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Book 4: Chapter 18: Slow

Along with Eli, Ri and the demon generals, Dyon wasn’t polite about rescuing the Viridi family. He directly headed toward where he knew they were being held – the Arena City Alchemy Guild.

“Big brother, are we really going to let him take them away?” Ace’s face scrunched in disgust. He didn’t care about the Viridi family. In fact, until today, he had forgotten about their existence. After the events of last year, he and Elof had branded them, but, they had ended up in Arena City – Cavositas family territory.

Although Vidar Ragnor had had the array plates, that was only because it was his idea to use that family to pressure Dyon – or, more accurately, it had been Elof, his younger brother’s, idea.

But, now, the optics weren’t as bad for the Ragnor family as they were for the Cavositas family. Why? Because although slave trading was a Ragnor family trade, the slaves themselves belongs to Arena City… A city run by the Cavositas. And now, Dyon was about to stroll into one of their guilds, and take their property away.

Hearing his younger brother’s complaints, Voron sneered, “In a few weeks, he’ll be a slave himself. What are you getting so worked up about?”

In the distance, there was at least one person happy with Dyon’s victory, although he too believed that it would be short lived.

Oliver had had Venus’ slavery weighing on his mind for years now. Although he was Madeleine’s elder brother, his sister’s power wasn’t his own. In fact, even if he had Madeleine’s power, that didn’t guarantee the freeing of the Viridi family. After all, although the Sapientia were highly respected, they weren’t known for their combat prowess. It wasn’t a secret to anyone that the Sapientia avoided mass conflicts so as to maintain their neutral ground and be allowed to thrive as they had been. This meant that the Cavositas had no reason to listen to the demands of the Sapientia family.

After brushing off his brother’s worried, Voron set his gaze on Dyon as everyone dispersed, “The only thing I regret about this is that we’ll never get a chance to show him the difference between him and us.”

Vidar stood in the air silently, listening to Voron’s words. The truth was that even Vidar was too young to be among the top four of earth. It wasn’t that he wasn’t powerful, it was that the top experts like Iris Ipsum had had almost a decade to accumulate points for their rankings. Regardless of his faith seed, this was only Vidar’s 3^rd campaign, and yet, he had still managed to rank 25^th, something that should have been praised among his peers.

And yet, there was Dyon. And then, there was Ri. And even worse? There was Madeleine. Each one had made it into the top 30, and each one had less campaigns than him. But now, he had come to find out that Dyon had manipulated the rankings?! There was nothing he wanted more than to tear Dyon apart. If he could change the rankings for himself and Ri, why not for Madeleine as well? It all made sense now.

What maybe made all of this worse was the fact that Thor had placed higher on the rankings than he had after his first campaign. And, so had Caedlum. Both had managed to make it into the top 50 cumulative rankings, and yet Vidar hadn’t even been in the top 100 after his first campaign. Everything was coming together to reach a fever pitch, and Vidar wanting nothing more than to use Dyon as his vent.

How could Vidar know that Dyon, Ri and Madeleine all deserved their rankings? And even if he did know, is that something he’d accept?..

Suddenly, Vidar was snapped out of his thoughts by his younger brother, “Big brother, we should go. Father is likely waiting for you and Thor to come as we speak.”

Although Elof was vague with his words, often by his own lack of information rather than by his design, Elof knew exactly what the importance of this meeting was.

The Ragnor family had been here for exactly as long as the Elves had been. They entered as a low level clan, back when the Celestial Deer Sect were still the overlords of the quadrant. It wasn’t that the Ragnor clan was weak. In fact, they weren’t too far off in strength from the Celestial Deer Sect even back then. It was just that the branch they sent here was. This was why Ri’s words to Vidar had hit so close to home.

This Ragnor branch was a nearly forgotten one, but, what wasn’t forgotten was the importance of the mission they had been sent on – a mission that was coming closer and closer to completion.

There was a reason the groomed the Saeclum auxiliary clan to use the technique they coerced from the elves. There was a reason they took hold of the Ipsum auxiliary clan as well. And, maybe most importantly, there was a reason they warred with the Pakal God Clan for their closely guarded technique… In fact, only a few knew that part of the reason that this Ragnor branch fled to this universe was to carry along with it the Blood Sacrifice Technique they stole from the main Pakal branch.

