The young man grit his teeth. But, he calmed himself and smiled instead, ignoring the snickering of the surrounding rankers, “It seems that you won this beauty over with nothing but flowery words considering that sharp tongue of yours. She’s young, after all. A pretty face and some poetry was probably all it took. She’ll discard you when she realizes there’s more she should want in a man.”

Suddenly, Ri giggled, her anger dissipating under how ridiculous she knew this Uta character’s words were. More to a man than her Dyon? How?

Dyon pouted, “What are you laughing for? Don’t tell you me you’re actually planning to replace me.”

Ri flicked Dyon’s forehead playfully, continuing to laugh.

Uta felt the limits of his patience being played with. They were practically treating him like a joke.

“How pathetic.” Uta said in anger.

Suddenly, Dyon’s eyes flashed, causing him to stand up so quickly that Uta almost lost his balance.

In that instant, Dyon’s playful demeanor had completely changed. It was as though they were looking at the devil incarnate.

A red gold dripped from him as his eyes trained on the arena below him, landing on a young boy scarred and bloodied almost beyond recognition. He stumbled into the arena, gripping a short sword as he faced off against another young boy. However, they both shared one thing: the distinctive scar that ran from one side of their face to the other, slanting down their features diagonally…

Dyon didn’t care about hiding or pacing himself anymore. All he saw was red.

Ri didn’t know who Dyon was looking at specifically, but she had a pretty good idea. So, she remained silent. This was something that Dyon would want to handle alone. But, it was clear he was having trouble controlling himself right now.

His demonic will was leaking so potently that the rankers completely forgot about questioning Dyon’s credentials and immediately put him on a list of people to watch. A young man, still many weeks from his sixteenth birthday, having already reached the peak level of a will as rare as demonic will? And the fact his path was so domineering? Dyon couldn’t be ignored anymore.

Almost immediately, the leading geniuses of every planet turned to their subordinates with one goal in mind: find out who this kid was.

Dyon’s breathing was erratic. He was aware that he was being much too emotional to act rationally, but the idea that this was his fault was weighing on him heavily right now. He had to fix this. He had to.

Suddenly, Dyon felt a soft hand slip into his causing him to look down to find Ri looking up at him with a worried smile. “It’s okay.” She said softly.

A calming ice purity will circulated within Dyon causing him to slowly calm down and retract his will.

Uta suddenly became aware of how far back he had stumbled due to Dyon’s abrupt actions. And even then, what made it worse was that he hadn’t begun to breathe again until Dyon calmed down. Why was he feeling so much pressure from someone with no cultivation? It didn’t make sense.

“Wait for me a while?” Dyon tightened his grip on Ri’s hand, looking at her apologetically.

Ri nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

‘Was calling him pathetic all it took?’ Some wondered about this. What was with the drastic change in personality? Something else must have happened. But, there were just too many fights going on at once for any of them to have any idea what had set Dyon off.

“You said you wanted to fight, right?” Dyon took off his long coat, handing it to Ri before he took off his turtle neck as well, revealing his striking tattoos and rippling torso. The beauties couldn’t help but allow flashes of interest to sparkle their eyes, much to Ri’s displeasure. But, Dyon leaned forward and kissed her forehead, easily appeasing her.

Seeing Ri smile, Dyon felt content. “Let’s go then. I’m sure you’ll handle it, right old man?”

Not waiting for a response, Dyon’s feet flashed as he disappeared.

The eyes of the geniuses couldn’t help but narrow again. Just how could someone with no cultivation be so fast?

Before anyone could blink, Dyon was falling through the hollow center of the Chaos Tower at break neck speeds.

Even as he did so, the voice of the announcer sounded.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the warmup rounds are over and done with. We know none of you care about the endings of these petty fights, so, how about we move on to the main events?

Today, we have something special in store for you all.

A battle between worlds. The will of men will clash.

Planet Deimos, highly lauded for its domineering cultivators, have brought along with it two God Clans and a single Royal God Clan, prepared to fight with our warriors to name the best of the best of our younger generation.

