Reaper of the Martial World

Book 3: Chapter 21: Enter

Dyon touched down to the ground, silently studying the area Alidor and his group had disappeared into.

He was quite content now. He had made a bet in his own array alchemy and had won.

From what he could tell, although Alidor’s array alchemy fundamentals far surpassed his, Dyon’s soul strength was still stronger than Alidor’s. However, that made what Alidor was doing all the more impressive.

Alidor’s soul stage was currently at the lower 5^th level, while Dyon’s was at the peak of the 5^th, only a few more soul rends from the lower 6^th stage. Despite this, though, Alidor’s fundamentals were so sound that he could draw arrays at the very peak of the practitioner stage with speed Dyon could only match if he were to draw mid practitioner level arrays. In regards to complete arrays that is. Dyon’s speed arraying short cuts were another matter entirely.

But, that wasn’t all. The quality of his arrays were to such a level that describing them in the terms of a practitioner array seemed… lacking.

A perfect example of this was in Dyon’s duel with the Elvin Kingdom’s formation and alchemy guilds.

When he first stepped to the stage, Elder Dior’s son, Luvon, had provoked Dyon by stating that his 4^th common level formation mastery far surpassed Dyon’s 1^st common level mastery. At the time, the members of the formation guild had assumed that with Dyon’s supposed soul strength, he could only draw 1^st common level arrays. It was just that he happened to be at a level of mastery that was hard to fathom in those low-level arrays.

So, Dyon, instead of refuting, agreed. Then, with the use of a 1^st common level array, he completely crushed Luvon’s hope of retaliation.

If you take this into account, doesn’t that just mean Alidor was doing the same? His innate soul wasn’t even as powerful as Dyon’s, having only been at the peak of the 2^nd stage. And, although most assumed that this was the cap for innate souls, Dyon’s perfect innate soul climbed to the 4^th stage when he activated his manifestation.

And yet, Alidor’s disadvantages didn’t end there. While Dyon had access to a peak divine level soul cultivation technique, Alidor had no such thing. What he did have was time, patience, Gautama clan legacies and maybe the greatest teacher in existence – the creator of the gates. This wasn’t to say that Alidor had ever met this creator, but… All one had to do was focus their 6^th sense to suddenly realize that everything in this gate. Everything. Was an array.

Dyon was slowly starting to realize this as well. In fact, it was the very existence of the death core that made his thoughts shift into that direction.

He just couldn’t imagine the level of array alchemy you’d need to reach to be able to manifest the very laws of the universe… But, Alidor had taken their teachings to heart, slowly working his way from the simplest to the more complex.

“Alright, time to study I guess…”

Dyon had already memorized the array Alidor had drawn. But, something was telling him that simply copying it wasn’t enough – the tower was much too enigmatic for that.

The only way to even make it close to this tower was to either have a powerful mastery of array alchemy or use brute strength. And yet, Kaeghan had shown Dyon exactly why just brute strength wasn’t enough. If that’s all you had to offer, your entire being could end up being like Kaeghan’s mangled hand.

Dyon silently chuckled to himself as he noticed Kaeghan’s limp hand lying on the ground. ‘What an odd guy…’

Shifting his gaze over the trail of dead monks and the fifth son, Dyon suddenly got an idea. ‘This dead guy is a member of the Uidah family? Maybe he has some important information about that family on him.’

Honestly, Dyon wasn’t too worried about the Uidah family. Even if they sent someone, they could at most be at the peak of the essence gathering stage. Plus, he had just very clearly heard Alidor’s backstory. Alidor had something on him, but didn’t he also have something on Alidor now too?

The truth was that hearing this story wasn’t something Dyon needed, it was only an added bonus.

After witnessing the first son battle, or at least try and battle Alidor, Dyon had already noted that the energy Alidor used was identical to the first son. And yet, this wasn’t an energy the Phantus or Basilisks used. And even further, Alidor went out of his way to not use that energy while battling Kaeghan. So, the deduction was quite simple. This was an energy that was exclusive to a very finite amount of people. It wasn’t one everyone in the Uidah universe had access to.

