The flood of pure energy had slowly healed Dyon body. His unsightly and sickly looking flesh flaked off as new and soft skin took its place. The wounds on his body slowly closed, chipping away the dried blood as though it disdained to be associated with it.
Dyon's soul continued to flicker weakly, but his body was slowly returning to its peak condition, removing even more of his flaws and enhancing his features.
His bones mended, and organs repaired themselves. In the end, Dyon breathing, although still heavily labored due to his soul, became slightly more relaxed. His muscles healthily rippled, bursting with newfound vitality that matched its sainthood level strength.
He grew in height once again. Because he wasn't conscious to supress it, Dyon's body grew past 2 meters tall, before filling in his larger frame with lean muscles covered in veins that pumped with endless life.
However, this was all akin to trying to cover the scent of dense garbage with a few puffs of perfume… Dyon's body had once again reached peak condition, his soul was mere seconds from disappearing…
But, that was when a happy coincidence occurred.
Dyon had long since known of the restrictions that would be placed on him upon breaking through into the essence gathering realm. He would no longer be able to use his wills, and his soul would be locked away, leaving him with only his bodily strength to rely on.
In any other situation, this would have been completely devastating. Restricting a martial artist to be unable to utilize wills was like cutting off the hands of pianist and forcing them to play with just their big toes.
Because of his wills, even when Dyon had no energy cultivation, and pitiful body and soul cultivation, he had still been able to defeat meridian formation experts! This was enough to express the importance of wills to a fighter's overall prowess.
If you also take into consideration how heavily Dyon relied on his soul for fighting, the loss of this strength might have been even more devastating! He would no longer be able to use his awe inspiring arrays. It would be impossible to use the 33 heaven's weapons. And Dyon's opponents would no longer seem slow to him, because he would no longer have access to his 6 sense. Although this was an ability granted by his innate aurora, and not his soul, how could an aurora function without the source meant to power it?
All of this sounds absolutely horrible. Especially when it's considered that Dyon, even with the Dragon King's help, would be in this state for 5 to 10 years! If Dyon's battle prowess was only cut down by half, that would be something to celebrate.
However, in this case, had Dyon been conscious, he would be rejoicing, knowing that his gamble had paid off.
From the very beginning, Dyon had only sought out paths of survival. Since that was the case, why would he ever burn his soul without a plan for handling the situation in the aftermath? From the moment Dyon decided to burn his soul, he had already thought of using his essence gathering break through to seal his soul away!
He knew it was impossible to do use The Seal to do so, because utilizing the seal in such a way required soul power. Even when Dyon had hidden his soul away from Loki, it had been siphoning away his soul strength with each passing second. He could hardly hold on, waiting for Loki to take the Dragon King's weapon from him.
That was when Dyon thought of another possibility. It was a gamble, which was why Dyon didn't burn his soul from the very beginning. He wanted to see if it would be possible to beat Elder Daiyu and Loki without burning his soul. But, in the end, that clearly became impossible. If he didn't go all out, he would lose!
In hindsight, Dyon should have used his soul burning to immediately utilize the death qi within the soul tome, but he had been unwilling to do so. The fact of the matter was that that was his plan originally, until he saw that breaking the seals on the Dragon King's weapon could actually help him kill Elder Daiyu. However, he hadn't wanted to do so because of how rare death qi was in the universe. Dyon had originally stored the death qi in the soul tome to study. If it hadn't been for it, in all likelihood, even with the 6 months his grand teacher bought him, Dyon would have never managed to reach the one with heart level because he was simply too stubborn.
The death qi that was once in the soul tome was far above Dyon's death comprehension… Dyon didn't know if he would ever find a cultivation tool like that again, which was why he was reluctant to use it in such a way…
In the end, Loki had forced him to do it anyway. Although he had lost a valuable resource, he had maintained his life. Now that his soul had been sealed by the [Inner World: Sanctuary] cultivation technique, it would no longer dissipate.
However, there was a trade off for this as well. Dyon's soul was meant to be building his inner world along with his wills, this was why they were sealed. With his soul being so severely damaged, unless he took restoration pills, it was impossible to guess just how much longer that 5 to 10 year span would take.
That said… An extra decade or two of weakness in exchange for one's life was well worth it. Whether Dyon would believe so, remained to be seen.
However, that aside.
Dyon had fulfilled his master's last wish. He had lived on.
**
In the air above the shambles that was once a glorious arena, Amell, Nora and King Belmont stood with Patriarch Pakal and their other allies not too far behind them. Although they were bloodied, they had survived, thankful that Amell and Nora were able to dispel their situations so easily.
