639 Ripped Apart
After the shattered daos were absorbed into the ancient tome, the fourth page was no longer blank. Although the Dragon King had explained how the Will of Heart worked, Dyon simply didn’t have time to do anything about it now. He would have to save them for later.
Outside of the Belmont Holy Land cave, the battle was still raging onward. But, in the center of it all, Chenglei, who was being heavily protected by Daiyu clan members, suddenly felt a sense of loss. However, it wouldn’t be until much later that he understood just why…
After absorbing Elder Daiyu’s soul, because Dyon made no attempt at scanning his memories, he was able to replenish his soul to the best of his abilities.
Taking a deep breath, an ominous air filled the atmosphere as an obsidian tree with cracks of crystalline rocks weakly flickered into existence.
From the very beginning, Dyon understood that only the best of soul techniques could manifest physical forms. It required either outstanding soul talent, or an outstanding technique in and of itself. So, when Dyon saw that his Tree of Life and Death was more illusory than real, he could help but grit his teeth before sighing. He had no idea if he’d be able to absorb any essence from Elder Daiyu like this.
‘It seems your soul is too damaged.’ The Dragon King spoke, confirming Dyon’s suspicions.
The Tree of Life and Death was quite frankly useless in this form. Its corporeal form wasn’t just about piercing things, it quite literally represented its power.
It seemed that Dyon was too naïve in believing he could take advantage of this situation like this. He had been lucky to even be capable of using Devour at all. The mandate of the Heavens wasn’t something you could just dodge because you felt like it, even if it could be delayed for a few moments.
However, he could understand. Devour required his soul, yes, but there were no requirements for it to be complete in order to be used. But, Manifestations were different.
Manifestations were quite literally meant to be a projection of your soul. In learning the Acacia family technique, Dyon had to body cultivate to cause changes to his bloodline, that would then affect his soul directly. So, how could an incomplete soul project something complete? It was impossible…
Loki seemed to have sensed this and started laughing uproariously. “Just 4 more minutes. What could you possibly do with that sham of a manifestation. You should just be lucky that you haven’t dropped dead yet!”
Even as Loki finish his words, Dyon’s broke out into a cold sweat as an intense pain tore through his chest. He coughed violently, unable to stop the torrent of sweet blood from flying from his mouth.
Dyon collapsed to his knee, wheezing for breath.
In a way, Loki was right. Anyone else would have long since collapsed from burning their soul. Zabia had only managed to remain conscious for ten minutes before Dyon was forced to save him, and yet Dyon had managed to hang on, on his own for hours – even with Loki’s torture!
Loki couldn’t help but gloat at Dyon’s misfortune, staring at the charred boy as though he was nothing more than a corpse walking.
There really was no hope for Dyon left. If he could muster enough power to hurt a saint before Loki could move again, he was basically waiting for death.
Relying on the Dragon King was a fool’s errand. Although it didn’t particularly matter whether Loki was ready or not – because the Dragon King would win anyway – the problem was that if the Dragon King was the one to subdue Loki, Dyon would lose all control of him. Dyon wasn’t so naïve as to believe that the Dragon King was some benevolent being. The only reason why he helped Dyon in his weapon form was because he was bound by the laws the universe set for weapons. This was the price he paid for leaving a part of himself in this plane.
As for Dyon’s puppet, that was even more impossible. Elder Daiyu, before his death, had completely destroyed the arrays that kept Dyon’s puppet together. Although the material could still be reused in the future, what made the puppet itself tick was completely gone. If it wasn’t, Dyon wouldn’t have even had to connect his soul to it in order to kill Loki because the puppet would have had peak saint cultivation even with being controlled.
The only other chance Loki could think of Dyon having would be force feed him some sort of poison, or to unlock some seals on his odd weapon. But, after seeing the toll unlocking those seals put on him at peak condition, how could Dyon handle it in his current state? As for poison, after being tortured for so many years in Ragnor clan territory, how could any normal poison effect him anymore? Not to mention the fact that carrying around poison capable of ending a peak saint’s life was rare in and of itself.
For all of these reasons, Loki no longer bothered with Dyon, instead choosing to focus on his own recovery. At the moment, the only thing that stopped him from moving was the dangerous levels his soul had reached. He quite literally felt like his life was hanging on by a thin string.
If he didn’t properly replenish his soul, his life could slip away at any moment. Thus, he had no choice but to take his time and soul cultivate, something he rarely did considering most of his power was based in his energy cultivation.
Unfortunately for Loki and many others like him, soul cultivation was a task that was exceedingly difficult, painful and slow. So, when he said he needed ten minutes to stabilize himself and stand, he was no exaggerating a single bit.
However, none of that mattered. All Loki could think about was how he could keep Dyon alive for the longest period of time so he could feel his body being ripped apart.