So, for Alidor to want to kill someone he clearly had close ties with, all while protecting a little girl that was much too young to be in the gate… The conclusion was clear for anyone who paid attention to see.

Still, Dyon wanted to know more about an enemy that would probably be coming at him for revenge. So, he took the fifth son’s spatial rings before focusing back on the Epistemic Tower.

‘This place is… dangerous.’

In the human world, there was a word to describe exactly what the Epistemic Tower was in the realm of physics… It was known as the perfect black body.

In the mortal realm, this was a concept that described the perfect absorber – a black hole of radiation.  

But, this Epistemic Tower wasn’t from the mortal realm… It was a martial realm iteration of one.

If you made a single misstep, not only would you not feel pain as your body was beaten and mangled to a near unrecognizable state… You wouldn’t even know how you died as your existence was completely removed from the world.

That’s right. This Epistemic Tower was indeed a perfect absorber. It wouldn’t just kill you.

It would erase any thoughts or trace that you had even had existed.  

Dyon took a deep breath. Dangerous or not, this was something he had to do.

This wasn’t about some pseudo competition between him and Alidor, or about Dyon chasing after the answer to the Epistermic Tower’s mystery, or even about having a break through in ranking.

No. Alidor had planned something big. And, whatever it was, had to do with conquering this gate. Something Dyon couldn’t allow to happen.

He didn’t care about Alidor’s sad backstory or even his purpose behind doing all of this. Dyon had long learned that right and wrong were subjective and the world was a painting of grey, not black and white. Sympathy wasn’t something he could afford to have when this Alidor was the same man who put his fiancée in danger not once, but twice.

Regardless of Alidor’s reasoning, it was clear he wanted full control of this gate. What he wanted to do with it was irrelevant. He had to first pay a price for attacking Ri. And that price started and ended with this tower.

Dyon’s eyes flashed and darkened as he stimulated the Mathilde family technique, trying to see if it gave him a different perspective on the tower.

“Ugh.”

A splitting headache tore through Dyon’s brain. His eyes blinked rapidly, immediately cutting off the Asura’s Imperial Eye. ‘Damn…’

For his technique to react like that made it clear to him that this wasn’t a technique he was meant to see through in that way… At least not so directly.

Dyon began thinking back to Alidor’s array and methods.

He had walked all the way around the tower, taking his time to analyze everything before he drew his array.

‘What if the reason I can’t make heads or tails of his array is because it doesn’t have any purpose other than to open up the tower… It has no purpose I’ve seen before. It’s just a key. But, how do I make one for myself, and what does it have to do with the tower?…’

Dyon’s eyes flashed with a dense purple gold as he pushed his observational abilities to the limit.

‘What do I know?… That space is locked in this area, but also connected within this space. I know brute strength won’t open the tower. I know the tower is a perfect absorber… perfect absorber…’

To Dyon, this last point seemed to be the most important. Was it the tower itself that emanated the characteristics of a perfect absorber? Or was it the barrier around it?

‘The first son character didn’t have to touch the tower to be mutilated…’

Dyon’s eyes narrowed as an idea crossed his mind. ‘Don’t the spatial tears have the same characteristics?… All this time we’ve been thinking of them like spatial distortions, and yet I didn’t sense any spatial will…’

This was another good point. Even Kaeghan who fought Alidor himself hadn’t felt any spatial will. That could mean a few things… Either the tears themselves weren’t the main source of spatial will, but were rather results of a source that came from the tower. Or, they didn’t sense spatial will because it was no longer spatial will… It had evolved into something else.

Dyon’s thoughts were suddenly filled with a fox of unmatched beauty. A small smile played his features. ‘Ri’s faith seed in its true form… It felt like this…’

If Dyon had to describe it… It felt like destruction, erasure and chaos. But, there was also a murderous intent and danger that couldn’t be ignored. And yet, it had control over space that Dyon had never reached before.

If Dyon’s spatial will wasn’t supplemented by his time will to form gravity, or fused with his celestial movement technique, he rarely used it. It was just too weak. This made sense, of course. Spatial will might be accessible, but you couldn’t expect to fold space and connect universe with something that was a will any foundation or meridian formation stage expert could use.

