Heaven's Sparrow was a creature never spoken about in even the most ancient of texts. Despite being among the most beautiful beasts in existence along with the Crystal Dragons and Celestial Beasts, it was cursed with a speed so quick that no one could appreciate it.
Its body dwarfed even the skies themselves, yet all those who watched could perceive was a flash lightning.
The bird sighed to itself as it swooped down gently.
As it was about to save Dyon, it paused, a surprised look crossing its once aloof features.
Dyon looked quite majestic, even falling from the skies. He was covered in an unblemished black armor, further coated by beautiful white flames and the royal blue illusory patterns of his War God's armor.
His wings spread from his back more than twenty meters, matching his ten-meter-tall body, all while he tightly gripped onto a knife more than meter in length.
However, this wasn't what caught the Heaven Sparrow's attention, after all, let alone twenty meters, even if Dyon's wings spanned two hundred meters it would still dwarf them. No, what caught its attention were the six halos of black-gold hovering in a precise hexagonal pattern to his back. In particular, the faint streak of golden lightning grasped its attention firmly.
There was a reason those who chose to master lightning will were rare. It was incredibly difficult to pass tribulations after choosing such a path, and it, more often than not, resulted in death. The Heaven Sparrow was the only creature to embody the lightning element and not face severe repercussions, yet even it was cursed with terrifying speed.
To see a human apparently have a manifestation related to lightning, how could it not be surprised?
This Heaven Sparrow was special in many ways. The only friend it had ever had in light was the Swallowing Lightning Willow used to forge Dyon's mask. One of them was cursed to be struck by lightning while the other was cursed to never be capable of interacting with anyone else.
After the Swallowing Lightning Willow reached the end of its ninth ten-million-year cycle, the Heaven Sparrow couldn't bring itself to leave its friend, so it tethered its will to it, hoping to die peacefully and finally be put to rest. In fact, the legacy within the mask was related to this will it left behind.
It had thought the Weapon's Master who forged this mask cruel… To expunge the will of its only friend to leave behind on its will? And to not allow its one wish of death as well?
Fate… It was an odd word and an even odder concept.
The Heaven's Sparrow reached out its claw and shattered the existence of the hooded avatar.
All its life, the heavens had cursed it to live in misery. Since this was so, it would use the last of its strength and pay it back some before it fell into a deep sleep.
The sword in the sky shattered under the Heaven's Sparrow's gaze.
With a final look toward Dyon and his lightning halo, the Heaven's Sparrow opened its majestic beak, causing the remaining motes of light from the sword and knife to surge toward it.
In the next moment, a streak of golden lightning hit Dyon's chest as the sparrow sent a bright bird's call into the skies, shattering the tribulation clouds above.
The Heaven Sparrow's body dimmed considerably, its body shrinking from a span of several tens of kilometers to a mere foot in an instant before disappearing into Dyon.
Dyon's mask dimmed, turning from a beautiful silver-gold to a solid black.
The dispersing dark gold clouds above rumbled with rage. But, the deed was done. How could saint tribulation clouds withstand the strike of dao tribulation lightning?...
That said… Everyone who understood tribulations understood what the result of forcibly ending them was… Even as saint energy surged into Dyon's body, danger was waiting on the horizon.
Whether Dyon would survive celestial tribulation remained to be seen… The rage of the heavens was bottled for now, but its explosion was coming…
The speed of the Heaven's Sparrow was far too quick. Even with Dyon's thinking speed, his flashback to his memories about his grand teacher had only just faintly begun before a blinding flash of lightning came and went. Maybe the most shocking part was that this flash of lightning wasn't the sparrow itself, but rather the lingering rage of the saint tribulation clouds.
Isla, who was still panicking, and Ri, who had frozen completely in despair, didn't realize what happen either as dark waves of water towering hundreds of meters crashed down around Dyon.
To those in the distance, and even Head Void, Dyon had died. The tribulation must have ended because the one who triggered it was no longer among the living. However, those who thought that way forgot one very important thing: Head Void was still alive.
~ *Months ago*
"You… Are you really who you say you are?"
After months of searching, Clara was finally able to find all 12 Legacy World locations. Normally, this would have been impossible for her to do so quickly, but due to the supreme grade treasure Dyon had gifted her, she was capable of boosting the range of her control and divine sense a larger distance than she already could. In addition, she made use of a divine sense extending technique within the [Dao of Array Alchemy]. Although it resulted in a severe drop in the details she could pick up, she only needed to sense vague fluctuations in energy to find her targets.
Truth be told, it would have been far more efficient if Dyon was the one to search, but that was impossible at the time considering the issues waiting for him back at Soul Rending Peak. It was lucky for Clara that Heaven Grade beasts like Little Wind grew very quickly. In the past more than half year, she already had a wingspan of almost five meters.
The moment Clara found the 12th world and became certain that there weren't any more to find, her first target was the Legacy World closest to the former location of her home country: America.
Currently, she was in a land of dense forests. A small tribe was built upon trees at the very edge of the world at seemingly the furthest place from danger.
According to what Clara could tell, though, this wasn't the only tribe in this Legacy World, which made one of her biggest fears come true… Instead of coming together like they should have, human nature shone through and fractured an already weakened people…
What Clara didn't know was that a little over two million people had survived from a population of over 10 billion. For two million people to fit into just 12 Legacy Worlds there had to be at least a few hundred thousand per. Yet, this tribe only had a few thousand people… The divide was greater than she thought.
The only saving grace was that the tribe itself seemed to salvage a few values of their mortal realm. The wooden houses were built with signs of advanced engineering despite their simplicity, the tribe was clean, showing that sanitation was taken seriously, and the agriculture couldn't be said to be thriving, but was at least being sustained well with various redirected villages and plowed lands.
However, with the good, came many problems. Their culture had devolved almost barbarically.
The leader speaking to Clara now was very obviously the strongest, and not the smartest they had to offer. The role of women had receded by several hundred years, very obviously considering the fact there wasn't a single one here in a leadership capacity even for such an important meeting aside from Clara herself. And, Clara would bet her life on the fact the prettiest of women were monopolized by these very men here regardless of what their feelings on the matter may or may not have been.
Clara didn't even need to look around personally, her divine sense caught all of these details despite only having a range of a dozen or so kilometers.
What she saw made her very angry to say the least. To make matters worse, the one who had spoken with such sincerity and hope in their voice weren't the leaders in this room, but rather a female servant standing to the side.
"Did I give you permission to speak?" A man sitting at the chieftain's chair glared at the woman who spoke, causing her to stumble backward and lower her head.
