The more Tedric spoke, the more animated and confident in his words he became. Even Crystella couldn’t help but hesitate at these words.

But in the end, she shook her head. “I’ve made my decision.”

“But Miss! The event –!”

“That’s enough!”

Dyon yawned, bored with the matter. “I think you’re misunderstanding something. I don’t need permission to go to your world. I’m going because I feel like it, your opinion is unnecessary.

“Also… I really do hope those lizards find out what happened here today. At the first opportunity, I’ll inform them myself.”

Dyon’s cold words caused them to shiver uncontrollably. Calling the Dragon King, Old Lizard was one thing. It had very clearly evolved into a term of endearment. However, boiling down such a Hegemon to a single word was nothing short of the epitome of disdain.

Dragons on the mortal plane were worthy of Dyon’s respect. They were prideful creatures who placed respect and power above all else. But those of the Immortal Plane…

Crystella grit her teeth, trying to stop her trembling hands. Her gaze couldn’t help but shift toward Saru and Lilith who seemed completely unaffected. Was she really worse than them?

“… Yes, please give me a moment. I’ll prepare the formation…” Crystella said softly.

Dyon acknowledged her words and turned his gaze toward Zabel. The latter froze as though this was the very last thing he had wanted to happen.

But, in the end, Dyon turned away, not caring. The ‘smart’ thing to do would be to kill everyone here and then go to test to see if that woman was really who he thought it was. However, Dyon was never one to say false words.

He had said what he meant and he meant what he said. He wanted the Dragons to know what happened here today. He wanted them to know that he was coming for them.

“Let me.”

Dyon shook his head after realizing how long it would take Crystella to finish. Judging by her speed and expertise, several hours would be needed at a minimum. He didn’t feel like waiting so long at all.

‘These talismans are interesting.’ Dyon observed the embroidered thin sheets of paper for a moment.

Talismans were simply higher-level array plates. They were far better in that there was a greater level of flexibility to them.

When one draws on an array plate, they were limited by its size and quality. It was impossible to build large scaled arrays on them, and once one starts encroaching on higher and higher level arrays, the cost exchange for the materials needed to hold them just wasn’t worth it – especially not for a one time use item.

However, talismans were different. Unlike array plates, one could store a single array across multiple talismans. This meant that one could always make up for lack of quality with quantity.

In addition to this, unlike array plates, talismans didn’t store the qi needed to activate them. This meant that with cheaper materials, one could also store more formation lines. The downside to this was that whereas array plates activated instantly, talismans needed to absorb the necessary energy first.

The cheaper the talisman material, the smaller the bottleneck for energy it could accept at once. So, it might take two experts of drastically different levels the same amount of time to activate a talisman if its material was cheap enough.

Even with these downsides, though, for those weaker in the soul path, talismans were invaluable.

‘Seems I have another possible stream of revenue.’ Dyon thought casually. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to scrounge some funds up from this path.’ 𝘪.𝘤𝑜𝘮

After thinking to this point, Dyon burnt Crystella’s talismans to ashes.

“Ah!” Crystella couldn’t help but call out.

Those were the only talismans she had. How could she possibly get back home now? Her Clan was in dire need of her!

Could it be that he was lying all of this time? Did he just want an excuse to keep them here? Crystella’s face turned pale.

“… We shouldn’t have trusted him!” Tedric nearly became hysterical. How many centuries would it take them to get back via normal means.

“Shut up.” Dyon’s words made his blood freeze as he felt death looming overhead, ready to fall. “The quality of material in your talismans was too low. If I just poured qi into it normally, we would be here forever. I’d rather not waste a day like that.”

The moment words fell, a massive spatial whirlpool appeared, stunning them silent.

…

The Dark Flame bubble world was very much similar to the desert bubble world in that it carried a perpetual, unquenchable heat to it. However, this was about where the similarities ended.

In reality, the Dark Flame bubble world was actually just a quarter of the size of that desert bubble world, but with this tradeoff came innumerable benefits. For one, the density of qi couldn’t even be compared, even a difference of ten times wasn’t too exaggerated. Secondly, the deserts of the Dark Flame world were inexplicably filled with odd trees that took sand as their soil. And finally, the society of the Dark Flame bubble world had far more than just three large cities… There were dozens of them, all sprinkled about and each having a more robust economy than the last.

In the skies of the Dark Flame bubble world, there were six suns. Three of them were a dark violet, and the remaining three were a black-red. It made it feel as though night might fall at any moment despite the fact it was midday.

Despite this perpetual bleakness, the Dark Flame world’s people weren’t overly affected by this at all. In fact, their cities were lit much like the nightlife cityscapes of the mortal world Dyon had grown up around.

Yet, unlike the mortal world, these artificial lights were oddly quiet natural, floating around like fireflies in the night. In addition, any formation master could tell you that these fireflies actually doubled as cooling mechanisms.

𝑖𝘦.𝑐𝘰𝘮