But, this will seemed like a step up from spatial will… It was analogous to how celestial will was above other purity paths Dyon knew of. There was simply a shift in quality that couldn’t be ignored.

‘This helps.’ Dyon suddenly sat down, his humanoid manifestation blooming behind him as he pushed his soul stage to its peak.

It was impossible for Dyon to learn this new will – a will he would soon come to learn had the name ‘Void’. He didn’t have the affinity to learn such a complex and high level will. The only reason he knew celestial will was because his master had pumped him with her essence.

Dyon had learned long ago that there were tiers amongst wills. There were ones almost anyone could learn. Simple and straight forward wills, most of which included common weapons and elemental wills.

However, there was a drastic up in quality as you searched for more powerful wills. These were wills that were rare, but powerful existences. Celestial will would be on the lower end of this category along with demonic will. And void and death will would likely be much higher on this ranking…

When dealing with these higher-class wills, there were only three ways to learn them.

The first was to have an inborn affinity for it. By being born with a faith seed, like Ri, and tapping into it properly, learning and sensing the will would become like second nature to you. This result could also be replicated if you were in a family with a bloodline carrying an affinity for it. It just so happened Ri was both.

The second was to steal or gain affinity. This could be done by stealing a faith seed or essence, or being infused with either of the two.

The last was of course the method Dyon used to gain an affinity for death will. It was to find a core the connected with the very meaning of the will to such a deep level that it could be used as a catalyst for you to learn.

And yet, while Dyon knew all of this and his eyes flashed with a light of success as he solved the puzzle of the tower… What he didn’t know was that the highest echelon of wills were known as supreme laws… And he was about to run into one a lot sooner than he thought…

Dyon stood. ‘All of the spatial distortions are connected. It seems that I was wrong. It wasn’t a one or the other case, it’s both.’

What Dyon meant was simple. It wasn’t that the spatial tears weren’t spatial will, or that it just wasn’t the main source of spatial will. It was both.

There was a main source of void will was around the Epistemic Tower, and all of the spatial tears around it were just the resultant consequences. However, those ‘consequences’, seemed purposeful because of the fact that if connected in the right way, it was possible to bypass the void barrier around the Epistemic Tower.

Dyon chuckled to himself, ‘If my little feu glace was here, this would have been a million times easier. She’s probably one of the few that could use brute strength to get through this place.’

Although Dyon had figured it out, he still needed to wait for the right moment… a moment where it all aligned.

Alidor was actually quite cautious. He hadn’t found evidence that Dyon was watching him, but, he still acted as though someone was. Walking around the Epistemic Tower was a complete bluff, that was necessary.

The second trick was that he drew the array with his hand, but the source of void will was in the ground. You weren’t meant to write the array in the air. You were meant to do it into the ground!

With the constant shifting of the spatial tears in the air, it seemed as though that where the originated from… But, wasn’t it also true that the reason for the spatial tears could be a power emitting from the ground? A power that was constantly shifting out of view?

‘Nice tricks… To think you made me memorize a useless array while you drew it with your feet. No wonder it looked like nonsense. I was right about it being a key, but I was wrong about which of your limbs was drawing the key.’

Dyon’s eyes flashed with a dense purple gold as his aurora was pushed to its limit.

The Tree of Life and Death appeared behind him, immediately piercing into the ground and creating a map of energy in Dyon’s mind.

‘I can’t map out the whole 50km radius at once… This’ll take some time…’

This was exactly like a game. The void will was constantly shifting beneath the ground, but, it was doing so on a set pattern. When Alidor walked around the tower, he was waiting for the pattern he recognized to appear.

All Dyon had to do was take his time to analyze the grounds at specific and set times. Then, he could grow the map of just 1 pattern in his mind. Then, by drawing that pattern at the right time, he’d be able to enter!

And just like that, another half a day past before Dyon finally stood. A look of determination colored his features as he feet flashed with an elaborate array he didn’t bother hiding as much as Alidor had.

