While the world was raving about the masked wife stealer, the actual man himself wasn’t doing anything so glorious. In fact, it could be said that whatever the polar opposite of glory was, was exactly what Dyon was facing right now.
The moment he completed his last act of defiance, disallowing his name from being added to the Pillar of Shame and facing his wrists up the sky, his punishment came to pay its dues.
From beginning to end, Dyon no longer spoke. His eyes showed no other emotion but cold murder, yet he didn’t retaliate. It was as though he was memorizing the faces of each and every person who did him wrong.
To those who truly understood what was happening, they felt their hearts seize. They thought that Dyon knew he had no chance of leaving this place alive, so he decided to become a martyr. Their eyes could only redden as their fists clenched, unable to do anything.
The crowd became split, one half standing aside, doing nothing, while the other half threw anything from rocks to rains of curses.
Even with a celestial body, because Dyon had never practiced any defensive techniques, he could distinctly feel the pain of tens of thousands of cultivators pelting him with any object they could find. Some of the more sinister individuals used more than just their strength, adding hidden weapons and explosive wills to their strikes.
The anger of the crowd only grew when they found that Dyon’s words about the pillar weren’t empty. No matter how many attacks they sent at his weapon, they couldn’t shatter or move the chains that wrapped around it.
Some even tried to lift the weapon from the ground, but they found that they were powerless to do so.
Dyon couldn’t help but inwardly sneer. If mere saints and celestials could shatter his broad sword, then its title as a Supreme weapon would be empty.
As for them lifting it from the ground, he was even less worried. One of the abilities of his weapon was to form endless chains. As long as his runic flames could power it, they could always grow longer and more numerous. While it looked like only two chains were anchoring his sword, in reality, it was thousands, each one buried tens of kilometers beneath the earth. Dyon was confident that the brute strength necessary to pull it out was far higher than what those of this quadrant could provide.
In the skies, the family heads only watched as Dyon withstood the rage of the crowd, not seeming eager to act just yet. It wasn’t until after the crowd had exhausted all of its means that the five core elders of Soul Rending Peak descended before Dyon beaten and bloodied body.
Still, they felt uncomfortable facing this young man. Despite his injuries, his back was just as straight and his eyes just as piercing.
“You dare glare at me?!” A fiery tempered elder couldn’t handle Dyon’s gaze for long and decided to act in hopes of saving face.
A flaming fist flew forward, slamming into Dyon’s gut.
Dyon grunted slightly, bending over.
The elder smiled, seemingly enjoying the power he held. He had held back significantly, not wanting to kill Dyon and bring on the rage of The Cathedral.
In the skies, Violet was still distraught. Although the image of her had disappeared, this wasn’t a humiliation she could stand.
She knew she was no match for Dyon and didn’t dare to go down herself, but that didn’t stop her from constantly urging her father again and again, tears streaming down her face, looking particularly pitiful.
When the elder saw that Dyon’s gaze hadn’t changed after his satisfaction disappeared and he almost cocked back to deliver another strike, but that was the moment the Master finally stopped standing in the air and appeared beside him.
Dyon didn’t have to look up to the Master. In fact, after his body broke through the celestial ranks, he had reached two meters tall. But, many felt that the imposing aura of a celestial had little to do with height.
However, those same people were shocked to find that Dyon’s momentum wasn’t any less fierce that the top expert of their quadrant.
Dyon stared into the Master’s eyes unperturbed, Violet’s shrieking still ringing in his ears. Her pleas to have Dyon killed didn’t fall on deaf ears. In fact, many of the crowd who had thrown objects at Dyon began to chant the same things.
Despite what they thought would happen at this point, though, Dyon didn’t beg for his life. He didn’t even speak.
“For the crime of offending my daughter,” The Master began to speak, silencing the crowd and his daughter. “I should kill you where you stand. However, such a death would be too easy for you.”
Even though his words seemed calm, anyone could see the blazing fury in his eyes.
“Your life is no longer your own. You’ll spend the rest of your miserable existence as a slave. You’ll have no free will, you’ll have no freedom, you’ll suffer endless humiliation day in and day out.”
The Master’s fists tightened. “Since my daughter can’t act on her own, this first punishment will be from me!”
A torrential rain of fists began to bombard Dyon’s body, each involuntarily wielding the piercing power of sword qi.
The crowd and the family heads only watched as this happened, satisfaction clear in many of their eyes.