However, that was only part of the reason… And, it seemed as though the second part was coming to a close soon too.

It may have been lost on other more infantile God Clans, but the Ragnor were very clear of the shift occurring on other planets. They were very clear on the movements into and out of this universe, movements that should have been impossible. And maybe what they were most clear on was the fact that their time was coming.

Their mission would soon be complete, yes… But, It was also the time for this ‘small’ branch to rise up and take their place amongst the best the universes had to offer.

Vidar was sure that his faith seed would play a large role. It was about time he awakened it.

After finding a covert place to send the demon generals back into the ring, Dyon walked along the streets as though nothing had happened with Ri and Eli.

“Have you met Ri, Eli?” Dyon asked with a bright smile. It was as though he was a kid again, excited to show off his girlfriend. Ri found this to be quite adorable, but she was still a little shy. This was her first time meeting someone Dyon truly called friend – everyone else was either his subordinate or enemy.

However, Ri seemed to recover from this quickly, “We did meet while you were doing something reckless. You know you could have died right? What were you thinking?!”

Eli giggled as he watched Dyon awkwardly scratch the back of his head. It had been a long time since he had any time to truly relax and he felt the best he had in years. He was happy to have a friend that remember him after so long, despite the short time they had spent together.

After she finished berating Dyon for being stupid, Ri switched sides to talk to Eli. For some reason, she felt comfortable enough to wrap her arms around his in a friendly way. Maybe it was Eli’s shy appearance or his innocent features, but Ri took a liking to him.

“Tell me Eli, how was Dyon back then? How many bad things did he do?”

Dyon cringed at this question, trying to signal Eli with his eyes to remember the bro-code. Unfortunately, it seemed the martial world had no concept of such a thing. Seeing that Ri was taking the opportunity to get close to him, Eli’s mouth began to pour out endless secrets. Well, maybe they weren’t secrets, but they were definitely things he had glossed over in the past.

In the past, Dyon had already told Ri about how he met Madeleine in full detail – that would never be something he held from her. But, there were other things he… May or may not have ignored.

“Mortal World crush?”

“Flirting with anything that walked?”

“Naked in front of Delia?”

Ri’s voice seemed to gain an octave with every new juicy piece of information. Dyon could only pretend as though he wasn’t there, instead focusing his gaze on the cobbled roads and shop-lined streets.

In the end, Dyon couldn’t even find the tears to cry, “Eli, you traitor!”

Eli couldn’t help but laugh, seemingly unaffected by Dyon’s cries.

Seeing that no one was going to help him explain, Dyon began to, “My first crush isn’t even relevant. I was like five years old, that hardly counts for anything, right?”

RI’s blue-silver eyes blinked as her long hair bobbed in the wind, “It counted enough for you to remember to tell my best friend Eli about it.”

‘Best friend?’ Dyon choked on air, this wasn’t going well. “Alright, alright.”

The truth was that Dyon had been worried about more than just his parents showing up during the trials – he had also been worried about confronting a girl he had liked back when he was in the human world. It had never developed into love, because Dyon had cut it off. But, that probably only made him feel all the guiltier. That said, it was likely because Dyon had made the emotionally unselfish decision then, that made the old man not deem it worthy to test him on.

Clara Esmond. Dyon hadn’t seen her since he was about ten years old. That was when, after the death of his father, he began taking his inventing seriously. He tossed everything for the sake of making his mark on the world. Actually… Dyon had seen her again during the Focus Academy assessments, but he had done his best to avoid her entirely.

To an adult, the decisions of a ten-year-old seem petty. Dyon didn’t even know what the word love meant, and it wasn’t until Madeleine that his brain had a eureka moment – something that was then replicated by Ri. In fact, if it wasn’t for Clara, it would have been all the more likely for Dyon to ignore his feelings for Madeleine. But, when you coupled those past feelings of guilt, with the thought of Madeleine’s life being on the line, it had pushed him over the edge.

