The battle was over in moments.

Dyon’s scythe made Alidor’s buddha’s rage feel as though it was never there to begin with – slicing through them with an eerie ease. Alidor simply stood no chance.

Not only was his energy cultivation lower than Dyon’s, his stamina was entirely too low and his ethereal permeation seemed to have no answer for Dyon’s death will.

Death qi was like erosion incarnate. Techniques, energy, wills… All of them seemed to wither before it and disappear. There was no purification like celestial will… There was no shattering like ethereal permeation… There was only an inevitable end to a short beginning.

Alidor’s body withered as Dyon clenched his throat tightly.

Neither said a thing, only waiting while Alidor’s eyes seemed only moments away from losing all life.

“You have one chance to live.” Dyon said faintly. His voice seemed layered with the depths of hell itself, booming and eroding even the air as he spoke.

Alidor said nothing. To him, his sister was dead and his plan had failed. What use was there in living on.

“You become my servant and I’ll allow your sister to keep her elder brother. There’s a price to pay for attacking my fiancée. And this is it.”

Alidor’s eyes flashed at the mention of his little sister. ‘She’s alive?…’

Struggling with the last bit of his strength, Alidor nodded his head. If it meant not allowing his sister to despair, lowering his head was something he was more than willing to do.

Dyon nodded as his scythe disappeared into his weapon’s pagoda. “You’ll have to accept this array. Know that should you ever have thoughts of erasing it, it will kill you. Should you have thoughts of betraying me, it will kill you. There is no out unless I remove it myself. Your soul strength is not as powerful as mine and even if your fundementals are good, you have no way of dealing with my death qi.”

Not removing his hand from Alidor’s throat, Dyon began drawing an array. But, it was pitch black.

Taking inspiration from Alidor, Dyon inscribed his array with the will of death itself. In reality, the method behind the array was no different than the one he had used to bind the 14 Elvin sub families. However, this time, with the help of death qi, the punishment had an entirely new level of severity.

But, Alidor could only watch as the black seal entered his pale and withering forehead. This was the price he had to pay.

After he was done, Dyon released Alidor, washing him over with celestial will to remove the residue of death qi before he walked over to the key.

Not bothering with Alidor for the moment, Dyon smirked to himself.

Looking at his hand, a simple tracking array appeared with the name Alexandria Acacia on it. ‘I think I’ll take credit for this, hm? The demon sage’s first true victory.’

The name slowly changed as Dyon’s eyes flashed with gold.

Content, Dyon grabbed the key before walking back to Alidor. But, as he did so, he suddenly felt information stream into his brain… Information about the Epistemic Tower and a road map spatial tears.

‘This…’ Dyon chuckled to himself. He had known that the Epistemic Tower held a map of the gate… But, as the only Epistemic Tower in the entire universe, it was connected to every gate in this quadrant… Quite simply put: Having a road map of spatial tears here meant having an untold advantage over attacking the other gates.

It was suddenly very clear to Dyon that he and everyone else had been thinking on too small of a scale. Or, rather, the scale the old man was thinking on simply far outdid everyone else…

‘To transcend means conquering an entire quadrant and reaching the top of the Epistemic Tower… Sounds… fun?’ Dyon chuckled bitterly. This wouldn’t be easy at all…

However, he had taken a good first step. Or, rather, the secret of this universe had taken the first step for him, making this step much easier.

The Epistemic Tower was never meant to be a part of such a weak universe. The old man had never designed it like that. How ridiculous was it for the most important gate of a quadrant to be attached to such a backwater place? It would have been simply too convenient if that was the case…

But, wasn’t it true that the Celestial Deer Sect was once a main force of this universe? That the Daiyu clan was once a main sect of this universe? That the demon qilins, although Dyon hadn’t heard a word from them since accepting Little Black’s father’s essence, had also once been in this universe…?

In fact, it was likely that those weren’t all of the powerful clans that had once been here…

It was clear that this universe wasn’t weak when the gates were established. In fact, with so many peak dao formation experts at its disposal, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it was once among the very best the universe had to offer…

To put things into perspective, there was only one cultivation rank separating a dao formation expert from transcendence. It was the cultivation rank the demon sage had been. A rank of untold power and destruction and the epitome of what someone could hope to be in this realm… The rank of the half-step transcendent expert.

And yet, Dyon’s universe had once been filled with experts just a breath away from this level.

Over the stream of time, many forgot the once central universe… Or, maybe, not many had known about it in the first place.

Just how many would have had the right to fight in the Epistemic Tower when it was at its pinnacle? How many universes would be strong enough to fight the likes of the Celestial Deer Sect and clans on its level?…

And on top of that, the fabric of reality was vast… Even a clan as powerful as the Uidah could only claim to understand a small percentage of the universes in its quadrant.

