A few days later, Dyon’s body was feeling much better. Well, physically that is. In terms of his emotions?… He wasn’t doing too well.

“WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE?!” Dyon looked down at two children who held guilty expressions on their faces.

One was a little boy about seven or eight years old. The other was a small girl with pink hair of the lightest shade possible.

Ri stood beside Dyon, frowning as well. They were riding in a vessel pulled by Grimbold family beasts on their way to Lotus Tower. Since the gate would be stable for a few more days on their long journey, Dyon had decided it would be best to begin cultivating the Elvin Ancient family singularity techniques. But, when he flashed into his spatial ring, he immediately felt a connection he shouldn’t have… A connection to Little Black!

Right now, they stood by the empty orphanage Dyon had built within the ring. He had, of course, left all of the orphans in the Elvin Kingdom.

Dyon sighed, he didn’t want to get angry with his little brother and sister, but they really did something unforgivable this time. It was much too dangerous for them to be here, and the situation was much too complex for him to take them away now.

He immediately guessed that Little Black used their mental connection to enter the ring, but he was confused about how they pulled this off without him noticing. Did it have something to do with Little Lyla?

‘Fuck!’

Seeing the two children were on the verge of tears, Dyon finally broke away from his stern look.

“Okay, Okay. Don’t cry.” Dyon kneeled down, pulling the two of them in his arms. “You two still have to tell me why you did this.”

Little Lyla looked up at Dyon with watery eyes. She could tell that Dyon was really bothered by this, but she couldn’t explain the way she felt about things. Sometimes she just got urges, and something was telling her she had to come no matter what.

“Big Brother, it’s not Zaire’s fault. I asked him to take me. I can’t explain it, but you have to take me with you. There’s something very important I have to help you with.”

Dyon rubbed her small head. “Okay, but you have to promise to stay inside the ring, alright?”

In the end, Dyon could only accept this. Even Little Lyla couldn’t explain how she felt or how her abilities worked, how could he expect a tangible explanation? But, that didn’t mean he didn’t have a few guesses… most of which led back to the fact there was something different about the tower this time. And it was likely because someone had finally started playing the game properly…

**

Later that day, Dyon sat in the tent he had made within his spatial ring with Ri playing with Zaire and Lyla nearby.

In front of him sat three tomes, each with its own oddities and quirks, but all equally as ancient. These were, of course, the tomes of the Acacia, Mathilde, and Florence ancient families.

Dyon had already read through all three books. In fact, he had memorized them all the way through as well. The problem was deciding which one to start with. Although he had every intention of going through all three, right now what he needed was the most useful one.

‘All three of them are simply… Amazing.’ 𝑖𝘦.𝒸𝘰𝑚

There was little to say in terms of the quality of the techniques. Even just thinking about their various possible applications would have any cultivation savvy individual drooling.

The Mathilde family was a warring family, quite similar to the Grimbold family. However, there was no doubt that their manifestations… there was simply no comparing the two.

The manifestation of the Mathilde family was known as the Asura’s Imperial Eye. It gave its wielder an immediate boost in combat power. This involved predicting the attacks of an opponent, seeing through their weakest points, and even executing psychic attacks that depended on one’s soul strength.

From just these points alone, Dyon could think of a myriad of applications. If he used the eye to see through attacks, he could pinpoint the best areas to utilize his celestial will in order to cripple attacks. This was something he thought he would need much more experience to do effectively within real battle situations, but, it seemed this manifestation would allow him to bypass the need for experience to a fairly large extent.

Then there was the idea of predicting the movements of an opponent. This was of course not something you would be able to do directly from the start of a battle in cases where the Asura Imperial Eye wasn’t cultivated to a powerful enough extent. In the beginning stages of the eye, a time period would be needed wherein the eye’s wielder would have to exchange enough rounds with their opponents before the eye could see through the opponent effectively.

However, once the eye reached a certain level, and the opponent was within the range of the wielder’s cultivation, then seeing through the opponent without even exchanging a single punch was very much possible.

That being said, maybe the most interesting part of the Asura Imperial Eye was its psychic attacks – attacks that directly correlated to killing intent…

Essentially, once one chose the path of the Asura Imperial Eye, you were going down another path of cultivation. A path that included killing and warring without end. A path you only took another step forward on when you killed.

‘Imagine that…’ Thought Dyon to himself. ‘You don’t only strengthen the imperial eye by increasing your own cultivation… The more you kill, the stronger it becomes too.’

Dyon was exactly right, for every person he killed, their animosity, hatred, and pain would become a part of his power. But, that wasn’t all. Maybe the most enigmatic thing about the Mathilde family manifestation was its ability to steal the will of those you killed.

For every genius Dyon crushed, their future goodwill would become his. For every young master he snuffed out of existence, their destiny would become his.

That was the way of the warrior. For every battlefield you conquered, you became stronger, your legend grew, and your name spread.

And with every commander and general you killed, their glory, their success, their future – became yours.

𝘪𝑎.𝘤𝑜𝘮