?Unfortunately, Dyon didn't get much time to think as the man-steed duo made it to his side in a flash.
The black armored man suddenly took out a balance. It juggled balls of white energy on one side, and balls of black energy on the other.
Instead of brandishing a weapon, it allowed the black scale to hover before him. His palms pressed together in prayer as qi surged all around him.
The qi split into black and white before merging as one into an eerie grey.
'That's the qi that entered my body…'
Dyon attempted to dodge this qi, but it continuously bombarded him from all sides. This space was simply too small. Who decided to hold this trial in a space with a mere 50-meter radius? A hundred meters from end to end? That was a blink of an eye even to a saint!
'Dammit… Black horse… Black armor… that odd scale weapon… four doors filled with etchings of war… Don't tell me I have to battle the four horsemen…'
Dyon had already realized what he was up against. The moment he realized his cells were being 'starved' of energy… He was facing Famine!
'The Apocalypse huh… Don't you think you're a little too on the nose, Heavens?'
Every legend of his mortal world was rooted in truth… Was this the warning the Heavens set aside…? The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse… This was the final message of the Heavens.
Dyon deployed his Immortal Sense in full force. Before, he had been conservative, hiding a bit of his strength. But since he already had no choice but to burn his soul just to be able to stand upright, he obviously didn't have the luxury of doing so.
His steps felt incomparably heavy. He wasn't failing to dodge these orbs of energy because he couldn't perceive their trajectories… It was because he couldn't keep up with their speed.
Three orbs smashed into Dyon's body. This time, no matter how proud he had been of the last time he tanked Famine's precious strike, blood flew from lips.
'This qi… This world is far more advanced in qi than our world is…'
Someone else might have breathed a sigh of relief if they entered a world with such a low cultivation cap. But for Dyon, especially after visiting the nameless underwater city, he felt a keen sense of trepidation.
The adaptation ability of humans was far too potent. If there was a roadblock in one direction, they would evolve in another. The nameless city and Dyon's Mortal Clan were two examples of this already. And it seemed that this world… was a third!
BOOM!
Dyon slammed against one of the room's eight pillars, sliding down it in a sorry state. He didn't even have the mind to notice that the blood that slid down with him was being absorbed by these very pillars.
Dyon tried activating [Titan Emperor's Will], but the world suppression suddenly multiplied several times over before he even finished circulating the technique. His efforts were thanks by yet another mixture of blood and inner organs flying from his lips. But unfortunately, this time, instead of carrying a healthy crimson color, they had dimmed considerably, exuding a decidedly greyer color.
Dyon never thought he'd see the day where he missed the redness of his blood.
'Fantastic.' Dyon thought to himself as he met an orb of grey with his sword, only for another to smash into his side. 'I can't even use [Titan Emperor's Will] without this world registering it as an increase in my cultivation.'
Dyon had been used to skating by on technicalities. Technically, he was a Dao Formation Expert, but he had the strength of an Overlord. In response, this world had forcibly lowered his overall strength to the celestial realm. Before, he had been complaining about Famine moving almost 100 trillion jin of his weight, only to realize his weight wasn't anywhere near that number any longer…
Technically, his soul was in the Immortal Realm. In response, this world forcibly lowered his Immortal Sense back to the Divine Sense Realm…
Technically, [Titan Emperor's Will] wasn't an increase in his cultivation, but this world reacted to him fighting against its suppression by adding more…
"… He could really die… I could really kill him… I can watch his death! I can be the one who kills him!"
The voice became more and more distorted. In the end, his words devolved into a conniving laughter.
The other two voices remained completely silent. Their deranged companion of so many years rarely hit such severe lows. To them, this child couldn't be that man. He was simply a youth who happened to inherit the same abilities. Yet, this alone was enough to set their companion off to this degree.
Dyon slowly rose from the ground. Despite his bloodied appearance, his visage kept an indifferent look even through the curtains of blood that drenched his forehead, cheeks and chin.
"So annoying… What a lunatic."
The voice wasn't coming from Famine. In fact, Dyon had no idea where it was coming from. It just seemed to project from everywhere, but there were no obvious arrays anywhere.
Dyon wasn't one to feel despair, so he didn't have any fierce reactions to what was happening. In fact, he was still inexplicably confident in his victory. He was only calmly analyzing the information he did have.
'This world didn't allow [Titan Emperor's Will], but it did allow the burning of my soul… The pressure didn't increase after I began to burn it, but rather, lessened…
'This qi seems to be perfectly fused with a form of Faith… No, a will…? Maybe something in between…?'
Dyon was slowly coming to understand why this qi was so powerful. In his world, qi started with having many branches, each with their own special uses. However, as time went on, it became streamlined, becoming known as 'conventional qi'.
It seemed that this world went in the complete opposite direction. Instead of fusing their qi as one to create a jack of all trades, they became more and more specialized, eventually creating this higher-level qi that threatened even Dyon despite only being of the Lower Celestial Grade.
When Dyon connected the existence of this horseman to Famine, he suddenly understood something else.
