be worn as a necklace. She hoped that one day the expert would come to her, realizing that someone had tried to see what was in her ring. Maybe they’d thank her for keeping it safe? Maybe they’d know things she wanted to know about herself?
The girl wasn’t naïve. She knew fully well how dangerous this could be, but, she was confident that there was an adventure on the horizon. And, after being caught up in this land for all her life, there was nothing she wanted more than to escape.
**
Just like this, many months came to past. The girl carried around the ring.
Sometimes, she would sit in a secluded place and take out an array plate to study. Array alchemy had always fascinated her, and this was a plate that someone from her family had brought back from their trip to the human continent. She had never seen such a low-level array done so well. It fueled her fire to want to improve her foundation and build towards a higher level of formation expertise.
In fact, her passion for this was a large part of the reason why she took the risk of keeping the ring. Meeting such an expert would help her improve by leaps and bounds.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for Dyon, this array plate happened to be the same plate that he had made thousands of while trying to make money at Focus Academy. It seems that The General had done his job of collecting and selling the unused plates well, to the point where it had made its way over the seas and to the land of another species of people.
But, Dyon was oblivious. He remained unconscious. Little Black would often lick his face to see if he could start him awake, but it was to no avail. The worst part was, that Little Black wasn’t the only one who was worried. Madeleine had been sending messages to Dyon everyday for the past 6 months. She had even given up on getting him to respond, it was almost like her messages to Dyon had become a diary of what she did everyday. The countless messages all culminated in a single thought: I miss you.
All this time, Dyon’s aurora was working towards healing Dyon. If it had just been a few arrows and a spear wound, maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long. But, Dyon had put untold stress on his body by tapping out his wills to the limit. And, that wasn’t even mentioning the stress of using the Demon Emperor’s Will technique with already damaged organs. Plus, with the infusion of the sage demon’s blood, the quality of his body had improved so much that it had taken all this time to even heal him to a reasonable point. And yet, he was still unconscious.
On top of all of this, the device Chenglei had used may have seemed simple, but, it was anything but. It was a transcendent level treasure called the Demolition Cube, and if it was used by someone with real power, it could just barely match up to the weapons of the pseudo 33rd heaven’s layer. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was a person with such weak cultivation using it, even the 25th White Mother’s will wouldn’t have been enough to stop it. In fact, had Chenglei been strong enough to use it repeatedly, Dyon would have long been dead. This was the reason Chenglei hadn’t participated in the final battle: he was too drained. Instead of risking the geniuses exposing his treasure, he chose to leave in the shadows. The loss of such a weapon was a bigger hit than the Daiyu clan could take. And, the fact they even had such a weapon would expose them to the world well before they were ready – this was something Chenglei wasn’t willing to risk.
However, this battle wasn’t without its benefits. Dyon’s soul was able to increase in power from the initial 4th stage to the peak of the middle levels of the 4th stage. This also gave him experience he hadn’t had before. In order to fight all of the geniuses at once, he relied heavily on the enhanced reflexes given him by the essence blood he had absorbed as well as the 6th sense granted him by his mind’s eye. But, now he realized this wasn’t enough. He needed to increase his control over his techniques and his wills. He had already begun to understand that wills, despite what levels they had reached, could have different depths of understanding. For example, Dyon’s 9th level of music will would hardly find competition against the 9th level wills of most others. This probably led to his first mistake in his battle: he hadn’t used his music will although it was his strongest asset.
The second problem, was his speed arraying. With Dyon’s level of soul, it should have been impossible for the arrows of geniuses at the initial layers of meridian formation to ever pierce his defenses. But, because of the flaws of speed arraying, there was no way for him to have time to create better arrays. So, he relied much too much on an ability that should act as a supporter rather than his main abilities.
His third problem was his stamina. The battle had lasted less than 10 minutes, but Dyon was already tapped out by the end. If it hadn’t been for Saeclum’s ill advised attack, and the memories of his master letting him know that it was smart to conceal his soul strength, he wouldn’t have been able to get up.
His fourth problem was that his most powerful aspect, his soul, was nearly impossible to use in real combat. Soul experts usually specialized in auxiliary abilities. Direct attacks using the soul were exceedingly dangerous as Saeclum had found out the hard way. Dyon had come across many soul techniques since it was part of the expertise of the Celestial Deer Clan, but he hadn’t learned any of them because he had no one to rely on while executing techniques that took so much focus. It was nearly impossible to come up with a speed technique for something so delicate. So, Dyon could only use his soul as the power source for his array alchemy, but, that led right back to the problem of his speed arraying. Unless Dyon powered his soul to such an insane level that he could speed array formations originating from the peak practitioner level and beyond, he wouldn’t be able to win a fight against so many geniuses.
His fifth problem was that he understood too many wills. He had many tricks, but no masteries. Much of his wills were too shallow. His understanding of the sword had reached the 7th level of wills, but it had no form or substance. He might as well be swinging wildly. On top of that, he had no idea why his understanding of the sword had progressed so quickly. For example, his time will was only at the 1st level. His celestial will, despite being one of his most important abilities, was only at the 3rd level, and he was nowhere near understanding its true essence. With his most useful abilities being so shallow, there was little to say about his other understandings like wind, demonic, space.