Whether intentionally by design, or coincidentally… Everyone had forgotten about the Epistemic Tower – even to the point of playing the game entirely incorrect.

But, one thing was still true. The other Epistemic Towers were still very much connected to this one… And the competition was still raging on.

The key sunk into Dyon’s skin, disappearing for the time being.

Dyon winced, his eye lids twitching as he began to feel some of the lingering effects of his death qi. ‘My own will shouldn’t hurt me… Should it?’

The truth was that Dyon had felt his own organs eroding under that special state, although at a much slower pace that what Alidor was feeling.

He had wisped celestial qi through his body to remove it, but, he was still feeling some of the past damage. And, the trouble was that it was healing much more slowly than his other wounds usually did.

‘How ironic…’ Dyon sighed, sitting in front of the meditating Alidor. It seemed as though he too was trying to get out the last of Dyon’s death qi. It was clear that Dyon’s previous celestial will hadn’t been enough.

It seemed a lot of powerful wills had draw backs… demonic will made you more susceptible to losing your mind in anger and loss, and it seemed that death will was almost masochistic…

Dyon had been worried about this at the beginning, which is why he hadn’t used it immediately to take out Alidor. Well, that and he wanted to get used to his practically all new body. But, this really wasn’t convenient…

The only good thing was that Dyon had a fairly good counter. His celestial will would benefit him greatly. The only problem was that his celestial will wasn’t as powerful as his death qi. He still needed to boost it to the 9th level before that…

“How much power do you have in the Uidah universe. Specifically, this gate.” Dyon suddenly spoke as he watched Alidor meditate.

“I’m sure you know the answer to that question. So, why do you ask? The only benefit to being under you is that I shouldn’t have to explain so much.” Alidor’s eyes remained closed and his face showed no sign of a shift in emotion.

“I have you so I don’t have to do any guessing. You used more words to explain why you shouldn’t have to answer than it would have taken to answer.”

Alidor’s brow twitched. He wasn’t used to being refuted so easily. “I have no power in the Uidah verse as a whole. In terms of this gate, it’s easy to manipulate things behind the scenes.”

Dyon nodded. After hearing Alidor’s backstory, one thing had become clear to him: Alidor wasn’t working from the shadows to fake out their universe… He was working in the shadows out of necessity to avoid scrutiny from his own universe.

In the end, it was likely the basilisks were the only clan he could actually command without worry. The other clans had to be manipulated covertly.

The Phantus was a perfect example of this. Alidor had made use of the fact that they were ashamed of their loss to Madeleine to prod them into a fool’s errand. Not only had they helped Alidor test his theories, they had plotted the perfect distraction for Alidor.

The truth of the matter was that although the Epistemic Tower was usually accepted as the last tower to be conquered, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t monitored by the universes.

As Dyon spoke with Alidor, he suddenly realized the purposes behind his plans.

Because Epistemic Tower was monitored, any movement toward it was usually detected. The only way to get by this was to either somehow directly teleport into it, yet out of the range of the scouts, or, get rid of the scouts entirely.

But, without the Epistemic Tower key, all of Alidor’s teleportations relied on his strict and grueling calculations. And, these calculations became so convoluted and complex when entering the domain of the Epistemic Tower, due to the excessive amounts of spatial fluctuations, that the best option was to get rid of the scouts.

So, Alidor hatched a distraction plan. After studying the Saeclum clan, he came to understand that their clan, although they benefited Dyon’s universe as a whole, actually belonged to a single entity: The Ragnor clan.

All Alidor had to do was devise a sufficient reason for the Ragnor clan to selfishly pull their auxiliary clan away, thus allowing Alidor free reign on the Epistemic Tower without anyone becoming suspicious to is ulterior motives.

‘Hm. So it turns out that the Saeclum clan didn’t report to us because they simply weren’t there? Alright…’

Alidor’s plan was actually quite ingenious.

Because the Saeclum clan was pulled away, it also left the other Towers highly susceptible to sneak attacks. As such, Lotus Tower, and likely Rod Tower, were taken completely unawares.

However, Alidor never had any intentions of taking Rod or Looming Tower, he was fully aware of how powerful their protectors were. Even Lotus Tower would have only been a plus… The true plan was to take hold of Epistemic Tower.

That said. There was another purpose: the stealing of the Uidah clan faith seed.

“Isn’t stealing a faith seed taboo? And wouldn’t doing so completely ruin your plans of staying hidden?”

Alidor’s brows twitched for what seemed like the millionth time. “You know my backstory. Why would stealing a faith seed from a clan I share a lineage with alert them of anything?”

A sudden realization his Dyon. Although the Gautama and Uidah families had separate names, there was a reason why they were two sides of the same clan once. They had both originated from the same bloodline and had intermarried so often that there were little differences to be had in them. It was just that the main lineage of the Gautama family had better soul talent, thus resulting in their innate aurora users.

