In Dyon's view, Titus knew next to nothing about the him now. But, Titus believed he had gleaned something. At least, he believed he knew enough to extrapolate the outer limits of Dyon's strength. As a result, he had, of course, come prepared.
"You're a fool." Dyon sneered. "You did all of this believing that I would be in a rush, that I would be worried. This isn't the reality of the matter. It isn't my strength you've underestimated, but that of my wife's. Do you believe that a Sacharro woman would be so weak?!"
Dyon's roar seemed to shake Titus out of his fantasy land. Dyon never had any intention to rush his way with the middle tier to save a damsel in distress, because Madeleine was the furthest thing from a damsel. Not only did Dyon not believe that Titus knew the true limits of his own strength, he was certain that he had underestimated Madeleine even more.
"What did you do?" Dyon continued, his face marred with disdain. "Did you instigate the Golden Crow Sect into attacking my wife's territory? Did you enlist the Tatsuya Clan loyalists as well? Maybe you got a third and even fourth unknown party to participate?
"Let me tell you something… Your schemes mean next to nothing in the face of absolute strength! The First Wife of Dyon Sacharro isn't a soft persimmon anyone can crush whenever you deem it fit! Least of all you!"
"The reason I'll kill you today isn't because I feel that you've endangered my wife, it's because you've touched my bottom line. Since you've taken this path, nothing can save you!"
The roars of Linlin, Biibi, Shere and Sen shook the skies. In that moment, an oppressive might descended and the armies below suddenly felt that they had lost control of their flow of energy.
This was another bloodline ability the beast babies had awoken after becoming Kings. Celestial Beasts were beloved by the Heavens, in fact, their existence is a large part of the reason the 5th realm of cultivation, the Celestial Realm, is named as such.
Celestials, once stepping into this realm, gained the ability to take energy in the atmosphere as their own. However, there was no species better at this in comparison to the Celestial Beasts!
In that moment, the army's strength was easily halved. Aside from the most powerful among them that could still resist the pull of the four beast babies, the rest of them felt cut off from the world around them.
This wasn't as simple as Linlin, Biibi, Shere and Sen tapping into their bloodline ability. It was also the result of them resonating their abilities and layering them atop of one another, something that was only possible when beasts shared a soul link.
Luckily, they had a master with an incredibly powerful soul, capable of withstanding the resonance of four Peak King Transcendent Beasts at once!
In that moment, thousands of golden arrays appeared in the skies. But, just when the armies were already feeling despair, the number of arrays continued to double, again and again.
An overwhelming feeling of oppression stamped down the momentum of the thousands below.
Titus frowned. "Archers fire at will!"
True God Anak and Falkor could only grit their teeth and attack, following Titus' lead. Such a matter was completely humiliating for them. Their pride would no longer allow them to take a step back.
Linlin snorted in response. Her mouth opened to spit out a revolving octagonal shield. It could only be described as a supreme work of craftsmanship.
The shield shimmered with a silver light and seemed carved from a single sheet of stainless steel divided into 81 perfect segments come together to form one cohesive whole.
The shield separated, flying outward as though it had a mind of its own, deflecting arrows with incomparable ease. Let alone harm Dyon, they didn't even get within a hundred meters of him.
At this moment, the danger zone began making its presence known. After losing half of their combat strength, many of the weaker individuals lost the ability to resist, sinking into the scorching sand one after another.
This silver danger zone was known as Hell's Sand. Unlike other deserts, every inch of it was a tyrannical land of quicksand! Originally, this Hell's Sand danger zone was meant to be an ideal location to train movement techniques since only profound movement techniques could ignore the quicksand properly.
One might wonder why cultivators couldn't just fly? And the problem with that was that the entire Danger Zone was a no-fly zone, built with an oppressive suppression array! It was just that such methods don't work on Celestial Beasts! If the mystical world could harm Linlin's ability to fly, how could a mere silver danger zone do so?!
Despair gripped the army. Dyon and his beast companions were no more than Gods of Death in their eyes.
It was at that moment that Dyon's eyes flashed with golden gears. He had long ago grasped the third phase of [Soul Aid]. It was time for the world to understand the power of the fifth and sixth degree of freedom.
"[Grow]."
[Soul Aid] could be said to be a technique made for Dyon. Its abilities could only be described as Heaven Defying, but without equally as Heaven Defying soul strength, this technique would be useless to practically anyone but Dyon.
The complete [Soul Aid] was broken into 9 layers, the first three layers providing two 'degrees of freedom' each. These so-called degrees of freedom were essentially technique points Dyon could use to manipulate his mastered techniques with absolute ease.
The first layer gave Dyon access to [Weaken] and [Strengthen]. They were the simplest and most straight forward. They could amplify the strength of a weaker technique that was no longer useful, or dampen the strength of a technique that was too powerful for its user to use in their current state.
The second layer gave Dyon access to [Slow] and [Accelerate]! [Slow] allowed one to stretch the time needed to cast a technique, thus lessening the burden on the cultivator. In exchange for a slower cast time, one could use techniques far stronger than their current limits allowed. As for [Accelerate], it was the exact opposite. In exchange for a greater burden on the body and meridians, it could greatly lower the cast time of techniques!
Finally, there was the third layer. Even for Dyon, it took almost 6 months within the golden flame mystical world for him to reach this layer. One could imagine how difficult the subsequent layers would be.
This third layer gave Dyon access to [Shrink] and [Grow]!
One might realize by now that every layer provided two degrees of freedom. Of these two degrees of freedom, one would lessen the burden on the cultivator, while the other would drastically increase the burden. Each degree of freedom was essentially a different method of strengthening or weakening a technique!
It would seem that under these conditions, [Grow] would be the strengthener, but this thinking would actually be wrong!
[Grow] allowed a cultivator to drastically increase the area of effect of a technique. Often times, one might have an incredibly powerful attack, but a limited range in which it could be implemented. However, [Grow] fixed this completely by increasing this range!
The armies below could only watch in despair as the weapon's hell array that already blotted out the skies doubled in size. What once were half a meter-wide arrays, reached a full meter!
"[Grow]." Dyon's voice was almost akin to a growl, a prowling beast that wouldn't be satisfied until his opponents were crushed into minced meat.
"[Grow]."
The arrays increased explosively in size. Just when their rpm slowed under the constant growth, Dyon sneered.
"[Accelerate]. [Accelerate]. [Accelerate]."
The whooshing of the air seemed to drown everything out. Titus looked up and into the skies with a bitter smile. It seemed his scheming really wasn't worth much at all.
"[Grow]."
By now, Shere and Sen had already descended in the armies, leaving havoc in their wake. Vicious smiles coated their faces.
On one side, Shere's beautiful blue flames caused an aching agony in heir opponents even as her claws reaped lives.
On the other, Sen's rod fell with impunity as though it was heavenly judgement.
All the while, Linlin deflected attacks continuously as Biibi amplified their strengths, silently chanting from her lofty position in the sky while gripping her own supreme grade treasure staff.
"Remember this day well." Dyon said blandly.