At this point, Dyon could only make use of space will on himself and it was only at the first level. The same point went for his understanding of wind. Imagine if he could apply wind will to his sword will? Imagine if his sword could transport itself through space and appear in the body of an enemy? Imagine sharpening his sword with the ripples of space itself?
Dyon’s unconscious mind was running through all of these possibilities. What he didn’t know is that the level of comprehension he was angry with himself for not having reached, was something even experts at the saint level and beyond were still pondering. The true understanding of wills, the fusion of them, their applications in more ways than just yourself, those were things that an expert may go their whole lives without understanding for a single will. Let alone Dyon who wished to do the same for all of his wills. He had opened himself to a new level of comprehension: will paths.
Despite his indignation, it was impossible for Dyon to train in his current state. He could only allow his body to slowly heal while his soul reached a new sub level.
Finally, near the end of the 7th month, Dyon awoke. He found the arrows that had been in his back littered around him. It seemed as though his aurora had pulled them out for him, recognizing them as foreign objects. Dyon knew that his technology from the human world couldn’t heal wounds to his current body, so he had no choice but to rely on his aurora. He made a silent promise to use his pill condensation technique to carry around some high-level healing pills with him.
A black blur rushed over to Dyon’s arms, licking him furiously.
“haha, sorry Little Black, did I worry you? Wow, you’ve gotten massive” Dyon asked with a delighted smile on his face as he stroked the fur and scales of Little Black. The little guy was not so little anymore, he was at least a meter and a half long, but somehow, his gaze was just as adorable.
Little Black gave him one last lick before nudging his noes to the ring on Dyon’s hand.
“hmm?” Dyon gave him a confused look but then a look of worry invaded his handsome features, “Madeleine!”
Dyon felt horrible. He had told her that she could contact him using the device he made, but, he barely had any doa stones left since he had used almost all of them on tower. The one he had left had dimmed considerably since he had used it to teleport here. If he used it to send messages, it would be impossible to sustain it until the tournament.
‘fuck… I want to know about how she’s doing, but if I always respond, the power will run out long before the continental tournament.’
Dyon decided that sending 1 message wouldn’t drain the rest of the power. He let Madeleine know what the situation was, and that she could continue sending him messages, but responding would be impossible from now on.
“… I always want to know about your day! If I don’t get at least one message a day, I’m storming the Sapientia main branch!”
Not even half a minute later, Madeleine had already excitedly answered. After months of worrying, finally receiving word from Dyon made a huge weight lift from her heart. Although she was sad that he wouldn’t be able to answer, she was glad that he wanted to know about how she was doing. It hurt her heart to know that his injuries were so severe that they took almost 7 months to heal even with his aurora, but, the present was all that mattered now.
Dyon spent hours with a smile on his face, reading through Madeleine’s messages as she excitedly told him about her experiences.
She had already stepped in the meridian formation 2 stage after only half a year of practice. Her teacher was excited for her as well because she noticed that celestial will really did have a purifying ability on energies.
It wasn’t all happy though, apparently the first in line geniuses of the other Sapientia main branches were constantly annoying her. This hit Dyon with a realization. He remembered Libro telling him that the Sapientia God Clan was the only on with multiple main branches. But, what made Dyon a little sad was apparently that some of the Sapientia main branches were actually trying to marry Madeleine to them.
This made Dyon think of something else. It seemed as though the Sapientia clan wasn’t anywhere near what he thought it was. It seemed more powerful than other God Clans. And, it also seemed as though the other main branches were located in places other than the continent they were on. The thought made Dyon look into the stars.
‘Seems like Libro wasn’t exaggerating. They really do control all the information in the universe… not just here… maybe even information beyond that’
Madeleine teased him about how he’d have to place well during the continental tournament, or else they’d try to steal her from him. Luckily, she wasn’t too worried about them doing anything. Although the main branches of the Sapientia Clan were numerous, they were all relatively equal in power within this universe. Sapientia Clans of other universes wouldn’t be worried about something happening here. If a first in line genius didn’t want to do something, there was little they could do. There would only be a problem if the leaders of all of the clans converged for that singular purpose. But, such a thing was unlikely.
Other than Madeleine’s life, the other details that caught his notice were the happenings of the war he left behind. Apparently, Patia-Neva had disbanded Focus Academy and Delia decided to join the Niveus Sect. Because Niveus felt bad about what had happened and her inability to help, she ended up personally apologizing to Madeleine. But, Madeleine didn’t take it to heart considering her personality. So, Niveus was there as Delia awakened her god-level constitution. Although, only time would differentiate the power of Delia’s constitution. Because her constitution was ice based, the difference between the Ice Queen or Infinite Ice Hell wasn’t so obvious as of now.
