Dyon silently smiled to himself, as though he already knew that his ploy had worked.
After leaving The Cathedral, he liesurely left the city. After another slight of hand, a few concealment arrays, and some flashing lights, Dyon reappeared as though he had just come back from a journey before strolling out of the city.
It wasn’t long before Dyon made it back to Soul Rending Peak territory. In order to keep up appearances, he sped through the forest, but didn’t go so far as to injure himself again.
‘Wait… Am I imagining things?…’
Dyon was currently standing in the very same spot he had lost his pursuer in. By all rights, there should have been a massive crater along with multiple destroyed trees, yet here everything was, completely unscathed.
Anyone else might not have noticed this, or maybe even ignored it, assuming that they had misremembered the particular location. However, Dyon had absolute confidence in his memory. This had to be the place!
‘Old Lizard, what’s going on here…’
‘I don’t know either…’
Dyon’s brows furrowed. But, before he could think any further, the sounds of rustling leaves and snapping branches caught his attention.
Up in the air, standing on a particularly sturdy branch was a pale and skinny young man.
“Junior Brother Jafari, Senior Sister sent me here to wait for your arrival.”
“Oh? What’s going on?”
“It looks like we’ll have to enter the Epistemic Tower soon. The core disciple trials are coming up soon, but it seems the elders were inspired by your feelings toward taking risks and improvement.”
Dyon raised an eyebrow, remembering how he spoke about risking your life in the tower was better than wallowing in the mediocrity of this 98th quadrant. It was either someone actually decided to heed his advice, or this was another half-baked scheme… Maybe it was even a mix of the two.
“The timing is actually quite good for us.” The pale young continued with a faint excitement on his face. “This is also around the time that the Valley of Geniuses is open. If luck shines down upon us, we could ascend the heavens in a single step!”
Hearing these words, Dyon’s eyes brightened. He remember the old man telling him that his master had a statue on the saint floors in this Valley of Geniuses. Apparently, the Demon Sage had one as well, but his was found of a higher floor. This was too suprising since the Demon Sage had many more achievements than his master did. For all intents and purposes, he was a transcendent… Or, he would have been had he not been schemed against by so many enemies.
“This is good.” Dyon said with a faint smile. “What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing much. Senior Sister just wants us to enter as a faction. The Valley of Geniuses is obviously an area of attraction, and since we’re from such a lowly quadrant, we’d be excessively bullied if we were alone.
“The good news is that those who were truly strong would travel alone. This is mostly for protection against those 74th quadrant bastards.”
Dyon nodded. “I’ll follow you then.”
‘Maybe if I enter the tower I’ll be able to find some time to see Clara and Ri… It’s only been about two months, but I already miss them.”
The pale young man nodded. He was pleasantly surprised by Dyon’s attitude. From what he had heard about the assessments, this was an overly arrogant young man. Of course, he thought of the possibility that he was the type to only be arrogant against the weak, but according to the stories, he even dared to defy their Vice Master. Considering that, only a fool would categorize him as such.
“You can call me Senior Brother Coudry.”
The pale young man said this in passing, but Dyon took a strong mental note of it because the Coudry family was among the four up and coming families.
**
Within the Courtyard bought out by the Devil Path cultivators, Lilith was still healing.
Her inner turmoil cause by the past couple days was weighing heavily on her. At the same time, she was feeling emotions she never felt before, nor did she think she would ever feel.
How many times had she heard Sokzac say sweet words to her? Yet, every time, they went in through one ear and left through the other. But, now, it was constantly replaying in her mind…
All her life, Lilith had never needed much help. Despite being born in Nightmare Palace, she was only one among hundreds, even thousands of children her father had had. That was not to mention the countless grand and grand grand children. The fact her father followed the Devil Path, yet was already an expert that could stand at the top of the world, proved that he had already lived hundreds of thousands of years, of course his lineage was too long to take note of completely.
The fact she could rise to her position, especially as a woman, was a product of her relying on herself entirely.
However, it could be said that Dyon was the very first person to force her into a loss. The very first person to make her feel any vulnerability. And now, she could almost feel her heart aching for something to lean on… And she absolutely hated it!