Warrior Uta Geb. Ranked 29th among his peers and top 200 within our universe. A highly respected warrior to say the least. 𝘳𝑎.𝗇t

And his opponent? One of our very own. The husband to an unprecedented genius. The prince consort of the Elvin Kingdom. A man who is a genius in his own right. The slayer of Scaled Elephants. The warder of King God Clans. Dyon Sacharro!”

Dyon feet slammed into the arena below, cracking it nearly in half.

“Go, Uta. And don’t shame the Geb God Clan.” The beauty spoke lightly and quite beautifully, and yet, her words held an unconcealed threat.

Uta had no choice but to dive downward as well, soon landed in crater much larger than Dyon’s impact.

The crowd raged with excitement. Cheers rang out unceasingly as Dyon and Uta’s faces were projected onto large screens for everyone to see.

However, not everyone in the crowd had the same reaction.

“Big brother? Isn’t that brother in law?” Pertinacis Sapientia sat next to Oliver Sapientia, Jessica Knoton, some big sect elders as well as his mother, and a Sapientia God Clan member.

Pertinacis’ mother looked at him curiously, “Brother in law? Are you telling me this boy is Madeleine’s fiancé? But, they just introduced him as the prince consort of the Elvin Kingdom.”

The Sapientia elder turned a questioning gaze toward her son. Although she was an elder of an upper branch, her cultivation was still within the meridian formation realm. Elder ranks in the Sapientia family had less to do with power, and more about research contribution, especially in the lower branches. This only changed once you reached main branches on the level of a God Clan.

In the end, this was why she had married Madeleine’s father to be his second wife. He was handsome, and she wanted a child. Because he was from a lower branch, that just made the entire process even easier. With her desire sated, she could once again focus on her research.

However, hearing that Madeleine had promised herself to this young man she had never heard of – and not only her, at that, but also the princess of the Elvin Kingdom – it made her extremely curious.

“Our first in line genius has no fiancé. It’s best you drop this nonsense.” The elder spoke curtly, cutting off the conversation immediately. He was only here to scout Pertinacis at the recommendation of his mother. Normally he would ignore such a request, but knowing that Pertinacis was Madeleine’s younger brother, and the fact that they had almost let Madeleine’s talent fall through, he decided on taking this chance.

As a thank you, Pertinacis’ mother had brought them to the Chaos Arena, something the elder was quite interested in studying the philosophy of. But, hearing what he thought of as slander to their first in line genius, didn’t make him happy.

Hearing the elder’s words, Pertinacis said nothing more. To this very day, Pertinacis was still logical to a fault. Before, he had wanted Dyon to prove that he was strong enough for his sister first, taking a calculating approach as opposed to Oliver’s more emotional one. But, to Pertinacis, it was impossible for Dyon to be strong enough now.

However, the idea of his being the fiancée to the princess of the Elvin Kingdom was new information for him to add to his calculations. The Elvin Kingdom was no weaker, in theory, than the Sapientia God Clan, and yet he was clearly already accepted by them. So, were the Sapientia only being stubborn? Wasn’t the princess to the Elvin Kingdom, what Madeleine was to the Sapientia?

Despite his thoughts, Pertinacis kept it all to himself, instead focusing on Dyon’s figure.

Oliver and Jessica though, had many complex emotions running through their minds. To them, it was no coincidence that Dyon had come down as soon as they had seen a familiar bloodied figure… Pertinacis didn’t spend much time interacting with the outside world. But, Jessica and Oliver knew exactly what that bloodied figure meant to Dyon. And, if Dyon had gotten as powerful as they knew… Things were about to get stirred up.

‘Can you save her?…’ Thought Oliver quietly. .𝒎

Dyon was oblivious to all of this. All he could see was Eli’s tired figure being dragged to a side tunnel. He had probably gotten so used to tuning out the arena’s announcements that he hadn’t even heard Dyon’s name, but that just made the pang of guilt in Dyon’s heart grow even more.

“You picked an unfortunate day to piss me off.” Dyon said faintly, turning his gaze to the Uta that towers more than a meter taller than him.

Uta said nothing. He had no words left. He could only crouch into a fighting stance, trying to steady the wild beating of his heart as he stared into the black flames crackling in Dyon’s eyes.

The loud cheering slowly calmed until only silence remained in the Chaos Arena.

“BEGIN!”

𝑖.𝘤ℴ𝘮