But, the point was that while it was taboo to steal the faith seed of a family and have it enter another. And while it was true that every family with a faith seed had fail safes against it… What would happen if a faith seed was stolen but remained with this same family?… How would the Uidah detect anything if the faith seed technically never left the family?…

“Interesting. So, while you didn’t know what benefits the Epistemic key would give you, what you did know was that being around the tower itself would give you enough of a power boost to be able to take out the first son of the essence gathering layer. But, unfortunately for you, you ended up with the first son of the meridian formation layer.”

Alidor nodded. What Dyon said was true. Although the calculations for teleporting from outside to inside the range of the Epistemic Tower were too complicated. The variables were significantly lessened if you were just talking about teleporting within the range of the Epistemic Tower itself. As such, Alidor could make use of the spatial tears to greatly nerf the essence gathering first son, kill him and then take his faith seed as his own.

After that, Alidor planned to use the Epistemic Tower to diligently train.

Because he didn’t have a tracking array, his actions remained completely covert. So, he could have bided his time, growing stronger with each passing day.

Then, once he reached the peak of the essence gathering stage, he could almost single handedly conquer this gate alone.

“Why would being at the peak of the essence gathering stage be enough for that?” Dyon felt he knew the answer, but, he asked anyway. He was enjoying the exasperated feeling Alidor had whenever he was forced to answer. It was clear Alidor wasn’t used to this.

“Haven’t you noticed the vast difference in quality between your universe and others? The only reason you’re not constantly fighting against peak essence gathering experts is that the Uidah universe doesn’t deem you worthy of their best. If it wasn’t for your special cases, meaning those of you with faith seeds, they wouldn’t send essence gathering experts here at all.

It is likely that you, as someone with previously no cultivation, had the ability to leap up and fight experts at even the peak of the meridian formation realm. However, I’m telling you right now that that’s only possible in this universe. If a competent meridian formation expert from the Uidah could lose to some with no cultivation, they would have been killed off long ago because of their uselessness.”

“And what’s the difference?”

“The difference is quality of wills, techniques and cultivation. Your universe might see a genius having learned 3 wills as a genius.”

Dyon nodded. This was indeed true. Back at Focus Academy, most only learned a single will. In fact, the only people Dyon had ever seen use more than two were among the best geniuses he knew. These were people like the Elvin campaign leaders, Chenglei, and even the God clan geniuses.

“However, in the Uidah universe, this is the norm. And none of that is to even touch their technique and superior cultivations”

“Well, it was enough to beat you, no?” Dyon grinned.

Alidor remained silent for a while before speaking. “Point being. The quality of my peak essence gathering cultivation outweighs many from your universe. Even to the point of being tied down by army after army of meridian formation experts.”

Understanding, Dyon shook his head.

“So. Can you call off the attacks. Or not?”

“I can control the movements of the basilisks easily. However, the other clans have their own goals. The only reason I was able to convince them to attack was by provoking them before sending out an army of thousands to attack Lotus Tower. In all honestly, they have no idea I exist.”

Dyon pondered on this point a bit before he suddenly realized something… If Alidor had no control over the other clans, and the basilisks called for reinforcements in retaliations… Didn’t that mean that Dyon had to fight? There was no getting around it. He couldn’t just tell Alidor to stop it…

“Let’s go.” Dyon stood. It was time to go. He had a sinking feeling that he should hurry.

**

Away from Dyon and at the Lotus battle field, he couldn’t have been more right.

It had been a day since the lotus alliance finally realized they were being played, but, another army was already approaching them… And, it was clear that this army was much more powerful.

Ri stood, stumbling under the pressure of her own weight before Akash caught her shoulder. “Princess. You’re not in any condition to be fighting right now. It’s best you don’t…”

Ri shook her head. “I’ll be fine. This is the last stretch. After we beat them, it not like they can call for even more reinforcements, right? After all, there isn’t that much time left in this campaign. They need to save time to head back to their gate entrance.” Despite the weakness of her words, the determination firing in Ri’s eyes was undoubtable. It was clear that she had no apprehensions about their victory.

Rolling the ring Dyon had given her on her finger, Ri took out two of the final remaining fruits before swallowing them. She closed her eyes, relishing in the warm feeling they gave her as they slowly replenished her tired body.

She couldn’t remember how many she had used, but, it was clear that there was no more left to be had.. The truth was Dyon had made a ridiculous amount, but, he hadn’t anticipated being gone for so long, or even that this battle would have lasted for just as long. And yet, here they were, about to fight again.

More than two months of continuous fighting with only a single day of rest… It was a miracle that they had even lasted so long. But, everyone knew that there was only one man to thank for that… Him and his tactics.

That said, there was someone else to thank too. Someone who had become the backbone of morale the lotus alliance needed with their backs against the wall. Someone who happened to be that man’s fiancée … Ri Sacharro.