Dyon’s mother, before her death, had always told him to follow his feelings and act on them before it was too late. But, it wasn’t until Clara that Dyon began taking that seriously.

There was a time where Dyon ignored his mother’s advice much like he had his dad’s. Many saw his lopsided agreement with his mother and wrote him off as a ‘momma’s boy’, when in reality there was a story behind that too.

Seeing Dyon struggling with his answer, and not wanting to ruin the mood, Ri tactfully changed the subject. In reality, Dyon had brought up Clara to Ri, before. It was just that it happened to be one of the things he glossed over.

“Forget the crush then, I’m not letting you off the hook.” Ri playfully glared at Dyon, “What’s this I hear about you flashing poor Delia? And sexually harassing Ava?”

Dyon nearly snorted out his laughter, “I’m innocent! Delia just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and I was only thanking Ava for saving me!”

“So you want to blame poor Delia for seeing what she saw? It was her home! How was she supposed to know some pervert was going to come flying in with his things hanging everywhere?”

Eli burst out into laughter. He didn’t even notice when tears had started streaming down his face until Ri took out a cloth to help him wipe it was a concerned smile on her face.

It wasn’t until then that Dyon noticed that they had finally come to the alchemy guild – it was no wonder why Eli’s emotions were a mess.

Patting his shoulder, Dyon smiled lightly, “Let’s go get them.”

Much later that day, Dyon had found a place for everyone to stay. He had wanted to be lowkey before, but since practically the whole city knew of his existence now, he decided to rent out an entire home.

Many of the Viridi were in too bad of a state to walk out under their own power, so Dyon had put them to sleep. It was likely even they hadn’t been aware that they were saved.

Surprisingly, after his family was saved, Eli stopped all thoughts of crying. He immediately moved to doing everything in his power to have them rest comfortably, impressing Dyon with his knowledge of plants again.

From the day Dyon had met Eli, he had already noted his excellent gardening skills, but, he was ashamed to say that back then, he hadn’t truly grasped the scale Eli worked under. But now, with Dyon’s alchemy knowledge having increased manifold, it was quite shocking to see that Eli could still impress him like this. In fact, it seemed quite abnormal.

As a wielder of an innate aurora, Dyon usually picked up on things others didn’t. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that often times, those small things were what set Dyon apart from those who plotted against him. So, when Dyon realized just how impressive Eli’s knowledge of alchemy was despite not having an innate aurora, he immediately thought of the words Voron had said…

Voron had mentioned how Eli was seen as a useless as a pill slave. He had no reaction to the pills given to him and his deterioration in health had to do with his worry for his family as opposed to anything else.

He was eventually released, but he kept coming back to the point where he was sent off to the Chaos Arena.

Although the connection seemed somewhat convoluted and flimsy, Dyon immediately wanted to see if this somehow had some sort of connection with his sensitivity to plants. But, now didn’t seem like the time to find out. Eli was much too focused on taking care of his family to worry about anything else.

Dyon sighed as his eyes scanned over Uncle Ail and Venus, two other members of the Viridi family he had good connections with.

Uncle Ail’s hair was decidedly less spherical. In fact, he ironically looked as young as he was meant to now, despite the fact his skin was pale and sunken.

As for Venus, her lips were cracked, and her sandy blond hair seemed to have greyed. She looked almost nothing like the teen she should. She should have at most been a few years older than Dyon, and yet here she was struggling to hold onto her life.

The first thing Dyon had done for each and every one of the Viridi was purge their system of all pill effects. But, maybe the harder part was to remove the pill impurities.

In all of the pills Dyon had ever created, he never worried about impurities. Because of his innate aurora, his process, within reason, could be seen as the peak of perfection. But, other alchemists didn’t have such a luxury and often had the effectiveness of their pills restricted by impurities. Unfortunately, these impurities were harder to deal with than even the pills themselves. The only saving grace was that the level of alchemy, and therefore the level of materials used, were all low grade – this made it easier to deal with.

After Dyon helped to the best of his abilities, he let Eli know that he should mind his rest, pointing out that there were tens of open rooms in this house for him to sleep in before leaving Eli in the large bed filled room.

