Dyon entered a world of red.
The ground was an odd sand-clay mix that crunched, yet also softened, beneath his feet. The sky was a palette of violets and maroons, shifting with eerie grey clouds.
There wasn’t a single landmark in sight, whether it be trees or mountain or valleys, there were none of them. It was a completely flat land filled with a heavy aura of murder.
The air itself was dense and hard to breathe in. It had such a heat and humidity to it that a mortal would question whether it had any oxygen content at all.
Almost fittingly, the heat was blistering. However, it didn’t seem to be the kind that gave an advantage to fire will experts because the root of this heat wasn’t fire at all, but rather the blood and rage that hung in the air.
If one were to attach a temperature to this world, it would be a few thousand degrees at the very least. However, the way that the temperature was decided was what truly made this world sinister.
Every material in the world had a boiling point, even the human body. A mortal’s resistance to high temperatures would, obviously, be much lower than that of a martial warrior. But, this world purposefully set its temperatures to border the boiling point of anyone who entered, immediately forcing those who entered to be forced to constantly protect themselves, lest they want to die a horrible death.
However, Dyon didn’t seem to realize that his skin was searing and blistering. Even his eyes seemed to melt in the overwhelming heat, yet he didn’t flinch at all.
At this point, Dyon’s skin was still unhealthily thin, and many of his inner organs still weren’t completely healed. The fact he was even standing at this point was a testament to the strength of his will and his body.
It wasn’t that Dyon had lost all of his reason. In fact, he was likely thinking more clearly than he ever had in his life. It was just that he didn’t have it in him to take it easy on himself any longer. He was racked with such guilt and inferiority that even something as simple and instinctive as protecting himself was a foreign concept to him.
In that moment, without Dyon’s consent, the primordial energy within Dyon’s Inner World began escaping and seeping into his body, causing his melting skin and eyes to heal. Even as this was happening, the temperature of the third trial once again increased, perfectly matching the increased strength of Dyon’s body. It was incremental, but it definitely didn’t escape Dyon’s sharp senses.
Suddenly, a rack of weapons appeared, extending tens of miles in either direction before Dyon.
Each weapon was a disgust brown and black color that almost made them look dirty and rusted.
The rack itself held weapons of all kinds and of all sizes. It was clear that the first step of this trial was to choose a weapon.
Dyon looked around. Truth be told, he didn’t feel like choosing a weapon, but it also seemed he couldn’t move on until he did. So, he simply chose the first weapon he saw since he knew well that to a wielder of the only weapon’s type supreme law in existence, any weapon would feel exceedingly comfortable to him.
Picking out a random great sword of about 7 feet long and almost 3 feet wide, with a thick and dull blade, and a handle that was half his height, Dyon swung it about without any true rhyme of reason as the racks disappeared. It was shorter and much less domineering than the Ahpuch clan treasure, but unfortunately, Dyon couldn’t use his own weapons in this trial either, or else he would have called out the Dragon King.
Dyon closed his eyes, seemingly disappearing into the landscape. However, his mind was filled with an uncontrollable anger.
A moment later, the sounds of large footsteps approaching Dyon reverberated throughout the once calm and quiet world.
When Dyon opened his eyes to see what it was, they couldn’t help but narrow.
A large, metal armored rhinoceros was approaching him. But, although it looked intimidating, with Dyon’s perception, he could see that its battle prowess was only at the 4th or 5th foundation stage level. Was this supposed to be a trial? Or was it supposed to be a joke?
That was when Dyon noticed something he was almost ashamed to have not noticed before. The aura in this world didn’t only have the function of being overwhelming hot, it also locked away energy cultivation. Truth be told, Dyon couldn’t be blamed for not noticing, after all, his own cultivation had been locked away long ago, so he was very much used to it.
The other thing Dyon noticed was that his glaive felt exceptionally heavy in his hands, but it only weighed about 50 or so jin. That kind of weight should have been nothing more than a joke to him. It would have had to be at least ten thousand times that weight before he even began to feel uncomfortable. That only meant one thing: although his body cultivation wasn’t sealed, it was heavily suppressed. Yet, somehow, it retained a certain level of its original toughness, or else he would have never been able to handle this level of heat, it was truly odd.
One thing was clear though. Clearly they wanted Dyon to fight this rhino with the strength of a mere foundation stage expert.
