Dyon’s face paled as the tower shook violently to the vibrations of the planet. The feeling of helplessness seeped deep within him.

A sharp pain caused Dyon to cough up blood. His connection with his puppet severed beyond his control. He simply couldn’t sustain it.

“Dyon…” A soft voice came out from behind him, causing his shoulders to freeze even amidst his coughs. Clara had to ask. She didn’t have the senses they had, and she couldn’t follow the movements of Matriarch Niveus’ last moments at all, but she had heard her last words very clearly… It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had just happened… But, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words or fully form the thought…

Dyon’s jaw clenched so tightly that blood began to seep from his gums. His breathing quickened as he tried to calm himself, but his aura was very quickly becoming frightening.

Ri stood, grasping on Clara’s trembling hand. Clara didn’t seem to notice as she looked off to the violently quaking horizon. “Dad… Give him back…”

Clara’s words snapped something within Dyon. In an instant, he disappeared from his position and just as quickly, he appeared before Matriarch Niveus’ cleaved body.

The power of a celestial was something that Dyon had never put into perspective until this instant. He had witnessed Elder Daiyu fight with the Elvin celestials, but that didn’t do their power justice… Not at all…

In such a battle, Celestials were very much capable of focusing their power, thus transmitting it directly to their opponent. This kept the damage to the surrounding environment at reasonable levels. However, Dyon hadn’t understood this. He simply didn’t have the skill nor the time cultivating to focus the power of his puppet in such a way. As such, his strike against Matriarch Niveus had torn a stadium that spanned tens of kilometers in half and created a hole of such depth that it easily dug thousands of kilometers into the crust of the Earth.

“You’re not allowed to die so easily.” The rage in Dyon’s voice shook the very skies themselves. His eyes were bloodshot as he thought about all of the lives that had just been lost – how many lives had been snuffed out in a petty bid to get revenge before death.

Dyon’s hand grasped toward the corpse, immediately halting the dissipation of Matriarch Niveus’ soul.

A soul had to be at the celestial level to survive without a body. But, that didn’t mean that a soul at a lower level than that couldn’t be contained and halted from disappearing. This was a technique that Dyon’s grand teacher had given him in order to help Zabia escape death. It had only taken him a few moments to learn because of his soul talent and was of course the reason that Zabia was still breathing.

It was simply known as Soul Containment. It required minimal soul power, but a high level of soul control.

Never did Dyon think he would be using it on an enemy. But. In this case. Willingness was not a strong enough descriptor for how he felt right now.

“Your soul won’t dissipate until I want it to.” Dyon’s eyes burned with rage. They could no longer be described as bloodshot. His vision had gone completely red.

Souls below the celestial level lacked the ability to communicate. Matriarch Niveus had no means of voicing anything. But, as soon as she noticed that Dyon had stopped her soul from dissipating, a crippling fear overtook her. How could she had ever thought about a possibility like this? How could she know what she had just brought upon herself?

With Dyon’s level of senses, how could he could feel the chaotic changes within Matriarch Niveus’ soul. Without realizing it, he had gained enlighten to the most rudimentary forms of what it meant to be a True Empath. He couldn’t read a normal being, but with Niveus’ soul directly being confined by his own, he could see through her emotions as easily as he could his own. Little did Dyon know that this was the very way his grand teacher had begun developing the path of the True Empath…

“You’ll feel the very pain and despair you’ve caused.” Dyon’s breathing was ragged. “You’ll never rest in peace.”

Matriarch Niveus’ soul cried out in agony as devour began to eat away at her soul. It was an indescribable pain, something incomparable to bodily and fleshly wounds. The attack of the soul ate away at one’s fundamental connection with the universe. Dyon was essentially severing everything it meant for Matriarch Niveus to ever have existed.

He had never gone this far when using devour before. Nor had he ever used it purely for torture. Even when he attacked that Planet Nix warriors for the sake of Ri, he had still been clear headed enough to sift through his memories to find out what happened. But now?… Dyon completely lost any semblance of humanity he had. He wanted no part of this woman to ever have existed. He wanted her memories gone. He wanted her goals and aspirations gone. He wanted her body gone. He wanted her soul gone.

The world continued to tremble as the atmosphere on half of the planet burnt away completely, unable to withstand the force of the attack. But, Dyon felt none of it.

Matriarch Niveus’ pain had reached such a level that her soul began to oscillate with the surroundings. No one could hear her screams, but they could feel them. No one could see her pain, but they could tell it was there.

A once mighty celestial expert lay in the palms of a boy that was nothing but a child in her eyes, completely unable to do anything.

The war had seemingly ceased as every bit of perception locked onto the horrifying agony of Matriarch Niveus. And yet, as the time passed, nothing seemed to sway Dyon into stopping… He had become a demon…

Dyon seethed, but he also understood that deep down, no amount of anger would ever change what had happened. The martial world just kept pushing his boundaries again and again, whittling down his resolve and flaring up his anger.

‘I won’t let you get the best of me.’

Dyon’s eyes flashed with gold as the soul in his hand became encased in a spherical array. But, before Matriarch Niveus’ soul could sigh in relief, dense black flames began to dance within, tearing away at her soul even further.