On his way upstairs to where Ri was likely waiting, Dyon once again thought of Madeleine. He had been diligently checking his device, but there was still no message. That likely meant that Madeleine hadn’t arrive yet, unless she for some reason ran out of dao stones again. Either way, Dyon could only wait. Regardless, in just a few weeks, he should be able to see her – a thought that brought a smile to his face.

‘It’s been a long time…’ Dyon thought to himself.

Almost two years. In fact, the start of the world tournament would make two years exactly. Dyon didn’t even care that his sixteenth birthday was coming up soon, he was more eager to see his first love. This time, she wouldn’t be going anywhere without him by her side.

This Connery Sapientia character seemed intent on marrying Madeleine to someone else. ‘As if,’ Dyon snorted to himself, ‘You won’t even get as far as the ceremony planning. Let alone the actual ceremony. I’m not letting my Madeleine go through that again.’

Just as Dyon was about to go up the stairs, his ears twitched with the sound of light footsteps approaching the door of the mansion. With his improved body constitution, all of his senses had been improved wildly such that he could immediately pick up on such things.

‘Maybe?’ Dyon smiled. He didn’t think anyone else would come and bother him but one person. After all, with the display the demon generals had put on, any enemies would be foolhardy to even attempt it unless they bothered the heads of the Royal God Clans – something ridiculously unlikely.

Dyon walked toward the door. Or, more accurately, he did something that looked half like walking and half like running. His body seemed to flash from where it stood to the door. His soul was fatigued after spending so long curing the Viridi, but he did a quick sweep anyway. It was just one person, it had to be her, right?

Dyon’s hand reached for the doorknob just as the chimes of the doorbell rang through the large and most hollow house.

A bright grin spread across Dyon’s face as he saw a sight he hadn’t seen in years. A girl with beauty beyond words. He almost didn’t take note of her now purple hair and eyes.

“Madeleine…” Dyon didn’t let her respond. His arms immediately shot forward, pulling her into a tight hug and burying her head into his chest.

Madeleine’s purple qipao clung tightly to her curves as she lay silently in Dyon’s arms.

“I missed you.” Dyon whispered.

“Thank you.” Madeleine’s words were muffled with her head being held so tightly against Dyon. He didn’t even have the chance to register what she said before the feeling of a cold blade stabbed into his rib cage and toward his heart. “For making this so easy.”

Dyon was stunned to silence. He stumbled backward, as he felt something slowly crystalizing inside of him.

Short and shallow breaths escaped and retreated with Dyon’s pained movements. Confusion colored his features, but he couldn’t divert his attention from what was going on inside of his body. Something was wrong. This wasn’t a simple dagger, this was a technique.

His senses were slipping from him, he had no time to think. His organs slowed, and the beating of his heart hardened. ‘What’s going on?’

Dyon’s body continued to harden uncontrollably as Madeleine watched. She didn’t seem to move an inch, as though she was waiting for something.

Sure enough, the sounds of light footsteps coming from upstairs soon caught Dyon’s attention. But, he couldn’t turn around to warn Ri. The next best thing was to fall. He had to let her know something was wrong in case she didn’t notice.

Ri’s eyes widened as she watched Dyon fall. “Who are you!” Ri didn’t think twice, she didn’t know who this person was. But, to be powerful enough to hurt Dyon in the time span it took for her to hear the doorbell and come to see what was going on, she had to be powerful.

Dyon had given her the ring while he was dealing with his saint energy influx, so she still had it.

Ri immediately called upon Thadius, not having time to mind the fact he was half naked.

But, before either had a chance to do anything, Madeleine turned away, disappearing. Even Thadius’ features furrowed at this sight. He didn’t specialize in sensing techniques, and he definitely didn’t have an innate aurora or talented soul. He simply couldn’t find this disappearing girl.

Dyon’s senses continued to dull even as Thadius and Ri rushed over to him. It seemed Eli was too preoccupied to come. But, how could he be blamed for such a thing? It had only been a doorbell after all…

‘Well, this isn’t too good…’ Dyon’s brain was slowing down. The speed of thought his innate aurora gave him becoming useless. The more possible solutions he thought of, the slower the next thought came. Soon, he would be at a dead end…