Dyon sighed looking at the state of affairs. The fact that Matriarch Niveus saw it fit to come here – or, more accurately, that she had been able to break away from the fight taking place in the skies – meant that the situation was worse than Dyon would like to admit… She didn’t even look like she had struggled!

Dyon’s eyes quickly darted around the arena, flecks of purple and red danced within them as his activated his Asura’s eye.

‘The elves are doing okay under Uncle Acacia’s command. Technically speaking they’re the best force we have right now.’

It was no secret that the elves were formidable. Most clans only had a single celestial expert, but then elves had four if you counted Kawa and the return of King Acacia. Unfortunately, that advantage was immediately sapped by the alliances the Ragnor had formed.

‘Do we have to worry about ancestors?…’ Dyon’s mind was running on overdrive. ‘No, many of these clans haven’t been in this universe for long enough, nor do they have powerful enough ancestors capable of lasting through an extended slumber… The Belmont have been here for long enough. The Clyte have been. But, the Ragnors haven’t. Neither have the elves or Pakal. The only problem is that Meiying escaped from the Belmont holy land, which likely means that they’ve found a way to deal with the Belmont ancestors?… Is that possible?’

In a split second, Dyon ran through thousands of possibilities before he landed on the two most likely ones. Both terrible…

The first scenario for why Matriarch Niveus was here was that the Clyte ancestors had been awoken. It was a heavy price to pay for such a weak royal god clan, but if they deemed this endeavor important enough, they just might.

Truthfully, Dyon only thought of the Clyte royal god clan as weak because he didn’t feel the same strength from King Clyte as he did from the other Kings. And he couldn’t have been more right. The Clyte didn’t have a strong enough legacy to be a royal god clan. If it wasn’t for Patia-Neva’s folly, they would never be in this position.

But, the second scenario may be even worse for that reason specifically. Because the Clyte were weak, their ancestors might be relatively easier to manage. However, if the reason Matriarch Niveus was able to break away was because Patriarch Ragnor’s power was just that overwhelming… That was a problem not so easily solved…

‘If only I could fully unlock master’s memories… There might be something useful –‘

“Still searching for hope when you see death in front of you?” Matriarch Niveus interrupted Dyon’s thoughts with a sneer. She saw the demon generals, but she could hardly care about a couple saints. “How many times do you think you can cheat it? We can take this slowly. Let’s find out how big we have to make the hole in your chest for you to not come back.”

Dyon chuckled, “With a matriarch like you, it’s no wonder your first in line genius is so pathetic.”

The veins on her wrinkled face bulged, amplifying the creases in her distorted features even further. But, she soon calmed down when she thought of the situation.

Connery Sapientia though had cause to pause. He had underestimated this boy one too many times and had no intentions of falling into another trap.

“Please wait a moment Matriarch Niveus. I have no intention of getting into a conflict. I only want to protect my family name.” He said.

“No problem.” Dyon responded. “You can do that away from here. There’s no one you care about with the Sapientia name here. Don’t tell me that the docile Sapientia allow anyone to join but won’t let those who entered by birth the right to leave? That doesn’t sound very peace loving to me.”

Connery’s lip twitched, “Unfortunately, things aren’t so simple. No one knows what Sacharro name. To anyone who’s worth anything, Madeleine will always be a Sapientia. If people could just leave and marry into unknown clans like yours, that would be a major problem for us.”

Unfortunately, Connery had a point. If the Sapientia spread across the universe, as they were, suddenly started marrying their members into unknown clans, and then allowed those members to break the laws the Sapientia abided by, then that would be seen as a dangerous loop hole to powerful clans who were currently allowing the Sapientia to permeate.

Think about it, the Sapientia might start fake clans, then use their members as lynchpins of those clans to do things that wouldn’t be allowed should they be Sapientia. That way, the Sapientia would have the protection of being pacifists, all while secretly not being pacifists themselves.

No one would take such a thing lying down! Massive wars would break out against the Sapientia, destroying everything they had built.

Madeleine may be an insignificant existence now, but her talent was unprecedented. Couple that with Dyon’s ambitions, and she would be part of no shortage of wars. As she grew more powerful and Dyon conquered more lands and universes, what if her past as a Sapientia was dug up? Suddenly, many questioning gazes would be turned to the Sapientia. As such, it made perfect sense for the Sapientia to not allow marriage unless those clans were handpicked.