Even worse… Dyon’s array stopped her soul from dissipating…

Suddenly, the quaking of the Earth split the stadium again causing the stands to crumble as the shocked screams of innocents rang out once again.

This was exactly when the changes occurring to the planet couldn’t be ignored anymore. Matriarch Niveus had just set off enough energy to essentially wipe out an entire half of the planet. Had she aimed anymore downward, that’s exactly what would have happened – such was the power of a celestial.

That said, just because half of the planet wasn’t blown asunder, didn’t mean that things were okay.

The atmospheric temperature had shot up to such levels that the speed of cooling couldn’t keep up with the violent reactions of the air. The protective shield of the Earth against the elements of space were burning in real time!

Despite his anger, Dyon had to force himself to think clearly. The temperatures were increasing so quickly that he already felt an uncomfortable burning on his skin.

He didn’t know what to do. There were too many people to save. He couldn’t possibly get to all of his allies in time. Was he really supposed to watch as all of the elves below saint hood died? What about the Pakals? The Belmonts?

‘DAMMIT!’

The only option was to stop the violent reactions in the air.

Dyon had read about this long ago. During a war that the history books called World War II, rampant studies on the atomic bomb were taking place. A major concern at the time was that should such a devastating bomb go off, it would cause a chain chemical reaction that would destroy the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere.

A traumatic event such as this wouldn’t only destroy the target of the bomb, it would annihilate the entirety of the human race along with it! Without an atmosphere, there could be no life. There would be no air to breathe and neither would there be protection against the harmful radiation of space.

Dyon knew fully well that only a person of saint cultivation could hope to survive without protection out there. The problem was, lower and even mid-level saints would only have enough cultivation to protect themselves. Even upper and peak saints would struggle protecting just one other person. Only a celestial could hope to protect multiple people without much strain to themselves. However, they were battling right now!

I need to cool the atmosphere. That’s the only way. It’s not possible to round everyone up in time.

But… That was impossible…

Even if Dyon used his crystal will amplification with the help of Little Black, and all of the cold path cultivators poured their wills in, not only would Dyon not have the ability to amplify such energy, even if he did, this was a celestial’s final attack he was up against!

In order to cool the atmosphere, he’d have to nullify the heat generated by the last reserves of a celestial expert who had also burned their blood essence! That was a ridiculous ask! S

“FUCK!” Dyon roared into the skies. His anger was at such a ridiculous level that he was slowly losing himself within it. Whenever he tried to pull it back, to remember what he still had to live for, to fight for, a wave of despair would hit him. He felt like he was suffocating.

Dyon’s psyche didn’t seem to want to have to handle more losses. His entire home had just been burned to the ground and he couldn’t even bear the idea of witnessing the devastation for himself. And yet, even with the soul of the one who had caused it being tortured in his hand, he was still losing!

Matriarch agonizing screams turned into maniacal cackles. It had dawned on her that in her moment of anger, she had caused irreparable damage to the Earth, which could very well mean that she had caused the death of her very own sect members. She lost her mind under the endless torture, but what really tore her to her core was her own stupidity.

However, in what seemed like an instant, those laughs of pain and self-deprecation turned into a feverish begging for anarchy – a want to see the entire world burn to the ground. As long as Dyon suffered, she no longer cared!

Dyon’s hand almost crushed her soul entirely when he felt the change. But, he controlled himself.

With a flash, the spherical array disappeared into his spatial ring before he turned to his demon generals.

“I know you all can survive this, but I’m not risking it.” Dyon said.

Without so much as a word of defiance, the demon generals also disappeared into Dyon’s ring.

Caedlum, who had been injured during his bout for the top ten, had been being protected by a few Pakal warriors. Luckily, this meant that he was still relatively close to the arena where Dyon was. He, and those Pakals he was with, were the next to enter Dyon’s ring – much to their surprise.

Gritting his teeth, Dyon understood that that was all he could do. Without understanding just what was tethering Thor to the Ragnors, he would never be so foolish as to let him into such a place. Even if he wanted to, it was impossible because he was currently surrounded by Ragnors. Tammy was different since she was so weak to begin with. Thor on the other hand, could cause problems.

The scorching heat of atmosphere seemed to be reaching all new levels. It was no longer a simple uncomfortable heat. Instead, it was a seething burning. Foundation stage experts were already screaming out in agony… It wouldn’t be long until meridian formation experts were in the same situation…

Dyon teleported to his tower to find Lionel standing right beside the entrance. Without so much as a word to each other, Dyon opened the window way, allowing them both to step in and be shielded from the onslaught of heat.

Guilt ravaged Dyon’s heart when he saw Clara’s still listless figure being held by Ri. But… There was nothing he could do. Even his own rage was seething to the point where he could hardly control it…

Outside the tower, the world seemed to catch on fire. The loud booming in the air continued as the atmosphere crumbled away, causing the normal blue of the sky to lose its luster, replaced by blinding red and yellow lights.

Matriarch Niveus’ selfish decision hadn’t just ended mortal world life… It threatened to end all of martial world life as well…