To describe Dyon's first trial as cruel would be an understatement. The number of times his body was forcefully pulled back from the brink of death was something even Dyon himself lost count of. In so many ways, those three days of being hidden under a pile of beast dung was an inconceivable blessing in disguise.
Every moment, Dyon absorbed large chunks of the healing energy his inner world held, swallowing an amount accumulated over ten years in mere days.
The staff avatar was far crueler than that axe avatar. Its abilities made the dragon scale and dragon armor completely useless. On just its first strike, Dyon's body, despite him actively trying use his new understanding of momentum to direct it away, being a mist of crimson liquid.
He fell into the sea, his body only being held together by his overwhelming soul strength and the armor around him. He hadn't been in a situation like this since he faced the half-step transcendent from his second trial!
At that point, if it wasn't for Head Void stepping in to block the second avatar while Dyon recovered, he would have died without a doubt.
It was only after many feeble attempts did Dyon learn the essence of the staff avatar. Even with his second stage selfless state, the complexities of these trials seemed to only increase every moment.
While the axe avatar dealt with versatile momentum, an ability that allowed nimble changes in battle without losing the power of your strike, the staff avatar was a master of resonance.
Blunt weapons were rare in the martial because much like the soul path, they were difficult to use well and gave a poor return for time invested. Simply put, in most cases, masters of equivalent strength in the midst of a battle would have the advantage given to the opponent with the sharper weapon.
It wasn't difficult to understand. The sharper a weapon, the easier it was to do damage with. Even a child could kill someone with a sharp knife, but could they do the same with a stick that weighed the same?
Usually, the only way to alleviate this weakness of blunt weapons was to raise their weight to inconceivable levels, much like Dyon's Great Sword. However, that then gave way to speed issues. And, even when you purposely accepted this disadvantage, having a heavy and sharp weapon was still better.
Yet… The staff avatar spit in the face of this. Not only was his staff as quick as lightning, the damage it dealt was so devastating that Dyon would have died many times over had it not been for his undead body and strong soul.
The monk was able to use concepts of resonance to ignore the defense of his dragon armor, sending the power of his strikes directly into Dyon's body. The far more fear-inducing part of it was that this ability seemed to work through space.
During one exchange, Dyon managed to stop his staff with the dragon scale, yet the collision made not a single sound. Instead, a split second later than it should have, a shock wave blasted into Dyon's armor, sending him flying into the distance ocean once more.
Although this strike was less powerful than if it landed directly on his armor, Dyon still had to withstand severe damage.
By the time he managed to grasp the concept of resonance to the same level as the monk, three days had passed, a full six times longer than it took for him to defeat the axe avatar. But, without any rest, the glaive began to vibrate.
The concept of the glaive seemed to be far simpler than the first two, but its challenge still somehow increased by yet another level.
The glaive avatar was surprisingly a woman wearing valiant armor. If it wasn't for her piercing eyes, Dyon could imagine many men drooling over her, especially considering the deep crevice at the chest of her armor. Still, the moment she attacked, Dyon regretted ogling her.
In the Elvin Tomb's, Ri snorted. 'Serves you right.'
The glaive's range seemed to have an indefinite range. Even when Dyon felt like he had dodged, he would once more find his body erupting into a mist of blood.
Due to his grasping concepts of momentum and resonance to a rudimentary level, Dyon's control over his silver mirror constitution had increased to a new level. He felt like his ability to deflect and reflect energy had reached a new level worthy of his new constitution, yet this glaive avatar didn't seem to care.
Dyon knew that his attempts at deflection were useless. This trial had been scaled up to match the level of a dao formation expert. He had no chance at blocking such strikes and only watch as his energy continued to deplete.
The ability of the glaive was simply to extend. However, Dyon immediately realized that it too carried concepts of momentum.
Anyone who understood simple physics knew that if an object was rotating at high speed, extending its radius would cause it slow. It was simple conservation of momentum. Yet, somehow, the glaive avatar could extend her glaive without this restriction.
Dyon suddenly realized that this concept of momentum was on an even higher level than the axe avatar. It wasn't simply about conserving momentum, it was quite literally shattering the laws of the universe.
In the end, it took Dyon a week before he finally defeated the glaive avatar, only for the halberd to immediately vibrate afterward…
By now, the entire Earth had been alerted to the tribulation. After an entire week of violent explosions and tremors, the planet's leaders finally found the source…
They could only be astounded when the found the cause of all of the recent natural disasters was Dyon himself…
"What… What kind of tribulation is this…" Those who had gathered several hundred kilometers away couldn't help but mumble to themselves.
The fact that this was a tribulation wasn't to be doubted. The dark gold and menacing clouds couldn't be ignored. But… They were much too used to normal lightning tribulations, with the occasional fire tribulation added in sparsely. Sometimes, those with God Grade constitutions would undergo tribulations as well, but theirs were fairly normal as well because they didn't have the ability to fully awaken them here in this poor universe.
Those of the various God Clans gathered, or rather, what remained of them. Aside from the still unconscious King Belmont, everyone seemed attracted by this event.
"Oh my God… The Elvin Island is gone!"
No one knew who said it first, but afterward, they all began to get a hold of bearings. Soon, they realized the person who spoke was correct. These were the exact coordinates of the Elvin Kingdom, yet it wasn't here!
Soon, even those of lower ranking clans had no choice but to send individuals to investigate. Even the Sapientia Clan that hadn't appeared in public for almost a decade made its presence known on that day.
Sarid clutched his fists tightly as he watched Dyon get battered and beaten time and time again, only for him to shoot back up as though nothing had happened.
Princess Stella, who stood by his side, looked from this oversized young man to her uncle in the distance, her feelings just as complicated as Sarid's.
None of them here were stupid. They could very clearly feel that this trial was far more difficult than it should be, and judging by the fact there were two silhouettes and not one, the reason why was obvious.
Although many started off by berating Dyon for being stupid enough to trigger his tribulation in the presence of others, even blaming him for the destruction of the Elvin Islands and likely everyone who was inhabiting it at the time, news soon came down from Planet Mino and Princess Aoife who begged for help in saving her father's life.
Dyon didn't care about any of this. Although they were very much within the range of his divine sense, he focused on preserving his life.
The halberd avatar, a mighty warrior wearing red armor, was actually able to freely change the weight of his weapon, something Dyon took hours to even realize. A seemingly simple ability used in a complex way was enough to stump him even with his level of intelligence and his selfless state.
This once more took the concept of momentum to an entire new level and took Dyon yet another week to master.
And yet, without rest, the spear vibrated, sending out with it a bare-chested avatar with vicious tribal tattoos coating his body.
The spear avatar's strikes were so potent that for the first time, Dyon actually felt weapons crafted by his will crack. A peak Spiritual grade weapon! A weapon of the moon grade! Actually almost shattered in Dyon's hands.