That said, Dyon knew fully well that Connery wasn’t thinking so far ahead. That was all an excuse to him. He never once believed that Dyon would reach a high enough level that this would become a problem. But, he only cared about how to maintain the moral high ground.

“Tell me then.” Dyon responded calmly. “What will the war-avoiding Patriarch Sapientia do should I say no?”

Connery’s eyes sharpened. “There are very few instances in our laws that allow for violence.” He said slowly. “And unfortunately for you, this is one of them.”

Dyon turned a gaze toward Thor who seemed to be done attacking before turning it back to the two celestial experts in the air.

‘Connery hasn’t fully awakened his aurora. His 6th sense is weak because of that. I’ll be able to use that to my advantage.

The puppets are the equivalent of first grade experts. Matriarch Niveus is a fourth grade expert. So is Connery. Both lower grade. That should be a large enough disparity for my first level celestial stage puppet to do well enough against them….’

Dyon had thought of this long ago, but technically, puppets were a sort of solution to the soul’s inability to translate its full potential into strength.

Puppets required your soul to control. The better the puppet, the higher the requirements. Technically speaking, before his soul reached the peak of the 8th stage, Dyon would have struggled to use the full force of the puppets for an extended period of time. Although this was still true now, it was much easier than before. The only problem was that Dyon’s soul was already tired…

‘I need to end this quickly. Which means I can’t reveal the 4th stage celestial puppet unless I can ensure a kill. Neither of their souls are at the celestial level, so I don’t have to worry about them surviving out of body.’

With a flash of his ring, a 20-meter tall obsidian warrior appeared before Dyon before it instantly pulled out two swords, causing a gale of winds to open up a space on the arena floor.

“Forget about me.” Dyon said to his demon generals. “As long as no one interferes with this battle, I can win!”

Dyon didn’t want his demon generals getting needlessly injured. He didn’t even have a full scope of the situation. Regardless of the fact he knew that something like this was coming, that didn’t mean he was ready for it now. By all accounts, everything pointed toward nothing happening until the tournament had ended. But, clearly Meiying had changed all of that…

In a flash of golden lights, Dyon disappeared from where he stood.

Matriarch Niveus sneered. “You think you can use your petty little array alchemy in the face of a true expert?!”

Her wrinkled hand stretched out, grasping at thin air.

A formless pressure appeared in an instant, stunting movement through hundreds of meters. Dyon’s array didn’t stand a chance.

Showers of gold rained as Dyon coughed up blood, falling unstably to the ground.

He had attempted to teleport to the tower so that he could control the puppet within safe confines, but Matriarch Niveus had locked the space in the area. The bombardment of clashing space wills caused a viscious backlash to his Dyon, resulting in some minor damage.

‘Stupid.’ Dyon berated himself.

In reality, he couldn’t be blamed. He knew little of the full extent of a celestial’s ability. But, in retrospect, it was naïve of him to believe he could teleport freely in the face of one. Matriarch Niveus didn’t even need to understand space will. However, because she was so powerful, she was able to shatter said space with a wave of her hand. If she really had understood space will instead of using her power to overwhelm it, Dyon would have suffered even more!

Luckily, despite the matriarch’s prowess, Dyon’s arrays were still powered by a peak saint soul. So, while she could still disrupt them, it wasn’t so exaggerated that Dyon’s life had been on the line.

However, this exchange gave Matriarch Niveus all the more confidence. She had been wary of the puppet Dyon pulled out. But, now it just seemed like a desperate plea.

From within the tower, Ri watched this scene nervously as she grasped onto Madeleine’s hand. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Madeleine had slipped into a deep sleep and thus couldn’t witness this.

“Alright then.” Dyon chuckled, spitting blood away from him mouth before wiping it on his wrist. “Let’s do this here then.”

With a single leap, Dyon landed on the head of his puppet. His eyes flashed a dense purple, gold and red as he lasered in his focus. He could see and feel everything, and yet, he blocked it all out, focusing on the movements of just two.

A formless barrier wrapped around Dyon as an extension of his puppet. He had little doubt that without this shield, he would die very quickly in such a battle.

“You really plan to fight us both?” Connery’s brow furrowed.

“That’s up to you.” Dyon said, his features completely focused. “If you can bear the optics of joining a side of this war, have at it.”

Connery snorted. “I have no need to fight. Matriarch Niveus is more than capable enough.”

“Doesn’t seem like you believe that by your question.”