The ground lit, stars and swirls spreading along the ground as Dyon’s array bounced from power source to power source.

Soon, a foggy door appeared before him.

Smiling, Dyon stepped forward, disappearing into a new world.

**

Away from Dyon and at Lotus Tower, Ri’s transformation had changed everything.

The army of four hundred thousand had been cut down to half its numbers over the past few days, and Ri didn’t seem like she was done yet. This was only made better by the fact the elves were stepping up as well.

Akash was without a doubt a veteran. Her double-sided spears sliced down opponents with ease as she took advantage of her essence gathering cultivation to take out weaker opponents along with her younger brother, Zaltarish.

Aeson remained silent, but his spear was fierce. He was using this battle to temper his will to an all new level. Much like the demon generals, he hadn’t taken a single rest.

Delia was a source of inspiration for many of the stronger members of the nine hundred elves who watched from within the Gorilla’s Den formation. She wasn’t as strong, but she still tried her best. Her kill count was near non-existent and she often spent a lot of time fighting one opponent at a time, but she still tried. In fact, the demon generals held smiles on their faces because of her and Ri, so, to help, they helped facilitate Delia’s 1on1 battles, stopping people from ganging up on her.

The enemies these hundred or so couldn’t stop hit the wall of the Gorillas Den formation. But, the problem was that, as meridian formation warriors, the effort it took to break peak practitioner arrays was too much for most of them. And even when they managed to break through together, they’d face spatial spear grenades as the Elvin orphans hid behind their protections.

The worst part was that even when the odd warrior managed to truly enter the maze, they’d face an attack from pockets of elves and Niveus sect members that were grouped in hundreds. They stood no chance.

Bas and Liska watched all of this from the sky, gritting their teeth. They had realized that waiting for Ri to weaken was useless, especially with the hundred demon generals there. This was not going well.

When they came here, their plan was to use rules given to them by Alidor to flip the death qi against the Lotus alliance, but, for some inexplicable reason, all of the death qi was gone! How could they know that Dyon had absorbed the core? And even if they had known, they wouldn’t have believed it!

Bas grit his teeth, but finally said words he should have said long ago. “We can’t do this without out Essence Gathering experts. Call them here so we can end this farce. We’ve lost almost eight hundred thousand of our kin. Eight hundred thousand!” Bas shook violently. Promiscuous or not didn’t matter. Their high population didn’t mean they were okay with literal genocide.

Liska nodded silently. They knew they needed thousands of essence gathering experts. Tying down Ri was no longer the problem… Those demon generals… They were something else.

“Let them keep fighting. Don’t let them have rest or time to plan something else. Call over the elite troop from the gate entrance. The ones who didn’t go attack Rod or Looming tower.

We’ll see how they deal with being outdone in number and strength.” The anger in Bas’ heart lit as he looked forward to the slaughtering of this petty alliance.

**

Away from the heating battle, Dyon was standing in a room that made his brain spin with so many questions that he felt dizzy.

The space was circular and lit brightly by a strange golden statue that say in the middle. Sometimes it had one head, sometimes it had three, sometimes it had six, and yet still, sometimes it had hundreds. Even more odd was the fact this was true for its arms and legs too. In fact, even the facial expressions on the statue were in a perpetual state of change. Dyon just couldn’t put his finger on was going on.

However, the oddities didn’t end there. Below Dyon’s feet was an odd dark gold fog that looked almost olive in color… An energy that was an exact match for the one Kaeghan used and Alidor attacked him with!

Just standing in it gave Dyon such an odd ever-changing feeling that he felt as though he was getting motion sickness.

This was exactly how he had felt when Alidor attacked him for the first time! He just couldn’t understand the strange dichotomy of the energy. It was as ever changing as the statue…

All of this said… There was still a single thing that made Dyon shake to his very core…

Around him were ten identical fog filled doorways. The fog was so dense that see past and into the door was impossible. But, this wasn’t the most important point…

Above each door, were symbols that somehow breathed their meaning into Dyon’s mind.

Scanning the symbols, Dyon’s shock only increased as he trained on two particular doorways…

‘Aurora…’

And…

‘True Empath.’