Unfortunately, since the Kami clan was a God Clan, the Sicarius family couldn’t do anything to punish them. However, the big sects were heavily penalized for their involvement in the loss of life. But, what disgusted Dyon was the fact that this so-called punishment was only a reduction of quota for the world tournament. It seemed the martial world didn’t care much for such things.
The other surprising thing was that the Ragnor was magnanimous in dealing with the ‘Storm’ family. While the current head, Tammy’s father, was executed along with the current elders, the ancient ancestors of the branch were kept alive. The same was true of the younger generation of the Storm family as well. From Dyon’s master’s memories, he learned that ancient ancestors were previous elders and clan leaders that had reached such high levels of cultivation, that they could be preserved for tens of thousands of years should they maintain a deep sleep. They would only be called out in special cases since each second they spent outside of that deep sleep meant a step closer to death. In fact, often if they were in this sleep for long enough, they wouldn’t wake up at all.
This aside, Dyon couldn’t help but think that all these moves by the Ragnor God Clan were odd. With his understanding of the martial world, cutting off problems at the root was a common practice. But, it seemed like the Ragnor God Clan was intent on maintaining its power, only choosing to kill off the main culprits.
‘what are they playing at…’ Dyon could only ponder.
In fact, it was odd to the point where the Ragnor God Clan was apparently intent on killing Dyon for having killed Baal, even though he technically didn’t do it. Dyon was happy that Ava had decided to protect Venus and Eli for him, he’d have to thank that girl later.
On top of all of this, it went without saying that the Kami clan and big sects wanted nothing more than to see him dead. To Dyon, their punishment was too light, but to these sects, there could be nothing worse. If Dyon were to know that, his level of disgust would reach new levels.
After their talk, Madeleine said she was off to practice with her master. Dyon finally set the device down to meditate. He steeled his will and decided to practice and fortify his wills for half a year before going deeper into the Elvin forest to train.
Suddenly, Dyon remembered something. Jumping up, he headed to the area he had placed the unconscious victims of the demon sage. But, he was disappointed that they were all still unconscious. Dyon had formed a massive array under the thousands of them so it could slowly purify them with celestial will and keep them nourished. It would be a shame if after all these years they’d die because of lack of food and water.
Sighing, he sealed the area again. Although he wanted to help these people, he also wasn’t willing to put his life in danger by allowing them to wake up whenever they wanted and wander around. He couldn’t be certain of how powerful they were or what the state of their minds were in. All he knew was that their bodies were incomparably powerful. To the point he was absolutely certain that, even without essence energy, they could attack with the power of someone at the peak of the meridian formation stage. They were all clearly talented youths, it’s a shame they had been imprisoned for so long. Dyon could only hope they maintained their sanity with the help of his celestial will. If it came to it, he could repair their minds with his aurora as well.
Walking away, Dyon headed towards the training rooms of the Celestial Deer Clan. He had decided to immerse himself in the understanding of wills. He had noticed something during his fight that made him even more angry with himself. When his power had increased with the use of Demon Emperor’s Will, his sword had gotten stronger too. He had come to the realization that his sword was severely limiting itself in order to follow him. He knew very well how prideful the sword was, and he wasn’t willing to have it shackle itself for so long.
‘I’ll get stronger. By the end of this period, I want my understanding of these wills to increase many times over. I don’t need to reach higher levels, but, if I don’t truly understand them, even if they reached the peak of the ninth level, would it really make much of a difference?’
Think to this point, Dyon hesitated no longer, immediately entering the sword cultivation room, happy to learn his profound stones worked well with them. He wanted all of his other wills to revolve around his understanding of the sword, so it only made sense to start here.
Dyon was excited to get stronger so he could stand in the skies with Madeleine by his side. Strong to the point where no one would ever think to act against him anymore. Strong to the point where his parents would smile down at him proudly.
**
Many miles away from Dyon and the blue haired girl, a large ship filled with warriors and the corpses of their fallen comrades was approaching the Elvin Forest.
“These campaigns is just getting worse and worse,” sighed a green haired man with long and sharp ears.
“Ai, I’ve long since forgotten what we fight them for… but, it isn’t normal for us to come back so soon during a campaign, do you know what’s going on?” spoke his subordinate.
The green haired man sighed, “the situation in the kingdom is reaching toxic levels… When we left, it hadn’t yet been time for the crown to be passed, but…”
The subordinate gave his captain a confused look, “it should still be many years before the king passes away…”
“It’s not that. It seems like the king hasn’t appeared before the court in almost a decade. Also, without a proper successor, the larger families are clamouring for a better seat…”
The subordinate remained silent. The air was heavy and there wasn’t the normal happiness that came with coming home from the bloody fields. It felt like they were stepping out from one hell, just to enter another. A hell where not only their lives were at stake, but the lives of all those they loved and cherished.
“If the Elvin Kingdom falls because of ourselves instead of our enemies… that would surely be the stuff of legends,” the captain chuckled bitterly as he looked towards the massive lush green island and the calm ocean waters as though nature itself was oblivious to the coming storm.