Reaper of the Martial World

Book 8: Chapter 105: Faith (3)

When Dyon’s preparations were complete, his eyes sharpened.

His mind had been on edge for several days. The death of the two numbered warriors and the capture of Thirteen seemed simple, but they were spread out in split second moments that took place over numerous days.

Dyon’s mental energies hadn’t reached a state where he could battle for so long despite how powerful his soul was. One talent was irrelevant to the other. It took time to refine oneself to that level and reach the point of dao experts who normally had battles that stretched over months, even years.

Dyon knew he was at a disadvantage. His only strength in this battle was his mind, but while his opponents were still fresh, he wasn’t. A battle of a few days was nothing to a dao expert.

‘One final push. Within the next two weeks, you’ll fall beneath my blade!’

An eerie calm overwhelmed Dyon. It was as though he had stopped breathing completely. The stillness of the ocean could fill one’s heart with fear, as though the darkness had swallowed all forms of life. But, Dyon didn’t have the luxury of feeling this emotion. It would only hold him back.  

Like this, a battle for the fate of Dyon’s unborn Mortal Empire began.

Flashes of blue lightning, massive clashes, and reverberating currents of water bloomed.

The two sentinels were no match for the combined attack of the three numbered warriors. Even with Ten’s injury and their attack having started before Nine expelled all the cold qi from herself, the difference was unbearably large.

For higher dao experts to be capable of fighting two middle dao experts without their use of qi, it was obvious how large the difference between realms was. No, it wasn’t entirely accurate to say they accomplished this without qi.

Whenever it seemed that Dyon would deal them a blow, the three would erupt with their full strength, ignoring the ramifications of their accumulating cold qi to blast the sentinels backward. Then, they would take advantage of their clashes to push water away from themselves and restore their normal state.

However, even with these occurrences, the sharpness in Dyon’s eyes didn’t fade. He was focused on two things: defense and time.

He needed to make sure the sentinels never entered a position where they could be obliterated in a single strike. If this occurred, their regeneration abilities would be rendered useless. This was defense.

But, he also needed to lengthen the battle. It wasn’t yet the right moment to strike. He needed the toxins of the King Jellyfish to continually build. The was time.

Dyon’s battle tactics could only be described as scheming and annoying. He constantly threw in feints to attempted attacks and always seemed to find new, underhanded means to push his opponents into a corner.

The time intervals between blue lightning strikes seemed completely random, and sometimes they wouldn’t be King Jellyfish at all. At the same time, [Qi Line] began to strike fear in Eleven and Ten, especially Ten who wasn’t being given any time to heal. However, the most annoying tactic was without a doubt the sentinels themselves.

After being fixed by the Mending Core, the sentinels gained the ability to replicate all the skills of their master. This wasn’t just limited to wills, but even Dyon’s techniques.

For as long as he could remember, Dyon saw his opponents as unbearably slow. Even back to the days of the World Tournament, to now, it felt as though his mind was operating in warp speed while his enemies had to push their bodies through masses of thick liquid.

The only unfortunate part was that Dyon’s body had never been able to keep up with his mind. But now, he had two dao puppets capable of reacting to his thoughts. Even though they were still shockingly slower than Dyon’s speed of thought, it was enough to force the three numbered warriors into a corner from time to time.  

Nine, who had already been pissed was even more so now. She was a mighty Dream Panther, when had she ever been treated like this? This was the most maddening battle she had ever been a part of.

The sentinels always retreated whenever she sought to take advantage of an opening. Their weapons constantly changed. Sometimes they used a saber, at other times a rod, and at even others it would be a halberd.

It felt as though they were fighting hundreds of different opponents with hundreds of different styles at once. The changes were so abrupt and jarring that even Nine was caught off guard several times.

‘Just how many techniques can one person know?!’ Nine wanted to roar at the top of her lungs, but she noticed that whenever she lost her mind to anger, and immortal puppet would appear out of nowhere and force her to use her enigmatic qi to defend. The worst part was that before she could counterattack, the puppet would vanish as though it was never there.

However, while the dao experts were being slowly driven to insanity, Dyon’s eyelids seemed as though they could close on him at any moment. He had never felt such a fierce desire to sleep since he began to cultivate… Or, maybe not since he burned his soul…

His eyes seem to sink into his head, his skin paled, revealing sickly veins of green, and his breathing was erratic.

The pressure of constantly changing styles, of constantly fighting like a brand-new person… It was too much for one person’s mind to handle.

Dyon was too young. The challenge geniuses faced was that sometimes their cultivation speed would be too great for their level of mental fortitude. Sometimes, there were things only enough time could fix.

However, if one looked closely, past those nearly shut eyelids, one would see a hidden sharpness that hadn’t faded. It was at that moment that Madeleine lost consciousness several universes away. Dyon didn’t know what it was, but he felt there was something intangible pushing him to a greater height… Faith, maybe… historical

‘It’s time.’ Dyon’s haggard figure breathed out. Everything should be in place. It was time to kill.