Matriarch Niveus’ lip twitched. Dyon was right. All of Connery’s actions pointed toward his apprehension. But, she had had enough.

“Come die a slow and painful death then boy!” The old lady flashed forward with blazing speed. This was a celestial expert of no normal degree… She was at the mid-levels!

As a lower 4th grade expert, for her to emit the aura of a mid-level celestial, meant that she was at the 4th or 5th celestial stage. She could not be underestimated.

However, right now… She was like a snail crawling along a paved road in Dyon’s eyes!

In an instant, the cultivation of the puppet was no longer hidden. There was no room for playing and even less for deception.

Matriarch Niveus extended a clawed hand. It held no technique, nor did it hold any profound laws. She wanted nothing else but to crush Dyon’s puppet in a single blow, but she didn’t feel the need to strike heavily to do so. From her knowledge, this puppet was only capable of dealing with saints. She was on a completely different level!

And yet, that one moment of haughtiness, was just enough for Dyon to take advantage.

Before she could even notice the spike in celestial energy, two massive black jade swords swung downward with unbridled force.

Space shattered. The air moaned and whined, crying out in pain as Matriarch Niveus’ eyes widened.

BOOM!

Her fragile old frame was sent blasting into the ground. The impact was so devastating that the stadium cracked in half at the blow.

A crater spanning hundreds of meters blasted outward, giving way to the tunneling Matriarch Niveus.

Her body cut through the earth like a hot knife through butter, until eventually, she flew in so deeply into the earth that the eyes of a normal human could no longer spot her.

Connery stood in the air with a shocked expression as a cold sweat permeated his back. In that instant, he understood one thing… If it had been him… He’d be dead…

Dyon suddenly understood why celestials didn’t do battle on the planet. A puppet didn’t even have access to wills, and yet it was this devastating. Dyon couldn’t help but wonder… If the earth hadn’t expanded by millions of times its original size… Would it have survived the blow he just gave it?…

It suddenly dawned on Dyon that if this went too far, he could begin to endanger the mortal side of the world.

Without a shred of hesitation, Connery turned and fled. The Sapientia within Dyon’s tower could only watch in awe as the man they revered so highly was actually forced to flee by a child they continued to look down on.

Dyon felt his soul strength draining by the minute. Every moment he held a connection to the puppet was another he lost stamina with. He was so fatigued that he hardly noticed the astonished gazes of Tau and Lionel in the air. Clearly they had stopped their fight just in time to see what had transpired.

Planet Mino’s section once again received the shock of a lifetime. Saru had just been trying to convince her protectors to help Dyon when she realized her help truly wasn’t needed.

Although puppets were extinct in this universe, the same couldn’t be said to be true elsewhere. However, what did remain to be true was the fact that a celestial level puppet was nearly impossible to find. And, someone who could use a puppet of that caliber was even rarer.

The practicality of a puppet was nearly nonexistent. Unless a human controlled one, it would never reach its full potential – although, theoretically, it could should an array alchemist be skilled enough. That aside, this meant that in most cases, a puppet was severely handicapped without a controller. And yet, the demands for a wielder were so high that that person would be able to fight the threat on his or her own.

This meant that, usually, puppets were used to explore newfound lands and natural phenomena – places where risking human life was seen as a waste. It’s either that, or you make a puppet just powerful enough that when it was on its own, it would fall to a power level you deemed suitable.

As an example, someone might make a lower celestial stage puppet knowing that it would only be able to fight a peak saint on its own. Which is exactly what Dyon had done when he attacked Elder Er a few days ago.

However, this situation was clearly vastly different. Dyon was capable of making full use of the puppet on his own. And even more shockingly, it was a celestial puppet!

“I can’t imagine… The cost of such a puppet…” Elder Shruti breathed out his words.

“The material that makes up that puppet doesn’t seem to be normal…” Saru said softly. “It may not be so simple as just being a celestial puppet…”

Dyon stood above the hole breathing heavily. An instant later, his eyes flashed with gold as he appeared within the tower. He had no choice but to take advantage of the situation to catch his breath and protect himself. If he suddenly lost connection with the puppet, so too would his protection go.

Seeing the sleeping Madeleine, Dyon frowned. But, when he also noticed the odd atmosphere between Ri, Delia and Madeleine family, it only deepened.

However, he didn’t have the time to harp on this right now. He looked out toward the puppet, severing his connection with it.

