Chapter 1130 Storming

"Huh, interesting." Dyon's lip curled as he played around with the cultivation age stone.

In truth, he had expected a low number. But, three years was even a slight surprise to himself, until he thought about it more, that is.

Dyon's cultivation road started when he absorbed his master's blood essence. Although his innate soul had been partially awake then, it wasn't until it reached its height that the timer began. However, by then, Dyon was already 17 years old!

Such a starting date was already late in comparison to the upper echelon of the martial world. After all, unlike the poorer regions, they had methods to speed up meridian maturation, meaning waiting until 21 years old for many wasn't necessary. Usually, many would begin as young as five years old, some even earlier.

Still, that cultivation period was only three months before the events of the Demon Sage Legacy World which left Dyon in a coma for half a year. Which was more time deducted from his cultivation.

After he awoke, he spent about another half year in seclusion refining his wills before stepping out and meeting Ri for the first time. By now, he was 18 years old, but had far less than a year of true cultivation time.

The events that took place in the Elvin Kingdom would have taken another year total, but as one might expect, Dyon once more spent much of that time unconscious, this time for as much as eight months, causing him to nearly miss his first campaign entirely.

By now, Dyon could just barely be qualified to have cultivated a year, but this would lead directly into the campaign months and the World Tournament.

Luckily, it was due to these two events that Dyon could be considered to have gained a total year and a half of cultivation, even slightly more in this case, but its ending led to Dyon's cultivation being sealed.

This sealing was even more clear and obvious than being unconscious. Almost everything about Dyon cultivation was put on pause almost two decades.

Finally, Dyon's last year to year and a half of cultivation could be accounted for during his vacation months with his wives and the soul rending peak adventures.

In the end, his cultivation time totalled just over three years… The truth was truly maddening.

With another wave of his hands, Dyon's "evidence" disappeared as he happily supported Granny Celest to walk by the three family heads who only now regained their ability to move.

"Stop! What is it that you came here for? To humiliate us?" Head Todu gathered her remaining face to call out to Dyon.

"I came here for repayment," Dyon said without looking back, "And, unfortunately, your embarrassment means little to me and as such, doesn't deduct much."

"Repayment?" Head Todu and the others paled. What did that mean? He couldn't want to massacre them all, could he?

Even if the laws of the Mystical World were unfavorable to them, they were still dao formation experts! If Dyon pushed them too far, they'd put their lives on the line to fight him.

While Celestials had access to Pseudo-Domains, dao formation experts had true domains wherein they could control the laws within a given space. If worse came to worst, they would definitely make use of this ability.

Still, the Mystical World was far too sturdy. Those three family heads knew that even if they did this, Dyon would still hold the decisive advantage, especially if Head Arie decided to help him.

Dyon laughed, "Are you scared? Don't be. I have no intention of reaping your lives."

His footsteps paused as he turned back. "However, for the sake of Soul Rending Peak's future, none of you will be allowed to leave until I deem it fit. For obvious reasons, I can't trust you."

"You…" Their faces reddened once more. Dyon really wanted to imprison them here?

Although they had no intentions of leaving, the idea of willingly doing so and having to do so were so diametrically opposed that their blood boiled. Even so, what could they do? Even a half-step transcendent couldn't break in easily… And, although it was easier to break out, it wasn't by much.

"As for what compensation I'm seeking, nothing much. You can keep your money and your resources, I'll just be taking your ancient blood reserves."

"You!"

"Absolutely not!"

"Anything but that!"

Dyon tilted his head to the side. "Do you hear how ridiculous you sound? Since when did those in debt get to decide what they owed? Since when do criminals get to decide their sentence? Since when do murderers get to plead for their families?"

The three heads grit their teeth, unable to rebuttal, but also equally unable to let this go. With their bloodlines becoming weaker and weaker, the ancient blood reserves grew in value everyday that passed.

As the entity told Dyon, the decline of the celestial bloodline hadn't happened recently, it was something that had been happening for many millions of years. The time frame was so large that even the first white mother was worried about their future, causing her to create the Ethereal Permeation Supreme Law as a replacement for Primordial Energy.

However, for reasons Dyon didn't understand, it didn't seem that these celestial beasts practiced that law. But maybe that was only to be expected, after all, the first white mother had long since transcended, it wasn't as though communication between planes was simple.

So, the celestial beasts of the mortal plane found their own solution… And that was their ancient blood reserves…

"If you push us too far." The three heads erupted with fierce auras. "We'll fight it out with you!"

...

While Dyon was dealing with the celestial beast fallout, a storm was brewing in the universe adjacent to Universe Cathedral, and it was all centered around the entrance of a campaign gate.

The remaining 99 universes of the Soul Rend Quadrant were far too complex to delve into. The hodgepodge of sects, clans and factions were simply far too numerous. However, what was clear was the fact that they were far better off than those of Universe Cathedral and far more than Dyon could handle by normal means.

That said, there was good news. Because Dyon shut off the function of the Master Key arrays, the sub arrays under them also lost the ability to be of any use. The unfortunate part was that universes as developed as theirs wouldn't only have a few hundred teleportation stations.

Still, although they had means of teleportation outside that of the sub arrays, they were far less efficient and far more inconvenient to use. And, the most important point was that these arrays wouldn't allow them to teleport into Dyon's universe directly, making Dyon's effort garner fruit.

At the moment, a few elders were meeting as their armies organized. While some of them were quite worried and dark-faced, others were more annoyed than anything else.

"57! 57! That's how many teleportation sequences I went through to get here! That's sequences, not actual teleportation stations. This is fucking ridiculous! I've spent half my life savings on this one mobilization. And for what? Because some of you had a "gut feeling" that something was wrong?

"Who cares about some bullshit soul market? It's you bastards who sought to make a profit and gain a leg up that should be paying for all of this, what the hell does any of this have to do with me?!"

Many others of the various family heads agreed with these sentiments. When they were originally tasked with their various assignments, this wasn't supposed to be a money grab or a chance for their various clans and sects to soar past their original limits. The compensation stipulated in their contracts should have been more than enough… There was no need for this added level of greed.

Yet, as years passed with no change, generations turned over, causing new ideologies to surface. It was clear that these bastards didn't remember just how fearsome their "employer" was.

That said, many did remember. It was just that they thought this employer wouldn't care if they made a few advances on the side, it wasn't as though they'd ever be able to rival that family, even in their wildest dreams.

But, now that everything was backfiring, they began to panic.

A few months ago, those families who had participated in the construction of soul market, and even invested some of their own family techniques, came back in a panic.

After that, it felt like everything was going downhill. Their best teleportation stations stopped working, the gate's cultivation restriction suddenly dropped to the essence gathering level, and they could no longer contact Elder Nova!

Everything happened so quickly that they had hardly digested one set of information, before another came storming in.