Seeing 16 rhinos appear, Dyon didn’t hesitate to charge forward once again, absentmindedly releasing his Presence and smashing their heads in.

The second class of Presences was a bit different, although it was still capable of being stifled by Dragon Souls and Lightning Stones, the grade of both needed to be very high. The reverse scale would have to at least be at the half-step King level, while the Lightning Stone needed to contain tribulation lightning from a first-grade saint becoming at least a second-grade celestial.

These requirements grew exponentially for every step up an individual was in the Ruler Class Presences. In fact, there was no known counter for a Peak Emperor level Presence.

Luckily for those with weaker Presences, there were less than ten Emperor level Presences in the cosmos, and no God level Presences. In addition, all of these individuals had much better things to do than to bully the young masters of various clans. To many, even giving counter measures for King level Presences seemed like overkill, but many did so anyway.

The truth, though, was that among the younger generation, there were only five lower King level Presences, and no Mid level King Presences or higher. Well, in truth, there were three Kings and two Queens. In addition to these five, there were another five of the Drago-Qilin lands who cultivated half-step King level Dragon souls who were able to contend. Among them, four were male, and one was female.

Also, there a few dozen with Gold Dragon Souls and yet another few dozen with Peak Duke or Duchess Presences. Despite the disparity between these almost 100 strong geniuses, and those ten listed above, they were still highly feared, and their names reverberated through the cosmos.

As one can see, the Drago-Qilin lands did have an advantage in terms of cultivating this sort of intimidation technique because of their resonance with the Sovereign path, but that didn’t mean other races were too far behind.

Of course, Dyon didn’t know all of this, and his grand teacher didn’t bother to tell him either. Knowing Dyon’s personality, he would have already assumed that his Presence was far better than that of others simply by virtue of his arrogance. Even the day he didn’t truly meet someone with a higher Presence than his own, he would simply beat them down and make sure the heavens realized just how blind they were.

Although Dyon believed in himself wholeheartedly, so did those other ten geniuses. In fact, within all of existence, those ten geniuses were the only ones who could possibly match up to Dyon’s level of arrogance. All eleven of them held an undying belief in themselves that no others could match… And their only opponents within this generation were amongst themselves.

And, there was another interesting tidbit here. If Dyon was allowed to cultivate his Presence alone, and he had never taken Luna’s virginity… His own Presence wouldn’t be at the Peak King Level. No, instead, his Presence would be perfectly level with these ten other geniuses, only having just broken through the lower King level.

It could be said that Dyon was only lucky that he was above them. And it could also be said that his appearance had lit a fire under them all.

**

Weeks passed.

By now, Dyon was facing thousands of metallic rhinos at once and his nonchalant appearance had long since disappeared. Although the motes of light could replenish his stamina, it was never to 100%. Even worse, the motes wouldn’t appear until the entire wave was gone, meaning one didn’t have a chance to catch their breath until the brief pause between waves.

In addition, the waves were getting harder to deal with. Although they were the same metallic rhinos, because there were more of them, Dyon’s Presence was thus spread out amongst them as well. The effects of this dissipation were still small, but Dyon could only imagine how bad this would be if the metallic rhinos were Heaven martial beasts instead. With their increased resistance, and numbers, they would no longer be paralyzed in that instant.

Dyon was very much right. For now, his Presence was still effective, even against thousands. In fact, for these metallic rhinos, no matter how many of them there were within Dyon’s range of about a kilometer, they would shiver in fear and drop to their knees. However, this would become impossible if the beasts were able to resist…

Dyon’s figure flashed around, the third trial’s world still searing his skin as he wantonly smashed in the heads of shivering metallic rhinos.

By this point, his heavy sword had managed to rid itself of most of the disgusting brown rust stains on it, and was no a sheen-less charcoal black with only a few hints of flaking rust.

Currently, Dyon’s skin was dyed in gross purple goo that was very obviously from all the rhinos he had killed, but he still didn’t seem to notice. Except for the barely perceptive laborsome breaths he took occasionally, it would almost appear as though the goings-on of the third trial had nothing to do with him.

His clothes had been completely burned by the inner world, so he dashed around naked. One man and one sword against an army of tens of thousands of beasts.

His torso twisted and snapped, leveraging all the power of his core with his every swing. Without fail, every metallic rhino fell with a single blow, reaching levels of efficiency no one had ever seen before.

With a final swing, the 524 288th rhino fell, and with it, the 20th wave collapsed, sending motes of lights the blocked out the sky careening toward Dyon’s gasping figure.

However, before he could even rest, a roar that resounded through the heavens resounded and he received his first message since he began.

“Would you like to continue to the second stage? Or move on to the fourth trial now?”