Dyon appeared back within a familiar cave to be greeted by loud booms and cries of agony. It seemed the Belmont Ancestor was very eager to play his role. Having already wasted much of his time, he had a lot to make up for.
Even without the energy barrier the ancestor put up to protect Dyon and his allies in the cave, the Daiyu wouldn't have any choice but to completely focus on the expert in the sky. Diverting their attention to a three front war would be no less than completely suicidal.
Dyon watched silently with Ri and Madeleine by his side, lamenting the fact that Alidor didn't make his pair of sweatpants as soft as he usually liked them. However, Ri and Madeleine were just relieved he was wearing clothes at all. At the moment, his presence was too intoxicating for them to also deal with his nudity.
However, there was something else on Dyon's mind. How could he, as an array alchemy expert, not have analyzed the formation before he entered it? He had already long since deduced not only what level of formation it was, but also understood that killing Elder Daiyu would make everything worse.
That said, what choice did he have? The thought of killing a dao formation expert was enough of an impossibility to drive anyone made, let alone the idea of capturing them alive. The latter was simply far more ridiculous than the former.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtAlthough the arrays Dyon could draw were limited to the grandmaster level, it could be said that his knowledge surpassed that due to one special thing he had access to that no other array alchemist did: The Dao of Array Alchemy.
Not only had it aided him in building a base of understanding that far exceeded his own self previously, it gave him knowledge far exceeding what he could make use of with his current soul strength. Something that was especially so now considering his soul was sealed.
There were two main ways to break a formation. Brute strength or disrupting its cores. Here, brute strength was obviously not an option. To destroy this kind of formation, dao formation strength would be needed at a minimum.
Unfortunately, Dyon had no idea that dao formation experts were currently outside trying to break through the formation. The problem was that they were limited in the power they could use in order to not alert their enemies. If this wasn't the case, and they directly attacked the formation at certain key points, a few of which would be easy for Nora to find, they could obliterate it.
The second option was likely even more impossible. To disrupt the cores of the formation meant not only having to understand how many there were and where they were, but also in what way to disrupt them and the order in which to do so.
There was a pseudo third option, which was just a combination of the first two. However, it was very difficult to pull off. It required first disrupting to weaken the formation, before then attacking it in its weakened state. The problem with this method is that disruptions agitate the failsafes. If not done properly, there can be heavy backlash on the soul.
"Is something wrong?" Ri couldn't help but ask. With the turning of the situation, by all rights Dyon should be happier. She couldn't help but think that maybe his talk with Clara didn't go so well.
Dyon shook his head before explaining the situation.
"Even if I had my soul strength, I don't think there'd be much I could do. Although I already know where the cores are, and how many there are, that's not enough to disrupt them properly, especially after Elder Daiyu's death. I would need soul strength similar to that of the level required to draw this formation to begin with in order to succeed." Dyon sighed, looking off into the distance.
The only way to ignore the soul strength requirement, would have be to have a kit specialized in formation disruption. Much like The Seal, such a kit would lessen the load on the soul needed to perform certain tasks. The Seal lowers the usual requirements for sealing, while these kits do the same for core disruption.
You would think that the celestial deer sect remains would have at least one of these kits, but it seemed they were among the rare items stolen along with much of their other precious possessions. It was lucky that Dyon had gained even as much as he had. If the treasure room wasn't sealed away and hidden, he would have likely earned even less from the whole experience.
"Will we be here until the formation naturally runs out of energy, then?" Madeleine asked.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmWhat would surprise most people is that they weren't too worried about this outcome. Their husband was safe and by there side, so the idea of being stuck in a place with such abundant resources wasn't the end of the world, right?
The only worry Ri still held, was her mother and what her current condition was. If they were truly stuck, she'd have no way of ever finding out.
As for the war, they were even less worried about that. Although that was mostly because they had never known the large scale the Ragnors would use their artificial wills at, for the most part, with Elder Daiyu and Patriarch Ragnor gone, they were now at an advantage with their celestials as long as Ri's dad made it back.
When Ri and Madeleine thought of this point, they couldn't help but look at the side profile of their husband. How had he done it?... How did he constantly make the impossible, possible?...
Dyon had already told them much of how when he explained the reason he was forced to burn his soul, but even knowing that their husband would never lie to them, it was still so unbelievable.
With a light smile, Dyon shook his head. "We won't have to wait that long. Just until my soul recovers should be enough."
However, although he said this, Dyon knew it would be quite dangerous to leave then. With the situation the way it was now, who knew what the Earth would look like in that period of time? It might be better to wait out a few hundred years until they reached sufficient cultivation to defend themselves against the threats of the martial world.