Right now, the puppet would only have the combat power of a peak saint, however, its defenses would still be at the level of a 4th or 5th grade celestial. Dyon knew this because when he studied the arrays of the puppets, he noticed that although their enigmatic energy accumulation arrays were too damaged to be used, the celestial arrays of one was fully intact, and the celestial array of the other was damaged, but not enough to be unusable. But, the best news was the fact that the defenses of the puppet heavily relied on the material it was made of with only a few still intact arrays acting as a supplement.

This meant that if Matriarch Niveus was injured enough from that strike, the puppet might be able to finish her off on its own. And, even if it couldn’t, its defenses meant that she wouldn’t be able to hurt it too much, if at all.

Dyon plopped to the ground and instantly began to meditate. Replenishing soul strength was, unfortunately, much more difficult than replenishing body or energy strength. It wasn’t so simple as flooding the soul with more energy. The soul was tied to the world around you, and it also had very much to do with things like focus and will power, it wasn’t so straight forward.

Sometimes when you found you couldn’t concentrate very well anymore, the only thing you could do was take a break. That said, there were also drugs that helped people stay focused. Unfortunately, Dyon didn’t have any of those soul replenishing pills on hand. Even the celestial deer sect pill repository lacked such a thing. They were simply too much more expensive, so when they were attacked, they were likely stolen along with much of the other valuables.

Even more ironically, the strength of pill Dyon would need to replenish a soul on his level was so exaggerated that even he doubted if he could form such a pill…

Dyon’s best bet was to use devour. But, it would have to be on someone with a powerful enough soul… It would have to be from a celestial at the very least.

Connery had fled and Dyon had no way to pursue him. However… There was still Matriarch Niveus!

Almost as if on cue, the rumbling in the ground amplified as a bloody figure burst from it.

Matriarch Niveus was truly a sad sight to see. Her previously white dress was soaked in blood. Her arms hung limply and awkwardly shaped to her sides, clearly having been used to block the strike. Her wrinkles seemed to have increased…

Suddenly, a cackling laughter left between her shriveled lips.

“Nine thousand six hundred and ninety eight years I’ve lived… Not once have I been in such a sorry state…”

Dyon’s eyes flashed in all seriousness. Waving his hand, a massive amount of dao stones flooded the tower’s arrays, causing blinding shields to erupt all around them.

Matriarch Niveus’ laughter only increased as she lifted her disfigured arm to point out two fingers. A ball of darkness and another of light began to dance about each other, spinning viciously as they grew slowly in size.

Dyon thought she was going to attack the tower. But then, almost inexplicably, she twisted and slowly moved her arm toward the horizon, her laughter reaching a fever-pitch.

“I hear you’re from the mortal realm.”

Dyon froze. His gaze turned to Clara who trembled at those words.

“You like to play celestial with your little puppets… Let me show you what a real celestial can do!” Matriarch eyes shone with a savagery that could only match a wild animal.

Dyon’s mind immediately reached outward, ignoring the pain tearing through his soul as the puppet erupted into the celestial level once again.

But, what Dyon didn’t know until an instant later, was that Matriarch Niveus didn’t care. In order to survive the blow Dyon had just given her, she had been forced to burn her blood essence in that instant. The price for letting her guard down was nothing less than her life. To use such a technique at such an old age, she knew that only death awaited her…

And yet, she did so anyway because she wanted revenge. She wanted revenge for the fact that after all these millennia of living, it would be a child that ended her life.

“Since I’m going to die anyway!” Her pierced through the veil of the world, completely bloodshot. “Why would I care for your bull** treaty!”

Dyon roared as the puppet swung down violently, mustering everything it could to stop her.

In the distance, Evelyn Niveus, the first in line genius, watched in horror as that woman she had seen as a mother since birth blazed for a final time.

It was all too late…

The sphere of light and dark connected, turning into a blinding beam that shot off into the distance with unmatched speed.

In the white house oval office, President Gallagher sat quietly, looking at a picture of his wife and daughter on his desk when a scorching heat suddenly caught his attention.

In the skies above the mortal realm, a swirling ball of light and dark grew, approaching faster and faster.

Matriarch Niveus sneered in her final moments, watching the blade cleave her in two as she whispered her last words. “Immortal Balanced Arts. Final gate.”

Observing the approaching sphere, President Gallagher felt a sudden relief. ‘I know you’ll keep her safe…’

That day… The entire mortal population was wiped out.